MID WEEK MOTIVATION - "Resolutions That Last" Philippians 3:13-14

You're listening to the Midweek Motivation Podcast from DeSoto Hills Baptist Church in South Haven Mississippi.

Here's your hosts Mark Lewis, david Burgess and Pastor Grant Stegall.

Welcome to the Midweek Motivation Podcast for January the 1st 2025.

I'm Mark Lewis here with Laura Ulrich.

Laura Ulrich is our guest today.

And Happy New Year.

It is New Year's Day.

It is, and not to ruin the surprise for everybody, but we do not have church services tonight.

Correct no, don't come.

Right, so we hope that you enjoy this time with your family.

We also hope that this programming the podcast can encourage folks throughout DeSoto County and beyond.

Be sure to subscribe and share our link on social media.

Laura, we have lots of stuff coming up here.

At DeSoto Hills, it is going to be a slammed year, the year 2025.

At DeSoto Hills, it is going to be a slammed year, the year 2025.

And we are very excited, but we do have some events coming up this month that we wanted people to be aware of.

Currently, our college and career young adults are on their way to.

Is it Louisville or Louisville?

I always say Louisville or Louisville, but I don't know, I'm not from Kentucky.

Louisville, I think everybody, but I don't know, I'm not from Kentucky.

Louisville, I think everybody.

It seems like it's more Louisville than Louisville Down here in the south it seems like we say Louisville, but Louisville, kentucky, for Cross Con Convention.

So be sure and keep them in your prayers for their safe passage.

They're going to have a fantastic time.

I think they're actually going to be there for about three days, so they're looking forward to some amazing worship and speaking for those days.

Our regular Wednesday nights will resume next Wednesday, january the 8th, and that'll be all of our activities will fire back up, so make sure to have your kids here and then you adults come pick out one of our classes.

We have some fantastic classes that we offer on Wednesday nights and they're very beneficial.

Wednesday nights here at DeSoto Hills.

If you've never been, there's a lot of life and action happening around here on Wednesday nights and the meals are fantastic as well.

They are, and they're pretty cheap too.

Yes, well worth your time.

Our Lottie Moon offering is going to be taken up in a few weeks, on January the 19th.

We'll be talking more about that in the coming weeks here on the podcast.

And then Disciple Now Weekend for Students is also coming up January the 24th and 25th.

This year it's at Longview, laura.

And for people who might be wondering about that because I know that some people have probably seen that on some of our promotional materials we outgrew DeSoto Hills.

It is a really outstanding problem to have, but we have had so many and it's not just for those who understand, it's not just DeSoto Hills students.

It started out being DeSoto Hills students for years, but then more and more churches started to come in with us because we put on some fantastic programming with that event.

So a lot of other churches, especially smaller churches in the area, and then a couple of larger churches as well, decided to pool all of our resources together because it was really helping everyone out to just share the amazing programming resources.

So, because we have outgrown it, we're actually going to be at Longview Heights this year and Longview gives us several things that no other church in the area really can.

Obviously, they have a really huge auditorium, but oddly enough, that's not our problem.

It was all of our breakout rooms that we lacked at any other church, having the space to break out into so many different rooms for all the breakout sessions.

So that is the main reason that we are going to be at Longview Heights this year for Disciple Now.

That is the main reason that we are going to be at Longview Heights this year for Disciple Now Adults.

If you're not familiar with that event, stop by and talk to me or David.

It is an amazing event, an amazing opportunity for your students and one that they will not forget.

It is essentially a conference that we put on, but we do it very well.

We put a lot of money and effort and time into that.

We have an amazing band coming, chad is coming to speak, and these are bands and speakers who have done very, very large events in the summer, student life and such like that.

So these are very, very well-known speakers nationally and well-known bands nationally that we have come and put this on.

So it is going to be insanely awesome.

You're not going to want to miss it.

You can register your child for that event right now on our website, desotohillscom.

Finally, towards the end of the month we'll have a worship night and deacon ordination service and that's going to be January the 26th at 5 pm in the attic.

We will also have a business meeting that will follow that evening service and there will be activities for children, laura, and there will be activities for students that night.

We are also starting our daily walk through the Bible as a church and if you'd like more information about that you can call the church office.

But you can also go on our website and we have everything detailed out on the website.

We are asking everyone in the church this year to do the daily walk Bible readings together.

You can actually get that book directly off of Amazon and we'll have a link on our website to that.

If you just want to buy the book yourself, you can also come up here to the church and we'll have a link on our website to that.

If you just want to buy the book yourself, you can also come up here to the church and we'll have a few copies available at the Welcome Center.

But I just wanted to mention that real quick.

Since it is January the 1st, we are officially starting that Daily Walk Bible study together.

But hey, on that, do you have to use the Daily Walk Bible or can you use your own Bible?

That is an excellent, excellent question, laura.

You do not have to use this particular resource.

You can use your own Bible and we will have a list of all the stuff you need to know.

As far as walking through it yourself on the website and we've got like a little bookmark type thing that was designed by Billy.

If you don't know who Billy is, billy Wilson is awesome and he does a lot of the designs.

Shout out to Billy If you don't know who Billy is.

Billy Wilson is awesome.

And he does a lot of the designs.

Shout out to him.

Yes, he does a lot of the designs in the church, including a new worship guide that you're going to be seeing coming up and it is absolutely astounding.

But Billy has just an incredible eye for design, so he has designed that stuff and it's on the website as well, so check that out out.

Laura, what all of the children?

What have you got in in store for the children for 2025?

oh my goodness.

Well, usually, you know, we do our pre-teen retreat, which is happening, I believe, the end of february, so we'll start getting stuff out about that.

Then we'll have maybe a spring something or another around easter time.

Then we'll do, of course, bible school camp, all that good stuff during the summer, and then all the fall stuff starts again.

Yes.

We just kind of do it all over again and again and again.

Right Never ends and you're no doubt you're already working on Bible school.

Bible school is such an undertaking like that is not an event that you start planning for a few weeks before, like we're working on that an entire year out.

In fact, I'm already working on some of the music stuff for that and by the way, you're infamous for asking me the day after Bible school what the theme is for next year.

Absolutely Infamous.

But I have not done that yet.

You haven't, and I don't think you did it last year either, but maybe you learned.

So go ahead and let this be your notice right now.

I'll be looking for that theme in the next few weeks.

If you are curious about any of our other upcoming events here at DeSoto Hills, you can swing by the church to pick up our complete year calendar.

It'll list most everything that we're going to do through June 2025.

You can also grab one here on Sunday mornings at our welcome desk in the Grand Hall.

Okay, christmas just ended.

I talked about Christmas traditions and things with David and Grant over the past few weeks, but before we let the season fleet away, because it's basically leading us today, what are some of the family traditions that you and your family enjoy every year?

Oh wow, it kind of changes from year to year.

I don't know that we have any particular traditions.

We do, of course, all get together as a family on Christmas Eve with Brandon's family, and then Christmas Day is with my family.

Somewhere in the season we'll go look at Christmas lights.

This year we went to the Light the Garden in Olive Branch and that was super fun.

So we'll always go look at Christmas lights and, of course, watch a plethora of Christmas movies and all the things.

So it just kind of depends.

I wouldn't say there's one or two certain things we do every year.

It's more just like oh, this looks like fun, let's go do that.

And it changes from year to year.

Right, one fun thing the Lewis household does, and Jennifer actually started this tradition about three or four years ago, so it's not that old.

But it made such an impact on the girls that they ask about it every single year the day that we get out of school.

That night we will load the girls up in the van and if you've seen Jennifer's van in the church parking lot at night, you'll see that it's loaded with Christmas lights.

She actually decks out her entire ceiling of the minivan in Christmas lights and plugs them into the back of the van for the entire season.

But that night we will load up in the van and literally spend hours crisscrossing DeSoto County looking at Christmas lights.

And at some point she always pulls into Chick-fil-A.

And you know that I'm a pretty healthy eater and the family as a whole.

We try to eat healthy.

The girls don't obviously eat very healthy, but we try.

We certainly don't go through the Chick-fil-A parking lot and roll through the drive-thru at eight o'clock at night, but for this event Jennifer always goes through the Chick-fil-A parking lot and through the drive-thru to get milkshakes or French fries or chicken nuggets or whatever.

So that's always a part of it as well.

But ever since she started doing this about four years ago.

The girls absolutely love it, and this county if you really think about it, it is big.

So, if you decide to hit houses in Olive Branch and then Hernando and then South Haven and then go through Central Park, it takes hours, and hours and hours to do that?

Do y'all go all the way out to Walls Like way out there?

We haven't been out to Walls yet.

Are there lights out there?

as well?

I don't know.

We haven't been out to walls yet.

Are there lights out there as well?

I don't know.

I have no idea.

I haven't been that far.

That's way out there.

So well anyway.

So that is always one of the things that traditions that the Lewis household looks forward to the most.

Now, when do you bring your decorations down?

When do you bring your decorations down?

And I will tell you mine come down the day after Christmas, because it's depressing to see all the decorations in the house after Christmas.

Yes, we usually start on it the day after Christmas.

However, this year it's a little different because Brandon had back surgery, so we can't lift and all such things.

So we may have to do it in bits and pieces, but we're working on it and hopefully we'll finish writing those down.

For those of you listening to the podcast who might wait to set up your Christmas decorations till the week of Christmas and then leave them up through February, I will never understand.

Just go ahead.

Just go ahead and set up your Christmas after you know Halloween, which I'll set them up a little bit later than that, but normally in the middle of November we're setting our Christmas out because we want to enjoy it for about five or six weeks leading up to Christmas, and then those decorations come down.

They come down really, really, really, really fast.

You could be like those people that have those Christmas trees.

They leave them up all year and they just change the color of the lights based on the season.

You could do that.

I have never wanted to do that because it's taken up space in my house.

Yeah, no, you could, absolutely, absolutely not.

Now it is New Year's Day, it is, and so I wanted to ask actually my wife wanted, wanting me to ask you this on the podcast what New Year's traditions have y'all done in the past or ever, and have you?

ever?

Do you ever stay up through midnight In my younger years?

Absolutely, I would stay up to midnight in my younger years.

That was a long time ago, by the way, but as soon as children came along, no forget it we might stay up till 11.

Like Brandon and I might stay up till 11 and watch the ball drop in New York on the TV, but that's about it.

Right.

So then we go to bed, and that's it.

I can think of twice in my life where I stayed up till midnight, because I've just never been into it and I always wake up really early, even when I was younger.

So yeah, I remember one time at Pinehurst at my parents' house, we had a bunch of youth over at our house and me and a bunch of the guys were upstairs in the studio and we just jammed and played music while they had a party downstairs that went past midnight.

And then I remember one other time in college where me and college friends stayed up.

I didn't care for like I never care for that.

So not really my thing.

And my kids get up early.

So well, at least one of them.

So you know they don't care whether you go to bed at 10 or midnight, they're up at six, Right?

Right Last week we ended our Advent series with Grant.

Today we're going to look ahead to the new year in a segment that we call the midweek moment.

So, Mark, do you make.

New Year's resolutions?

I really don't.

No, why not?

Because the whole idea of it it's.

It's really, for the most part, no, I'm cynical about this.

For most people it's just a broken promise.

They're not, they're not going to follow through with it.

So for me it seems silly to just wait till New Year's to make some sort of little resolution that I'm going to do If I want to do something, I'm going to do it.

Resolution that I'm going to do.

If I want to do something, I'm going to do it.

And so, like it seems like weight loss is a big deal for a lot of people and that's a resolution that always happens.

My weight loss resolution, if you remember, when you were here I was a lot larger it happened over vacation, bible school one year I literally came off the stage at VBS from doing all the jumping around.

I was out of breath, out of shape and I felt horrible.

And so I decided that day that I was going to change, radically change, my health and my life.

So for me, a resolution typically comes as it's a cause and effect, and so something happens that charges you in your mind to say I've got to make this change.

The fact that people do that at new year's just seems.

I think it's just traditional and so that's why people tend to do it.

But so no, that was a way long answer, but no, no no, I don't either, and the reason I don't is because I don't want to disappoint myself.

You know I don't want to disappoint myself.

You know I don't want to set myself up for disappointment and failure.

So I just don't make one, because then, well, you don't have any goals.

You can't, you know, fail.

So I hope that works out well.

But for those of you that do make New Year's resolutions, hopefully you will stick to them, but I will not be making any.

So you can ask me what mine is, but the answer is I don't have any resolutions.

I like Mark's thought, though, on the whole matter of you have this cause and effect If you seize a problem among yourself, that you're going to fix it.

So I think that's important.

I also think that we're not alone in the fact that you might make a resolution but then, come about February, it's over, like if you go to the gym, like if you make this great resolution to go to the gym and work out and lose weight, like you said, and so you go and you're real gung-ho for about a month, and then you're like whatever, and all those gym rats that are out there, they'll go to the gym January 1st and it's no different to them and they're looking around come February 1st all of a sudden.

Well, they can now use their machines.

They don't have to wait in line, the locker rooms aren't as crowded.

So I think there's a trend that we make these resolutions and then we don't keep them.

So I would be interested to know how many of our church folks make resolutions and then they keep them.

I think that would be interesting.

All right Well get on our Facebook and comment and let us know that, because that is interesting.

I would be interested to know.

So, in thinking about New Year's and what you might want to change in 2025, I was wondering why it is that people tend to fail at keeping their New Year's resolutions.

Why do they not do it?

Yes, life gets busy and, yes, they're really probably not that committed to it, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And we're creatures of habit, and we're creatures of habit.

We don't want to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to go to the gym, because we're used to getting up at 5.30 or whatever time you might get up.

So I began to think about that and I think for some of us maybe a lot of us it has to do with that we keep doing the same things that we were doing in December of 2024.

We keep doing them in January 2025, but we expect something different.

We expect different results of what we were doing.

And so, you know, if I remember correctly, you know from a while back, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting something different is a definition of insanity.

So I don't want any of our listeners, our church people, to be insane or to feel insane.

And so, you know, I thought what is something that we can look at in scripture to help us to acknowledge the past, acknowledge our old behaviors, acknowledge our old way of doing things, but yet not get stuck there and maybe in 2025, decide okay, I've learned these lessons from the past.

Now I want to, you know, apply what I've learned these lessons from the past.

Now I want to apply what I've learned in the present and then look forward to the future, rather than being stuck on old behaviors or patterns from the past.

So I went to Scripture and I found in the book of Philippians, 3, 13, and 14, the Apostle Paul writes I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it and it being the goal of being like Christ, but one thing I do forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I press on toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Now, if you know anything about the Apostle Paul, you know that he kind of had a pretty I'm just going to use a lower word he had a pretty sketchy past and God got a hold of him and radically changed his life.

But Paul didn't hold onto those old behaviors, he learned from the past and then God made him into a whole new person and he became this great missionary, this great apostle and writer of Scripture.

I think for us, sometimes fixating on our past prevents us from focusing on the here and now and from moving forward into tomorrow, into the future.

It keeps us from keeping those New Year's resolutions or even those mid-year as in your case, those mid-year goals that you made with your weight loss made.

You know, with your weight loss, you know you couldn't have stuck to that if you had kept thinking, oh, but I had this, or I really enjoyed eating this, you know before then.

So you know, I think there's something to learn from the past.

Is it important?

Sure it is.

But you know, to truly make a lasting change in 2025, to be truly on the path of being conformed in the likeness of Christ, which is what Paul says should be the goal of a Christian, I think it's vital that we look forward to what God is teaching us.

We look back to see hey, these are the lessons that God taught me in 2024 and years past.

This is what God has taught me.

So better than being stuck there thinking, oh, what, if, what, if my life was so different then I wish we could go back there, take those lessons that God has taught you and apply them to your present and then into the future and see if there's some changes that need to be made, not just on January 1st, but throughout the year and into 2026.

And on January 1st, but throughout the year and into 2026 and on.

I did find this interesting story online about the Spanish conquistador, herman Cortez.

Do you know him?

I do because you know I love history.

I actually have a history certification.

That's right?

Okay, so I'm going to tell the story, and if I tell it wrong, just let it go, don't you know?

Just okay?

So Hernan Cortes was a Spanish conquistador who, in 1519, led the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

So while he's on a mission to the new world, some of his men were loyal to the governor of Cuba.

So Cortes has headed to Mexico, but he has some men that have decided, hey, we want to stick with the governor of Cuba.

And they conspired to seize some of Cortez's ships and escape to Cuba.

Well, cortez got word of this and he decided that he was going to squash their plans.

Do you know the story?

I have heard the story.

yes, All right, it's a good one, all right.

So all of the men Cortez figured out, all the men that attempted to return to Cuba, and they died in untimely and rather gruesome.

I will not go into details.

For our listener.

I was wondering how far you were going to take the story.

That's as far as I'm going to go with that.

But Cortez wanted to ensure that mutiny wouldn't happen again.

So he decided to sink his ships on the pretext that they were no longer seaworthy.

They were seaworthy, they were fine, but he decided that he would.

It's actually called scuttle I had to look up that word in the Google yes, Sink them.

Yeah.

And so he drilled holes in them and he sunk his own ships, All but one, one little ship.

He kept to go back and forth to Spain to send representatives and treasures to the king of Spain, and so by sinking the ships he stalled everybody from leaving Mexico.

His little crew had to stay with him as he was conquering Mexico, so there wasn't any other option for the troops to go anywhere, because they didn't have any boats except for one, and he wasn't letting anyone use that boat.

So I think that's a good story about, you know, Cortez's men.

When he sank their ships, they had no other option but to move forward.

You know they couldn't go to the past, they couldn't go back to Cuba or wherever, but they had to trust Cortez and go with him into Mexico.

And I think for us we need to trust God in the present and in the future, even though sometimes we don't know what that future holds.

You know we have these goals and ideas of things we might want to change and things we want to do different, but I think I'm sure there's a matter of you know, trust in the Lord to see where he's going to take us and the lessons that we've learned and how he's going to incorporate all that into the new year.

So in 2025, we need to be on a new journey with God, leaving the things behind and going and moving in the direction that God has called us to be to be more conformed into the image of his son.

So that's it.

Hopefully that's an encouraging word to you, our listeners, about the new year.

If you make New Year's resolutions awesome, wonderful.

If not just focus on you know what God has for you in 2025.

Okay, before I let you go incredible job, by the way I told you about a major change that I made in my life.

Very few people know you before you arrived in South Haven Mississippi.

Was there any major event or major change that you chose to make in your life that sticks out right now?

Oh wow.

Yeah, there's always the times.

You know, when you make decisions to get healthier, then you kind of fall off the wagon.

So there were some of those times there was a decision I made.

I was living in Texas, so before I moved to South Haven almost 15 years ago.

Yes, isn't that crazy, I know.

And I was single when I moved.

Yes, I didn't have any children.

I have to clarify, right.

Okay, but before I moved to South Haven, I lived in Texas and how long did you live in Texas?

It wasn't that long, was it?

Well, I went to seminary there, so that was three years, and then I stayed for five, so eight years.

I didn't realize you were in Texas that long.

I was.

I was.

I love Texas.

It was fun.

But while I was there I made a big decision in my personal life and my relationship with the Lord to really kind of, you know, just taking things that people said as gospel truth actually, you know, getting in scripture and seeing what God wanted to teach me through things that other people said.

So my spiritual walk kind of took a turn for the better in Texas and, you know, through some faithful friends and some heartless, that's a way that God has kind of molded me and shaped me during that time.

I love it.

Thank you so much for sharing.

Thanks for listening.

If you don't have a church home, we'd love to see you here on Sunday morning.

You can watch our services online at desotohillscom or our YouTube channel at Desoto Hills Baptist Church For all of our church family.

We love you.

Have a safe trip home for all of our travelers.

We'll see you back here next Wednesday, God bless.

This has been your Midweek Motivation.

We'd love to have you join us in person on Sunday mornings.

Our services are at 9 and 10.30 am.