Eliminating Hurry Rhythms: A HeavenEarth Message with Pastor Emily Holverson

Welcome to Heaven Earth Church.

My name is Ross Stackhouse.

I'm the founding pastor of Heaven Earth Church.

From the beginning, our heart was to be a church for people who

don't fit neatly into church.

Our heart is to meet people where they are, to learn their stories,

to honor their stories.

Because in every human story is God's story.

In this podcast, you'll hear more about the people who now call

Heaven Earth Church home.

Their stories, in many cases of misfits who are discovering or

rediscovering faith.

If you want to know more about us, you can go to heavenorthchurch.org

Otherwise, we invite you now into the story.

Hello, good people.

Brad Miller here, the producer of the Heaven Earth Church podcast.

One of the main benefits of being a part of the Heaven Earth

Church community is our Sunday morning conversations taught by founding

pastor Ross Stackhound.

You can watch and participate in the Sunday morning conversation

this Sunday morning, 9:30am Eastern time at YouTube.com heavenerthchurch.

The audio version of the Sunday morning conversation is available

here on the podcast, which you can find at Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

Facebook, and on the website, which is heavenearthchurch.org now

with the message eliminating Hurry rhythms is Heaven Earth Church

pastor Emily Hoverson.

Lord, for as many people as here are here this morning who are

online, who are just coming together, Lord, there are so many

different situations on our hearts.

People that we love, who are hurting, things that we're celebrating,

things that we wish we could change, struggles that we're trying

to overcome.

Lord, would you just meet each one of us today?

Would you help us to hear your voice?

Would you help us to lean into you?

We love you, Jesus.

We just give you this time.

Amen.

Well, we've been going through this series on this book called the

Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer.

And last week, Ross talked about this tool called A Rule of

Life.

And really.

So if you're interested in again in Church Center, Mikey, can

you go to the next slide?

Yeah.

So the Rule of Life, this is an ancient tool.

It's an old, old thing, but it's really just a way to look at

our lives and how we structure them.

If you're interested more of what that looks like or more of that

process, again in Church center, right on the homepage, there

are some links that Ross put in there.

These also went out in an email yesterday, I think from Ross,

but with some different tools and resources for working through

a rule of life and for building one.

And additionally on November 8th, I believe we are going to have

a Rule of Life workshop.

So it's going to be kind of the third installment of our Discovery

series.

So we had Discovery one and we had Discovery two that were on our

core values and about our discipleship essentials.

And then our discovery3 is going to be a workshop actually on

the Rule of Life.

So it'll be a Friday night, and you're welcome to join us.

We'll have more information about that next week, but that's

coming up, so.

But really what the Rule of Life, what it really is all about,

is asking this question.

That is, how am I making my choices in my life?

And do my choices align with the way of Jesus?

So we talk a lot about here about aligning with Jesus's way in

what we do and how we're going about things.

And so that's really what that boils down to.

And so this morning, we're gonna look at this idea again, but

from a little bit of a different perspective.

So I have a couple people who are gonna come help me with something.

And actually, you're all gonna help me.

But.

So Adam and Kaylee, do you guys want to come up here?

They live with me, so they're my, you know, they're my ready people.

But in music, who wants to be on which.

No, you better be on this side.

She needs to be on this side.

She has the more complicated part.

Not that I doubt your ability at all.

Two elements called beat and rhythm.

Do you know the difference between the two?

Some of you are nodding.

Some of you are looking at me with blank stares.

That's okay.

I'm going to explain, and then we're going to practice this together.

So the beat of a song is kind of that driving force that kind of

undergirds everything that like, that keeps everything steady

and that all of the other parts, they align with.

And the rhythm is all of the other things on top of that.

So whatever notes and rests are played or not played, those are.

That's the rhythm.

So we're going to illustrate this together.

At least we're going to try.

Okay, so we're going to do this side first.

You have the easy part.

Okay, so I'm going to give you a beat, and Adam is going to clap

an eighth note rhythm, and you're going to follow adam and clap

8th notes along with him.

If you don't know what an eighth note is, that's okay.

Just follow along.

Okay, over here.

Are you ready?

Okay, so same deal, except you're going to try.

You're Going to clap a triplet beat.

If you don't know what a triplet is, that's fine.

Again, just follow along.

Kaylie will help you.

Okay, you ready?

Hey, that was good.

Good job.

Good job.

Okay, now we're going to do it together.

Okay?

So triplets over here.

Eighth notes over here.

I'm going to keep the beat.

We're going to try this, okay?

All right, Here we go.

Hey, good job, everybody.

Very, very good.

All right.

Thank you.

You guys can give yourselves a hand.

That was really good.

Yeah, you guys are very, very rhythmic.

That's really good.

You even kept it together when I stopped playing the beat.

That was good.

Yeah.

So in life, we see kind of a similar concept play out.

So in our life, right, we make choices, a gazillion choices every

day.

What am I going to eat?

What am I going to wear?

How am I going to engage with this person?

Am I going to have that conversation?

Am I not going to have that conversation?

What am I going to do for work today?

Am I going to meet that deadline?

Do I.

Whatever.

All the things, we have all of these different choices that we face.

And as we kind of make a certain series of choices, we fall

into different habits, we fall into patterns or routines.

We can kind of come up with schedules and kind of put our lives

together in a way that gives us some kind of a rhythm.

Human beings in general feel more comfortable when we have some

kind of a rhythm, some kind of a routine.

Mental health workers in our congregation, is this a true thing,

generally speaking, that people in general feel more comfortable

if they have a sense of rhythm.

Is that true?

I see some nods.

Okay, so there have been some studies done that I've seen that.

Look at this.

And when people don't have kind of a steady rhythm, they tend

to.

They don't sleep as well generally.

They tend to not be as healthy, they tend to have more stress,

they tend to not be as efficient.

All kinds of different things that happen when we don't have this

rhythm.

And so a question that I have for us this morning is, as we're

creating our rhythms, what are we.

What are we doing that around?

How are we making choices?

How are we setting these rhythms?

Is it.

Is it kind of random?

Or are we listening to the steady beat of the Holy Spirit and

trying to align with Him?

So I'm going to show you a little bit more what I mean by that.

We're going to look at a scripture this morning from the Book

of Mark, and in there, we're going to See, just a glimpse into

the life of Jesus.

So again, we talk about how are we aligning our lives with him?

What does that look like?

And so this is Jesus's day.

Kind of we're going to see that time with God informs and empowers

the work that God invites us to do.

So before I read the scripture, just what are your thoughts

on that?

You can go back one slide.

Mikey, what are your thoughts on this statement here?

That time with God informs and empowers the work that God invites

us to do.

There's kind of a lot in that little sentence there.

So for pt, if he doesn't have his couple minutes, his two to five

minutes with God, he feels like he goes out of rhythm in a day.

What are some other thoughts about that sentence?

I saw what you did there.

Yeah.

So Joey talks about just that time up front of reflection and how

taking even those few moments, it sets a tone for the day and gives

you a beat.

And if you don't do that, it may not happen.

Does anybody look at this and be like, that's a nice idea, but

I mean, seriously, have you seen my schedule?

Sometimes I feel like that I was going to show you.

I didn't actually put the slide in here, but I was going to

show you.

I'm a spreadsheet maker.

I like spreadsheets a lot.

Some of you are like, you're my person, and some of you are like,

stay away from me, okay?

But I'm a spreadsheeter because I like to see things.

I like to see schedules, and I want to make sure I'm doing.

I'm also an enneagram one.

So I don't know if you, any of you do the enneagram, that'll tell

you something.

But what that means is I just, I like to do things in ways that

feel right to me.

That's.

That's a lot of what it means.

And so I sometimes will spend a lot of time spreadsheeting my life

to try to go, am I getting all of the things in there that I need

to get in there?

Do I have my quiet time?

Do I have exercise?

Do I have time with my family?

Do I have my work time?

And all these different things, it actually work.

And then usually I'm like, oh, it did.

Look, it's all possible.

And then the next day I'm like, but I didn't do the thing.

I didn't stick to my schedule is usually what happens.

But then sometimes when I look back at my schedule, it is a little

bit overwhelming.

To me, because I look at it and I go, there's very little margin

in there.

So if I don't stay right on top of everything, or if somebody

else in my life maybe like takes some extra time that I wasn't

in accounting for it, it throws this off.

And I've had to kind of learn how to navigate that.

What does it look like in a particular season of my life, in

a rhythm of my life, because my rhythms change depending on the

season and depending on some different things.

There's some that undergird it all.

But this is kind of this big idea for today, so we'll come back

to that.

But anyways, we're going to look for a minute at this life of

Jesus and a day in his life.

So we're going to look at the Gospel of Mark, Mark 1.

And in Mark's gospel, everything happens really fast.

It's kind of like the abridged version of the gospel.

So everything is really, really, really quick.

So Jesus has a really busy day, but we're gonna, we're gonna

look at this really busy day of Jesus.

And as we do, I just want you to want to ask this question for

you is what do you notice Jesus doing?

So as we read through the scripture, what do you notice Jesus

doing?

So here we go.

Can you go to that next?

Thanks, Mikey.

As soon as they left the synagogue, the they there, this is

Jesus and his disciples.

So as soon as they left the synagogue, the Jewish place of worship,

they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew.

Simon is also known as Peter, same person.

Simon's mother in law, Simon was married.

Simon's mother in law was in bed with a fever.

And they immediately told Jesus about her.

So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up.

The fever left her and she began to wait on them.

That evening after sunset, the people brought to Jesus all the sick

and demon possessed.

The whole town gathered at the door and Jesus healed many who had

various diseases.

He also drove out many demons.

But he would not let the demons speak because they knew who

he was.

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.

And Jesus replied, let us go somewhere else, to the nearby villages

so I can preach there also.

That is why I have come.

And so he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues

and driving out demons.

So what did you Notice Jesus doing.

Yeah, Crystal.

So he went off alone.

Yeah.

To talk to God.

Yeah.

God the father.

Yep.

What else do you see him doing?

Spreading the kingdom of God.

Do you want to expand upon that a little bit?

So Phoenix says he's spreading the kingdom of God.

So not just the word that was already there, but the kingdom of

God.

Kind of the bigger element of what that entailed.

Yeah.

Relationship with God.

He's delivering people from the evil one.

Yep.

Anything else you noticed him doing?

Yeah, Charles.

He didn't sacrifice his mission with the urgent.

Do you want to say anything more about that?

Yeah.

So Charles just talks about Jesus.

He kind of.

He came and he did what he needed to do.

He didn't kind of get caught up in the immediate needs that were

presented kind of before him in almost like a codependent way.

But instead he was really clear and focused on his mission

and what he was there to do.

Anything else?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Yulima talks about how Jesus is resetting.

I love that word.

Yeah.

Like, he's doing this work.

He's being with people and healing people and doing this work,

but he takes this time to kind of go and reset with.

With God.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is a great point.

So Angela talks about the practicality of this.

Like, what does this look like practically in my life sometimes

if, like, in their situation, hers and Ross's, they have small

kids.

And so if Ross is doing his devotions, somebody else.

Angela is with their kids.

So what does it look like then for her to have some of those spaces

and places in time?

How many of you are morning people?

I'll come back to you, Kara, in just a second.

How many of you raise your hands really high?

Morning people.

Do it.

Come on, be proud.

Okay.

How many of you are night people?

We're like 50, 50 split kind of guys.

Okay.

Night people.

So, like.

So night people, you like to stay up late.

Okay, so just.

We'll come back to that in a minute too, all right, Cara?

Yeah.

I chose not to highlight that part of the scripture, Kara, So.

But I did.

So there's.

There's actually another story.

It shows up in a couple of the other gospels about Martha and Mary,

where you have Mary, there are two sisters, and Jesus is at their

house with a whole bunch of other people.

And Mary is sitting at Jesus feet and she's listening to all of

the teaching, and Martha's making dinner, and Martha kind of

gets upset, and she's like, jesus, will you tell her to come

help me?

And Jesus is like, martha, she's doing a good thing.

Like, what do you want me to say to you?

Like, no, she's, she's, she's.

He says she has chosen what is better and it will not be taken from

her.

That's.

And I've heard more than one sermon about how Martha represents

busyness in life and how she's all distracted.

And I feel like Martha gets a really bad rap because Martha's trying

to take care of people.

So for some, some of us maybe who have those caregiving roles that

are really demanding and really, like, there is like a time

structure here where my life is sort of to try to make sure all

these other people are taken care of.

There's some very practical, legitimate challenges that are difficult.

Now, Martha, later on is the one who goes out to meet Jesus.

When Jesus comes to heal after their brother Lazarus dies, Jesus

comes.

He's late.

He's not really late, but it feels like he's late.

And Jesus comes to them.

Martha is the one who goes out and she's like, jesus, if you had

been here, he wouldn't die.

So it wasn't like Martha didn't have faith.

And Mary was the one, like, hanging back inside.

Martha had this faith in Jesus and she's trying to figure out what

does it look like to follow you, Jesus, and to yet also have

these practical, realistic expectations that demand my time.

So you're in good company a lot to say.

Anything else that you notice Jesus doing?

So Amanda's.

Amanda's talking about noticing that it doesn't have to

be a big deal this time, that we're investing and reflecting and

being with God and this resetting.

Like, sometimes we can get caught up on the how or make it feel

like it has to be this big thing.

But it can be a very simple.

It can be a very simple practice.

And whatever time we do have, like, that's good.

Yeah, yeah.

Jesus also ate.

That's another thing I noticed from the scripture.

Like, that's a very normal, everyday life thing.

You know, sometimes.

Sometimes I think I've looked at scripture and I look at Jesus

and I'm like, Jesus did all these amazing things, which he did,

but he also did really, really human things, like walked and ate

and he did a lot of just normal, living human things.

And so we, we see that, like everything you guys just said, just

going to recap just a little bit, but we, we see Jesus working,

right?

So he's not just sitting on a hillside someplace.

Now I'm, I'm.

I love sitting on a hillside, especially if it's a pretty one.

Okay, so I'm not knocking that, but like he's not just there

sitting, waiting for everybody to come to him.

He's engaged, he's working, he's meeting people where they are,

he's setting people free, he's speaking to them, he's teaching,

he's doing this work.

And then he goes and he has dinner.

And in the midst of that, he heals Simon's mother in law.

And then he does some more work.

So we see this work that he's doing and then we see him go off

by himself to pray.

So this time that he takes and we see it over and over and over

again as he is this intentional space that he makes to

go off and be by himself to pray.

And so often in Scripture, he's getting up early in the morning

to go and he.

But he separates himself from his.

All the people who are there looking at him, demanding his time

and attention, he separates from them.

And he goes to a solitary place to pray.

And Simon and the disciples, they come looking for him.

If Jesus had come to seek fame and fortune, he probably could have

had it.

He had.

He had a way of garnering a following.

If he had wanted to set up like the Mega synagogue, he could

have done it because he had this way of attracting people and

gaining popular attention.

But he also was really, like Charles said, focused on his mission.

Who am I here to see?

Where am I being sent?

What are the things I'm supposed to do today?

What is the purpose of this time and space?

And so he's.

We see Jesus being really, really clear in his mission.

So he goes around instead and keeps meeting people and keeps healing

people and setting them free.

So if we're going to look to Jesus, our model, this element somehow

of getting away to be with God is really, really important.

And there's this rhythmic nature to it.

So back to this music word, this rhythm, these choices that Jesus

is making, the choices that we can make every day as part of our

life.

But we see that his mission, so the work that he's doing, it's

empowered by this time.

So in this rhythm of going out and being again, reset.

I love that word.

Like, he's going out, he's getting reset with God.

He's being filled with his Father.

He's getting back into this place of fullness and of listening

and of abiding with God.

And from that space, then he's able and empowered to do this work.

Jesus says this thing, he says, come to me all you who are

weary and burned, and I will give you rest for your souls.

This rhythmic life of Jesus can seem really hard in a practical

sense, like, how do I make this time?

How do I make this space?

Sometimes it would happen to me a lot when my kids were really

little, where I'd be like, yes, I have this space.

And then somebody would cry, okay, here we go.

I did it.

I did the thing.

I got away.

But now they need me.

And now I have to go answer them.

Though sometimes it can feel like that.

But.

But this element of, like, trying to make these rhythms habitual

in our life, we see the fruit of it.

So what are ways that you have found?

What are rhythms that work for you?

So my morning people question.

My night people question.

The get up early in the morning to go off by yourself, typically

in my life does not work for me very well.

For some of you all, it works wonderful.

And I celebrate this for you.

But what are rhythms that help you make that time and that space

to get away?

If that's something that you practice.

Yeah, Crystal.

So Crystal has some space that she identifies, and she has ways

that she can incorporate prayers and that she can listen to

as she's going along to do.

Yeah.

So you find that time.

Yep.

What are other rhythms that are things that you guys try to incorporate?

Okay.

Either one of you.

So Angela brings up a great point.

She's talking about times to get out of her house, out of her

normal space.

And one of her rhythms is once a year to get away, like to the beach,

to go someplace far away.

So when we think about rhythms, we have daily rhythms.

We have weekly rhythms, we have seasonal rhythms, we have yearly

rhythms.

So kind of those all can fit together.

Fit together?

Yeah.

Not everything we have to do every day.

Other rhythms that are helpful for you to find time and space.

Yeah, Dina.

So Dina's in conversation on her way to work, so she's in her

car.

So you kind of have that place and space set aside that you kind

of know, this is some time with Jesus I've got right here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So in the realm of all of these rhythmic choices of our day,

how do you hear and listen to the beat of the Holy Spirit?

So what is that beat?

And maybe this is not.

I'll not forget that.

How do you differentiate.

How do you kind of hear the Holy Spirit driving force in your

life versus your choices that you make throughout the day in terms

of how you spend your time?

So Kevin talks about being still and being quiet and listening

and just pausing.

Silence is A way.

We practice silence a lot here for lots of reasons, but one is kind

of that it's this intentional pause to just sit and be and listen

and let sort of all of those inner voices and all the external

voices be quiet to try to hear that still small voice.

So, John Mark Comer, this book that we've been going through, he

gives four suggestions, and really they're about getting away,

getting quiet, simplifying and slowing down.

So his first one is Silence and Solitude.

So what are the places and spaces that you can go to to be alone?

What are the places that help you hear, that help you listen?

Sometimes that might be outside of your house?

Sometimes.

For me, one of the places that I feel the most connected to God

is when I'm out on a hike in nature.

It's just whether I'm talking and engaged with the people that

are with me or it's just quiet and you just hear.

One of my favorite sounds in the whole entire world is when you're

walking in the woods and you start to hear water.

And so for me, that's just.

That's a practice that's been very helpful.

But there's.

There's something to getting out of the normal, everyday, unending

demand for you to make choices that just says, actually, wait, stop.

I'm gonna separate for a little while.

I'm gonna take some time and just be present in a different way.

He also talks about Sabbath.

Sabbath is a.

Is this practice, right, that goes back long ways, but it's a practice

of intentionally setting aside time to rest and also to draw near

to God.

It's both.

And so it is rest, for sure.

But then it's also what is helping us turn our attention.

There's an old hymn that says, tune my heart to hear your praise

or to sing your praise.

Tune my heart to sing your grace.

It's something bad, guys.

You look it up later.

But it talks about tuning our heart to hear God and to be in alignment

with him.

And so there's this.

There's this element of.

In that Sabbath, in the midst of all of the crazy, like, going,

I'm going to seek you first or second or third or fourth.

But I'm going to seek you to have that time where I can reset

and hear your voice and find that beat again.

I want you guys to try something.

I'm not going to give you a beat.

And I want this side to clap eighth notes, and I want this side

to clap triplets.

Okay?

Ready?

Go.

All right, good.

Stop.

Yeah.

So it took a Little bit.

You guys, actually, you did better than I thought you were going

to do.

Good job.

But yeah, if you, if you don't have that initial beat to set you

off.

Right.

Like, it might take a little bit more to find that kind of solid,

solid rhythm if you.

Yeah.

Anyway, so.

So the third thing that Comer talks about is simplicity.

I don't know if you ever feel like your life is complicated.

I feel like my life is complicated a lot.

We have ways of complicating our life with stuff, with choices,

with demands.

And some of that feels, to me, I feel kind of helpless in.

Because I feel like some of the complexity of my life comes because

of other people's expectations of me or society's expectations of

me, or all of the emails that come from my child's school or parents

square.

Yeah, but there's all of these things going on and so there's intentionality

that I have to have to say.

How do I peel back some of this and remember the simple.

Like, what are the simple truths that I'm after?

What are the simple things that I want my kids to remember?

What is this life with Jesus all about?

How do I kind of not get lost in the complexity?

So I lose my mission.

And then the fourth thing that Comer talks about, he talks about

slowing.

So our pace as a culture in the west is like non stop, right.

It just goes and goes and goes and goes.

And if you don't keep up, well, it's too bad for you, like,

get up and get back in line.

That's kind of the, kind of the Western idea.

But our pace is so, so fast.

There are other countries, right, where like an afternoon siesta,

or literally, like there's this time in the middle of the day

where they rest.

It's just part of their normal rhythm.

I kind of wish we had that in our society.

It'd be really nice.

It'd be really nice.

Right.

I'm all for the siesta, but.

So we have to figure out what does it look like if I can't take

a siesta in the middle of work, which is generally frowned

upon in the West?

What does it look like for me to have other rhythms where I can

still find those places of rest, where I can slow down, even

if it's two minutes in my car, where I can just pause for 30 seconds?

Or if before I'm going into a meeting, I stop and I pray and I

say, lord, would you be with me?

Would you help me to respond like somebody who loves you?

Or if it's before I go into something I'm really nervous about

and really anxious about, Right.

If I can just say, lord, would you be with me and help me to rest

in your goodness and in your love for me?

And can you remind me that my value is in who I am and not what

I do?

That's a hard one for me.

It's a hard one for me because I've been told and grown up in a

society that tells me my worth is all about what I do.

And so I've embodied that some.

And so it's something I have to fight against.

Because even if I know cognitively, like I know in my head,

God loves me for who I am, not for what I do.

I love me for what I do.

And so it's something I have to battle against.

But that beat, that centering voice of the Holy Spirit that says,

emily, come back, sit with me.

Let me remind you who you are and how I see you and how much I

love you and how much you matter to me.

Let me remind you.

It's really important.

If that is what I'm centering on, then my rhythms, they're gonna

line up better.

I'm gonna make choices that are gonna be more in alignment with

that, but I have to listen for it first.

There's this whole thing about practice and motivation, right?

All of this takes practice.

Like, we look at the life of Jesus, and he's like, he did it.

He did it.

He did it.

He did it, and he did it.

Okay, that's great.

He's Jesus, and he is.

And part of this was because it's just who he was and how his

rhythms worked.

And he invites us into this practice.

And we have practiced that word for a reason.

In a musical sense.

When you're practicing, when you're learning an instrument, you

have to practice, right, Tobias?

Yeah, you have to practice because.

Do you know how to play every note on the flute right now?

Or.

All of the rhythms are all the things.

Yeah, you got to learn, you got to practice, right?

Yeah.

So with music, right, you put.

Or anything, whatever we're doing, whatever practices that we're

following, that practice pays off.

But practice requires actually motivation.

So, like, what is it that's keeping you?

Why do you want to do the practice?

Like, just.

Because that can be a valid reason.

But I want to suggest four things that kind of make the idea

of practicing this life with Jesus, four motivations.

So the first one is love.

When we are centering in God, when we are letting him empower us

when we're choosing to be to listen to his beat in our life.

That undergirding thing that flows in us is this idea of love.

First John 4:19 says that we love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:19

So there's this reciprocal rhythmic nature to that.

So I love because God loves me.

I love because God loves me.

I love because he loves me.

Why do I choose to try to see people with love?

Because that's how he sees me.

Galatians 5:22 and 23 talk all about the fruit of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22

So the second motivation for me is this idea of transformation

and growth.

So, like, as we practice this life with Jesus, as we get better

about it, it bears fruit in us.

It's not just like, yeah, it's a good thing to do because I need

something to do on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday night or a

Tuesday at 5am or a Thursday at 10pm when we practice this way

of life with Jesus, we see the fruit of the Spirit grow in us.

So love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, self

control.

The third one is freedom.

Second Corinthians 3:17 says, now the Lord is Spirit, and where

2 Corinthians 3:17

the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

There are ways that we get caught in things that kind of tie

us down, that want to keep us held hostage.

Sometimes it's lies from people around us, sometimes it's

habits we develop.

Sometimes it's just very difficult circumstances.

But there's this freedom in the life with Christ that He promises.

And then the fourth one is life, this idea of fullness, of life.

Romans 8:11 talks about this, about how Jesus was raised from the

Romans 8:11

dead to life and how that same Spirit gives us life.

So those are things that motivate me in this practice.

So I would just offer those to you this morning from, from Scripture.

But this whole thing is centered around the idea that time

with God empowers and informs the work that he invites us to do.

So what is God inviting you to do?

Who is God inviting you to see?

Who is God inviting you to heal or eat with or be with?

Where is he asking you to go?

How is he inviting you to be present?

Wherever that is, whoever that's with, he doesn't ask you to

do it by yourself or all on your own power.

He's inviting you to come back and reset with him, to hear that

rhythm, to be empowered and then to go out and to do that work.

So I don't know what your schedules look like, what your spreadsheets

would look like, what your time orientation would look like.

But if we continue to practice this rhythm together of listening

for that beat of the Holy Spirit, you guys can come on in.

Come on in.

As we do that as a church, as a body, as a community, if we can

stay centered in that, there's fruit that that he promises will

come for in that.

So let us pray and then we'll kind of close out our time.

Father God, I thank you that you see us and that you call us to

you.

I thank you that your Holy Spirit is moving in and through us.

I thank you that you invite us to sit and to be and to be reminded

of who and whose we are.

So Lord, would you help us to find the spaces and places in the

time this week to be with you in the small moments and as we can

in some larger ones.

God, but I just pray that you would keep calling us back, that

you would help us to keep hearing your beat stronger and that

you would just help us to live in alignment with you.

We love you Jesus.

We just pray this in your name.

Amen.

Thank you for participating in the conversation happening at Heaven

Earth Church.

Your next opportunity to do so live is this Sunday morning, 9:30am

Eastern Time, either at the main campus at 309 East Main in Whiteland,

Indiana or online at YouTube Live.

That'[email protected] heavenerthchurch the audio podcast

is always available at Apple Podcast and on Spotify.

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rating in your review.

Instructions on how to do just that and links are in the show notes.

You can always find out more by going to the church website heavenearthchurch.org

we.

Want to thank you for spending time with us today.

My name is Ross Stackhouse, the pastor to Heaven Earth Church

and you may think out there that your story is over, but in fact

your faith story may just be beginning.

If you want more information about our church or you're interested

in the next step, you can go to heavenearthchurch.org otherwise

we look forward to being with you next time at the Heaven Earth

Church podcast.

Sam.