Pastor Brodie | Spiritual Discipline | June 16th, 2025

I never knew Hot Wheels was a love language.

How many of you have a love language of brisket and uh steak?

Yes, men, their love language is uh a little different.

Uh who's the koala bear?

Is the koala bear here today?

I just gotta get a view.

Where where is he?

He's around, isn't he?

Why don't you stand up for the koala bear?

Let's see this cuddly bear.

Yeah, that's Dan.

Dan, Keith and his company, all ladies in the house, you have a fresh bathroom because Dan and his company renovated the bathroom.

I don't even know what it looks like because I don't go in there, but I'm sure it's beautiful.

Is it nice?

Yeah.

Wow, a lot of ladies have already gone to the washroom this morning.

You'll have to check it out afterwards, okay?

And we'll we'll do a little tour, guys, after we'll we'll just make it.

Anyways, I'll move on.

How many of you have ever said something that you wish you could retract?

That's the message today.

Uh we're on our fourth, our fourth, third, third part of our series on spiritual disciplines.

How many of you are having fun with this?

Spiritual discipline, building spiritual disciplines, commitments, building that discipline of uh having people in your corner and and building a life that uh is going to be um moving forward to God's purpose and plans for your life.

So it's an exciting time today.

Father, we just thank you for the word.

We thank you for the family that's here today.

Uh, thank you for all the dads and all the um the men in this church who have helped raise others and helped strengthen the foundation of this organization, this society, Lord, in this church to help raise it to that place where, Lord, you've called it to go.

And thank you for the vision that you've placed in our hearts for our future.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, today the title is called Proofreaders.

Would you just say proofreaders?

A proofreader is really important because it's it's someone who gives you the gift of feedback.

How many of you love feedback?

There are some of you who do, and some of you are liars, because not everybody is great at receiving feedback.

And this one is really personal to me.

My family will know this because they love to give me feedback, and I just love to listen and to hear, but hear it and grow.

But I know that if we're to grow and we're to mature, we need to be able to receive feedback.

Uh, did you ever send something?

Have you ever sent something out before uh and immediately regretted it because you didn't have a chance to actually edit it, so you sent it out.

And you're like, oh, I wish I could have returned that message.

Maybe the wrong recipient.

There's one mega church in Australia, Hillsong, sent out a massive, massive post um announcing this great um this great event that was happening at their church with this great speaker.

He has a great international pubic ministry.

And uh it was supposed to be public ministry, and everyone starts laughing, and it went out for the whole weekend.

Nobody changed it, and no one caught it.

This gaff by this mega church.

In life, there are no such things as a final draft.

We're all being edited, we're all growing, and we're all maturing.

And that's good news because there are things in our life that sometimes we do things that just don't all don't always come out right.

And we need to be able to realize and accept and receive the feedback and the and the receive the effect of that feedback, which is the growth of it.

So there are uh different organizations that have become really good at this.

Apple is one of those great organizations.

Apple was led by Steve Jobs.

They uh they were known for their ruthless feedback, and they built world-class products.

I just learned this week, they put 27,000 other companies out of business because of how big and how good they got to be as a company.

Under the leadership of Steve Jobs, he was known for his uh demanding excellence and giving brutally honest feedback.

And Apple's culture uh it thrived on iteration and uh refinement and not on just coddling people.

I I remember watching the documentary on Steve Jobs and he fired someone based on the font that they used in their email.

And he was like, this is not our culture.

You know, I I get it if it's like cartoon font.

It's like we're professionals here, we're not car that that isn't there.

But he was edited, they said that the iPhone was edited into brilliance.

It was edited into brilliance.

Toyota, how many of you love Toyotas?

Toyotas were built by this this cultural uh cultural um quality that they call in in Japanese culture kaizen, kaizen culture.

And it meant constant real-time feedback from everyone.

So it didn't matter who you were on the line of manufacturing, you could have just been on the line all the way down, and you had the power in that culture to stop manufacturing if you felt that the outcome wasn't what it was supposed to be.

You could stop up to that point.

Feedback wasn't optional, it was built into their success, and it was a part of their DNA that everyone was working on development, and everyone was working on bettering and giving feedback on the process.

NASA, NASA rocket scientists, engineers, in 1999, NASA built a$125 million Mars climate orbiter sent out into space, and because one team used metric units and the other team used empirical units, that$125 million item just went flying into space.

No one proofread the data properly, no one checked their communication.

Uh communication had breakdown, and that that cost them$125 million.

Now, if the top companies in the world require feedback, the top individuals in the world require feedback, even rocket scientists and engineers need that feedback, how much more do we need feedback?

And when you look at the scripture, and if you look at it with eyes that are open to feedback, you'll see that the Holy Spirit has been given to us to proofread our life and to give us that feedback into our life, not just not to tear us down, but to reinforce our life and to build our life and to help us to grow.

So spiritual discipline isn't the reality that we've just stopped and we're gonna be good on our own, but it's submitting ourselves to feedback via others, via the Holy Spirit.

It's part of our journey in our faith.

Feedback is a form of faithfulness.

It's a form of faithfulness to give feedback.

Proverbs 27:6 says this faithful, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.

Proverbs 27:6

So it's good to have a friend who gives you feedback.

And if we're honest today, a lot of us would rather be liked than be loved.

We would rather be someone who's liked by their parent, not loved by their parent.

And I've told my kids, I said, there are gonna be many friends in your life who are going to like you, but their like is gonna be temporal.

But God gave you a parent in your life, a father in your life who loves you enough to tell you the truth about your life and commit to be with you to walk that through in your life.

And it doesn't always mean that you'll like me.

But love tells the truth even when it hurts.

Helps people to grow, helps people to achieve success.

And we live in a culture built on phrases like, hey, you just do you, even if it's going the wrong way, you just do you, bro.

It's like you're gonna die.

Things aren't gonna end up well.

Just do you.

We live in a culture that promotes and celebrates the the spirit of don't judge me, just let me be.

And that's not loving to each other.

The kingdom of God doesn't run on independence, it runs on interdependence.

God would never have put the church here if we were all called to live our life individually, solo.

We're here and we gather together because we're intended to support and help one another to grow.

In God's economy, faithfulness is not passive agreement, it's it's active refinement.

It's refining you into the person that God has created you to be.

I know there are people in your life, they're great, they're great to have the people that can hype you up, and then there are people who are there to actually help you to grow.

It's like, and we sometimes we need the people in our life who are honest with us, that will help us and speak honestly to us.

I don't want a doctor who says, that that there, oh, you know what, don't worry about that.

That looks okay.

Don't, you know, I know you're kind of anxious about it.

Let's just put a band-aid on it.

I want a doctor who looks at it, reviews it, asks me difficult questions, and and assesses where the injury comes from so that I can actually be healed.

Come on.

That's good.

And I think that is a really important day today, as being a Father's Day, is that we live in a culture where men have to learn how to correct well and to lift up well, and to support well the people in their life and the and the kids in their life.

And so loving someone is oftentimes telling them the hard truth in love.

So uh I like to think about this as the proofreader analogy.

When you write a uh a document, you can become the author, the the uh the choice, the craft of the words, the the layout, the direction of the story is in your control.

But a proofreader comes in not to try and change the story, but to help you refine your story.

And that you've got people in your life who are refining you and helping you grow.

And I think that is so important that we have those people in our life.

So the scripture says surround yourself with friends who will wound you with their with their um instruction, with their feedback, because it's better to have the wound of a friend than the kiss of an enemy.

So surround yourself with those people.

It's a part of our spiritual discipline.

There are often there are people in my life I am an unc I am uncomfortable with.

On purpose.

They tell me hard things.

They they they push back at me, and I'm like, I don't like it.

How many of you know it's it's easy to put yourself around yes people?

Yeah, people who coddle you, stroke you, bless you, tell you all the good things about you, versus the people in your life who will actually tell you the truth, because the truth is actually what matters.

So part of our spiritual discipline is to surround yourself with people who love you enough to give you the honest feedback in your life.

And that you might think, well, this is a strange topic to think about on Sunday, but the reality is it becomes a part of our spiritual discipline with one another.

Proverbs 29:5 says this a man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.

Proverbs 29:5

In other words, those people who flatter, the people who sp who always just say nice things to build you up and to try and get in your good grace, they're actually setting a trap for you.

And you're supposed to beware because lest you get caught in that trap.

The world is full of people who will who will be the ones giving you the kisses of the enemy, but you need the truth.

Uh, there in 1 Samuel or 2 Samuel 12, David had this uh this moment, King David, where he his men were out to war, and he was sitting on his balcony and he watched and he saw this woman, and he's like, Hey, I want to get to know who that woman is, calls her, as the king calls her, and and and ends up he sleeps with her.

Uh, she gets pregnant, and he finds out that when she's pregnant, that her husband is on the front lines of this battle that they're fighting.

And so he calls the husband to come come back from uh the front lines and to spend some time with his wife, hoping that he would sleep with his wife and he could hide the pregnancy, hide his his um his sin.

And he the man, the Uriah, decides he's not gonna do it.

He says, the rest of my men, they're not able to go to their homes.

I'm not gonna go to my home.

And when David realizes that that couldn't happen, he actually sends him to the front line.

And he dies at the front of the line, at the front of the battle.

And David thinks he's hiding his sin in the process, and Nathan, a prophet, comes to find David.

And he finds David, and he doesn't start directly with an accusation, instead, he starts with a story and he starts telling David about this one man and this one family who had this one sheep that he they loved so dearly, and this rich man comes in from out of town and who has all these sheep, and instead of killing his sheep, he takes that one man's precious sheep and ends up killing that sheep.

And David is irate, and he says, Who is this guy?

Let's find him, let's kill him.

And Nathan says to him, You are that guy.

You have all the, you had all the power, you had all the women, you had all the options, and you took that one man's wife, and then you sent him to the front line, you had him killed.

And he and David's response to it was immediate grief, an immediate sorrow, an immediate, uh, like the Bible talks about him taking ashes and pouring it on his head.

He didn't eat, he, and there was punishment for it.

And all that situation created in him that this grief and this mourning for what he had done, and he went to God and he tried to stop God's judgment, but the judgment actually went through.

The feedback is important.

How you respond to that feedback is important.

God puts people in your life to help you, to give you that proper feedback.

We all need editors in our spiritual community.

We need people in our life who are helping us in our journey.

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24 and 25 say this.

Hebrews 10:24

Consider, like, look for opportunities.

Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, but encouraging one another.

You know how we encourage with spurs.

Poke, poke, poke, encouraging.

I love that.

I'm just encouraging you.

Let's go, let's get to it.

He's encouragement is there, and all the more as you see the day coming.

And if we're honest more, most people want encouragement without challenge, community without confrontation.

But true formation, spiritual formation doesn't happen in isolation.

In fact, it happens with friction in our life.

That word spur means to nudge, to suggest, to move ahead, to to prod, to push one another towards love and good deeds.

Growth isn't always smooth.

Sometimes it's actually quite abrasive.

You need a shock to your system.

If you haven't gone the other day, there was uh there were a number of people who are running, and I I've uh for uh there was a marathon yesterday downtown, and and uh I haven't I hadn't run for a while.

And it was a shock to my system.

All of a sudden you realize you're using muscles you haven't used before.

Like there's a muscle, a flex, like there's a T band, like this one little band on the side of your leg that gets like and then the your uh hip flexor that's responsible for you like raising your leg.

And when you run, you have to raise your leg like quite a bit, apparently.

And when you're training this way, when you're training, you have to do these exercises that are unlike other of the vanity exercises, you know, biceps, arms, chest, back, all these like strong muscles.

You end up going to the gym, lifting up the top of your leg like this, doing that 50 times to work on your tibialis, which is like on the front of your shin, and you're doing like these weird little, you know what I'm talking about.

It doesn't look cool.

There's one little muscle that you gotta work on, or a muscle on the side that you're having to work on, and you're sweating away, and it's not, it doesn't look great.

It doesn't look cool, but in order for you to grow, you have to be prodded and pushed to do those small things to build those small things well because your body, you could have great biceps and a great, like, yeah, be like huge.

And if your Achilles is weak, you're gonna make it only a hundred yards.

Come on, you have to find those opportunities to actually work out those areas in your life that where people can correct you and help you to grow.

And Father's Day can be a great day to thank the men in your life who told you what you needed to.

Hear, not what you wanted to hear.

And if you have a chance today, and I hope you do that, take a moment and text a man in your life who actually helped you to do the things that you know you needed to do, not what you wanted to do.

And it may have been a boss, it may have been a pastor, it may have been just a leader in your life, someone who you esteemed and valued, who helped you to grow, but to actually honor those people who challenged you.

Because it may have been those small challenges that you didn't want to hear it.

You didn't want to do the work that they were telling you to do.

But when you did it, you realize that there was value to it.

If we don't have editors in our life, we start thinking we're always right.

We start, and it leads down the road to spiritual dysfunction in our life.

We become unteachable and uncoachable and therefore unreachable.

And you just start devolving in that place.

C.S.

Lewis said this the next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are wise.

I may not be the smartest man in the group, but I've surrounded myself with smart men in the group.

Therefore, I absorb, I receive that wisdom, I receive that counsel.

And I love having those people in my life.

I realize my own limitations and I make sure to support it.

And I'm telling you this today because I believe in you.

I believe God's got more for you.

And I believe that you've got a dream life and you've got a calling and you've got a purpose and you've got a breakthrough.

And your next level might be on the other side of someone speaking to you, something that's hard, but something that you embrace, something that you take on to actually get to that next place in your life.

Often in our lives, we we reach a plateau and then we stop.

And we say, you know what, that's it.

That's the place where I want to go, and then I'm not gonna go any farther.

And God is actually calling you to a higher place.

And you need people in your life who are going to spur you on to something greater, to something more.

And that might be missions, it might be more like a different work ethic that is thinking about how you're gonna use that extra resource to actually create generosity in your life.

It might be a move.

We have some here today, they just moved all the way from Calgary feeling called to come to clone.

It wasn't comfortable, but you're here and welcome.

Let's give them a hand.

Yeah, come on.

Amy and Jeff, Turner Hayes, they're great to be with us.

You can't become who who God made you to be if you're allergic to that edit, allergic to that feedback.

We need to submit to it.

And listen, you might say, well, I'm kind of like I'm kind of above that.

Well, I'm and I'm telling you today, you're not.

Paul had to speak to Peter, Apostle Peter, Saint Peter.

Saint Peter was coming to a point where he was like hanging out with a lot of people who are non-Jews, which was a big deal.

He was hanging out with non-Jews, he was eating with them, connecting with them, sharing the gospel with them.

And then when the Jews came into the room, Peter snuck away from the non-Jews and sat with the Jews, pretending like he didn't know the others.

And Paul, his friend, came to him and in front of everyone, spoke to him directly to his face.

You hypocrite.

What are you doing?

Whenever these guys come in, you leave these guys all alone.

You pretend that you don't know them, and you need to get this right.

And he confronted him on a very public level because the gospel was a public message.

And it was, and he had to confront it.

And if that happens with Paul and Peter, it can happen with us.

We have to be open to that.

Lastly, this share this with you.

Correction doesn't always mean rejection.

Correction requires humility to receive.

Proverbs 12 says this whoever loves discipline loves knowledge.

But he who hates correction is stupid.

I love that translation.

Pretty straight.

If you love correction, if you love discipline, you're wise.

But if you reject discipline, reject correction, it's a stupidity.

There's a stupidity there.

Humility.

Correction requires humility.

There's a difference between criticism and correction.

Criticism tears you down.

Correction is there to build you up, to re-restore that area that may have been going off out of a or out of alignment.

But correction doesn't have to be perfect in order for it to be profitable to you.

It doesn't have to be perfect to be profitable.

You need to be able to look at what people are sharing with you and actually receive it with humility.

And so that rejection isn't there, that sense of rejection is what immature people see it as reject correction is rejection, but the mature see it as direction.

Correction is actual direction.

It's like saying you were off two degrees.

Well, I need to know that.

Your spouse, your father.

How many of you just receive correction from your father just gloriously?

Yes, dad, share with me all the things that I you can see that I'm doing off.

It's like, it just doesn't go over that well.

Moses is dealing in the desert with a million plus, a million plus virtually refugees moving on their way from Egypt to some promised land.

They're walking in the desert, and Moses is sitting there every day trying to bring counsel and judgment to all the issues that are happening with these million people.

And finally, Jethro, who's his father-in-law, comes into where uh Moses is and stops Moses and just virtually says to him, if you keep doing it this way, you're gonna burn out.

And how many of you know that Moses had an opportunity there?

My father-in-law.

Yeah.

My father-in-law is in the room today, but my father-in-law doesn't know his lane.

I'm in charge of this whole million people.

I'm the one who raised my hand and raised the staff and the Red Sea split.

I'm the one who's in charge.

I should know what I'm doing.

Like, I'm me, me, me.

Instead, what did he do?

He humbled himself in front of his father-in-law, Jethro.

And Jethro says to him, You're burning yourself out.

This is what you need to do.

Raise up people who are have a fear of God in them, good people, good men, put them in places of authority, divide the people up into you know leaders of that thousands and hundreds and tens, and manage from that place.

Create delegative authority.

And when Moses did that, it freed him up to do the things that he was called to do.

But he would never have been able to do the things he had been called to do had he not listened to his own father-in-law.

Embracing that, remaining humble in those moments, and rejecting pride will make a big difference for us in those moments of correction.

Because correction is not rejection, correction for the spiritually disciplined is direction.

Direction for each and every one of us.

Lastly, let me invite the team to come up if they can make it.

Letting the Holy Spirit be your editor.

I wanted to end with this today.

Because I believe that we all have opportunity to have the Holy Spirit in our life, connected to his voice.

He's there for us and for our benefit.

Jesus himself said, It's better that I leave so that the Holy Spirit can be sent to you.

And he will speak, he will come to you, he will not only comfort you, he will correct you, and he will convince you of things that are righteous.

Help you see between which way to go, left or right, what's right and evil, or right versus evil, good and evil.

John 16, 13 says, when the he, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.

Feedback is not just a relational tool, it's a spiritual discipline.

The Holy Spirit was sent to us to help us keep our life in line, and we need to be receptive to His His His Word in our life.

And that's why it's so important that when we come to church and it's part of our daily routine, we're not just saying, saying all the things about us, but we're stopping and we're allowing Holy Spirit to speak to us, to shine light into our own hearts, into our life, and bring alignment into our life where we could go off to help keep us in track.

He is our most faithful, most precise, most consistent editor in our life.

He doesn't just encourage you, he refines you.

He doesn't just comfort you, he corrects you.

And his difference is that condemnation, the spirit didn't come to condemn you to tell you like you are can where condemned condemnation would say you are a mistake.

Conviction says you're better than your mistake.

And it's not me saying, son, you are bad.

It would be saying, son, you've got more.

You were created for more.

You've got more in you.

And instead of giving your life to these things that are vanity, empty, smoke, and mirrors, you're called to something greater.

That's what the Holy Spirit does.

The Holy Spirit comes into our life not to put us down, but to inspire us and lift us up.

The Holy Spirit is a fire and it charges the battery of our soul, charges the battery of our spirit, and gives us that dynamite power to say, by your spirit, Lord, all things are possible.

By your spirit, not by might nor by power, but by your spirit, Lord, I can accomplish these things because you're refining me and you're giving me the feedback I need to be able to make my way to your destination, into my destiny.

Holy Spirit, calm.

First Thessalonians 5 19 says this don't quench the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit starts churning something in your life and it starts getting uncomfortable, don't pour water on it.

Don't quench the flame.

Allow the Holy Spirit to do its work.

Is the Holy Spirit moving you into something different, into something new, into something that's out of your out of your comfort, and maybe dealing with a soft point in your heart, and where we sit back and we just say, Lord, we receive, I receive from you Holy Spirit today.

Correct, convict, direct me into your destination for my life.

In Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name.

You may have people in your life who have been the editors of your life.

Those people in your life who've been, like I said, the fathers.

You may have had those people in your life like the like the Holy Spirit.

And instead of instead of like pushing them away and rejecting them, I want you to say, thank you.

Thank you for coming and helping me.

Because you know we all have blind spots.

We all have those areas that we don't see that others see.

And we need one another to help us grow.

And we need one another to actually move us into that life that God has called us towards, called us into.

And that could be a person in your life you're sitting with today.

It could be a new person that you just have on the other end of a phone and who's just honest with you and just tells you the way it is.

And I want you to come to the Lord and say, Lord, I receive today, and I just put down any pride, and I receive humbly the correction and the discipline of good people around me that are going to be there to help me grow.

Because that's important.

Would you stand with me?

Let's just bow our heads for a moment.

Father, we just thank you for your Holy Spirit.

Today of all days.

Father, heavenly Father.

Heavenly Father.

You said it was a joy.

There was a joy in your spirit.

There was a joy in your heart to discipline.

To discipline because you love.

To correct because you love.

To align because you love.

And so, Father, today that realignment, that discipline, we just receive it today.

We say yes to you, Holy Father.

Yes to you, Heavenly Father.

We come by your Spirit, fill our hearts, fill our mind, fill our soul, fill us, Lord, so that we may be able to see, Lord, the areas in our life that are needing that attention, that we may be helped to be able to move forward.

Father, I know that there's so much more in this room.

I'm just sensing, even as I'm praying here, I know that there are those who have spiritual gifts.

There's gifts, those in this room who are carrying the gift of miracles in this room.

There are those in this room who are carrying the gift of prophecy.

They can speak words of life to places that seem dead and see life come out of it.

There are people in this room today who are who have a future for encouragement and that you bring courage, you inject courage to a situation.

Father, today, we by your spirit, would you just breathe into this place?

Breathe on the flame that is already in our heart.

Breathe into the flame that is already there.

Those people who are called to do great acts of faith, great acts of healing, great acts of miracles, great words, great books that would come out of this place.

Lord, you've called us to more.

Great apostleship, planting and going places where no one else has gone.

Great wisdom, great pastoral care, great in Jesus, great craftsman in this room today.

Great great inventions, great ideas, great generosity in this place today.

Father, just breathe.

Breathe on every heart, breathe on every soul, breathe on every dream, breathe on every vision, breathe of Holy Spirit.

Come and breathe, Lord, on the young people.

Speak, Lord, to their heart today, and cause a vision to be imprinted on their mind's eye.

Father, of your calling in their life.

Feedback to stop looking at the areas that are not profitable, but to look to you, take our eyes off the things that grow strangely dim and move us into that place where we see the life and the light eternal.

In Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name.

Hallelujah.

Let's just begin to worship him for a moment here.

Let's just begin to worship.