Happy New You

Are you thinking about New Year's?

The other day I was in a I'd been given a gift card from Barnes ⁇ Noble for my birthday.

And so I was at Barnes and Noble uh just spending someone else's money, which is the best way to do that.

And I was in the checkout line and there was a a magazine sitting there and and a couple of articles on the cover that really intrigued me.

And I bought the magazine and I want you to know that for three and a half dollars now, all my resolutions are taken care of.

And uh it's it's really a good thing.

Uh it says so right here that I can have a new life in just eight hours.

So I'm really looking forward to that.

And uh, you know, one of these days, probably Wednesday or Thursday, I'll undergo eight hours of pretty hard work and and I'll be a whole new meet.

Uh another article in here, same job, less stress.

So I'm gonna pass that around the office when I'm done with it as well.

And and uh, you know, I I'm amazed at how easy it can be to have some New Year's resolutions.

There was uh there was a guy on TV this past week that somebody stuck a microphone in his face and said, What's your New Year's resolution?

And he said, Well, for me, he said, I like to keep mine attainable.

And so he said, I only have one New Year's resolution for 2003, and that's this, that all year long I won't fall down one time.

And as I as I listened to that, it occurred to me, you know, we really do tend to be very, very shallow and superficial in the way that we make goals and plans for the future.

And I wonder what it would be like if the people of God did something completely different than everybody else on earth.

And so while I want to say to you this morning that New Year's resolutions are a good thing, it's a good thing to make a plan to lose 30 pounds or to clean out the garage or to stop speeding or to stop biting your nails or to exercise every day.

These are good things.

I want to encourage you to do those things.

But in addition to those, could we think about some spiritual things as well?

Because God has a very, very specific and high purpose for your life that will never be seen or understood outside of relationship with Him.

And so I want to encourage you this morning that as you begin to think about some New Year's resolutions, that you think about a couple other things.

I want to be very, very specific this morning about two areas specifically.

These are very, very practical, very, very attainable things for you and me for the new year.

Two rock solid resolutions.

And number one is this, that you plan to love Jesus more.

I want to encourage you to open your Bibles to Joshua chapter 1.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

We're going to read from the first chapter of the book of Joshua here in just a minute.

But as you turn, let me explain what the difference is between a resolution and a plan.

A resolution simply is a commitment to a purpose.

It simply says that what my goal is, is that I'm going to lose 30 pounds or exercise every day or whatever it is.

A plan says, here's how I'm going to accomplish this resolution, this commitment.

And as good as it is for us to make resolutions and to think about how are we going to better ourselves next year.

I wonder, friends, if we've made a plan that we're going to love Jesus more over the next 12 months.

Because, you know, I think one of the great deceptions in the church today is that spirituality is one of those things that just sort of happens because, well, we showed up.

God was pretty lucky that today I was on his team.

I came to his house and I sang him a few songs.

And you know what?

That is not the way spirituality takes place.

Friends, today you need a plan to love Jesus more.

What's your plan?

Let me give you two things specifically to carry out your plan to love Jesus more.

Number one is pray.

It's not rocket science.

It's very, very simple.

But if you're like me, you found that though it's simple, it's not that easy.

And I want you to know this morning I'm not going to preach one of those guilt-ridden sermons because I don't believe people start to pray out of guilt.

For me, it'll last three, four, maybe five days max, because I feel guilty.

But it won't have any lasting effect at all.

I don't believe it will on you too.

And I don't think that's the way God wants people to be motivated to pray.

About a little over eight years ago, my wife and I moved to a little town in the Texas panhandle named Pampa.

And started my very first pastorate there.

And the Lord supernaturally brought into my life another pastor in that city who became something of a mentor to me.

He taught me how to pray and fast.

And one day he handed me a book.

And when one of your mentors hands you a book, you take it pretty seriously because there's not a lot of people that you allow that place in your life.

And so this book was by a man named Leonard Ravenhill, who died in 1994.

But the name of the book is Why Revival Tarries.

And I went home and I read the whole book.

But when I got to page 19, the first 30 minutes or so that I was in the book, I read two statements on page 19 that absolutely ruined me forever.

Here's what page 19 says.

Ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen degree or no degrees.

By our attitude to prayer, we tell God that what was begun in the Spirit, we can finish in the flesh.

Now let me tell you one thing about Leonard Ravenhill.

He wasn't being legalistic about no less or no more than two hours in prayer.

What he was saying was that if a person's going to be entrusted by heaven with leading a flock of God's people, if his relationship with God does not warrant a couple hours a day in his presence, that he will very quickly encounter some things that he can no longer handle.

And I took it seriously.

So that night I set my alarm for 4 a.m.

And I was excited.

And I my alarm clock went off at 4 a.m.

and I got vertical pretty quick.

That's the biggest thing.

What's your vertical?

It's it's easy from there, right?

And I was really excited because I I knew today I'm turning over a new leaf.

My life will not be the same after today because today marks a brand new day that I'm going to be available to God to do some things in my life that He He I've never made myself available before.

And so I went into the den of our home and I sat down and I began to pray.

And I prayed for my family.

And I prayed for the staff at our church, and I prayed for our elders, and I prayed for the church, and I asked God, God, pour out your spirit there.

God, bring lost people there.

God, let the gospel shine there.

I prayed everything I knew to pray, and I looked up at the clock and it was five after four.

I thought it's gonna be a long night.

Because I'm out of steam.

And so by sheer discipline, for two hours a day, I prayed.

And it got real, real difficult.

And I want you to know that I have tried every how to have a quiet time on the market.

Every prayer guide, every here's how to pray book that's ever been written, I it's on my bookshelf and I've tried it.

And for me, none of them worked.

And let me tell you why those things don't work.

Because God will not dishonor you by allowing you to fetch him with a program.

You don't fetch God with a program.

God wants a relationship with you.

And to the extent that those things build a relationship with God, they'll work.

But I was seeking a program.

And God said, I won't dishonor you that way.

Soon I quit praying.

And I quit praying because I was bored with God.

I quit praying because I was growing more and more miserable on the inside because I knew that there must be something wrong with me if I am bored with the creator of the universe.

But I didn't know what to do.

I'm convinced that one of the reasons that most Americans don't know how to pray is because we are the first people in all the history of God's people to not do it the way everybody else in the history of God's people have done it.

I'm not talking about another technique this morning.

And I'm not coming to you as an expert.

I'm telling you as one beggar who's telling another beggar where he found bread.

But I I want you to know this morning and hear me very, very clearly that none of God's people in all the history of God's people that we're aware of ever had a prayer life that was characterized primarily by thinking.

We are the first.

And I think it's because of some unscriptural notion that religion is to be a private thing.

I don't find that in God's word.

When you think all of your prayers, your mind wonders, does it not?

And pretty soon you forgot where you were, and all of a sudden you feel guilty because there must be something wrong if the creator of the universe cannot hold your attention for more than a few minutes.

Nothing wrong with him.

Gotta be something wrong with you, right?

Am I the only one that's been through this?

You know, if I if I if I expressed my my love to my wife in only one way, if I just spoke it to her, and that was the only way that I expressed my love to my wife.

Never bought her any gifts, occasionally didn't come home after work, never hugged her neck.

You think she could make a valid case that at least, even if it was sincere, that the fullness of my love for her was somehow not being realized.

You think that was that fair enough to say?

That's all I'm saying.

And I want to I want to visit with you this morning about what it is that makes prayer come alive.

Joshua 1, verses 7 and 8.

Joshua 1:7

It's on the screen, or if you've got your Bibles open, read along with me beginning in verse 7.

Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you.

Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Now let me let me back into verse 8.

Is there anybody in this room this morning that wants to be prosperous and successful?

Let me assure you, this is not just talking about financial things.

That it is God's will for your life.

That you are one of those people of whom it has spoken, everything they touch turns to gold.

His family, his relationships, his ministry, his business.

That is God's will for your life.

But what's the key to it?

Look again with me at verse 8.

I'm telling you, this is big here.

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.

For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Look again with me at Psalm 1, verses 1 to 3.

Psalms 1:1–3

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seed of the scornful.

But his delight, his overwhelming joy, the sole affection of his heart is in the law of the Lord.

And in his law he meditates day and night.

He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.

I was flying into Amarillo about six or seven years ago on a plane, and I noticed from the air some things that you can't really see from the ground.

You know that that's a desert up there.

You ever been to Amarillo?

That's a desert.

But you know what?

Wherever there's water, wherever there's a river, there are green trees all over the place.

That's God's will for you.

That in the midst of whatever desert you find yourself in, that you are a person who is like a tree who's planted by streams of living water.

So number one is pray.

Number two is meditation on God's word.

What is this thing called meditation on God's word?

Let me assure you, it is not some eastern form of religious mysticism that ends up finally in some state of nirvana, whatever that is.

I was watching uh Jay Leno one night, Richard Gere was on there, and and Richard Gere is a devout Buddhist.

And Jay Leno was asking him about his religion and what difference his religion makes in his life, and he said, every morning I get up and for one hour I meditate.

And Jay asked him, what is meditation?

He says, it's just a process of emptying.

Just emptying.

Friends, that's not biblical meditation.

Biblical meditation is filling.

It's filling.

This this English word meditate comes from two Hebrew words, and the secondary meaning actually is to think long about something.

You know what the primary meaning of these two words is?

It is the making of low or inarticulate sounds.

It's translated some places as moan, other places as mutter.

It's translated in the Old Testament both as the cooing of a dove and the growling of a lion.

Here's the principle.

That in the speaking of God's word, there becomes a deepening of your focus into his word.

In such a way that your mind and your heart become filled with the knowledge of God's word.

Here's two keys to meditation.

Number one is there is sound coming out of your mouth.

Here's the way that God made you.

That God uses your mouth to direct your mind to affect your heart.

That's the way you're made.

God never planned that you would be a person in whom the fullness of your relationship with him would only happen between your ears.

It's not the way God made you, friends.

God made you in such a way that he uses your mouth to direct your mind to affect your heart.

And as you begin to speak his word and to pray his word, something in your heart begins to beat faster, and there's a passion that begins to grow there.

There's two keys to this.

One is that there's sound coming out of your mouth.

The second is that it happens day and night.

When we find meditation in God's Word, what it talks about is both Joshua 1 and Psalm 1 is he meditates on it day and night.

And I studied this in the Hebrew.

You know what day and night means?

You guys are scholars.

If you're visiting at Gateway, I want to tell you that everybody who's a member here reads Greek and Hebrew in the original languages, and they're all about, I'm just kidding.

Day and night.

Do you know what really means day and night?

It really means all the time.

And here, there's a couple of reasons for this.

One is that if God is able to have your undivided attention every 12 hours, you're not very likely to backslide.

Now, Jeremiah affirms that your heart and mind is deceitful above all things, and even you don't know the filth and the evil that's bound up in your heart.

You don't know those things.

But God does.

But I want to tell you that if God has your undivided attention in the morning and at night, that you're not very likely to backslide.

Another thing that happens is that when we set our affections on God, that there becomes a thinking about God, whether we're disciplining our kids or driving to work in the morning or going to bed at night, there becomes just a constant affection for God.

You wake up, first thing that's on your mind is Him.

You go to bed at night, the last thing you think about is Him.

Look at two verses of Scripture with me.

One, Psalm 55, 17.

These are the words of David.

Listen to what David said.

Evening and morning and at noon, I will pray and cry aloud, and he shall hear my voice.

Look at Daniel 6, verse 10.

Daniel 6:10

This is just after Daniel's destinants in the lion's den has been written.

And when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, now the writing incidentally said that if anyone worships any God other than the king of Persia, that he's killed.

When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home, and in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days.

Since September 11th, we've seen a lot of Muslim religion on TV.

I was at the airport uh one day, and I saw over, I saw a Muslim man.

He was very being very private about it, but but he was serious about it.

He was he was bowing down toward Mecca, had his prayer shawl over his shoulders, and he was he was on his face.

Do you know where they get that?

They get that from God's people.

Every Muslim religious ritual they got from God's people.

But it's amazing to me that what they do out of legalism, most of God's people won't do out of grace.

My point here is not being legalistic about how long you pray, friends, but that you begin to pursue God in a way that you never have pursued him before.

All I'm encouraging you to do, friends, today is just show up.

Just show up.

When you show up, just open his word and begin to pray out loud what you see there, and before long it won't be out of discipline.

There is a line that happens in the spirit that you cross over where eventually you can't live without it anymore.

It's not out of discipline, it's out of love.

And you can't live without it anymore.

Let me tell you one of the things that happened to me about a year ago.

I had caught the flu.

A friend of mine called me on the phone.

He said, have you read the word?

I said, I read the word every day.

And he said, no, I mean, have you read the word over yourself?

And I said, what do you mean?

And he said, just go read, find something that excites you and read it.

So I opened the Bible to Psalm 103.

And I began to read out loud.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

And all that is within me, bless his holy name, and forget not all of his benefits, who forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases.

And I started jumping up and down.

And by the time I went to bed that night, I didn't have the flu anymore.

Friends, there is power and there is authority in the Word of God.

Do you realize that the Apostle John, the one whom Jesus loved, six times, five times in the gospel, and another time in 1 John 5, John said this, that anything we pray according to God's will, the answer is yes.

How do you know what God's will is?

God's word.

God's word is God's will.

Whatever you pray according to God's will, you have what you ask.

I remember the very first scripture that ever really grabbed my attention, praying scripture, was Ephesians 1, 17 to 19.

I didn't know, I'd never prayed scripture before.

And I was really struggling with this whole thing about, you know, I can't, I can't pray for 15 minutes.

I don't know what to pray for.

I came across Ephesians 1, 17, where Paul says, I pray.

And I thought, okay, we're going to pray here.

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of book, and I'm tracking with you now, God, that you may give, whoa, what's this?

That you may give to me a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you, O God.

I thought, whoa, this is good.

That God will give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that I know him better.

That's God's will.

That the eyes of my understanding would be enlightened.

Yes, Lord, I need that.

Oh, God, that I would know the hope of your calling, the riches of the glory of your inheritance in me, and what is the exceeding greatness of your power toward me, because I believe according to the working of your mighty power.

I began to read scripture.

I was uh one of the principles, one of the good things that I did learn from all those how to have a quiet time books was that you always start out with worship.

You realize you don't come into God's presence by groveling in your sin.

You realize that.

You enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.

You enter God's presence with worship.

No other way do you come into God's presence.

And so I I got to where I would get up all by myself and I would just begin to worship the Lord.

And before long it was the same old thing.

It was dusty.

I said that two weeks ago.

I'm bored with God again.

So I opened up the Psalms.

Song book of the Bible.

And it revitalized my life of worship.

George Washington Carver was one of the most fascinating men who ever walked in this country.

He did most of his research during the 1800s, but one of the things that he researched was the peanut.

And in his research of the peanut, he found more than 150 uses for the peanut.

And his research ended up uh revitalizing the whole economy of the South.

Somebody asked him one day, they said, Mr.

Carver, how did you ever think of 150 uses for the peanut?

And he said these words.

Anything will yield its secrets to you if you love it enough.

Anything will yield its secrets to you if you love it enough.

That's true of God.

Do you know God has secrets and He wants to tell them to you, but you can't find them in a program, and you can't find them even by just, you know, sometimes we even read the Bible through in a year.

It's like running a marathon.

We just want to say we did it.

You don't find them that way.

God shares them in relationship.

And I want to encourage you to begin to pray the Bible.

And the fullness of your life of prayer will begin to come like you've never seen before.

Make a plan to love Jesus more.

Here's your second resolution.

Set your heart on heaven.

Set your heart on heaven.

What if we lived in one of those cultures where your parents planned the person that you would marry?

And that as you grew, they began to survey all their friends and all their friends' children, and they made a choice one day, and they began to plan a wedding.

And about a month before, your wedding to a person you didn't know and had never seen, they came up to you and they said, We've got a picture of the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with.

You want to see it?

Would you want to see it?

Why would you want to see it?

See what you're getting into?

Did you know this is true of you?

That the Father has arranged a marriage for you.

And did you know there's a picture in here of your eternity?

Here's what I'm talking about.

I found six places in God's word where a living, breathing, flesh-encased person bore witness to an open heaven and wrote about what he saw.

Would you like to see him?

The clearest one is is Revelation 4.

And I'm encouraging you today.

You know, we we sang the song a while ago, better is one day.

Better is one day.

That's from Psalm 84.

And one of the things that the psalmist says that one, he says, one thing I ask, that I may see you in your beauty.

And I believe the reason that David could say, one day, oh God, one day in your house is better than a thousand anywhere else, is because David had seen the beauty of God in heaven.

And did you know God will show it to you too?

And what I'm encouraging you to do today, friends, is that you begin to pray through Revelation 4 and go in search of the other places in God's word where a flesh-encased person just like you saw with his eyes an open heaven.

Because only then will you see God as he really is.

There's a lot of opinions about what God looks like and what heaven's going to be like.

You know, the only one you can trust is in God's Word.

But what if you and I began to pray through Revelation 4 and the other places in Scripture so often that the moment you lay down in bed at night and you close your eyes, immediately you can see there's a throne.

And there's one sitting on it.

By the way, it's not a bench, it's a throne.

And there's one sitting on it, and there's Jesus at his right hand.

And there's a rainbow like an emerald circling the throne, and there's 24 elders on thrones dressed in white, and they have gold crowns on their heads, and there's four living creatures circling the throne, and they're crying out, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

And every time the four living creatures begin to worship God, the 24 elders fall down on their faces and cast their crowns at the foot of that throne.

What if you and I became so familiar with heaven that in a second and a half we could be there?

I think our hearts would change.

And that God would begin to show us things and speak to us in ways that we have never even dreamed of.

It seemed like just another day to me.

And I began to feel the Lord's presence in a way that was rare.

And the Lord came to me and he said, He said, Marcus, I don't have very many friends on the earth.

And I said, Lord, what do you mean?

And he said, There are a lot of people who talk to me.

But there are not that many that listen.

He said, Marcus, will you be my friend?

And this morning, the Lord lays that invitation before you.

Will you be his friend?

He thinks you're great.

He's got lots in store for you.

But you won't fetch him with a program.

He'll only be found in a relationship.

But when you find him,