Comfort | When Less Is More | Pastor Rob Koke | Shoreline Church | Message

Good morning, everyone. It is so good to have you. Thank you for persevering through the chilly Sunday morning weather. We're just so glad that you're here. We want to give a very warm welcome to everyone who's watching online. Come on, let's give it up for all of our online congregation. Some of you watching from the community here right here in Austin, but we also have people watching from around the state, around the country, and even in some cases around the world. Welcome to our campuses here in Austin, Texas. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that on February the 13th and 14th, now that's Valentine's Day and the day before, Friday night and Saturday morning, we are gonna be hosting here Marriage Matters. And we kicked this off last year, and it was such a resounding success, the opportunity for us just to focus in on marriages, to make them the very best that they can be, and I personally look forward to this every year because Laura needs it, and I want to encourage you. Listen, there is no better Valentine's present that you can give to your relationship than to be a part of Marriage Matters, and that's gonna be kicking off in just a couple of weeks.

So please sign up for that. We'd love to have you. Let's all of us stand to our feet. We are excited about today. As you're standing, we're gonna do something that we do every single week. We wrap our understanding around a collection of phrases that we call our Shoreline Creed. It's just our way of understanding that Christianity at the end of the day is not just ideas and principles on how to live a better life. It is about what Jesus did for us that we could never do for ourselves. It's about his amazing grace. So we celebrate that. We say this out loud together. If you're new to Shoreline, you can read along. You guys ready? Ready. Here we go. I am loved by God. I cannot earn it. I cannot lose it. I am forgiven and made brand new. In Christ, I live with passion and purpose. I am empowered by the Spirit to be the church in the world and to live this love revolution. Come on, let's give God praise for that. You may be seated.

So last week on the first Sunday of the new year, we kicked off a brand new collection of talks entitled When Less Is More. Now, there are some things in life that we want more of. Of course, we want more joy and more peace and more of God. But there are some things in life that we're better off having less of because it actually generates more in our life. And so we're tackling some of those things as we kick off the year. And there are a couple of verses in the Bible that help support the whole premise of when less is more. In Philippians chapter three and verse seven, it says, but whatever was gained for me, this is the Apostle Paul, and he's reflecting on his life. He's thinking about all of his accomplishments. He was highly educated. He was celebrated in the first century as being one of the greatest thinkers in the world. And he's coming to the conclusion that all the things that were gained to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. And so he's writing as an encouragement to all of us. We can get wrapped up in our accolades, in our accomplishments, in our successes, in our identity, and we lose sight of what's really, really important. And so he's saying, when less is more,

I have lost everything compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. John the Baptist, he said it in a little bit shorter way, but still the same thought when he said, he must increase, I must decrease. So what John the Baptist was saying, less of me, more of God. And the theme verse for this entire collection of talks is what Jesus said. It always is a good idea to pay attention to what Jesus said, Matthew chapter 16. And Jesus said to his disciples, and let me just pause there for a moment, that word disciple is very, very important. We're not just, you know, coming to church on Sunday morning to fulfill some kind of spiritual, you know, to-do list, just to kind of conveniently check it off and then go about our day. No, Shoreline is all about making disciples. We say it this way. We are all about making fully devoted followers of Jesus. That's our goal. That's our passion. We don't apologize for it. That's what we're all about. So Jesus was saying to his fully devoted followers, whoever wants to be a disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Whoever wants to save their life will lose it. And whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. This scripture is the ultimate when less is more. Now last week we talked about fasting, but this week we want to focus in on the idea of comfort and the place that it should have in our thinking and our daily lives. Let's be honest that in the right context, we all, you know, want comfort.

When the chilly north winds blew in yesterday, I am sure that many of us, you know, were grateful that we had an apartment or we had a house, we had a place that we could be warm. You know, I got up yesterday morning and we had forgotten to switch the thermostat from air conditioning to heating. And so it was chilly in our house in the morning, but just a little, you know, adjustment on the thermostat and the house, you know, got to where it needed to be. And we like that kind of comfort. If it's raining, we're grateful for the shelter that we have. When we think about all of the ways that we enjoy comfort, perhaps, you know, you enjoy your comfortable bed and when you travel, you know, you think, oh man, I wish I had my bed. I like my bed. Some of you are so extreme when it comes to the comfort of your sleeping arrangements. How many of you are like Laura and you bring a pillow with you when you travel? Come on, let me see your hands. Those of you who bring a pillow, yeah, you know, that's all about comfort and we like comfortable clothes. Do you know when we first started Shoreline, I mean, it was like back when dinosaurs, you know, roamed the earth and we would always be dressed up in suits and ties and dresses and everybody in the congregation would be dressed up in suits and ties. And over the years, you know, we've gotten a little bit more comfortable. Sometimes I like to dress up, but I made the point of being comfortable today because I enjoy comfortable clothes. Some of you showed up, you know, in the Jersey of your favorite football team. We get that, you know, just kind of come to church. And then, you know, there's always a dilemma for you ladies, right? You have to choose between fashion and comfort, you know, because sometimes, you know, fashion is not comfortable. Sarah was wearing this shoe this morning that's got, you know, a little, you know, pointed thing.

You could kill somebody with these shoes. And I don't know who thought it was a good idea to walk around like this all day. I'm going to preach like this. Man, that's uncomfortable. And you know, all of us have in our medicine cabinets, we got Tylenol and Advil, because if we're in pain, you know, we want to get comfortable as soon as possible. And sometimes when we're going through a difficult, you know, set of circumstances, right? We draw on God's supernatural help. And I love this promise that's found in scripture. This is Jesus. This is what I'm saying. This is what I'm praying. I'm praying that the Father will send to you another comforter. He's talking about the Holy Spirit. And he's saying, I'm praying that the Father will send the comforter so that he will be with you in times of difficulty. And often the Holy Spirit will inspire somebody to be a comfort to you. And that's why, you know, it's such an important thing to be involved and to belong in the small groups that we have, the life groups here at Shoreline. It's a very important priority because we recognize that often the Holy Spirit will use a brother and sister. in Christ to bring the comfort that we need in our time of difficulty. And the Bible actually says in 2 Corinthians 1 that he comforts us in order that we might be a comfort to others. So when God comforts us in our trouble, one of the byproducts of that is that God will use us to be a comfort to other people. So we can often see that comfort is a good thing

and we celebrate that. But I also suspect that comfort can have a downside. We live in a world that's obsessed with maximizing comfort and minimizing friction. We have modern conveniences for just about everything. We have technology that gives us the ability to eliminate all kinds of inconveniences. When we go to eat, we can actually drive up and place an order, drive around the building and have that food ready for us. We go and get our caffeine and we place that order and then we drive around the building and we pay our $24 for that amazing cup of coffee. But everything is so convenient in Western society, in American culture, in specifics. We are obsessed with seeking comfort and convenience. And there was a book that was written not too long ago by Michael Easter and he wrote, and the title of the book was The Comfort Crisis. And here was the premise of his book. He basically said that we in Western society, especially here in the United States, he says, we have been on the ultimate search for comfort. And because of that, we can often disconnect our lives from real joy and healthy living. And sometimes our pursuit of comfort impedes us and our ability to adapt to things that change and society that shifts around us. The more comfortable we become, the more our minds and our bodies forget

how to adapt to change and uncertainty, which often leads to complacency, boredom and a diminished sense of purpose. And Jesus, I think was saying the same thing. He just said it a little bit more bluntly. He said, deny yourself, lose your life and you will find it. Denying yourself and losing your life is not comfortable. It is profoundly uncomfortable. And so I think that Jesus was trying to communicate that comfort in its right space is a good thing. It's a healthy thing. But if we shift and our lives become all about seeking comfort, then there is a real downside. And Jesus is saying, if you wanna be a follower of mine, if you wanna be a disciple of mine, you got to embrace a certain amount of uncomfortability. That's gotta be a part of the way that you approach life. When comfort is your primary goal, you will sacrifice growth and development. Just think about it. If comfort is everything to you, even minor inconveniences will become something that kind of sets you off and you get all emotional. You go off the rails because life is not as comfortable as you think it should be. You're pursuing it and it's there most of the time, but then a traffic jam or some little inconvenience comes into your world and you can't adjust. When you think about this pursuit of comfort,

when you live that way every single day, you can become prone to just avoiding. You withdraw, you follow the path of least resistance. And if everything is all about comfort, then you're just gonna sit on your couch and you're gonna binge watch programs and you're gonna let life pass you by. We stagnate. And I think honestly, one of the bottom line issues when we are so focused on comfort is that we don't grow, we don't learn, we don't expand our skill sets. You know, I think about my sister, she's in her late 50s and she's going back to school and she's almost finished. She's studying to get her master's to be a counselor, to help people in her community. And I was talking to her the other day on the phone and she was saying, you know, I'm not quite sure, but I think I'm gonna go for my doctorate. I gotta tell you, that's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to go back to school, to carve out the money, to make that investment. You know, you could be watching TV, but now you gotta study, you gotta take exams. It's uncomfortable to grow. You think about, you know, learning a new instrument. I play the guitar and it's uncomfortable if you're starting to play the guitar because your fingers against the strings, the steel strings on your guitar, you know,

it causes some pain until the callus is formed. But in that beginning season, it's uncomfortable. You think about those girls that are learning how to dance as ballerinas, you know, and they're on their toes. Are you freaking kidding me? That's why there are no male ballerinas. I guess there are some. The reality is, is that it takes a lot of hard work and commitment and uncomfortability to grow, to become everything that God wants you to be. Think about, you know, good habits and bad habits. When you think about like a bad habit in your life, this is the reality of a bad habit. A bad habit is something that you do where you choose to be comfortable in the short term, but it has an uncomfortable payout in the end. You think about all of the bad habits that you might have, every single one of them, it's comfortable now, but it's uncomfortable later. It's more comfortable to spend your money than to save. It's more comfortable to stay silent than to have a difficult conversation with a person that you value, a marriage relationship or friendship. It's more comfortable to say yes to everyone's requests than to have healthy boundaries in your life. It's more comfortable to sit on the couch rather than to get a workout. Every single one of those things that's uncomfortable

in the short term has long-term payout benefits, but things that are comfortable in the short term will be uncomfortable down the road. Think about the good habits. You're making uncomfortable decisions in the short term, but it's gonna provide comfort later on. You save some money instead of spending everything you have. That's uncomfortable in the short term, but in the long term, you'll have some more comfort. It's uncomfortable to have that difficult conversation with that person that you really care about, but in the long term, you're gonna have a more joyful and deeper connection. It's uncomfortable to say no to somebody because you're in the habit of people pleasing everyone in your world, but in the long term, you're gonna have some healthy boundaries. Bad habits, comfortable short-term, uncomfortable long-term. Good habits, uncomfortable short-term, comfortable long-term. Jesus said, whoever wants to be my disciple, if you wanna be a follower of mine, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. So we need to become comfortable. All of us do. We need to become comfortable with making uncomfortable decisions.

One of the ways that I try to incorporate that into my life, and I gotta be honest up front and tell you that Laura thinks I'm crazy. She sees no real benefit for why I do this, but I've gotten in the habit of cold plunging almost every day. Most days I cold plunge. I got up this morning and I cold plunge because for me, I see a medicinal positive effect on my life. It makes me clear. And I wanna be my best for you. And so I cold plunge and it brings some mental clarity. It brings me energy. And so that's a good thing. But on the other side of it, it's more than that. It's deeper than that. that. I make a decision to be intentionally uncomfortable every single day so that I don't fall into the trap of this comfort crisis. I don't fall into the trap of being someone who is always pursuing comfort. I want to do something in my life that's difficult and let me tell you when I get into that water and it's 45 degrees and I first get in it, it is cold and it has never gotten more comfortable for me. I haven't gotten used to it now that I've done it for a while. It's always a shock to my system but I do it because if I start out the day doing something hard it just makes everything else that comes in that day a little bit easier. Now please that's not my point. I'm not trying to get everyone here to cold plunge. I'm just trying to get all of us to embrace the idea that we need to become uncomfortable in our lives and the idea of becoming uncomfortable spills out into lots of different areas. Like take for instance our spiritual life. It takes effort to come to church. Honestly it's a lot easier to sleep in and I love our online congregation. Please I hope you hear my heart on this. If you live in the central Texas area and you can get to church I want to encourage you to get to church

because you can kind of fall into that comfort mindset that says hey I'm just going to sleep in and I can just watch the service online but there's something really powerful and special that comes when you gather together with your brothers and sisters in Christ and you worship the Lord. There's nothing like being in the atmosphere and I know it's uncomfortable. I was talking to a couple after the first service and they drove an hour and a half north of Killeen somewhere between Killeen and Waco. They drove all the way to church and they were thinking the wife you know turned to the husband said let's watch online and he said no we're going to church and I thought that was awesome because I think most of the time that conversation would be the opposite and no we're coming to church and they were so grateful to come to church but that's an uncomfortable decision. It's easier sometimes it's more comfortable to complain about your circumstances than to pray about your circumstances. Sometimes it's uncomfortable to honor God with your giving you know you'd rather you know see what you know you have in your world what God has brought into your world and and spend it all on on yourself but it takes it takes a certain degree of uncomfortableness to say hey I'm going to carve out and give to God what is God's. That takes some courage. It's more comfortable to be served than to show up at church early and serve the other people that are a part of this incredible God family. You think about how being uncomfortable is important in our relational world not just our spiritual life. To admit that you're that you're wrong is an uncomfortable thing. To prefer to prefer other people over yourself that's uncomfortable. In your emotional life sometimes we want to just shift the blame and say you know the the problems and issues I have are because someone else or you want to blame it on culture you want to blame it on your parents even or blame it on your circumstances but it takes a certain degree of commitment to being uncomfortable to own your own issues and not seek to medicate your pain but to get the help that you really need. So this idea of becoming uncomfortable is something that affects you know all the different areas of our life but for the remaining time that we have together here this morning I want to focus in on a specific area of our life that we need to become uncomfortable with. I want to talk about becoming uncomfortable in our physical health. When I graduated from high school I was you know looking at colleges and I landed on a place up in Tulsa, Oklahoma Oral Roberts University. Some of you who have been in the Christian faith for a long period of time will remember that Oral Roberts was a healing evangelist and they say that he prayed for more people

personally laying hands on more people for God to work a miracle in their health than any other human being in history and after being involved with these incredible crusades for many years, he decided to build a university. And that's the university that I attended. It's the university where I met Laura and it changed my life. And there was one of the philosophies that was ingrained in that university experience that helped educate me a little bit about what I'm sharing with you this morning. You know, we understand that God is a triune God. We have God, the Father, God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit. But at school, I also learned that we are triune beings. We have a spiritual life, we have a mind and we had a body. And at ORU, there was a real commitment to all three of those things. We would go to class to learn and expand our intellect. We would go to chapel and develop our spiritual life. And there was also a commitment to aerobics and to health and to physical fitness because they understood how important it was for us to take care of the body that God has given. And so when we talk about becoming uncomfortable in one area of our life that we need to be willing to become uncomfortable, it's in our physical health. It's in our healthy living. Someone said that too many people confine their exercise,

confine their exercises to jumping to conclusions or running up bills or stretching the truth or bending over backwards or lying down on the job or sidestepping responsibility. For the most part, I think that we give a certain degree of value to this pursuit, but we also embrace a lot of excuses. I don't have time. It's too boring. I don't see the need. I don't know what to do. I'm already healthy. And sometimes we actually want to spiritualize our excuses and say things like, well, isn't physical fitness, you know, nothing but vanity. You know, God doesn't even look on the outside. He looks at the heart and, you know, it's appointed to each person a time to die. So why exercise? Because we're going to die when God says we're going to die anyway. So we kind of create some excuses around this whole idea of fitness. But here is a percentage that I think all of us need to consider, that the percent of preventable health challenged people in the United States is over 40%. Most Americans, they're lacking sleep, they're heavily stressed, and they're consuming food that is really not good for them.

In fact, I read this the other day, and it might be true, you might resonate with this. It might even be true of you that more Americans care what they feed their pets than what they feed themselves. Now, I'm not trying to judge anybody. I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad. I sometimes struggle in this whole area as well. And so I'm preaching to myself, and neither am I trying to create a scenario where you make an idol out of your physical fitness, that you work out nonstop, that it's always the focus of your life. That's not healthy either. But I think somewhere between those two extremes, there's a place for us to land where we will be intentionally uncomfortable in this area of our lives to truly honor the Lord. In 1 Corinthians 9, verse 26, it says, "'Therefore I run, not with uncertainty, "'thus I fight, not as one who beats the air, "'but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection "'that lest I have preached to others, "'I myself should become disqualified.'" He said, I discipline my body. Another translation says that I buffet my body. And I thought that was an ironic choice of words. I buffet my body, because I think a lot of us buffet our body. I just want to encourage you as we start this year

to recognize that your health has value. In 1 Timothy 4, in verse seven, it says, "'Keep yourself in training for a godly life. "'Physical exercise has some value, "'but spiritual exercise is valuable in every way.'" Now, I admit what the Bible is saying in this particular verse is that, You need to prioritize your spiritual health over your physical health. But that doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater. That does not mean that our physical health doesn't have value. In the message translation, the way it rolls out, workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so. Physical exercise is both valuable and useful. And there are a number of super important reasons why. Just think about it. If you're in good health, it enhances your ability to make a difference. We have a group of people, we call them our three team, it's our volunteers here at Shoreline, and they come every Sunday morning early to help make a difference in your life. If they didn't have the physical health, they couldn't do it. It increases your joy. Scientists will tell you that those people who work out produce endorphins and that makes you happier.

It increases your energy levels. You know, some people just live their lives and their lifestyle is lethargic and lazy. And the Bible often encourages us to live opposite of that. In Romans chapter 12, not lagging behind, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. It also enhances our focus and our concentration. You're more alert, you're more clear. It's a way of telling your family how much you love them. You know, this coming week, Laura and I are going to have at our house our two grandchildren from our daughter and our son-in-law. He's at a business seminar this week. And so they asked us to watch the grandkids. And so we're gonna have the grandkids Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night, four nights at our house, two little ones. Pray for us. But Sterling came into the office this morning before church and he said, he said, "'Opes," that's what he calls it, "'Opes, I'm Opes." And Laura is Lala, Opes and Lala. He runs in, "'Opes, we're gonna be at your house this week." And he said, "'I can't wait. "'We're gonna have nonstop fun.'" Because we call our house the house of yes. Anything they want, yes. We load them up in sugar and then give them back to mom and dad.

But we wouldn't be able to have them at our house and love on them and care for them if we didn't have health. But I think the bottom line, it's just about being a good steward of what God has blessed us with. He said, "'Don't you know that you are the temple "'of the Holy Spirit, whom you have from God? "'Therefore glorify God in your body.'" Now I'm not a doctor. My wife is, she's an amazing doctor, but I'm not. But together, we kind of came up with some, just a little bit of some advice, some encouragement for you to make yourself uncomfortable in just a few basic ways. Maybe you can start this way. Maybe some of you are so far beyond this, man, you've got this and you could give a whole seminar on it. But just to kind of lay the foundation, make the uncomfortable decision to eat healthy food. And you say, well, what has that to do with the Bible? Do you know that the children of Israel were given a lot of instruction on how to eat? You gotta ask yourself why. Now, mostly it was because God wanted them to be a holy people and set apart and wanted to differentiate the children of Israel from all the other people living on the planet. So that's primary and far away, the most highest priority in that.

But there was also a subtext to that, that this was a healthier way to eat. Now in the New Testament, when Peter was there and the food came down from heaven and they were just blessed and it said you can consume everything. So we're free to eat whatever we wanna eat. I wanna make that clear. But the reality is, is the Bible does give some attention to healthy nutrition. There was a dietary kind of communication. We call it now the Daniel fast. But when in the book of Daniel, you had Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and they were saying, we're gonna eat some fruit and we're gonna eat some vegetables. That's gonna be our diet. And here was the encouragement. They said, we want you to look and observe and see. How much vitality and how much strength and how much clarity and how much better off we are by what we eat. And I just want to say that, um, hey, that's true of all of us. You know, we, we, if we're eating healthy, we're gonna, we're gonna see the results in our lives. And that doesn't mean that we can't have celebration food from time to time. You know, the Bible even speaks about that. We should be able to enjoy that in the right moments in the right seasons and all of that. But if your celebration food is breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, this message is for you. So make the uncomfortable decision to eat quality food.

Number two, make the uncomfortable decision to move. Movement is medicine. And I know it sounds uncomfortable, this idea of movement, this idea of walking at a brisk pace or jogging or riding your bicycle. I know it sounds more comfortable to sit on the couch, but I'm going to encourage you to make the uncomfortable decision to move. Of course, you know, talk to a health professional if you're, you know, feeling like you need to get some advice in this area before you exercise. But don't embrace a lazy kind of sedentary lifestyle. Movement is important. It will help you. It will encourage you. Work your muscles. And you don't need to go to a gym membership. You know, I saw, you know, Chris Pagel walking in. He's sitting up here in the risers. He's got a body like mine, just ripped like Rambo. And he will tell you, you don't have to buy a lot of expensive equipment. You can do body weight exercises and it will help you, you know, become the person that, you know, will increase your muscle. And you don't have to look like Rambo. It's not about how you look. It's about taking care of the temple that you have. You know, if I was to say to you, I'm going to give you a Ferrari and I'm going to pay the insurance. And all you have to do is put premium fuel in the car and you can drive it to your heart's content. Your only responsibility is to put premium fuel in the car. How many of you would go for that? Come on, let me see your hands.

You would go for that? Those of you who didn't raise your hand, this message is for you. You're so lazy. You won't even raise your hand. Find energy. Make the uncomfortable decision to hydrate. Just I, it's uncomfortable for me to drink the amount of water that I feel like is necessary. You can do the research, find out how much you need to drink. So I use an app on my phone to help me, you know, log how much water I drink because it's important that I stay hydrated. Make the uncomfortable decision to get your proper rest. You know, I know it's a little bit dangerous to talk about this because some of you, you're already sleeping too much. So I went to church today and pastor said we should sleep more. And you're on the other side of the continuum. You know, you've already got your, you know, you don't have your eight hours of rest. You've gone to 14 and 15. So you need to dial it back. But in American culture, I think there's this idea that, you know, you don't sleep. You don't sleep. You don't rest. You know, you just, you always got to work. You stay up late and you wake up early. And there's a verse about that. In Psalm 127, in vain you rise up early and stay up late. God wants to give his beloved rest. And the more research that comes out, the more they say that rest is the foundation to healthy living. So you got some decisions to make. And my challenge to all of you, you guys watching online, all of us here today is you got to

be intentional about making some uncomfortable decisions that will actually bring comfort to you as you go through life. And you say, well, I've tried that, but it's been hard. I think you need to fully embrace today that God has given you the power to choose. In Deuteronomy chapter 30 and verse 19, it says, I'm giving to you the choice between life and death, between life's blessing and God's cursing. And I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make, choose life. God is saying, I've given you a gift. It's called choice. And you have the ability to choose God's blessing. or to choose things that's going to mess with your world. Choose life. One of the statements that I confess every single day is this. Today, I will use my willpower to do what I can and then trust God to do what I can't. That's something that all of us can do. I can choose to put on my sneakers and trust God to give me the strength to go for a jog. I can choose to have a good bedroom routine, nighttime routine to get me ready for sleep and then I trust God for the rest. I can choose to make a good list of quality food and then trust God that when I go to the grocery store, I won't get distracted. I can choose. Some of the fiercest and bravest warriors in the Bible were a group of archers from the tribe of Benjamin. You can read about them in 1 Chronicles 12.

They were expert archers and they could shoot arrows or sling stones with their left hand as well as their right. And they were all relatives of Saul from the tribe of Benjamin. They were expert archers. And with the right hand, they can shoot arrows with the left hand equally as well. And everybody was amazed and stunned by this group of people that were as good with the strong hand as they were with the weak. They were as good with the weak hand as much as they were with the strong hand. And it begs the question, how did they get that way? Well, practice. Lots of practice. The only way you become an expert archer is by practice. The only way you become an expert archer with your weak hand is practice times 10. And every morning they got up and they practiced and they practiced and they practiced. And I'm sure they got some blisters. And I'm sure there were times they wanted to sleep in. And I'm sure there were times when they were wondering if it was worth it. I wonder if the other tribes, the other 11 would ask themselves, why did God bless them with this unique ability? They probably put it off on other things.

Maybe trying to feel better about themselves. Henry Ford said something pretty profound. Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you're right. It's what you believe about what you can do. And the Benjamites, they got up early and they practiced and they practiced and they did. They exercised their choice to develop a skill. They got uncomfortable. When the other tribes were sitting at home, watching Netflix, the Benjamites made quality decisions. And my encouragement to you this morning is will you choose to get uncomfortable in 2026, in the short term, so that in the benefit of the longterm, you will have the comfort that God intends for you to live with. Could I hear a good amen? Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity to be together. Lord, we're so grateful for your goodness. And Lord, I just pray that each of us would be aware that you've given us the power to choose. We do what we can and then trust you God to do what we can for your glory in Jesus name. With every head bowed and every eye closed, nobody leaving early or moving around, just honor this moment for a few seconds. If you came to church today and you're not where you need to be with God,

you can make a decision to receive what God has done for you. Your part is small and seemingly insignificant, but you have to make that choice. And you can do that today. You can fix your eyes on Him. God said, I love the world so much that I gave Him. My only begotten Son, whoever believes on Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. If you came to church today and you'd say, Pastor, I'm not living right. I'm not doing right. I'm not where I ought to be with God. Maybe you made that decision at one point in time, but you slipped away, or maybe you've never invited Jesus into your heart, but you want to. If you want to meet Him for the first time or rededicate your life to serving Him, would you make that choice right now? Just raise your hand. You say, that's me. No, I need to get right with God. Wonderful. God bless you. Hands are going up all over. Awesome. Amazing. All of you with your hands raised,

I want to lead you in a very simple prayer. I want you to pray this prayer out loud after me. Would you do that? And everyone else, please, all of us participate as a reaffirmation of our faith and to join our brothers and sisters in Christ. Let's all of us pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for sending Jesus. Jesus, I ask you to come into my heart. Forgive me of my sins. I put my trust in you. And I will live for you. Not in my own power, but in the power you supply for the glory of your name. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Would you give them all a great big hand clap? All of you who made that decision today to follow the Lord, I want to encourage you after we're dismissed today, over here on the West entrance, Pastor Oscar has a sign made brand new. We want to give you a Bible and some information that'll really help you to live this Christian life that you just prayed to receive. And so please, please join them. Also after our service, if you want prayer, we have prayer partners

who are going to meet you up here for prayer. We would just be so delighted to pray with you. Let's all of us stand to our feet. And while you're standing, I want to let you know that we have baptisms today, and maybe you gave Jesus your heart today and you want to be baptized. You can. We've made provision for you that baptism service is going to take place in the chapel. It's going to be awesome. Maybe you want some more information about living a healthier life. My wife, Laura, she wrote a book called Fit for the King. That's available out in the lobby. And we're just so grateful that you came today. When less is more. And we continue that theme next week. It's going to be awesome. Look forward to seeing you then. God bless.