Being Led

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, good morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Matt was saying you were singing really good last week and I'm saying you're looking really good this week.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's good to be in church with you all.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're new in the building, you may not know.

[SPEAKER_00]: But my name is Vincent.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am the creative pastor here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm one of the pastors here at Discovery Church.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's my pleasure to welcome you if it's the first time for you in the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I know that's true for at least one person.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so welcome to church.

[SPEAKER_00]: For those of you in the parents' room or in the foyer, I see you, or I can't actually see you.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I know you're out there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome, welcome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Today, we are in,

[SPEAKER_00]: a series on the Psalms, and we've had the privilege and the pleasure of hearing about celebration and reflection from Jodie, the mat.

[SPEAKER_00]: Interestingly, when the team asked me to preach, they gave me the topic that was not yet assigned, which was on rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for me, you may not know this about me, but this is something that I have struggled with tremendously for about 15 years, is slowing down.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I said, look, perhaps I'm the least qualified person to speak on this based on experience, but I sure can read the Bible and see what the word has to share with us on this topic.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so,

[SPEAKER_00]: Today, we're going to dive into the Psalms and please hear this as someone on the first step of probably what's going to be a lifelong journey into learning to abide in Christ and rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so I need you grace this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to dive into Psalm 23 because I am a simple person and Psalm 23 speaks to me a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the Lord is my shepherd.

[SPEAKER_00]: a sum of David, a sum that he sings or prays in a time of his life that is tumultuous.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a dry season.

[SPEAKER_00]: He uses some pretty descriptive language about where he's at and we're gonna see that now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as I read these words, if this is a prayer for you this morning, what did you read along and let the Holy Spirit move something into you, too?

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let me read to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord is my shepherd.

[SPEAKER_00]: I shall not want.

[SPEAKER_00]: He makes me light down in green pastures.

[SPEAKER_00]: He leads me beside still waters.

[SPEAKER_00]: He restores my soul.

[SPEAKER_00]: He leads me in parts of righteousness for his name's sake.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil.

[SPEAKER_00]: for you are with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

[SPEAKER_00]: You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

[SPEAKER_00]: You anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows.

[SPEAKER_00]: Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Holy Spirit, we thank you that you present with us in the room.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Lord, I pray it would be your words that enter the hearts of those who are listening.

[SPEAKER_00]: I pray that they will transform all of us or go on.

[SPEAKER_00]: Help us to lean into what you're doing Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lead us as you would.

[SPEAKER_00]: Good Shepherd.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lead us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We pray these things in your mighty name Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all of Discovery Church said, Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, here we go.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to preach on something that I can't preach on from too much experience.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so this morning is a little bit of a testimony from me, but also a little bit of a confession, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: So take it easy.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm soft.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so...

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the official title of this sermon is being led, there is an unabridged and unofficial subtitle and that is Confessions of a recovering speed addict and I don't mean one kind of speed, I mean like hurry and for obvious reasons I couldn't print it so

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're taking notes, you can write them in your own journal.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a question for the room though, who made plans at the start of this year?

[SPEAKER_00]: We find ourselves, can you believe, so close to Christmas?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who made plans?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who made plans around health or better health?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's right, yeah, raise your hands.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I did too.

[SPEAKER_00]: After 13 years of training, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I thought to myself, it's about time that I get a buck belt, what's going on?

[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't really happen, so that's cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm who made, who made plans around wealth, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna save some money this year, finally.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, here we go, here we go.

[SPEAKER_00]: I also had that thought.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had set some goals as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: My goal was around adding another zero or as many zeroes as I could to our creative agencies.

[SPEAKER_00]: Business revenue didn't happen, so that's great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome, who made goals around relationships?

[SPEAKER_00]: I did.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always trying to be a better father.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to be a better husband too.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what?

[SPEAKER_00]: How I live this year and how I've lived for many years has made being that person very, very hard.

[SPEAKER_00]: very hard indeed.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had made some plans this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had set some goals.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as a person who likes to set goals, I also have a framework in which to achieve goals.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now I've spoiled it for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this is how it was meant to play out.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have a seven days in a week as do you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I split each of my seven days into three blocks, and I run what I call a 21 block model for my week.

[SPEAKER_00]: I assign a different type of activity to each of the blocks,

[SPEAKER_00]: in my day, which ensures, slowly or alert, it didn't work for me, because the Lord interrupted, but it ensures that I achieve the goals that I set out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, because if you set goals without making a strategy, that's just really just wishful thinking, or is it?

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, if the Lord's guiding you, it's probably the right way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, what I did was I set up my life in order to achieve these goals.

[SPEAKER_00]: What it did mean was for a long time at the end of last year and earlier into this year, I lived in a very particular way and it was very rushed and it was very hurried.

[SPEAKER_00]: It looked like this, six a.m. in the morning, I wake up and because I am so holy and I'm so righteous.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll get up and I'll read every day gospel for 20 minutes to tick that box, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: So from 6 o'clock and to 6'20 I read the devotion, then at 6'30 I put on my headphones, I chuck on my audio book, of course it's spiritually healthy living.

[SPEAKER_00]: Vice-peat Scazero and of course I put that on I put that on of course I put on two-time speed Okay because I need to get through this book quickly so I can become spiritually healthy quicker and not only do I just listen to it I get on my air assault bike the rogue echo bike all you cross fitters in the room though I'm talking about Because that's meant to help me

[SPEAKER_00]: with something, I think health.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, it brings me to tears most of the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so I'm listening, I'm on the bike, and I'm doing the fitness thing as well as the spiritual growth thing, and I've already done my devotion.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm taking lots of boxes to achieve my goals, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Then it's 7am, and my kids wake up, I make them breakfast, I make coffee for myself and my wife, I drive them to school on the way to school, where listening to Danny Go, or silly stories for kids,

[SPEAKER_00]: Those of you, Sam, if you ever listen to this, shout out to you, Sam.

[SPEAKER_00]: But as soon as I drop them off, 845-ish, I get back in the car and what do I do?

[SPEAKER_00]: I get on YouTube, okay, and I don't watch it, alright, relax.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I get on YouTube, and I put on a podcast on how to integrate AI into my business in 2026.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll work out if I can listen to a podcast from the time it takes for me to leave the school

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, once I park here in the car park, I get out of the car, I take the iPhone, I put it in this pocket, and put it on speaker so I can get another two minutes out of the podcast as I walk up these stairs, because I'm quite slow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and I walk up the stairs.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now I've got 12 minutes of a podcast done through one drive in the day.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I do three drives in the day, then I can get through a podcast that day, which is incredibly efficient.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll have you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, at 9am, I work to five, I go home, I help Gabby with dinner where I can.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have dinner with the family at 6.15.

[SPEAKER_00]: I text my Brazilian Gigi to head coach and I say, what's the tech this week?

[SPEAKER_00]: He tells me the technique.

[SPEAKER_00]: I go and refresh my memory on how to teach that technique, which means I watch YouTube for a little while and I get sucked into that for a bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then at 6.30, I help the kids get to bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: By seven, bless them.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're in bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: They go to sleep at 7.15.

[SPEAKER_00]: I get in the car again, podcast back on.

[SPEAKER_00]: I go to the gym.

[SPEAKER_00]: I bow my class in.

[SPEAKER_00]: I run the class for an hour till 8.30pm.

[SPEAKER_00]: At 8.30pm, they all want advanced sparring.

[SPEAKER_00]: So now I'm having to move some guys all over the place for about half an hour.

[SPEAKER_00]: At 9 o'clock, the advanced sparring ends.

[SPEAKER_00]: They finally decide to leave the gym.

[SPEAKER_00]: I clean the gym, I lock the gym, I get home.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's 10 p.m.

[SPEAKER_00]: I walk in, I say get eight to Gabby, I walk into my studio out the back, I open Adobe Premiere Pro, I open up the latest project I'm working on for a client, and I edit to 11 30 p.m. when I realize I smell so bad from training that I need to have a shower.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have a shower and I go to bed at 12.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then I repeat all of this at 6am the next day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in my friends, I'm getting exhausted just remembering this.

[SPEAKER_00]: But who can relate to something in terms of that pressure or the internal hurry that happens when you live like this?

[SPEAKER_00]: I live like this, I think there was one point in this year where I did this for 40 days.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was so hard, it was so hard, and I'll tell you this.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a cost to living in this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my friends, there is a cost to living without rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: The impact on my relationships, I guess you can understand to my own family, to my kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: What they get is they get a distracted, absent father and husband, I'm moving myself at a pace that I'm just pushing, I don't even know why, I'm pushing so hard at this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: The stress and the pressure he creates has to be alleviated somehow.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I find myself, I found myself scrolling endlessly online and using AI to generate some dopamine from my brain, just to medicate this stress.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my mental state has worsened and worsened, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: The worst part of it all was I was unable to actually abide in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't it strange?

[SPEAKER_00]: I was able to read the word.

[SPEAKER_00]: but I wasn't able to abide in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was not good.

[SPEAKER_00]: In a way, living like this for me was like living close to that value of death that David described.

[SPEAKER_00]: And interestingly, statistically, many of us in this room, and in the Western world, live within incredible sense of hurry and we live at an unsustainable pace, a pace in which does not allow for the Lord to speak to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: and heal us.

[SPEAKER_00]: But who can blame us?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who can blame me?

[SPEAKER_00]: I have responsibilities, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a mortgage to pay.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've got to look after my family.

[SPEAKER_00]: This financial stress.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's real, isn't it?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's real.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then due to my awesome iPhone, I have the incredible ability to compare my life to everyone on the planet.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for some reason, I never end up on top.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always like, by life sucks.

[SPEAKER_00]: According to what I see online, I have this fear of missing out on holidays and hanging out with everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it just gets worse.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have so much pressure.

[SPEAKER_00]: So much pressure from work.

[SPEAKER_00]: What society expects from me?

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you add in how you were raised and your cultural expectations for me as a Filipino, there are some, some that I don't agree with, let's just say that, and some that are definitely, you know, legit and meaningful.

[SPEAKER_00]: You add to that as well, the impact or my councilor would tell me that there's an impact of having trauma in your life as well, where some individuals learn to operate in a zone

[SPEAKER_00]: where we really need to get to a more calm space in what's called the window of tolerance, and you can Google that if you like.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so after living like this for a long time, for a lot of my life, I actually suffered a freak accident in training, and I hurt my neck.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't realize it was my neck, but I damaged a nerve in my neck.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I had incredible pain actually for a long time in my back, in my shoulders, in my arms, in my neck.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the Lord spoke to me in this time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or perhaps he was always speaking to me, I was just too busy to listen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was able to listen in this time and here's what it helped me see.

[SPEAKER_00]: Help me realize that most of my hurry and growth was coming from a place of fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's really interesting when you think you're living faithfully, then you realize that fear is forming you more than faith is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when fear forms you more than faith does, rest becomes nearly impossible.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this year, the Lord has been leading me in the search of a new way.

[SPEAKER_00]: One that wasn't about performance, or people's perspective of me, or about pleasure, but about his presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I am on the first steps of perhaps what is a lifelong journey of learning to rest and abide in Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'd love to share some confessions of a recovering, speed addict or hurry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now that I think about it, no, I wouldn't say that, filter filter.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just say at the pace I was living, something could have been helpful.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so here's what the Lord knew.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord knew I had to change how I thought about rest to then rest, to allow rest, to change me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had to change how I thought my perspective in my mindset around rest first.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was hard.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was really hard for me to do this, but I was recovering from my injury.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I had some great pastas at this church, Matt, Jodie, and Beck.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pull me inside and be like, mate, the pace you're going at, is not sustainable.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to look after yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And can you imagine I was in such a state of mind where like everything was about doing and getting things done?

[SPEAKER_00]: That my initial reaction was to reboot them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like internally, I was like, are you serious?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, these guys don't know how to handle a guy who can perform at this rate.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you hear like the internal, the pride in how I thought internally?

[SPEAKER_00]: And that was my first reaction.

[SPEAKER_00]: This church wants to clip my wings, but the Lord's calling me to saw all of this stuff, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll say it now, I'm cringing it myself, but they held me to slow down and they were patient with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I read some books, then I read more books.

[SPEAKER_00]: And eventually I remember one afternoon I was up here and the amazing pastor of Discovery Community Care, Lissy, spoke a word to me just briefly about the impact of burnout.

[SPEAKER_00]: and how I thought burnout was just getting tired.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I don't get tired, so that's fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, no, Vin, you might lose the passion for the things that you love.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that was something that I really had to pay attention to.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the Lord spoke to me in my injured time, and I realized I was justifying my pace in my hurry in the same way that consumer behavior works.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, before I was a pastor, I had a career in product marketing and you know, marketing in general and before that I studied at a university and one of the things we learned about was how people consume.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's this thing that we do in our minds where we kind of even if we don't need a thing, we decide what we want, we pre-decide, we want this thing and then we do everything we can

[SPEAKER_00]: that will reiterate and confirm that.

[SPEAKER_00]: The term is confirmation bias.

[SPEAKER_00]: We choose what we want first.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then we justify it with everything that we can, whether it be what we consume online, the conversations we have.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other term we have is predestision distortion.

[SPEAKER_00]: We predestide what we want, then we distort all the other information to align with this thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: The crazy thing was, I was justifying the pace of my life and what I was doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even though it was coming out of a place of fear, I was justifying with biblical principles.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I wonder if that resonates with someone in the room this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we really search our hearts, are we doing this in our, in the way we're living, in our journey with Christ through life?

[SPEAKER_00]: I was living at this rate saying, I'm committed, when really I just wanted to control every outcome.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was rushing around to and stuff, saying, I'm the most devoted, you know, with this kind of mentality and that kind of internal language, when really a lot of these things where they're just, we're actually just distractions from what the Lord was actually calling me to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was rushing around, hurried, saying, I'm faithful, Lord, I'm faithful.

[SPEAKER_00]: What really I was just fearful.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what's interesting is that Psalm 23 starts with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: It starts with a renewed way of seeing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had to change how I thought about rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

[SPEAKER_00]: And interestingly, David did have a lot of needs at the time that he prayed this prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what he did do was he rested in the Lord and he saw that rest begins with reframing our reality to align with the shepherd's eyes and not our own.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what our culture is showing us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as apprentices of Jesus, we must adopt his perspective and not the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: So as we reflect, as we rest, we get to reflect and find union with the Father's mind and how He sees the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we do this,

[SPEAKER_00]: we leave behind our own world view and start to adopt the Father's lens.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what the Shepherd is calling us to.

[SPEAKER_00]: I shall not want.

[SPEAKER_00]: John Markoma kind of puts it this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love this quote and I use it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says, if we are not being intentionally formed by Jesus or the Shepherd himself, then it is highly likely we are being unintentionally formed by someone or something else.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so in my first confession or my first piece of testimony here is that I have to change my mindset around rest to then allow Jesus to change my world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so changing my mindset was one thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was like the beginning of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But trusting the Lord with my pace and my direction and my provision was another.

[SPEAKER_00]: Psalm 23 says, he makes me lie down in green pastures.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting that David uses this analogy, or this prayer, in the season that he's in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I did a little bit of looking into what Jerusalem was like in the dry season, and what it would have been like for a shepherd in the dry season.

[SPEAKER_00]: Interestingly, in the rainy season, or in the wet season, there is a lot of, there's an abundance of grass, but in the dry season, like what David's in,

[SPEAKER_00]: The moisture is only enough to see grass grows sporadically in small green shoots.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so interestingly, in seasons where we feel dry or hurried or pressured,

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to rely and trust in the law to guide us to where the provision is, because we actually don't know where it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: We go to, you know, we go and go looking for it blindly, but the Shepherd knows where the provision comes from.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is, he also can see where there is a safe place for you to rest and lay down your projects.

[SPEAKER_00]: and allow him to watch and watch over you and watch over them while you cannot because you are resting.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the dry seasons, the Lord calls us to focus first on how He's leading us and less on doing, or maybe secondarily on doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I saw this as I continued to try to slow down and trust in the Lord a bit more in the context of my creative agency, which is what I do in my spare time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently there is some spare time.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's out of what I do here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I started to, in basic terms, trust him with lead generation for the business.

[SPEAKER_00]: I stopped trying to hustle hard, I stopped trying to think about strategies and I just left it to the Lord in that season and he brought interesting opportunities to us that I probably wouldn't have paid attention to if I was moving at this pace.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing I realised in this season and what Psalm 23 talks to you here is that rest can help us increase our trust in him and increase trust in the Lord helps us to overcome fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I had my mind shared, set, shifted, I was beginning to trust the Lord with my provision because that's a real thing, okay?

[SPEAKER_00]: We have real families that do rely on us and we're beginning to trust more in the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when I finally trusted God enough to slow down, I realized that perhaps maybe my soul was more tired than my body was.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know maybe if you're in the room and you can resonate with that, where you're happy to keep going in your body, but gosh, I feel pretty thirsty, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been chasing something and trying to quench this thirst and for some reason I don't get relief.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says in Psalm 23, he leaves me beside still waters where he will restore my soul and he restores my soul.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that tells me something important is that you can't rest, you can slow down.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's one thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can rest your schedule, but that alone doesn't restore your soul.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when I was injured, I would be resting on the couch.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd better be on it sometimes.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would jam my neck into the crack of the couch and then start editing videos.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I said, recovering, recovering addict.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I would be on the couch, which was awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: But my mind would still be busy and then I wouldn't help that because I'd open my phone and I'd scroll and continue to abuse my mind with more content and more pressure about why I'm on the couch and not building my business and pushing and growing.

[SPEAKER_00]: and I was continuing to put pressure on my mind and getting all of this artificial dopamine from scrolling.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what it was really was like, I was endlessly thirsty and I was trying to quench my thirst if I can be honest with other things, with money, with growth, with accomplishment, with progression, pleasure, influence,

[SPEAKER_00]: great leadership, but all of these things, they can't quench the thirst that I'm talking about, the tiredness of the soul that I'm talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think a big problem that I had and maybe you're in the room and you have this too, is that we get so busy and we get so thirsty, and then we just get rather than leaning into where the ship is leading us to still waters, we get drawn into the vortex again.

[SPEAKER_00]: and it just recurs, and it's that cycle repeating.

[SPEAKER_00]: But John 414 says, whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as I began to rest and trust in the Lord, I began to feel that my soul was being restored.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting that the shepherd leads his flock to steel water.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like if I was really thirsty, I'd just be like, jump into a river.

[SPEAKER_00]: and just drink water.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I, or like, just open the fire hydrant, and maybe that's just my, you know, in bar, you know, like drink up some water.

[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe that's part of the problem with me is that I just want things straight away and in Matt, you know, on mass, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the interesting thing is the sheep that the shepherd was leading would have been incredibly frightened by rushing water.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and so instead he invites us to a place and picture in your mind like even like a slow moving creek, maybe only ankle deep.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's in this place where the Lord wants us to slowly replenish our thirst by abiding in him again, nourishing us, abiding in him by the still water.

[SPEAKER_00]: I began to learn, and this may be very obvious to those of you who are further on this journey than me, is that rest allows him to restore what hurry had drained.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I had my mindset shifting, which is really good by the grace of God, I was beginning to trust him more, and he was beginning to like restore something broken in me.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then I realized something else.

[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't just rest, didn't just refresh me.

[SPEAKER_00]: It realign my worship.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says he leads me in parts of righteousness for why.

[SPEAKER_00]: For his name's sake.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not for my accolades.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not so that discovery church would think I was cool, but for his name's sake.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was something that I didn't realize that I was doing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rest has this way of putting God back in His rightful place, because when I slow down long enough to even breathe properly, I remember that He is the shepherd and I am not.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the shepherd.

[SPEAKER_00]: The truth is, rest helps me.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is helping me to kill my pride, and it continues to humble me.

[SPEAKER_00]: because suddenly the reliance on everything to go right in my project and what we're doing, everything that to be built that I was building, it moved off my shoulders and onto the Lord's.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it also led the accomplishments of my life and just the blessing of my life in general to go back to him as worship for the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't realize it what fear was doing to me, but I realized how much pride was actually in me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if I can be honest, it's something that is still being worked out of me.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was so much pride there based on these accomplishments.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so rest allowed me to finally stop worshiping myself.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel so bad to say that out loud.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it moves the spotlight off me and back onto him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because he does all of this restorative work as our shepherd,

[SPEAKER_00]: for us out of his grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: He supplies us with our daily needs.

[SPEAKER_00]: He offers us peace whenever we're willing, peace whenever and rest whenever we're willing to receive it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he begins to revive us as long as we're willing to say yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I learned in this season as well that our rest can become an active worship to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it helps us redirect our worship to the place it belongs and that's in Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: So as we draw towards the end of the year and I look back on this journey, this thing that I am not barely qualified to speak about, but I've certainly taken one step in, and when I look back on how fear was forming me, the hurry of my life, the striving, the endless striving and the first thing, but also the cost and the impact on my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I see now that the way that I was living was costing me a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: And those entrusted to me, suffered the most.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the truth that I realize and the thing that I need to remind myself of, almost daily.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's something perhaps you need to hear in this room as well, but, and it was this.

[SPEAKER_00]: To not allow fear to manifest as hurry and business and distract me from being led by the father.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do not allow fear to manifest as hurry and pull you away from the ones you love.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, we need to build rhythms of rest and be led by the good shepherd.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so tell him you can come up and join me.

[SPEAKER_00]: The invitation this morning is actually to repent.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, and that's a hard one to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: To confess and repent and believe in the good Shepherd, to shift from leading, leading always leading to being led, to draw our nourishment from Him, and see Him be glorified.

[SPEAKER_00]: But my friends, what I realized was being led, actually started with just being honest, like being really, really honest.

[SPEAKER_00]: And perhaps you're in the room and some of what I'm saying resonates with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's an invitation from me to you to also be honest and start with asking you a few questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: questions like, what has formed my mindset around rest?

[SPEAKER_00]: And how healthy is this?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm aware there are something in the room who don't struggle with this pace of hurry, but I still encourage you, what has informed your mindset around rest and is it healthy?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I trust a Lord with provision in my life?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or did I get lost?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or did you get lost?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I did.

[SPEAKER_00]: How deeply does the Lord need to restore me?

[SPEAKER_00]: When did I last feel deeply content?

[SPEAKER_00]: Where is my worship directed?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I need help with this?

[SPEAKER_00]: What do I need to change?

[SPEAKER_00]: My friends, as I said, I am recovering.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now, in November, towards the end of the year, I find myself changing in small ways and I know it's gonna be a slow journey.

[SPEAKER_00]: I used to say to people when they asked me how I'm going, I'm super busy, more of the same.

[SPEAKER_00]: Got a lot of stuff going on, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: These days, I'm trying to say something else.

[SPEAKER_00]: These days, I found myself saying less of the same.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel really good about say about, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: I found myself drinking more cups of tea on my back deck than ever in my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've been living there for like eight years.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I've drunk more cups of tea back there than I ever have.

[SPEAKER_00]: I spend less hours scrolling.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you believe I used to spend like six and a half hours a day on my phone?

[SPEAKER_00]: Time seven days, time's 15 years.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's crazy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I repent of that Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now I spend a little bit more time as I said I'm learning to allow the Lord to restore me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so what I'll leave you with is a few humble suggestions of a recovering speed slash hurry addict.

[SPEAKER_00]: And most of them are spiritual practices.

[SPEAKER_00]: The prayer of examined.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sabbath, I can't tell you how much that word you

[SPEAKER_00]: Silence, you could probably tell I struggled with that already.

[SPEAKER_00]: Solitude, slowing down, worship, and this one is not from the Bible, and it's perhaps not a spiritual practice yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I just call it delete the apps.

[SPEAKER_00]: My friends, I was so scared of what would happen if I deleted the particular apps that were continually drawing me into this vortex of

[SPEAKER_00]: I've realized nothing too bad actually happens when I do.

[SPEAKER_00]: I spent many years justifying this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about like the meta-ups predominantly in YouTube.

[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, the one which I'm like, this was the hardest one to delete was Gmail.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I hope that the AI's can't hear me and come after me.

[SPEAKER_00]: But all I'm saying is, you know what you need to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ask the Lord, ask the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And just delete from your life what you need to.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here are the resources that really helped me, the ruthless elimination of hurry, practicing the way you emotionally healthy leader.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, if you're like me, perhaps you start reading at two times speed.

[SPEAKER_00]: But by the time I finished, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real, the real,

[SPEAKER_00]: or at least don't crash into it with hurry by default.

[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe we ask first, you know, we ask the Lord, how are you leading us and then take action, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: And so church, would you stay with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna pray for some people in this room.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I wanna just explain something as simple terms as I guess I can.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what I've realized and what I've admitted to you guys and to myself and to the Lord, is that I couldn't see that fear was manifesting as something else in my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know in verse five of the Psalm that we read, it says something interesting, and this isn't in the slide deck.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says here, no one's my head with oil.

[SPEAKER_00]: And do you know the shepherd had a real specific reason for anointing the heads of the sheep with oil?

[SPEAKER_00]: And that was, because without this oil, flies would fly in and attack the eyes of the sheep, the eyes and the ears of the sheep.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the shepherd had a specific kind of oil that he could put on the brow of the sheep that would deter flies from coming in and blinding the sheep and deafening the sheep from what the Lord wanted them to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I guess what I'm asking this morning is that if there's anyone in the room who like me was blind to what fear was manifesting as in their life, and instead has picked up a pace that is so unsustainable and unmanageable, and drawing us away from a place of true rest, and those we love.

[SPEAKER_00]: If there's someone, I'll ask you to respond in a minute, but I want to pray for those

[SPEAKER_00]: And for those of you who have no idea what it feels like to be under that kind of pressure, those who don't resonate with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's cool for you, bro.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, I'm good.

[SPEAKER_00]: But perhaps, where fear has manifested as something else, as complacency, as procrastination,

[SPEAKER_00]: And that too is pushing us away from abiding in him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if that resonates with you, I encourage you to listen back to my one and only sermon that I appreciate it's called Do It Scared.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if you're in the room and you resonate with me and that fear is manifesting as something that is drawing your way from the leading of the father with every eye close and with every head bowed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Could I humbly ask you to raise your hand with me?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you struggle with hurry in your life and you search your heart and you see that it is not off the Lord, I want to pray with you because then, honestly, thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I see I'm not alone in this, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or if fear has, keep your hands up so I can see you, but if fear has manifested its complacency and procrastination and you are not doing what the Lord is calling you to and you can't even see it anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to see your hands too and I want to pray with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, you see us, we are just trying to humbly apprentice under you, Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, Lord, we ask for your forgiveness, as we confess that sin, not sin, but fear, or sin in the form of misled, we confess for the moments where fear has led us more than you have,

[SPEAKER_00]: And Lord, we confess for the moments where fear has stopped us from acting in the way and pursuing the things that you've called us to.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, we repent of our ways and we ask you Lord to lead us again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Lord, for your divine patience as you wait on us to hear your voice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your posture towards us as one of Grace and joy, not a face that's frowning and upset, but one that is so grateful and delighted that we would follow again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, we pray that your voice would find us as we rest, Lord God, and that we would begin to trust you again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.