Solitude: The Habit of Slowing - August 17, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6.19, Pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me, so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

I'll ask you this morning, if any of you ever have difficulty slowing your mind down.

Now, I know some of you missed my question, so I'll ask it again.

Make sure I'm asking, right?

Do any of you ever have a difficult time slowing down your mind?

And I know some of you didn't raise your hand because your mind is still elsewhere.

You're still thinking about something else, maybe from Sunday school or,

you know, something that the song touched a note in your heart on.

And I just praise the Lord for our praise team and our special musicians.

We just, we're so blessed. But, you know, a lot of times we hate to admit that,

that, you know, our mind is racing so much that our concentration is so intense

somewhere else that we don't always hear what someone else says.

For me, that's when I'm watching a NASCAR race and when I'm really keyed in,

especially when a driver I like is at the front. And when my family wants to

come talk to me, I don't hear them, even if it's saying dinner is ready.

Now, for me, that's a big thing. I like dinner. I like to eat.

But if I'm so hyper-focused on something or if I'm thinking about something

else and I'm driving and I'm just so focused on driving and my family is asking

me a question, I don't hear it.

Boy, I hate to admit that, that sometimes I'm not present with my family right

there in the moment. And you know how it goes, right?

During the daytime, your mind feels so cluttered, you're trying to sort through things.

And then at night, when you try to go to bed, your brain won't shut off.

And it just won't stop. And your mind races with everything you have to do the next day.

But you won't be able to do it well the next day unless you get to sleep in this night.

The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes addresses this.

And as a matter of fact, wise old Solomon called it anxious striving.

And so since we are, I think, all in the same boat at one time or another,

if you're able this morning and willing, would you rise as I read the scripture

passage, Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verses 22 and 23?

Ecclesiastes 2:22

Hear now the wise words of the preacher.

What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun?

All their days, their work is grief and pain.

Even at night, their minds do not rest.

How encouraging is that this morning?

Let me pray for us. Father, we are gathered together in your presence,

Lord, with the presence of your people. And Father, we know your Holy Spirit

is searching our hearts even now.

And God, we just pray in these moments that we won't get caught up in just the

anxious striving of our minds, but Lord, that our minds will rest in you and rest in you today.

God, as you give us and you equip us with what we need, Lord,

to rest those anxious thoughts, Lord, to be able to come before you with peace and clean conscience.

Lord, that peace you promised to give us, that peace that passes all understanding.

Lord, help us not to be afraid of what tomorrow holds, but Lord,

to trust you in these very moments right now.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.

Thank you. You can be seated. You know, this month we're doing a special sermon

series called The Habits of a Healthy Heart.

And, you know, we said our tagline kind of is, if you want to change your life, change your habits.

And if you want to change your habits, you got to let God change your heart.

And in this so far, we've talked about the habit of self-examination,

looking at ourself in the light of Scripture, in the light of what God has planned for us.

We talked last week about simplifying and getting rid of the unnecessary things

in our lives and concentrating on God.

And today I just want to talk about the spiritual habit of slowing your mind

or what's also known as solitude. And what do you do when that mind of yours won't stop?

As I prepared for this, I reflected on a movie I saw recently.

They made another rendition of Superman.

And not too long ago, a few weeks back, Noah and I were able to go see it while

my girls were at a concert down in Boise.

And I kind of liked it.

What I love about Superman, I've loved him ever since I was a little kid,

you know, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive,

able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

It's Superman. Superman.

You can't beat that. I talk way back in the old black and white classics,

you know, without all the cool special effects they have now.

But there's something about Superman that even speaks to the sermon today. Did you know that?

There's a special place that Superman goes. After he's been out saving the world.

After he's been out trying to bring justice and truth and the American way, they used to say.

They don't say that anymore, but they used to.

When he's out there doing the good that he can, even Superman has to rest.

And Superman has a special place to do that. Can anyone name what that place is?

The Fortress of Solitude.

Special place where he goes to recuperate, to regenerate.

A special place that he goes where there's memories of his connection with his

family, his long lost family with his father, even with his mom.

Reminds him of who he is, where he came from.

And, you know, Superman's a great superhero, but he's nothing compared to Jesus.

And if we really want to think of Superman, we've got to think of Jesus,

who was both human 100% and God 100%. And I want you to think about him for

just a minute. Think about Jesus.

When we read through the pages of Scripture, imagine all that was on Jesus' mind.

Imagine here he is. He grew up, had all the adventures when he was a child.

And there's a period we don't hear anything in Scripture about him,

but we know he's being raised and he's learning his father's trade.

His father Joseph here, his earthly father, the one that was charged to take care of him.

We see him come on the scene when he's about 30-something years old.

And then we just have the picture of the three years that he was active in his ministry.

We see him choosing his disciples, teaching them the values of the kingdom of

God, healing sick, raising the dead, clearing the temple, sticking it to the

religious hypocrites that were present.

Most of all, we see him showing the love of the Father to those all around him.

We see Jesus endured the hypocritical persecution of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

We see him fulfill the law, the perfect law to bring about the completion of that.

And we see what Jesus Christ does and why he came when he sacrifices himself on a cross.

He lets himself be crucified and was in the grave for three days and yet raises

again at the end of that. There's no bigger assignment that has been in all

the world than what Jesus did for us.

Can you imagine if you are tasked with saving the entire world and everything

that must be going through your mind?

I know we have superhero movies and action movies that try to approach that.

But really to think about all that Jesus was thinking about in the short time

that he was here to do God's will, to complete God's plan.

We see that Jesus, he was consistent and he was intentional with one practice

that allowed him to create space with him and his heavenly father.

For him to hear from heaven, to spend time with that father.

He was consistent. He always did it. And he was intentional about it.

He did it on purpose. He planned to do that.

You would see as you look through the pages of Scripture that Jesus would often

disconnect from the crowd.

Think about this scene that we see after he's preached great sermon on the hillside

and he sent the people away.

He performed miracles even that day and fed everybody.

At the end of that, Jesus says, okay, I'll meet you on the other side of the

lake. But he doesn't go with his disciples in the boat.

He says, you guys go and I'll meet you. Jesus took a time out.

Jesus needed time alone, time with his heavenly father, time to drown out the

distractions, a time to silence the never-ending noise and to spend time with his father.

I think the key here is that Jesus understood there's no such thing as intimacy

without intentionality.

You can't be close to someone without being intentional about it.

I think about my relationship with my wife when I first met her in chapel at Bible college.

I don't know if she's going to be there or that she would one day become my wife, but there she was.

It wasn't like, oops, we're together now.

There was some intentionality about it. I took my time, executed my plan,

my scheme, so that one day I'd have the courage to ask her to go to Carl's Jr. with me.

Guys, you need any tips? No, don't come see me.

You know, if we want to be close to someone, if we want to be close to God in

that sense, then we've got to be intentional about what we do to get to that point.

If you want to be near God and you want God near to you, there's some steps you have to take.

Whether it's your marriage, whether it's your relationship with your children,

your grandchildren, your family, whether it's with your friends,

whether it's with God, You've got to be intentional about that.

And when it comes to God, you can't busy your way to God.

You can't just go about and do all this stuff you think God wants from you and

never spend time and take a time out just to be in his presence.

One pastor said, I never met anyone close to God that didn't spend time with God.

You can go through all the religious rituals, do all the religious things,

and still not be close to God, unless your heart is intentional about that,

unless you on purpose really want to draw near.

And over and over again in the Gospels, we see that Jesus withdraws.

He gets away from the crowd, gets away from the demands, the expectations that

everyone's putting on him to be the Messiah now, to kick Rome out now,

to show yourself now and who you really are.

Jesus found secluded places to slow down.

And in that solitude and in that silence, pray to his Father.

Connect with this Heavenly Father.

There's something about pausing,

about praying, and about intently listening for the Father's voice.

Look at this, this example from Mark chapter one, verse 35 through 37.

One example of what Jesus did very early in the morning while it was still dark,

Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place where he prayed.

Simon and his companions went to look for him. And when they found him,

they exclaimed, everyone is looking for you.

Moms, can you relate to this? Those times when your little ones were little

and they learned to walk and you didn't have to hold them anymore.

And you just wanted two minutes to go to the bathroom in peace.

And so you went and locked yourself in there. And what happens?

Knock, knock, knock. All of a sudden, fingers showing themselves under the doorway.

I imagine Jesus kind of felt like that here. He goes away to pray in silence

and solitude and the disciples.

Hey, Jesus, where are you at?

Everybody's looking for you. Like, thanks, my break time's over.

Jesus was intentional about that. But yet, everyone was looking for him.

Everyone always wanted him. And maybe you feel like that today in the demands

of life. Everyone always needs a piece of you.

Everyone needs your time. Everyone needs your attention.

And you're just saying, Calgon, take me away. You can Google it and see the old commercial there.

Well, Jesus modeled for us something so important.

That consistent, intentional time to pause, to create space in his life so that

you can withdraw, so that he could withdraw and be with his heavenly father.

I've listed several scriptures in your bulletin there. We won't go through them

all, but here's some examples of what Jesus did when he made time.

Jesus, before he started his ministry, he took time.

He consistently and intentionally spent time with his father,

time attesting in Luke chapter four.

Before Jesus made important decisions. He would always get away.

Get away from the high pressure of everything that's pulling at you,

everything that's trying to make you choose.

After a long, hard day at work, Jesus withdrew.

After ministering to lots of people, Jesus got away by himself.

After losing a close friend, Jesus got away. He took time to grieve.

Jesus modeled this for us. Jesus modeled our need to withdraw.

Well, why do we need to withdraw?

Why do we need as believers in the 21st century to get away,

to take a time out, to create space so that we can commune with God,

so we can hear from him and his word, so we can pray to him and we can hear from him?

Well, I think it goes back to

this principle that you can't continue to pour out if you don't fill up.

Can't continue to give of yourself if there's nothing else to give.

I've got this cup here that represents you. Aren't you beautiful?

Hopefully you can read my handwriting there. You know, the importance of this,

when we get away, when we take time out, we say, God, I just need to hear from you a little bit.

Maybe it's, God, I need to vent a little bit.

God, I just need more of you like we talked about last week.

We know that God will answer that prayer and God will fill us up.

We know after those times of maybe coming to a worship gathering like this.

Boy, we just leave feeling refreshed.

Maybe we leave feeling challenged and refreshed.

Maybe we leave and say, okay, God, I'm ready to face this week.

Whatever you have for me, let's go. And you leave church with your cup filled.

Boy, you're just ready. You can't wait to see what happens.

And Jesus planned this to be the case. In John 10.10, the scripture says,

Jesus said, the thief comes only to kill, to steal, and to destroy.

Jesus said, but I have come to give you life and to give it to you most abundantly or more abundantly.

Jesus said, I came to fill you up with this life so that it's overflowing.

That's the promise. My favorite scripture in the entire Bible is John 10.10.

It's a reminder of what the enemy does, but what Jesus does that's even better than that.

So hopefully by the time you leave, you're filled up. But you know,

the problem is, is that we give, give, give, and we never refill.

You leave church like this today and man, you have a great lunch with your family.

Nothing's bugging you. You're pouring into your family. Look at that.

Each of your family members has a cup too.

And boy, you pour into them. Oh, that was great. What'd you learn in Sunday

school today? Oh, what'd you get from the message today? Oh, yeah.

What are you going to do this week with what you learned in Sunday school and

in church time? Oh, that's great.

And so you fill up your family and they'll take from you.

And then comes Monday morning.

Oh, let's get the family back because you got to wake your kids up to go to

school. Boy, those of you grandparents that take care of your grandkids up. God bless you.

You got to wake them up and get them ready to go for the day.

And boy, it's like pulling teeth sometimes to wake them up.

Even adult children, too, that got to go to work sometimes. You got to remind

them, hey, go to bed early because you got to get up at six.

And so it takes some more of you. And so Monday, you know, your cup's starting

to get a little bit more emptier here.

But then you realize that.

You got to go to work and you know, it's Monday morning at your job.

You know, maybe there's a staff meeting Monday morning or, or there's,

you're not going to wake up till noon.

And so you have about four cups of coffee before you even get in the car to drive to work.

And then you're all jittery by the time that you walk through the front door

and you know, your job is going to take some work. You got that boss.

Oh man, that boss is going to take from you.

You need a lot of grace to get through. And, you know, you got that one coworker

that is just chipper and they're alive and they're awake Monday morning and

they can't wait to tell you everything that they did on the weekend and all the fun they had.

Half of it's made up anyway, but they just can't wait to tell you that.

And so that takes some out of you.

And man, you're not even to noon yet. And lunchtime comes and you just crash in your car.

You're like, is it five o'clock yet? I'm so tired. I can't wait.

But then you remember, oh, there's other things that I got to do that night.

There's a special meeting at church I got to go to.

Or, you know, if it's midweek service, you know, it's going to take some out

of you. Maybe you volunteered to be in the nursery.

You volunteered to help with the kids or to lead a Bible study.

And, you know, what should happen is God should fill you up on Wednesday.

Some more in the Bible study, the life group that you're in and being and serving.

And a lot of times, boy, we just feel drained and it just takes so much out of us.

And rather than being filled up when you leave, you're like,

oh, you feel like a zombie.

But be honest, church and serving, it takes them out of you.

Why? You're sharing the grace of God with other people. And so that takes a toll.

But, you know, it's not over yet because there's still chores that you got to do.

You know, there's still a lawn maybe that has to be mowed. Not yet,

but leaves have to be raked. We know that there's other things that have to happen.

And that's going to take some life value. That's going to take some effort.

That's going to take some grace in order for you to get through your own chores

that you have. I mean, we're talking something as simple as doing the dishes.

Those of you that have cats, changing the cat litter, picking up after the dog, and so on and so forth.

Laundries on this list. I mean, you know what chores you have. I don't have to tell you.

If you don't have any chores, I can offer you some at my house to do.

Especially if your cup is full. Boy, there's a lot you can do.

Think about the activities that we have. Maybe it's soccer with your kids or

football or basketball or whatever sports season it is.

Maybe it's rodeo and maybe it's just getting them to a youth group,

to children's meeting, to quizzing.

I mean, here you go. You're just so involved with everything.

Maybe it's a civic organization you're a part of.

Are you getting the idea that we're so spread thin that we empty out?

And when we empty out and we don't refill we're

in trouble because there's things in our life that

go by the wayside responsibilities that don't get done there's friendships we

can't invest into because we got nothing else to put in we can't maintain these

relationships and if we only get filled up once a week it's hard to make it

through a few days that we're going,

See, because you can't give what you don't have.

If you haven't been filled up again, you can't give any more out of yourself.

Some of you maybe feel like that today. You feel empty. You feel like you're

all poured out. You drug yourself to church this morning.

Here's my cup. Fill it up. Fill it up. Not to sound like a drunk guy at a saloon or something.

But maybe you feel like that. I don't know.

We come in drained and emptied and saying, Lord, we need more of you.

Do we get all poured out? I think we get all poured out because we believed a lie,

and maybe we've told ourselves this same kind of lie before,

that we believe our value and our worth and who we are is in what we do or what

we produce, what we accomplish,

what we perform, what we give.

We're terrified just to take a time out and to be still.

We think we got to give. We got to give, give, give, give. But we never take

time to go back to the Lord and say, God, I just need this fresh water.

Like Psalm 46.10 says, be still and know that I am God.

To take a time out of our busyness, of our busy doing, and just to be with God,

just to be in his presence.

When Sarah, my youngest, was little.

She would always want to go to the store with me. Hey, I'm going to run down.

At that time, it was Save Mart. I got to pick something up. Oh, can I go?

Or sometimes she wouldn't even ask. I'd go out to the car and she'd be sitting

in the front seat buckled in already.

I'm like, Sarah, what are you doing? You want to go to the store? Yeah, okay.

And then in the five minutes to the store, she wouldn't say two words.

She wouldn't say anything.

I'm like, Oh, okay. I know how to raise boys, but I kind of did okay with Emma raising her.

But what do I do with this little girl that won't even talk?

Because Emma would talk to me at least. We could have a conversation. Silent.

Later on, I got to think, she don't care what we talk about.

She just wants to be with me.

As I do a menial task of driving to the grocery store. And maybe she thought

she'd get a candy bar or something if she went with me. Sometimes she did.

Oh, wait. I wasn't supposed to say that. Sorry. Don't tell mom, right?

Think about just taking a time out and being with God, being still,

and knowing that God is God, that in spite of the busyness, that God is with us.

Do you notice the scripture, Psalm 46.10, doesn't say, be busy and be responsible,

be successful and know that I am God.

But in the Hebrew, the be still word means to cease striving,

to stop your anxious striving, just to not do that. Stop it.

Stop everything and just spend time with the Father. Be still.

Now think about Jesus when he was baptized. He hadn't done anything yet.

He was just walking down to the Jordan. John the baptizer was down there baptizing

others for the repentance of their sin.

And here comes Jesus. Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the

world. And all Jesus did, he hadn't done anything in ministry.

He hadn't healed anyone yet.

He hadn't turned any water into wine.

He hadn't prophesied or preached anything. He's just going down and he's baptized

by John in the Jordan River.

And when that happens, we see in Luke 3, 22, a voice from heaven declares,

You are my son whom I love.

With you, I am well pleased.

Jesus hadn't produced a thing. He'd just grown up in Joseph and Mary's house.

He hadn't done anything, but yet, again, the word that came from heaven,

you are my son, whom I love.

With you, I am well pleased.

God loved him for who he was, not what he did.

I want to tell you, it's the same for you. God loves you for who you are.

Sometimes in spite of ourselves. We know God still loves us.

What did Jesus do next? Jesus didn't say, all right, Father, I've been baptized.

Let me go pour into all these people. No, the scripture says something very different.

Knowing his father was pleased with him and who he was and that contentment

that he had in his relationship with this heavenly father, he went and was carried away by the spirit.

We see in Luke 4, 1, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was

led by the spirit into the wilderness. There he fasted for 40 days.

Again, remember, there's no such thing as intimacy without intentionality.

You can't be close to God unless you intentionally make it a point to do that.

And that's what Jesus did.

We know during this time or after this time, he was tempted.

He overcame those temptations and then began his ministry publicly.

Jesus knew the value and again modeled it for us, knowing that God was pleased with him and who he was.

He was able to take time and to go and to get ready for the next three years,

nonstop of what would be happening.

So this morning, how do you practice the spiritual habit of slowing down,

of just slowing, of that solitude?

Again, let me turn to Matthew chapter 6 to see what Jesus' instructions were.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

I've written this down from the message this morning, so it'll sound a little

bit different than perhaps some of the versions you have. It's more of a paraphrase,

but I think it catches the point.

Here's what I want you to do. Find a quiet place or a quiet secluded place so

you won't be tempted to role play before God.

Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage.

The focus will shift from you to God and you will begin to sense His grace.

Pause. Stop everything and get alone.

No texts. Don't use your Bible on your phone for this. Too many distractions.

No social media. You don't have to take a selfie. I'm on my devotional time.

You don't have to tweet it. You don't have to post it to Facebook or Instagram.

You don't have to Snapchat anybody.

Just be there with God. There's no little voices saying, we need you.

Wipe my bottom. You know, there's none of that going on. It's just you and God.

Now, I'm not talking about isolating yourself. I'm not talking about isolation.

I'm talking about solitude.

When you think about what isolation is, is when you run from others,

when you hide, when you feel sorry for yourself or when it's just all about you.

But solitude's a little bit different or a lot different.

Solitude is something you do consistently, intentionally, where you deliberately

pause, where you take that time out, where you make space where God can speak

to you, you can speak to God, with the sole purpose of just hearing heaven,

hearing from God, hearing from his word, where you can just be like Jesus with your heavenly father.

Just taking that time to go for it.

Remember, there's no such thing as intimacy without intentionality.

And the promise is that we've got to make it a priority.

Our relationship with God to be fruitful, to be filled up, so we can pour out

and serve and minister to others, we've got to make sure we have those times.

Whenever you go on a mission trip, there's always one person in the crowd,

usually someone with medical background, and they're always reminding,

hey, have you drank your water yet?

Have you hydrated? Hey, when's the last time you had a bottle of water?

Why do they do that? Hey, I'm there serving the Lord, I'm trying to get this

done and I'm trying to get a lot done before we have to go back to the States or wherever.

Well, the medical professional knows you're not going to get anything done if

you develop heat exhaustion or heat stroke.

They want you to stay hydrated. They want you to be healthy as you're doing the work.

Hey, we can burn out pretty easy as people if we don't let God fill us up.

If we're not intentional about making sure we have the water breaks that we

need. The time to where we say, okay, God, feed me with your living water.

Let me bask it all in. When we think about being intentional in this.

Boy, my suggestion is find a place.

Find a time that works best for you.

Maybe for a lot of you, it's in the morning. When I used to live in California,

pastor a little church in the foothills, and I would drive to the Indian Reservation

just around the bend. It was probably 20 minutes.

Well, that was a perfect time And for me, I had a little audio CD, the Bible on audio.

I put that in my old CD player and I'm just cruising around and hear that and

talk to God as I'm going to the Thule Indian Reservation. Man,

those are beautiful times.

What time works best for you before bed? Maybe at the end of your day,

maybe in the middle of your day, you just take a mini pause during your lunch break.

I know we've got a lot of resources too. We've got the daily breads out there

that these are free to you.

Take one of these if you're not sure how to do this. And there's a little devotional

thought to read. There's always a scripture to read.

And for most all of these, we've got resources. We've got this for entire families,

a time to take a time out with your family. these family connects,

where it goes by the season and the dates, and it's got great discussion times for your dinner.

What are you learning in church? And I mean, just a beautiful time around God's

Word and letting your kids hear you pray for them and pray over them and hearing your kids pray.

We've got our Reflecting God devotional. This one's mine.

I got the large print out there for my tired eyes in the morning when I get

to the office, but same kind of thing.

A scripture It has a snippet of a hymn or a song.

If you want to sing a song, it's just a guide to help you spend that time.

If you're always on the go, and I know you don't really, shouldn't use social

media, but our church Facebook page, every day during the work week,

we post a short devotional based off of what the scripture and the passage,

or excuse me, the sermon was this last Sunday.

I'm telling you all this because I'm saying that we want to equip you to do that.

We want to equip you to be still. It's a choice you have to make to stop and

to sit in silence, to sit in solitude, to seek God and just to listen to him.

Soul talk honestly with God. You might be surprised at what your soul is saying.

What your soul says might not be the same thing your mind is saying.

Well, your mind might be, let's hurry up and get this over with.

I got about 20 other things to do.

Your soul is crying out, I'm thirsty.

I need water. I need living water.

Our soul might be desperate to say, I'm hurting.

I'm afraid. I'm ashamed. Maybe your soul might cry out, God, I'm mad at you.

Why did this happen? Or God, I need you, but I don't feel you're close.

I need more of you. God, I need more of you now. In silence before God,

what I want to encourage you to do is just surrender.

Surrender your illusion of control

and just give yourself fully to God and say, God, this is your time.

What do you want to say to me, God? You come face to face with who you really

are in the light of a holy God.

You see your shortcomings, your dysfunctions, your self-indulgent behaviors,

your false comforts, maybe even your secret sins.

And it's in this moment that you say, I can't do it anymore. God, I'm empty.

I've got nothing left to give. But it's in that moment, those moments where

you're real with God, where he's going to fill you.

He's going to fill you because you've emptied yourself of you.

You said, God, here's who I really am without you and my own strengths.

God, I'm nothing. And when you get over yourself, when you get rid of yourself,

you got more room for God to be in there, to fill you up with who he wants you

to be, with what he wants you to do.

And so, guys, I just want to ask you, this habit of slowing down, it's hard.

Man, I was telling the wolves before church, These sermons have preached to

me before you've even heard a lick of what I've had to say.

There's repentance I've had to do in my office or driving to here or from here.

I even went on sabbatical a couple years ago. That was the hardest thing I ever

had to do, to not do anything.

But there's something I did, and that was to take a time out.

I journaled my thoughts as I read through different scripture passages.

Melanie was with me as we went to some seminars just to soak in the Word and

to spend time together in prayer and reading through some books.

And, boy, just a great time to take a time out.

That discipline into your life to say, I've got to take time to be filled up

again because life is so demanding.

All these things, these are all good.

These are all things we need in our life, but they still take life out of us.

We've got to make sure we're refilled, that God refills us.

I mean, when you go to a restaurant, you drink all your drink and you're wanting

to refill on your Coke Zero, and that waitress or waiter doesn't come around

for a while, you start to get a little perturbed.

Okay, maybe I just get a little perturbed. I'm thirsty.

I'm paying $4 for a little tiny dinky glass of soda. I need like 10 refills. Come on.

We get a little mad when the refills don't come our way.

Boy, I hope we take that same kind of anger toward ourself when we don't fill

up getting a refill of God's grace, getting a refill of the life,

the abundant life that God wants to give to us,

boy, if you don't have the time, boy, you've got to make the time.

You've got to have the time.

You've got to make the time that you're going to say, this is what I'm doing. Don't make excuses.

You can know God or you can make excuses, but you can't do both.

Take the time to let God fill you up, folks.

Take the time for solitude.

Consistently, intentionally, disconnect like Jesus did from the crowd,

drown out the distractions, silence the never-ending noise.

There's no such thing as intimacy without intentionality in your relationship with God.

You can't busy your way to God, remember I said that, and you can't continue

to pour out if you don't fill up.

Be still and know that God, that he is enough for us today.

Let's pray. Father, it's in the name of Jesus.

Got another habit that we're looking at, how we're going to develop this in our life.

Father, solitude, getting away when life is all about go, go, go.

Lord, I know there's times that we make time for in our life.

There's a season we like to call hunting season. We make sure we have time for that.

God, there's a time in our life where it's fishing season, where it's vacation time.

Well, Lord, every day, can we find time? Can we make time to have these intentional

moments with you, God, just to pour out our heart.

Lord, to share in your word with you, God, and let you speak to us through that.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to encourage one another in this.

Lord, that in our families, that we make sure our spouses get this kind of time.

And that, Lord, we know that we take this time together even.

And so, Lord, may we be disciplined in this habit of solitude,

getting time away with you.

Lord, in the fictional series of Superman, even Superman got away alone.

When the reality of who Jesus is, Jesus showed us the example to get alone with

you. And so, Lord, help us to make that choice this week, to get alone with

you, God, intentionally and consistently, Lord, to develop this in our life.

And Father, we pray this today in Jesus' name. Amen.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon, as well as other sermons, and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.