Habits of a Healthy Heart – Find the Gold

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Well, today, let's wrap up this series called Habits of a Healthy Heart.

I've loved this series.

We've talked about things that get our hearts ready for this new year.

A lot of us, we tend to go into a new year and make New Year's resolutions.

We want to lose 10 pounds or we want to save a few dollars or go on a trip or do something fun.

And there's nothing wrong with that, but very often the New Year's resolutions fall apart by Valentine's Day.

So I thought, what if we got a running head start into 2026?

And instead of focusing on external stuff, we focused on internal stuff, the stuff of our hearts.

Let's talk about what that looks like.

So week one in the series, we talked about the biblical principle of Sabbath.

It's God's way to supernaturally bless our lives and to give us margin and rest if we'll trust him.

Week two, we said that unexpressed gratitude communicates in gratitude.

And I never want us to be ungrateful.

A lot of us we feel gratitude, but if you don't express it, it just doesn't count.

So we talked about what does it mean to be grateful to the people in our lives, but most importantly, to never take what God does for us for granted, to express gratitude towards Him.

Last Sunday, Pastor Cody, our amazing worship pastor, brought a beautiful message on what it means to live a lifestyle of worship.

Not just to sing a few songs on Sundays when you show up to church, but to live a life that is characterized by worship.

And all of these are principles, they're habits that can carry us into the future in a different kind of way.

And today I've got one for you that I'm gonna be honest, it changed my whole life.

Now, compared to the other ones, this isn't a big message.

This isn't a sexy message, it's not something that's gonna be fun to talk about.

But if you can get this right, I promise you it will change everything for you.

To get us started today, I want to break a rule.

Now that here's the rule.

As a speaker, and I love to preach and speak, you never like want to get the cart before the horse.

You never want to get the punchline before the story, but here's here I'm gonna break a rule, okay?

Here's the punchline of the story, ready?

Men can be dumb sometimes.

This is the punchline.

That's like not a clap moment.

One lady, one lady was like, finally found my church.

Here we are, I got it, right?

All right, chill out.

All right.

Hold on to that thought.

Um, I don't know how you roll, but like when I get sick, I just like try to power through it.

Like I had this internal mentality as a man that like I'm just never really sick, and if I'm sick, I can just rub some dirt on it and I'm gonna be fine.

And so some time ago, I got sick with this cough.

And it wasn't like a little cough, like a it wasn't that.

It was like this deep cough from deep within my soul.

And every time I'd cough, people around me would just like jarred by the by the shockingness of this this cough.

And it was pretty bad, and it was bad for a while.

Like I noticed my kids would never really sit near me.

I noticed at dinner everyone around the table was further away from me.

My wife wouldn't come near me.

But but really, what what the straw that broke the camel's back was we had a staff meeting at the church, and we had this long conference table, and I was on one end, and nobody was within 10 feet of me.

They were all crammed on the other end.

And my wife goes, You've just gotta go to the doctor.

Now, I because men can be dumb sometimes.

Like, I don't I don't like go to the doctor if I can help it.

So I go to the doctor and she does some tests and she goes, Well, um, sir, it looks like you have acute bronchitis.

And I'm like, girl, I'm flattered, but I'm married.

And she goes, No, acute means bad, because men are can be dumb sometimes.

And so she gave me two medicines.

She gave me one medicine and then one steroid, which effectively ended my major league baseball aspirations.

But she gave me these medicines, and here's what I did.

It was a seven-day uh you know regimen of medicine, and I took it for two days, and I started feeling good.

Started feeling fine again, and so I just stopped taking the medicine because men can be dumb sometimes.

And so I stopped taking it, and I told Lizard, like, girl, it's a miracle, two days in, I'm I'm like better two days, I don't need seven days because I'm a man, I'm fine.

And she goes, You are so dumb, why don't you just take the medicine?

And anyways, two days go by, I start to feel better, stop taking the medicine.

On day four, I got about the sickest I've ever been in my whole life.

Because I didn't take all the medicine.

And it's not just that men can be dumb sometimes, it's that Jason can be really dumb sometimes.

Are you with me?

Like, and I do this, and I it's dumb, I don't know why I do this, but here's the principle.

When it comes to medicine, you understand the principle that it's that to get the full benefit, you just have to fully obey.

You have to like do the full prescription, you have to do it all.

Okay.

This whole idea is like also true in the things of God.

Like, if you want the benefit or the reward of following Jesus, you just have to, you know, like fully obey what he says.

Well, let me show it to you in scripture.

There's this man named John.

John writes four of the New Testament books.

He writes the book of John, first, second, and third John.

Like, not the most creative titles, but whatever.

He wrote Bible books and we didn't.

Okay, so he writes four books.

In the book of 2 John, John's in his 90s.

He's an older man at this point.

I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but people that are a little older, they can say more in one sentence than you or I can say in like a book or many paragraphs of writing.

And John writes this one sentence that is explosive in nature.

Here's what he says: 2 John 1.8.

Watch out, check yourself, he says, that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.

Like, pay attention to your life and the things you do, the stuff you're working on, because God's a rewarder and he wants to reward you fully.

And I don't want you or me to miss out on the reward that God has.

And here's the point God can't help himself.

He's our perfect, loving heavenly Father.

And he loves, I want you to see this, he loves to reward his children.

You can find this word reward in the New Testament, some 38 or 39 different times.

What's interesting about this reward, this word reward, is it it really reveals the heart of God, this is who he is.

Hebrews 11 6, there's this interesting verse that says, without faith it is impossible to please God because he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

Now, this word rewarder in Hebrews 11 6 is interesting because often the word reward is like the result of obedience or the results of doing something right.

But in Hebrews 11, it calls God a rewarder, and I love this verse because often in in the original language of Greek, the word reward is a full four-syllable word.

In Hebrews 11 6, there's a fifth syllable added, which adds this divine designation of like opulence over and above.

Like the normal word reward means like this.

If if you did a freelance, a little side hustle for me, and I said, I'm gonna pay you a hundred dollars to do the job, and you do it, I would reward you with a hundred dollars.

You get this.

But this one, Hebrews 11, 6, that God is a rewarder, adds a fifth syllable, which means he doesn't just give you what you're owed, he gives you that over and over and over again.

So instead of giving you$100, he gives you 100 times 100.

Like this is his nature, this is who he is.

He wants to reward us.

So today, I want to show you how to take hold of heaven's reward, how to not live a life that accidentally misses out on the rewards that God, our rewarder, wants to give us.

In Mark chapter 6, there's this interesting story.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 6, verse 1, it says Jesus left there, there was Capernaum, that was his hometown, and he went to his hometown.

Mark 6:1

So Capernaum is where he lived, but his hometown of Nazareth, this little tiny city of like 300 people.

It says he was accompanied by his disciples.

Now, when the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.

So Jesus is back in his hometown, his home streets, where he was raised, and people hear him and they were blown away.

This word amazed means their minds were blown by the wisdom and the maturity he brings.

They ask questions like this.

They said, Where did this man get these things?

What's this wisdom that has been given him?

What are these remarkable miracles he's performing?

They're blown away by his wisdom, by his maturity, by the miracles he's doing.

And then it takes this weird turn.

The questions get a little mean, a little personal.

They say things like, Isn't this the carpenter?

Isn't little Jesus?

Isn't this Mary's son, the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon?

Aren't his sisters here with us?

Like, isn't this the little boy that played kickball with my kids?

Isn't this Jesus that, like, I we all laughed at him that time he spilled his glass of milk all over his food at dinner?

Isn't this Jesus who worked as a carpenter with his dad Joseph and like he's built our dining room table?

Isn't this just little Jesus?

And they diminished who he was and they dishonored him.

And I want you to see this line.

It says, and they took offense at him.

The Greek word for offense is the word scandalon.

It's it's the word that which we would transliterate scandal in English, but this idea scandalon means to get ensnared or entrapped in something.

So these people who knew Jesus from when he was a little boy, they get trapped in their way of thinking that all he ever is or all he will ever be is just that little boy, just Mary and Joseph's little son, just the carpenter, just the one who played with their kids.

That's all that he was, and they took offense, scandalon him.

Well, Jesus is Jesus, and it says, He said to them, a prophet is not without honor, except in his own town, among his relatives, and in his own home.

He uses this word honor.

He's like, I'm in this place where everywhere else I go, people honor me, but I'm home and nobody honors me.

And I want you to see the results of his people not honoring him.

It says, He, look at this, could not do any miracles there.

Like we'll talk about that, but Jesus is home.

He's been doing miracles everywhere, but he gets to his hometown where he grew up.

People dishonor him, and he could not do any miracles except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

And I want you to see this next word.

It says, He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Now in verse 1, it says the people were amazed, and that's one Greek word, which means to have their minds blown.

This amazed, not quite the same.

It's a different word in Greek, even though they both translate to amazed.

This one was like he was flabbergasted.

Shocked, appalled at their lack of faith.

He was amazed, but it wasn't good.

Did you notice this?

It says that Jesus is in his hometown.

He's dishonored by the people who had been around him as he was raised.

And it says that he could not do any miracles.

Did you notice that?

If it said Jesus would not do miracles, I'd be cool with that.

Because that means he chose not to do it.

That's his will.

I get that.

But this says he could not.

It's like he was restrained.

His power was restrained.

And here's the principle I want you to get today.

If we understand what restrains, Jesus will understand what restrains us.

What is it?

It was a lack of honor.

Honor is the principle I want to talk about today.

Honor means to value, it means valuable, precious, weighty, such as gold.

Let's be honest, we live in a culture that doesn't really do honor very well.

There's tabloids and scandals.

We like to gossip and hear the dirt.

We want to spill the tea.

Can I tell you something?

It's easy to find dirt.

In fact, if you were to leave our church at any of our locations today, and I were to say, go find a handful of dirt, that is easy to do because dirt is everywhere.

You know what's hard to find?

Gold.

It's hard to find gold.

You have to dig for it, you have to search for it.

It's valuable, it's expensive, it costs you something, but it's worth the search.

If I could give you this message in like one sentence, learn to be a gold digger for Jesus.

Like find the gold in people, right?

And Jesus wasn't honored.

I want you to see it.

Conversely, he was dishonored.

And dishonor is to devalue, to treat something valuable as common.

Now, why does honor and dishonor matter?

The stuff we devalue and treat as common have the tendency of exiting our lives.

We tend to miss out on them.

Husbands, if you dishonor, devalue, and treat your wife as common, chances are she's not gonna stick around for that.

Parents, if you dishonor, devalue, and treat your kids as common, they're not gonna want to come home when they have the choice someday.

It's like it it matters.

And it's to treat something of value as common.

The best way I could try to explain it is this.

Imagine you bought a house and you love the house, but there's one wall that you really hate.

It messes up the feng shui of the house.

You you want an open floor plan, and this is all kind of closed up.

And so you buy the house and you take a sledgehammer, and you're gonna channel your best chip and Joanna gains, and you're gonna tear a wall down, and you're gonna build a wall in a different part of the house.

You with me?

And imagine you get there, you put your hard hat on, your glasses on, and a sledgehammer, and you go to work and you knock a wall down, and in the midst of all the rubble and all the concrete, there is in the middle of that wall a solid gold bar.

Imagine it.

Look this up because I was curious.

A gold bar like what you'd find at Fort Knox is 400 troy ounces, which in today's value of gold would be worth 1.695 million dollars in the middle of the wall, and they sold you the house that's yours.

Now imagine you tear the wall down and you've got this gold brick, but you're gonna build another wall.

So you go and you put the studs up and you start putting bricks up in place, and you take that gold bar of great value and you just put it in and you cement it all together.

Who would do that?

Nobody would do that because they see the value in it.

I can tell you that that's what we tend to do relationally, and even worse, that's what we do to God.

So, how do we honor?

I want you to see this.

Here's the principle.

Ready?

We honor with our actions, our words, and here's a weird one with our thoughts.

So, like, we honor with the stuff we do, we honor with the words we say, but it's it's more than that, it's the way we think.

And why does this matter?

Because true honor originates in the heart.

It's not just about doing the right thing or saying the right thing, you've even got to think the right things.

Well, let me show it to you like this.

In the book of Isaiah, some 750 years before Jesus came, it says this God was speaking and he said, These people they come near me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, so they're saying the right things, but their hearts, their hearts are far from me.

You can do the right stuff with the wrong heart and get the wrong result.

He says, their worship of me is based merely on human rules that they have been taught.

Like it is possible for you to say the right things and to do the right things, but to have a heart that is so full of dishonor that all of your actions and all of your words fall flat.

I want you to see this.

The way we think and what's reflected in our heart matters so much.

For the sake of time, I won't read it, but in Luke chapter 5, there's this moment when Jesus has been teaching and he's in his hometown and he's in a house, and people flood the house, and the house is so packed with people that no one else can get in, but there's these four guys who have a buddy who's paralyzed, and they would do anything to get him in front of Jesus because the rumors were that Jesus was healing people.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

The house is full, so they pick him up on a mat.

Someone has the bright idea of climbing up the side of the house and ripping a hole in the roof.

Come on, tell me that's not the most plant-city thing you've ever heard in your whole life.

Come on.

And they rip a hole up in that thing and they lower him in front of Jesus.

And this is the moment where everybody's like, ooh, what's gonna happen?

And Jesus says this, and it's amazing.

Jesus says, Son, your sins are forgiven.

And everyone's like, Huh?

What?

What?

And then the scripture says that there's these religious leaders, these Pharisees, and they're standing off to the side, probably with their arms folded, and no one said anything.

They weren't like, hey, Phil, check this out.

None of that happened.

They just think to themselves, who does this man think he is?

It's so blasphemous to claim that you can forgive sins.

Only God can forgive sins, and Jesus knows what they're thinking.

Quick little side note, if you're ever around Jesus, don't think something bad because he's Jesus, okay?

And he knows what they're thinking, and he says to them, hey, which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or rise and walk?

Well, obviously it's easy to say your sins are forgiven.

I could say that.

I have no power or authority to do that, but it's easy to say it.

And Jesus says it's not just easy to say, oh, I want you to see this, to show you that I have the power to forgive sins.

He says, Son, rise and walk.

The man's legs are healed, he stands up and walks out in plain sight.

The principle is these religious leaders are around Jesus and they're thinking wrong things about him, dishonoring him with their thoughts.

It's not just the actions, because you can say the right things and do the right things, but if your thoughts in your heart are wrong, everything else is wrong.

Honor starts in your heart.

Now, we read a moment ago, Mark chapter 6, the word amazed.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

We we read it two times in the story.

The people were amazed, but it specifically said in verse 6 that Jesus was amazed.

Now, I like to study words in the Bible.

This word amazed is literally only found two places in the Bible when it's talking about Jesus.

The first one is Mark chapter 6, Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith.

Mark 6 · chapter mention

But then there's this other time in the book of Matthew, chapter 8, here's what's happening.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

Jesus is out doing something, and this Roman man comes to him and he asks a favor.

Now I need you to get the picture.

Jesus was Jewish, the Jewish people had been overtaken by the Roman Empire.

So you've got a conqueror talking to the conquered, and this man comes to Jesus, and scripture says he's a centurion, which is like fancy language for he's an officer in the Roman army.

And he comes to Jesus and he says, Jesus, I need you to, I need you to heal this person who's at my house.

This person's tormented by something.

Can you do a miracle?

Can you heal him?

And Jesus is like, Well, sure, I can do that for you.

Let's go to your house.

And the Roman centurion says, Oh, no, no, we don't have to leave.

Like, I understand how authority works.

I'm under authority, I know how to take orders, I realize that you answer to a higher authority, so I know if you just say the words, he'll be healed.

You don't even have to come, just you say it and it'll happen.

And I love this because it says, when Jesus heard this, he was amazed.

And this isn't the negative one that we saw in Mark 6.

He was amazed and he said to those following him, Truly, I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

And that's a weird sentence.

Because like John the Baptist, he was from Israel.

Mary and Joseph, they were from Israel.

The twelve disciples, they were from Israel.

All these people that we call heroes of faith, they were from Israel.

And he says about a Roman centurion, it's his faith.

What is it about his faith?

It wasn't just the faith that amazed Jesus, it was the principle of honor and understanding how honor interacts with authority.

And I want you to see this.

If we're gonna be the kind of people who God uses to change the world, we need to understand the principle of honor and how it affects us in our relationships with those around us.

Now, two chapters later in Matthew chapter 10, Jesus was teaching, and he gives us the principle of how honor is supposed to work.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

Now, I want you to think about how honor usually works in our society.

Honor almost always only goes up.

We honor those who are above us as parents, as leaders, as governors, as presidents.

That's who we honor.

But in Jesus' system, it's not how it works.

Here's what it says in Matthew chapter 10.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

It says, anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

Pause here for just a moment.

You could almost substitute the word welcomes with the word honor.

Whoever honors you, honors me.

As we honor the relationships around us, it's a reflection of how we honor God.

And then Jesus is going to give us three categories of people that we are called to honor.

And I want you to notice as we read it, each one comes with a reward if we will do this.

Here's what he says He says, Whoever welcomes a prophet, this is a leader over you, as a prophet will receive a prophet's reward.

So as we honor those above us, we get the reward of those above us.

He says, Whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person, these are the people equal to us or around us, will receive a righteous person's reward.

And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, this will be people underneath us, who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.

So in Jesus' way of thinking, in Jesus' economy, there's three groups of people that we are to honor.

It's those who are above us, those who are our equals, and those who are underneath us.

So for the sake of time, let me work backwards from this.

You need to pay attention to Jesus' economy because honor isn't one-directional, it's unilaterally multi-directional.

It's not just one-directional, it's how we treat everybody.

Who are those underneath us?

These are your children.

Do your words edify and build them up or do your words constantly tear them down?

Are you creating the kind of home that when your kids have the choice, they're gonna choose to and want to come home and spend time with you?

How do you treat people who work for you?

Hey, bosses and CEOs and leaders, how do you treat the team who answer to you on the flow chart?

Uh how do how do you treat the waiter or waitress who's taking care of you at a restaurant?

Hey, single girls, if he's mean to the server, he's gonna be mean to you someday.

Pay attention to the way they treat people.

The second thing is how do you treat your equals?

These are your friends, these are your coworkers, this is your spouse, these are the people around you.

How do you treat them?

Our words create the future, and they either create a future of life or death.

According to Proverbs, the power of death and life is in the tongue, so we need to use our words to create this kind of honor that's all around us.

The third level, though, is those who are above us.

And here's the thing I think it's easy to hear these first two levels and think he's just saying be nicer to the people around us.

It's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying there is a difference in the way you treat and act and live.

With people who are equal to you or underneath you, it's by using your words and by using your actions to love them.

And love is always about serving.

Okay.

But then here's the one we struggle with.

And we struggle, I think, more than any other time in human history.

We struggle with this one because it's like we see abuse around us.

We have political leaders that maybe we like or maybe we don't like, and it changes every few years, and one side's happy and one side's angry, and then we vote, and it changes, and this side's angry, and now this side's happy.

How do we deal with this?

I want to show you how we are to deal with those who are above us from a biblical point of view.

According to Scripture, there's four different groups of people who are over us, and I want to give you handles for how to actually honor, not just to say it, not just to not just to do something, but to think it and to allow honor to originate from your heart.

The first level of authority is civil authority.

This is everyone who is in any sort of governmental position over us.

This would be the president, this would be members of Congress, this would be the Supreme Court, this would be people in government in Washington, D.C.

for us, this would be people in Tallahassee as Floridians, this is our governor and all of our local state government, this would be the city of Lakeland's mayor.

Listen to me, this would be police officers, this would be firefighters, this would be anybody who's been appointed into some level of leadership over us.

This is who we are to honor.

Now I want you to see this because if you find yourself saying, Well, it's fine, but you don't know my president like I do.

Like I know a lot about him.

You probably don't know enough about him.

And this could be true for this president or the last president.

I'm not making it about any specific person, but I want you to see this.

Romans chapter 13 says this let everyone be subject under the authority to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.

Romans 13 · chapter mention

The authorities that exist have been established by God.

I don't know if you've ever thought this before, but everyone who is in a place of civil authority over you, I want you to hear this, God put them there.

And you're like, Well, I don't I don't like who God put.

Okay.

God put them there.

There was an election a couple ago where a man, a grown man, came into my office and was choking back tears, and he said, Look at me, that is not my president.

He said, I got bad news, buddy.

Yeah, he is.

He is.

And can I tell you what your responsibility is?

Whether you like the president or dislike the president, whether you agree with his principles or disagree with his principles, here's the thing that scripture calls with authority the truth.

God appointed that person to that role.

So what is your responsibility?

Honor and pray for them.

What is not your responsibility?

Publicly criticize, get in the mud and argue with people on social media.

None of that is your responsibility.

Here's the principle.

You can disagree with someone without dishonoring them.

I I can choose to say, hey, I disagree with this politician's stand on this particular issue or that particular issue, but you will never hear me openly criticize the president of the United States because God placed them there.

Now, what does it mean?

Here's what it means.

It means that when you make this decision to say, God, even when I don't understand, I choose the path of honor, here's what you're saying.

You're saying, God, I trust that you know more than me.

I trust that you see from a higher perspective than me.

And I've got really good news for you.

If you think our country's in a dark season or we've come out of a dark season, or we're going into a dark season, here's what I can promise you God gets more done in the difficult, dark, and turbulent seasons of our life than when things are good and easy.

Why?

Because when things are easy, you know what we do?

We drift away from God.

You know what humanity tends to do when life gets really hard and when life feels turbulent?

We look up to God for help.

When it seems like God is out of control, when it seems like the world is spinning and no one's really at the steering wheel, I've got good news for you.

God is always in command, he's always in charge, and he's always the one orchestrating and moving the pieces of our lives for his glory.

That's what's happening.

Now, when you make this decision to any civil authority to say, I'm gonna choose to honor you, I'm gonna choose to honor the president.

Hey, when you get pulled over for speeding, the cop's not an idiot who pulled you over.

He's the authority that God used to protect you.

Can I teach you a little secret?

You'll probably get out of more tickets if you'll be kind and honoring to the person who pulled you over.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate you doing your job.

Sorry I wasn't paying attention.

That's on me.

Choose the pathway of honor when it comes to civil leaders, and with every opportunity to honor comes a reward.

When you honor civil authority, here's the reward a life free from fear.

Why?

Because God's in control, not me.

I don't have to live in anxiety and fear.

Second level of authority that I think we need to honor is family authority.

God established the family, and there is a hierarchy for the way things are to go.

Ephesians chapter 5 and 6 talks about it.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Ephesians chapter 5, verse 21 starts with our marriage relationships.

Ephesians 5:21

Ephesians 5, 21.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

You and your husband, you and your wife and your husband, your spouses, you make this decision.

I'm choosing to honor you.

I'm putting your needs ahead of my needs.

I'm going to outserve you.

The next three verses are to the woman.

He says, Wives, be submitted to your husbands.

For women, that feels, oh man, what do I do with that?

It literally means to trust and support him in everything that you possibly can.

But the next eight verses are to the men.

Men, hey, it's not just, hey, wives, be submitted to your husbands.

It's husbands, love your wife the way Christ loved the church.

How did Jesus love the church?

He gave his life for it.

Who's more submitted in that relationship?

Biblically, the husband is the head of the household.

The wife is second.

And then the family comes underneath it.

But Jesus is the ultimate head, and when the family's operating the way God intended it to, no one feels neglected, everyone feels loved and served.

That's how it works.

But then you turn the page to Ephesians chapter 6, and here's what he says.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

He says, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Time out.

This doesn't stop when you're 18.

It's making this decision that I'm going to choose to honor and obey my parents in the Lord.

And then what he does is he goes back to the Ten Commandments from Exodus chapter 20, and he says, Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

This commandment is number five of ten.

There's a promise associated with it, and here's what it is.

So that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy a long life on the earth.

I honor my parents.

I hope my children will honor me.

And I don't just do it for this reason, but there's a bl a blessing and a reward associated with it that when I do, when I live a life of honor, the reward is I will live a long life.

This is my hope.

I want to live a blessed, fruitful, long kind of life that's around for a long time so I can see my kids and my grandkids and my great-grandkids.

And shoot, someday I want to be around for Access's 100-year church anniversary.

That's what, don't laugh at that.

I'm trying to honor my parents, okay?

What if you're like, well, Burns, you don't know my family?

Maybe, but I know the Bible.

And here's what I know.

I know that you can disagree without dishonoring.

Maybe you had a really, really hard childhood can offer you a principle.

If for no other reason than God used those people to create you, that's a reason to honor.

You can protect yourself and you can have appropriate boundaries and all of those things, but you have to choose the path of honor.

Third level of honor that I believe God calls us to is what's called social authority.

Social authority is the people in our life that God has placed over us for a season or for a reason.

This would be your boss at work, this would be your coach on the football team, this would be your teacher in a classroom.

These are the people in your life that God's placed over you for this reason.

First Peter chapter 2 says this.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

He says, Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human authority.

Like whoever's in your life on purpose, he says, whether to the emperor as the supreme authority or to governors who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.

Here's what I know.

If I could talk to all of you young people who are maybe just starting your work career, God placed your boss in your life not on accident.

It's to do something for you.

It's to teach you, to grow you, to refine you, to purify you, to help you to stretch and think a little bigger.

Can I tell you what you need to do?

You need to learn what it means to be submitted to that authority.

What does it mean?

It means let me give you some tips, okay?

As someone who has a lot of people that get to work with me right now.

Ask this question every single day.

What can I do to take something off of my leader's plate?

What can I do to move this organization forward?

What can I do to be the best possible employee this organization has ever seen?

Where are the areas in my life where I feel entitled and I need to kill entitlement because entitlement is cancer to work relationships?

Like, what are these kinds of things that I need to do?

How can I bring God my best?

Let me tell you why it matters.

Colossians chapter 3 says, pay attention to the way you work because you're not working for man.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

Your work is actually representative of how you view God.

What's the reward?

When you understand the social authority thing, the reward is it represents God well and draws the favor of God.

And I'd rather have the favor of God than the favor of any boss any day, but one of the ways we get it is by the way we honor those people.

Number four is this, and this one's the weirdest one, and this is the most uncomfortable, but it's the fourth level of spiritual authority.

I want you to see what scripture says.

I'm going to read you two scriptures.

1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord, and who admonish you.

Hold them in the highest regard and love because of their work.

Live in peace with each other.

Paul writes a letter to a spiritual son who's a pastor named Timothy, and he says this.

He says, The elders who direct the affairs of the church, well, they are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is in preaching and teaching.

Here's what it means.

I'm not asking you to do something extra for me.

I'm not asking that, but I do want to teach you a biblical principle.

We live in a culture that says if the pastor preaches something you disagree with, you just get up and find a different church.

If the church preaches something that maybe doesn't align with what you think politically, you should just dip and leave and call your pastor woke and just go.

And when you find a church that holds the Bible as the final word, when you find a church that loves you and cares for your family and does everything we can to meet your needs, go all in with the church.

This is what honoring spiritual authority looks like, in my opinion.

It's not just like write a card for Pastor Appreciation Month, it's live a life where your whole life is all in with whatever the church says.

Let me tell you my heart, okay?

And this is this feels vulnerable, but let me just come after it for a second.

Sometimes, sometimes I feel like a salespin a little bit.

I'm like, come on, do this and try this and let's do this.

And it feels like I'm trying to coerce you to do something that maybe you don't want to do.

Can I tell you something with all sincerity?

All I want is for God's best for you, and I don't need anything from you.

Like, like, what if you just gave God one year from today?

What if from now till next Thanksgiving you gave one full year to God?

You said, God, I'm all in.

What does that mean?

It means you make church a priority and you're here.

It means when you come, you don't just show up to church, you come expecting something from God.

Can I teach you a little principle?

The reason when we have a guest preacher come through that I take a minute and I really honor and I really like, I invite you to stand up, put your hands together, let's cheer for them.

Is because I'm helping you set an expectation of honor.

That when we honor, we receive more from whatever the message is.

Don't roll up to church 20 minutes late and be like, well, I made it for the message, I'm good.

Come to church early.

Get to church and sit up front with a heart of expectation and say, God, what do you have for me?

You'll always get more that way.

Here's more.

What if you gave God one full year of saying, God, I'm in to serve other people?

Not because the church needs something, but because you need something.

Our church has grown a lot.

We're several thousand people now.

And it's easy to look around and feel like everything's well done and everything's covered.

We need you to serve for you, not for us.

But I got a little secret for you.

There's plenty of room for you.

In fact, there's needs in our church.

As we've grown, we've sent out hundreds of people from here in South Lakeland to start North Lakeland and Bartow.

We have lots of needs and opportunities.

I'd like to challenge every person in this room to do something once.

For a season, not just for a week, but for a whole season.

I challenge you to serve with the next generation.

Serve with Access kids, serve with babies, serve with toddlers, serve in the elementary.

It's so stinking fun.

It's and we're not just fun, we're teaching kids about God.

Show up and serve at Access Youth.

We need some adults, we need some men to show up and serve.

Do it, give God a year.

Just see what happens in you and through you as a result.

I don't want that from you, I want it for you.

You've got a whole year of saying, God, I don't get how the math's gonna work out, but I trust you, I'm gonna tithe.

See what God does if you'll just be obedient to what he asks.

For some of you, you've played this game for so long with the church and God of like, oh, access groups are back, I know I should, but, and you just make an excuse instead of making a choice.

Challenge you.

Some of you need to lead a group.

Groups are ending now, that means they're starting again in just over a month.

I challenge you.

Make the decision today to say, God, I'm giving you a year.

I'm gonna lead a group or I'm gonna join a group, but I need to get in the context of community so I can work out my issues in community with other people.

Listen, the whole spiritual authority thing, man, it can get abused really quickly.

Let me say this as cleanly and as clearly as I can.

I don't want or need anything from you.

In fact, if you do none of the things I ever said, and if all you ever are is a consumer of our church, I'm glad you're here.

I pray God blesses you.

But I'm telling you, I'm telling you, if you trust me and if you love me, give God a year and see what he does.

What is the promise?

What is the reward?

Well, scripture says that when you're submitted to spiritual authority, the reward is double honor.

There's nothing in this world I want more than to stand before God and to hear God say, Well done.

Like you did it, you did it right.

Your life wasn't just about you, you lived your life to serve other people and to see what God can do through a life and really thousands of lives who say, God, I'm just all in.

Let me end with this thought.

This is the kind of message where it's easy to hear this to be like, all right, I got it.

I need to go be nicer to the people around me.

If that's the case, you missed it.

A life of honor is a life that's thoughtful, it's kind, it's listening for ways to serve.

A life of honor is putting the desires and the needs and the wishes of other people ahead of your own.

A life of honor serves and looks for reasons and ways to serve, not to be served.

And if we'll get this, it'll affect those underneath us, our kids, our families, the people who work for us, it'll affect our relationships here with our equals, and it'll affect those above us.

But who it's gonna most affect is you, Johnson.

Don't mess up.

You've lived this great life, don't mess up and miss out on the full reward that God, your rewarder, has for you.

Listen to your pastor for a moment.

I don't want you to miss out on the reward God has for you.

So will you make this decision?

Let's be a church, let's be a people.

You, me, let's be people of honor.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes all across this place and at all of our locations?

Let me pray for you.

So, God, this is one that's way easy to talk about and it's really hard to live out.

God, in this world where everyone feels like they have a voice and an opinion because of social media, sometimes we just get in the mud and we feel like we need to use our voice for the wrong things.

May we use our voice, may you use our actions, and may we use our thoughts in a way that's reflective of our heart, and our hearts are full of honor.

Jesus, if a lack of honor restrains you, may that never be the case for us, and it may it never be the case for our church.

May we honor you, revere you, worship you, love you, serve you.

And God, as a result, may this church continue to walk in your blessing.

What does your blessing mean?

It doesn't mean more, it just means more lives, more change, more souls saved.

God may that always be the heart and the posture of our church, that we honor you and we walk in the rewards that you get.

Thank you for it.

With your head still bowed and eyes still closed, maybe you came to church today and you're not right with God.

Maybe this means you've never started following Jesus, or maybe you just feel like you've walked away.

But in either case, today's the day that you need to start following Jesus.

If this is you, I want to give you a moment right now.

Would you have three seconds of courage and say, Jason, I need to follow Jesus?

If that's you, would you raise your hand right now?

Thank you.

Yep, thank you, thank you, wow, thank you.

Wow.

That's cool.

It never gets old.

If that's you, I want you to pray this prayer with me.

Praying a prayer changes everything when you mean it, but I don't want you to pray it alone.

Church family, I want everybody everywhere at all of our locations to say this out loud with me because no one stands and no one prays alone at access.

Would you say, Jesus?

Come on, everybody, Jesus, I give you my life.

Would you save me?

Change me, make my life new.

Jesus, I believe you're the Son of God.

I believe you gave your life for me.

And now I make this decision.

I give my life to you.

Jesus, I love you.

I choose to follow you from this day forward.

I give you my life in your name.

Amen.

Come on, church fam, everywhere.

Let's celebrate together.