Rick Warren - Doing a 'Reset' for a Better Life

You'll take out your message notes. They're inside your program.

We're in part three of building a better life, doing

a reset for a better life. Now, every parent and

every child knows the meaning of the phrase, you need

to take a time out. We all know what that means.

You need to take a timeout. Sometimes when the kids

get squirrely and unruly and irascible and everybody's upset, you go, okay, timeout.

Everybody go to your room, take a timeout, work on

your attitude, calm down, and stay in your room until

you get a better attitude. It's time for a timeout.

In many ways... The last year of pandemic has been

a global timeout for humanity. We were all sent to

our rooms to think about our attitudes. You can call

it quarantining or stay at home or social distancing or whatever,

but the bottom line is, it's been a timeout. Now

as it appears that our timeout may be nearing an end,

I just wanna say that God is not at all

interested in us merely resuming our old ways of living.

Instead of resuming our old ways of living, our old lives,

God is interested in giving us the opportunity to reset

our lives, not to resume our lives, but to reset

our lives. What do I mean by that? Instead of

going back to your old ways, ways, we have a

chance to reboot. We have a chance to refigure, to redefine,

to reset our lives at a better level, a better life.

Better than the good life. I've talked to you now

a couple weeks about this. The good life, you're all

living the good life. You look good, you feel good,

you have the goods. but the good life's not good enough.

You were made for far more than the good life.

You were made for what the Bible calls the better life.

And as your pastor, I wanna help you move up

from the good life, which is good, it's certainly better

than the bad life, to the better life. And as

your pastor, it is my job as your spiritual counselor,

your life coach in many ways, My goal, my job

in life is to help you live as successful a

life as possible. My calling, what God has called me

to do is to help you be the most productive,

the most effective, the most fruitful you can possibly be

in every area of your life for the glory of God.

That's what I'm called to do. That's why the first

thing we started when all of a sudden it looked

like we were gonna have a little bit of reprieve

from our time out, the first series we're starting is

called Building a Better Life. But to build a better life,

to build a better you, a new you, is gonna

require an intentional reset. And that's why for a couple weeks,

and we're gonna continue in the future, look at the

principles for resetting your life. Now on your message notes,

I have put a definition of the term reset. To reset,

here's a dictionary definition. To reset is to make a new,

fresh start due to a change in circumstances, opportunities, or priorities.

Changed circumstances, changed opportunities, or changed priorities. And that's exactly

what COVID-19 and this global pandemic has done for us.

It's given us an opportunity, new circumstances, new priorities to

reset our lives. So that's why a couple weeks back,

we started in part one, and I shared with you

four principles of resetting your life after a trauma. And

last year was an incredibly traumatic year, and it's really

not even over yet. And we're not even sure that

we're not gonna have a fourth year you know, a

wave of the COVID virus. But if you missed part one,

I would encourage you to go back and watch part

one and part two. Last week was Easter, of course,

but that was part two. Watch it online at saddleback.com.

Now I'm not gonna cover all that material, but I

just put the four principles down there and you can

get all the details in watching that if you missed it.

Expect to feel mixed emotions as you're coming back into

a different kind of life. Expect to feel mixed emotions.

Extract the lessons you learned. Don't waste last year. Was

all that pain for nothing? Did you learn anything from it?

If so, write it down. Evaluate everything before resuming it.

Don't just automatically fill your schedule with the same stuff

you were doing before. Evaluate. I've lived without it. Do

I need to add it back in? Really. Evaluate before

resuming and then engage slowly. Don't get in a hurry.

God's timetable is always slower than than your timetable. Don't

get in a hurry. So what I wanna do today

now is give you four more principles and let's get

right into it. These are from scripture so that you

can move up to a better life. And here's the

first one. In order to move from the good life

to the better life, to step up, to have a

new you, here's the first thing you need to do.

Eliminate non-essentials. Eliminate the non-essentials in my life. I have

mentioned to you in both previous weeks, the physical and

the emotional cost of trauma. and chronic stress. And remember

I said it's like a battery. If you got a

battery and you have one light bulb attached to it,

it'll last a long time. If you attach two light

bulbs to the battery, it burns out in half the time.

If you attach four light bulbs, it burns out in

a quarter of the time. You have had many light

bulbs attached to your battery this last year. Many reasons

for stress, many reasons for tension, many reasons for a trauma,

traumatic events in your life. And I said, and you

all obviously understand what I'm talking about on this, that

nobody in the sound of my voice has the same

level of energy as you did a year ago. Not

one of you. There's not anybody here that has the

same amount of energy, that physical and emotional energy you

had a year ago. You say, how do you know that, Rick?

Because I know what trauma does to you. And I

know that the slow drip of every day this crisis

has gone on, it has drained you more and more

and more. And so you just don't have the same

level of energy that you had a year ago. That's

not to say you won't get it back, but it

is to say that right now you don't have it.

So since you don't have the same level of energy

you did a year ago, it is absolutely important that

you not waste it. That what little energy you have,

you don't use it on non-essentials. Does that make sense?

You need to be more selective in your life, in

your attitudes, in your schedule, in your calendar. Now, the

Bible specifically tells us three things that we need to

eliminate in our lives. And they're the next verses there

on your outline. We need to eliminate the sins that

hold me back, the activities that waste my energy, and

the unhealthy habits. Let me go through these. First, write

this down. Sins that hold me back. I need to

obviously get rid of those. I don't wanna pull old

sins from pre-COVID into post-COVID living. Hebrews 12, verse one,

let us run the race before us and let us

never give up, okay? You're in a race right now

and that race is not a 50-yard dash, it's a marathon.

Let us run the race before us and never give up.

We should remove from our lives, that means eliminate, we

should remove from our lives anything that would get in

the way and the sins that hold us back. The

same verse in the contemporary English version says this, we

must throw off every weight that slows us down, especially

those sins that just won't let go. These are habitual

sins in your life. If you are habitually impatient, And

you were that way before COVID, you probably still are

that way now. You don't want to pull that sin

into the new you. If you are habitually, you lose

your cool, you lose your anger, your temper. That's a problem.

If you habitually become fearful. or you are habitually anxious,

or you worry, you chronically worry, or you get jealous,

or a thousand other different attitude sins that I could list.

All of those things, you don't wanna take those with

you into the new you. And so he says, we

wanna let go, we wanna eliminate sin. the sins that

hold me back. By the way, we'll come back and

cover these in details in other messages. Number two, though,

is activities that waste my energy. That's the next verse.

I want to eliminate activities that waste my energy. These

things are not necessarily wrong. They're just not necessary. There

are a lot of things in your life that's not sin,

but it's just not worth your energy. 1 Corinthians 6.

6 verse 12 Everything is permissible for me. In other words,

I I can do anything But not everything is beneficial.

It's not the difference between bad and good It's the

difference between good and better and moving from the good

life to the better life. Everything is permissible, not everything's beneficial.

Everything's permissible, but not everything, I won't be mastered by anything.

I'm not gonna let anything control my life, and you

shouldn't let anything control your life either, all right? Sins

hold me back, activities waste my energy, and the third

verse talks about unhealthy habits. I need to eliminate unhealthy habits.

And here's what Ephesians chapter four says. Get rid of

your old self. That's pretty clear. Get rid of your

old self, which made you live like you used to

live pre-COVID. The old destructive patterns. If you're taking notes,

circle that phrase, the old destructive patterns. What are old

destructive patterns? Unhealthy habits, okay, that weren't good for you.

Unhealthy habits, the old destructive patterns that were rooted in

deceitful desires. They were based on lies that Satan tells us. Instead,

let your heart and mind be made completely new, okay?

This is a reset. Let your heart and mind be

made completely new. Put on your new self, that's the

new you, which is created to be like God, and

it shows itself in the true life, the true life,

that's the better life, in the true life that is

right and right. Good. That's where we're going, folks. That's

where we're going, to the true life. That's the right

life for you, and it's the good life for you,

but it's better than just the good life. It's, as

the Bible calls it, the better life. So it starts

by letting go of some stuff. I remember one time

I went to dinner with a couple that I had

done their wedding years and years ago, and it was

a second marriage for both of them. And the woman

told me at dinner, she said, you know, Rick, When

I walked down that aisle in that white dress, I

did not realize that I was carrying a giant garbage

bag of garbage from my previous relationship into my new one.

I'm going, what an apt picture. You don't want to

do that pre-COVID and post-COVID. You don't want to take

the garbage that was in your life that didn't work,

the habits, the hurts, the hangups, the sins, the activities

that wasted energy. You don't wanna go walking into the

future with that garbage. You wanna let it go. And

we'll talk about more how to do this in the future.

How do you eliminate the non-essentials? Now, the second principle

for resetting your life is the complimentary action to this

first one. And it is this, excel at what really matters.

Excel at what really matters. You stop focusing on the

stuff that doesn't matter, and you start focusing on the

stuff that does matter. You eliminate the non-essentials, and you

emphasize and you excel at what really matters. Watch this

on the screen. Now, the next principle of resetting my

life is the complementary action, and it is this. Excel

at what really matters. That's the next thing you want

to focus on in the months ahead post-COVID. Eliminate what's

not essential and excel on what is essential. Excel on

what really matters most. Excel on what is right and true. Friends,

I want to tell you some personal experience. You don't

have to be good at everything to make it in life.

There are thousands of things I'm terrible at. Just thousands

of things that I'm not good at. You don't have

to be good at everything. You don't have to, you

don't need to be good at everything. God doesn't expect

you to be good at everything. But to live the

better life, this upgraded life, not the good life, but

the better life, to live the better life, you just

need to be good at what's most important. And if

you're good at what's most important, it doesn't matter if

you're terrible at everything else. If you're good at what

matters most, it's not gonna matter that you're not good

at this, this, this, this, and this, because you're not

gonna be good at everything anyway. So when you get

to heaven, God isn't gonna say, for instance, how coordinated

were you? Some of you are really coordinated. God gave

you natural coordination. Some of us, we're not coordinated at all.

Some of you are good with math. Some of you

suck at math. Some of you are good at music, others,

you couldn't carry a tune in a baggie, okay? You

have a voice that should be cultivated, plowed under, actually, okay?

You're a prison singer. You're always behind a few bars,

never have the right key, okay? And so you don't

have to be good at it. The Bible just says

make a joyful noise. You don't have to be good

at everything. What matters, excelling at what really matters is

the key to the better life, okay? I eliminate the

non-essentials and then I excel at what really matters. Now,

what really matters? Well, in order to excel at what

really matters, in the days ahead, you're gonna have to

develop three habits, okay? You're not gonna do this overnight,

but you're gonna work on these habits in the days

ahead so you move from the good life to the

better life. These three habits are the three verses there

on your teaching notes below. And by the way, they're

all intertwined. You can't leave out any of them, okay?

So let me give you the three habits. We'll look

at three verse. Here's the first habit you really need

to work on post-pandemic. First habit, managing my time. You

need to get better at managing your time if you're

gonna move to the better life. Not simply from the

good life, but up to the better life. Managing your time.

Selection is the name of the game. The secret of

an effective life is selection. Knowing what matters most and

doing that. Managing your time. One of the big differences

between successes in life and failures in life, or for

that matter, the difference between living a good life And

living the better life is that people who live the

better life do a better job of using their time.

People who live the better life do a better job

of using their time. Why? Because time is your most

precious resource. Your time is your life. If you waste time,

you're wasting your life because you're never getting that back.

Time is your most precious commodity, not money, time. Why?

Because you can always get more money, but you can't

always get more time. Everybody here, we all have the

exact same amount of time, 168 hours a week. And

the difference between people who live a good life, people

who live the better life, people who live the better

life make a better use of that 168 hours a week.

You know, one time I was talking to Bill Gates

at a conference. And I asked him, I said, Bill,

you know, at that time he was the wealthiest man

in the world. I said, how do you use your money?

He said, Rick, the best use of money is use

it to save time. I go, that's brilliant. It's brilliant. Why?

Because you can get more money, but you can't get

more time. And so one of the good ways to

use money is to use it to save time. Time

is your most precious resource. Now, here's a prayer that

you can pray every day. Psalm 90, verse 12. Lord,

Psalms 90:12

Teach us to make the most of our time so

that we may grow in wisdom. That's a good prayer

to start praying post-COVID. Lord, teach me to use my

time wisely. Teach me to make the most of my

time so that I may grow in wisdom. By the way,

how does God teach you to make the most of

your time? This book right here. The more you get

in this book, The more you apply the principles, if

you'll practice the principles of God's word, you'll waste less time. Okay,

that's one habit. Second habit. First is manage my time.

Second habit is living on purpose. And that's the next verse.

Living on purpose. We call it purpose-driven living. I don't

care what you call it. Just do it. Proverbs 17,

24 says this. An intelligent person aims... Aims, that's purpose-driven,

at wise actions, that you work intentionally with your life.

But a fool starts off how? I can't hear you, how?

In many directions, in many directions. Friends, as your pastor

who loves you, the last thing I want you to

do is with all the newfound freedom, when all of

a sudden all the restaurants are open and everything, all

the events are open and everything is open and we're

all freed up again and we're not restricted, is to

go out and fill your life with a bunch of

stuff that doesn't matter. You gotta eliminate the non-essentials, but

then you have to focus and excel on the essentials,

what really does matter. They're complementary, and you do that

by managing your time and living on purpose. Now, you know,

it might be a good thing to do to go

back and retake the purpose-driven classes. Some of you haven't

taken them in months or maybe even years. This would

be a good time for a refresher course to go back,

take 101, 201, 301, 401. Take the classes which define

and describe how to live a life of intention, how

to live a life of purpose, how to not head

off in all directions, but to focus on the thing

that God says matters. God has five purposes for your life,

not 10. Not two, not one. God has five purposes

for your life. And we've got a class on those purposes.

And so I'm just telling you as your friend and

as your pastor, as somebody who loves you, I'm begging

you that as the freedoms become more available again, don't

just refill and repack your schedule with activities simply because

you're free to do it. Leave some margin in your schedule.

Do not rejoin the rat race that you have not

had to be a part of for the last year.

Don't head off as many directions. An intelligent person aims

at wise action, but a fool starts off in many directions. Now,

here's the third habit. The third habit that goes along

with focusing on what, excelling at what really matters, manage

my time, live on purpose. Number three, third habit, choose

good priorities. The Bible has a lot to say about this.

I'm only gonna give you one verse. I could give

you hundreds of verses on choosing priorities wisely. But I

love the story of how one time Jesus is visiting

his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Martha's more worried about

the meal than spending time with Jesus. And she actually

complains to her sister about not helping her, okay? And

Jesus gently corrects her. And in Luke chapter 10, verses

Luke 10:41

41 and 42, Jesus says this. And I want you

to hear the compassion in his voice. My dear friend Martha, Martha, Martha,

my dear friend Martha, you worry and you fuss over

so many different little things. But really, only one thing

is essential. Circle that. Only one thing is essential. Only

one thing is essential. And Mary has selected it. What

had Mary selected? Spending time with Jesus. So here's the question.

Is spending time with Jesus the top priority in your schedule?

Because if it's not, you're never going to move from

the good life to the better life. To move from

the good life to the better life, you have to

spend time with Jesus. It should be number one on

your to-do list. Is it? No, probably not. On your

to-do list for Monday morning, Jesus, spend time with Jesus

is probably not on that list. I suggest that post-COVID,

you start making it. You're number one on your list.

Excel at what really matters. Manage my time, live on purpose,

and choose God's priorities. Only one thing is essential, and

that is spending time with Jesus, right? Okay, here's the

third principle. We're moving through these pretty quickly. Third principle

for resetting your life post-COVID is this. Embrace the new

things God does. Embrace the new things that God does. Now,

I chose that word embrace intentionally because embrace means more

than just agree with it, to grudgingly accept it. To

embrace means to be content with it. It means to

even love it. You don't embrace things you don't love.

So what I'm saying here is you not only accept

the new things that are happening today, in God's world,

in God's church, in God's family, in your family, in

your life, but you actually learn to love them. You

need to embrace what God does. Embrace, be content, even

love it. Parents, when your kids were growing up, did

they change? Of course they changed, radically changed. Think of

the change between one year and three year. Think of

the change between three years and five years and think

of the years between five and 10 and on and

on and on all of the changes that your kids

went through. COVID has created a lot of changes in

you and our society and culture. Not all of them

are good. Not all of them are good. But the

question I have is when your kids were going through

all those changes, did you stop loving your kids when

they stopped being infants? No. No. No, you love them

at each stage of their growth. Not every stage is fun.

Junior high years is like hell years. Everything seems like

it's a national problem, okay? And broken hearts and everything

is a life or death situation. But you know what?

You loved them in their junior high years. And in fact,

for your kids to not have changed and not have

grown would mean one thing, tragedy. And God says the

same thing about you coming out of COVID. Now, I

want to just be frank with you. As again, as

your pastor who loves you, your friend, I'm praying for you.

I'm trying to help you through this difficult time. And

I would say this. Read my lips. Life's never going

back to the way it was a year ago. I

hate to let you down. I hate to tell you that,

but it's not going back to the way that it

was before COVID. Everything has changed, including you. The past

is past. You can't go backwards in life. You can

only go forward. And so you can't go back. We

can't go backwards. So really, What we all have is

two choices. We either, A, complain and grumble and long

for the way it was a year ago, or B,

we get on with life. That's it. Because all the complaining,

all the grumbling, and all the regretting, and all the

moaning is not going to go back to the way

it was. Grumbling won't change anything. It's over. On top

of that, when you read this book, when you read scriptures,

you realize that God is a God of newness. He's

always doing new things. His mercies are new every morning.

He doesn't do the same thing, same old, same old.

And if you want to live the better life, then

you're gonna need to cooperate with the new things, the

new things that God is gonna do in your life,

the new things God is gonna do in this church,

The new things God is gonna do in your family,

in your career, in your friends, the new thing God

is gonna do in the world, God is a God

of newness. And we have to cooperate with the new

things God wants to do. Here's what scripture says, Isaiah 43,

18 and 19. The Lord says, forget the former things. Wow.

And don't dwell on the past. Instead, look at the

new things I'm going to do. I'm going to do.

Look at the new things I'm going to do. They're

already starting to happen. Can you see what I've begun

to do? Now, if you're taking notes, I want you

to circle the word look, and I want you to

circle the word see. He says, look for the new

things I'm going to do and see what I've already

begun to do. Why does he say that? Before you

can embrace... Before you can embrace the new things God

is doing in your life and around you, you have

to see him first. You have to see the new

things that God has. Can you see it? Can you

see it? Are you looking for it? Well, you're not

looking for it if you're always looking backwards. And if

right now you're still looking back to wishing it was

the way it was a year ago or more than

a year ago, years ago, Why can't we go back

to that era of my life? Why can't we go

back to that time in my life? Because we can't,

that's why, we can't. And always longing for the past

and glorifying the past and dreaming of the past and

wishing for the past. is like driving a car where

you're always looking in the rear view mirror and never

looking out the windshield. If you're always looking in the

rear view mirror, you're going to crack up. You're going

to crash. You're going to burn. You're going to have

an accident. You can't move forward in life longing for,

I wish you were like that era of my life. Now,

let me just say, I've said this in the last

two messages too, it's okay to grieve your losses. And

every one of us have had major losses. I've had

some enormous losses, personal losses in my life in the

last year. Like Kay's mom, for one thing. John Baker,

Pastor John Baker. So many other dear friends. Jordan Machow

and others. And Marnie Bueller's husband, Mick. And we've all

lost friends, relatives. Some people have lost jobs, lost opportunities.

lost income. Grief is the only legitimate, healthy way to

handle a loss. But you need to learn how to

grieve while you're keeping your eyes focused on what God

wants to do next. And you need to embrace the

new things that God does. I often pray a simple

prayer that goes like this. God, I know you're going

to do some really great new things today in the world.

I would like for you to give me the privilege

of being in on some of what you're going to do.

I don't ever pray God bless what I'm doing. I

never pray that prayer, God bless what I'm doing. What

I pray is God help me to do what you're blessing.

You're doing stuff in the world right now. I volunteer.

I'm in. I want to get in on it. I'm

volunteering for the future, whatever future you have for me.

I'm signing up right now. I'm volunteering. I'm in. You know,

we're looking in this series at five different books. Ezra, Nehemiah, Malachi, Zephaniah,

and Haggai, which were five books written to encourage God's

people to after they'd come out of captivity. And remember

I told you they were held captives by Babylon for

70 years and finally they're allowed to go back home

and the first thing they wanna do, reestablish worship like

we're doing right now. We hadn't worshiped here or in

any of our Saddleback campuses for a year together. They

hadn't worshiped together at the temple for 70 years. 70 years.

Can you imagine going 70 years without corporate worship at

the house of worship? And so they get back, and

they're all excited about that. Interesting, one of the prophets, Isaiah,

who lived before the Babylonian captivity, God actually gave him

a vision of the 70-year captivity that was going to happen.

He said, this is going to happen. And he also

gave Isaiah a picture of what it was going to

be like when they finally got to come back. And

he said, Isaiah, I'm going to show you what worship

became after they got back together, after the time when

they couldn't worship. It's really similar to us, similar parallel,

just like we'd been unable to worship. They hadn't been

unable to worship for 70 years. And when I read

the promise in Isaiah that God told them that he

would do after they returned, I claimed that same promise

for our Saddleback Church family. It is this. It's on

the screen. Isaiah 49, 19 and 20. God said this.

Even though your land was unused and abandoned. This campus

right here has been unused and abandoned for a year.

We weren't having weekend worship. Even though your land was

unused and abandoned. it'll soon be too small for all

the new people. More people than you know what to

do with. This is God talking. And the new generation

that was born in exile will return and they'll say,

we need more room. It's crowded here. So here's the question.

Are we going to bemoan a past that's never coming back?

And You know, regret that, oh, it's not, Saddleback isn't

the way it used to be. Are we gonna use

the energy that we've got to embrace the new thing

that God is gonna do through Saddleback Church? It's our choice.

It's our choice. And I wanna challenge you to become

a pioneer. All right, a pioneer. You say, well, I

wasn't here when the whole thing started years ago. Doesn't matter.

We're getting ready to do a restart, a reset. Saddleback

has had 5.0. We're gonna go to 6.0. We had

a 1.0 version, 2.0, 3.0. In 41 years, we've had

five different versions of this church. And now post-COVID, we're

getting ready to go to 6.0. And this is your opportunity.

You weren't here on the very first one, the first version,

but you're here now and you can be a pioneer

in Saddleback 6.0. We're going to do that. We're doing that.

We're remodeling the worship center right now in a whole

new way here at Lake Forest. So let's review. We

eliminate the non-essentials. That's important to do a reset in

your life. And then you Excel or you emphasize what

really matters most. That's the corollary focus on what matters.

Don't focus. Don't focus on what doesn't matter. Manage your time,

live on purpose, choose good priorities, then embrace the new

things that God is doing and is going to do.

Now there's one more principle, write this down. One more

principle for resetting your life. Post COVID world, expect incremental change,

expect incremental change. That means little by little incremental change.

And I'm talking about in you, in me. Now, this

is the exact opposite of what we normally want. We

don't like incremental change. We want rapid change in our lives.

We want fast change. You go on a diet, you

want rapid results. okay? You want instant transformation. You want

the pill that changes you overnight, the seminar, the sermon

that changes you overnight. You want the local, you know,

total makeover in one hour. By nature, we are impatient.

We're always in a hurry. You know, it's always amazing

to me when I was up there on the patio

and people would come up to me after service and

they start telling me about like maybe a marriage problem

that they've got and They want me to solve their

marriage problem in one conversation. And I go, I'm thinking,

it took them years to develop this problem. And I'll ask,

how long have you had this problem in your marriage? Well,

it's been years. Nobody tells me it started yesterday. You

didn't just create the problem you've got right now overnight,

you're not gonna get out of it overnight. You didn't

create the mess you're in overnight. You're not gonna get

out of it overnight. You didn't develop those bad habits overnight.

You're not gonna get rid of them overnight. It's gonna

take incremental change, moving from the good life to the

better life. I remember one time a guy told me,

he said, you know, Pastor Rick, I feel like my

life is flooded with problems right now. It's just like

flooded with problems. And I feel like I'm drowning in

the flood. And in the back of my mind, I'm

thinking about the flood that Noah had to deal with,

the literal flood. And thinking that, you know, in that flood,

it didn't dissipate overnight. It took a while for it

to gradually dissipate. The flood just didn't flip a switch

and all of a sudden we were on dry land.

In fact, Genesis chapter eight, verse three says this, the

flood gradually receded. That's an incremental change. Little by little,

the water lowered. And after 150 days, the worst was over.

We're seeing that happen with this pandemic. There's not gonna

be any switch that all of a sudden, boom, one

day we flip and everything is back to quote normal.

It's not gonna happen that way. It's gonna recede little

by little. And there might be other waves. with other

variants of the strain. We don't know. But I mentioned

before in this series that God's never in a hurry.

He's just not. And that God's timetable is always, always

slower than yours. And that's what's so frustrating. That's why

we get frustrated because we're in a hurry and God's not.

Remember how God told the Israelites, and I mentioned this

verse a couple weeks ago, That when they were coming

up to the promised land, he said this in Exodus 23,

Exodus 23:30

verse 30. Little by little, this is a word phrase

used all through the Bible. Little by little, he says,

I will drive the enemies out of your life until

you have grown strong enough to take full possession of

the land I have given you. Now notice that given

is past tense. I have given it to you. God

has already decided. how he's gonna bless your life. God

has already decided your promised land. God has already decided

all the really cool, good things God wants to do

in the rest of your life. But he says, I've

given them to you. You're just not gonna appropriate them

yet because you gotta do a little growing first. You're

not ready to handle all the blessing I wanna give you.

You're not ready to handle the prosperity, the influence, whatever

I wanna give you. You're not ready to handle it.

So you gotta grow in character. And those problems in

your life, we're gonna drive them out one at a time.

We're gonna peel the onion one layer at a time.

We're gonna work on this sin and then that problem

and then that habit and then this attitude. And we're

gonna do it in incremental change. So what I'm telling

you about is the pathway from the good life where

you are to the better life where you're gonna be.

It's gonna be incremental. It's not gonna be overnight. And

that's not suddenly. You know, I did a study through

the Bible this week of this phrase, little by little.

I studied it all through the scripture. And I was

amazed at how many different areas of your life this

incremental principle of incremental growth, little by little, how God

works in so many different areas of your life, relationships

and money and time and career and so many. Let

me just give you one example. Building your wealth. One example,

Proverbs 13, verse 11, there on your outline. Incremental growth

Proverbs 13:11

applies to finances. Wealth, it says, that comes easily, no,

wealth that comes easily disappears quickly. Now you know what

that means, easy come, easy go. How many people win

the lottery and it's gone in a year? Easy come,

easy go. Wealth that comes easily disappears quickly, but wealth

that is gathered little by little, that's compounding interest, will

grow greater. In fact, did you know that God tells

you to avoid get-rich-quick schemes? It says don't even try

to get rich quick. Do it little by little. Proverbs 28, 20.

Look up here on the screen. The Bible says this.

Commitment and persistence, persistent work pays off. But get rich

quick schemes are ripoffs. Tell that to your next financial

advisor who's got the hot deal that's going to make

you a ton of money overnight. Proverbs 28, 20. says

there in the Living Bible, New Living Translation, a trustworthy person,

that means if you're trusted, you can be trusted, a

trustworthy person will get a rich reward. But the person

who wants to get rich quick will only get into trouble.

That's the little by little principle in just one area,

your finances. The point that I'm trying to make though

is this. Moving from the good life where you are

right now to the better life, the life that God's

already planned for your life, so that the rest of

your life's the best of your life. It's not gonna

be a single leap. It's not gonna be a single experience.

It's not even gonna be a single decision. There will

be many decisions in your life. It starts with a decision,

but it happens through incremental change. It's a slow process.

It's gonna take the rest of your life. And that

slow process is called in the Bible, Sanctification. It's also

called discipleship. One of the five purposes of our church.

And it's our job. It starts with a decision, but

it continues with a continuing commitment. Let me give you

one last verse and we'll wrap it up. In Isaiah 26,

verses three and four, it talks about this continuing commitment.

You keep at it, you keep at it. You just

don't do one thing and then stop. Isaiah 26, three

and four in the message says this. Lord, people who

set their minds on you, who set their minds on you,

you will keep completely whole and steady on their feet.

Now let's stop right there. No matter what happens, in

this next year, no matter what happens with COVID in

this next year. Do you wanna be completely whole? And

do you wanna be steady on your feet? Then you

need to do what that verse says. If you wanna

be completely whole, no matter what happens in society, it

could fall apart. And you wanna be steady on your feet,

it says, you keep your mind on the Lord. Keep

your mind on the Lord. It says, Lord, people who

set their mind on you, you keep completely whole and

steady on their feet because they keep at it. They

keep at it and they don't quit. That's incremental. They

keep at it and don't quit. So depend on God

and keep at it because in the Lord God, you

have a sure thing. That's the one thing you can

count on is your relationship To God, that's a sure thing.

Nothing else is sure in life, but that's your thing.

So let me ask you a very pointed question in

the post pandemic world post COVID. What are you going

to do when you get all the freedoms that you

had before? What are you going to do? Are you

going to resume the old life or are you going

to reset? A new life. It's your choice. Now, will

you futilely attempt? And I mean, futilely attempt to resume

your old life, just like it was before the pandemic

with no changes at all. Will you resume the rat race?

Will you return to your old habits and hurts and hangups?

Will you refill your life with the same old pressures

and patterns and problems? As somebody who loves you, I

will tell you this. If you try to do this,

it's not gonna work. It's not gonna work, because you

can't go back. The past is past. You can't go

back to the way things were. And if you try

to do this, it's gonna reduce you to resenting and

grumbling and complaining and being frustrated and being unhappy because

you're never going back. Or number two, will you use

this God-given opportunity to let God reset your life for

the rest of your life? You're coming at a time

out and will you become a brand new you? A better, you,

you're not living the good life anymore. You're living the

better life that God has always intended for you to live. Now,

if you choose the second option, I want to promise

you this as your pastor, I will promise you this,

that if you say, God, um, I I'm committing to

let you reset my life. Then I. and all the

other pastors of this church, we will do everything possible

to help you succeed in your life reset. We will

pray for you. We will teach you how to do it.

We will encourage you. We will support you when you

screw up, as we all do. And when you're going

through the tough spots that are inevitable, we will support you.

But it only starts with your decision. It starts with

your commitment, your choice. Are you ready for this new journey?

Are you all in? Are you willing to do what

it takes as we come out of a global timeout

And I go, I'm not going back to the old me.

I'm moving up to the better life. If you're in,

I'd like for you to let me know about that.

If you say, Hey, Rick, I'm in, I'm all in

for a reset on my life, my family, my career,

my relationships, my, my health, my church. Saddleback 6.0, whatever,

whatever we're going, I am going to celebrate. I'm going

to embrace the new things God does in my life.

Here's what I want you to do. I want you

to pull out this card and I want you to

write the word reset on it. Okay. You say, why

do you want me to do that? So I can

pray for you by name. It's my job to pray

for you. I've prayed for you every day in the

last year and I want you to pull this out

just write your name if you want to put your

phone number on there forget all the other stuff and

write in big letters reset so I can start praying

for you that's closed service you can just give it

to an usher drop it in the basket or wherever

you can collect these If you're watching online right now,

you can text me to 83,000, the word reset. And

just say, I'm in. I'm in for the better life.

And I'm not going to waste the rest of my life.

Let's bow our heads. Why don't you just say this

to God? I don't want to resume the old me.

I want to reset to a new me. I want

to eliminate the non-essentials in my life. The attitudes, the actions,

the sins, the unimportant stuff, the habits that have held

me back so far. I don't want to go into

the new Era with the old habits. And say, Lord,

I want to focus. I want to excel. I want

to emphasize what really matters most. Help me to make

the most of my time. Help me to aim at

wise action and not start off in all directions. Help

me to remember that the most essential thing is to

spend time with you Every day. And you say, Father,

I want to embrace the new things that you want

to do in my life post-COVID. I want to look

at the new things that you're going to do, and

I want to be a part of what you're going

to do in the world. I'm signing up. I volunteer.

Use me. I want to be a part of your

actions in the world. And Lord, when I get in

a hurry, when I get frustrated and when I get impatient,

help me to remember that you use incremental change. That

the little by little principle is the way that I

will grow and move from the good life to the

better life. God, I need you to keep me steady

on my feet and to keep me completely whole. No

matter what happens, because I'm thinking about you. My mind

is stayed and focused on you. And I want to

depend on you and I want to keep at it.

And I need our church and I need other people

in my life for that support. And I want to

be a support to others. If you've never opened your

life to Christ, say Jesus Christ come into my life.

Make me the person you want me to be. I

want to get to know you. I want you to

save me. And I humbly ask you to accept me

into your family. Help me to understand it. In your

name I pray. Amen.