Practice Makes Prepared | Chris Nelson

to our Liberty Correctional Campus? Liberty, we love you guys. We appreciate you. And again, I would be remiss to come up here and not give honor where honor is due. We believe here at TC, that honor is a very important part of our church culture. And so we want to honor our pastors. Can we give it up for PR and Pasha Andrea? We're so thankful for them. I love them. They're amazing leaders and have been such a blessing to not only my life, but my life, case life, and so many others, people here at the church. So we want to get started with this message. And it's a pretty straightforward message. Is that OK? It's something that is a topic that we're going over in the story that we're looking at in the Bible. Maybe you have heard this story before. But I know growing up in church and being in church for a while, that you can hear and go through the same Bible passage. And God can reveal something new to you. So I just ask you guys that if you would allow for God to speak to you, to say, God, open up my heart. Get my heart ready for what you want to say in this time as we go through this message. But before we do that, let's pray. Dear God, we thank you for this time.

We thank you that these words will be your words and not my own. We pray that there is someone in this place today, even if it is just one. Then you have said this word to go to that one person. We pray that even if it is just one, that someone will be impacted to change their life so they can get one step closer to a transformed life. We pray this in Jesus' holy name. And we all said amen, amen. So for the past couple of weeks, we have been going over this idea of the words that we say and saying that the words that come out of our mouths, they have the power of life or death. And so we've been in this series entitled My Big Fat Mouth. And as we did that, we navigated through words that bring death. But we also navigated through words that bring life and encouragement. And this really spiked this idea. And I believe the topic that we're going to be speaking about this morning ties so perfectly into what we have been speaking about the past couple of weeks. It says in Luke 6, verse 45, it says this, a good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart. And an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.

There's another passage or in other passages and translations, it says the words of your mouth, what comes out of your mouth, comes out of the abundance of what is in your heart. And so what this passage is saying is that oftentimes what comes out of our mouth is a direct result of what we practice in our hearts. What comes out of our mouth is a direct result of what we practice in our hearts. And so here's the thing. This is what you say when you have nothing to say. This is your default. You ever hear that phrase, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all? How many of us don't listen to what that phrase says? We say whatever is on our mind. But this is what you say when you have nothing to say. I know I've been there when I've said something. And then I've immediately regretted what I said. This is my go to. I say, hey, I didn't mean that. Oftentimes, that is exactly what you meant to say. Why? Because that is not just the words that came out of your mouth, but that was what you were practicing in your heart. And so we need to get into this idea that we need to practice certain things in our heart so that we are prepared when certain situations arise. Practice is important. Practice is important.

Why? Because how you practice determines how prepared you are going to be. How you practice determines how prepared you're going to be. And so finish this quote. I want you guys to finish this quote with me. Practice makes perfect. One more time, practice makes-- that's wrong. Practice does not make perfect. Instead, what we should say is practice makes prepared. Let me explain why. Here's the thing. There is nothing that you have practiced that you will continually get. If practice made perfect, then why when you take a test, you don't ace every test you have ever studied for. You've been practicing those same equations, you've been practicing the same what you would see on the test, but somehow, some way, you don't ace every test that you've ever taken. Why? Because practice does not equate to perfection. If practice meant perfection, then why have some people been married for over 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, and you still argue. You've been practicing the same argument, you're talking about the same thing over and over again, but somehow, some way, you find yourself to where you're not perfected, but what you can do

with practice and practice and practice, you can be prepared for what is ahead. And so, instead of saying practice makes perfect, we can understand that practice makes us prepared. You see, I remember growing up in church and I would hear this phrase, as believers, we fight from victory and not for victory. What does that mean? That means that the battle is already won. Okay, so Jesus had defeated death and defeated the grave. He rose on the third day, so guess what? We can live a life of where we have been given the victory. Right, we already fight from the winning side. I don't know about you, but I'm competitive. I want to win. There's so many people want to win. Right, I want to win. And so, the thing that you can, it's a guaranteed win. Right, if you were a betting person, there's nobody in here that's a betting person, not in our church, but if you were a betting person, you would want to be on the team that you know can guarantee you a win. And guess what, that is team Jesus, that is going to guarantee you a win. No matter what it may look like, we are going to come out victorious on the other side. Why, because we fight from victory, not for victory. So that means that the battle is already won. God is not looking for perfect Christians.

However, he is looking for prepared ones. He's looking for people that are prepared. And so, we want to take a deep dive this morning into a familiar story, and we're going to be talking about David and Goliath. All right, so everyone turn with me in your Bibles to first Samuel 17, and we're going to go, we're going to read a lot, but it's okay, I'll read and you guys can kind of just watch or look at the screens. Sit comfy in your seats, and then we'll get through this together, okay? So, it says this, it says, "But David said to Saul, your servant has been keeping his father's sheep." And so, the reason why I wanted to open up, I'll give a little bit of a summary of what has been happening. So, basically, you have the Israelite army, and there's this giant that is Goliath. And so, Goliath has been towering, and not only has he been there, and the nation of Israel has not been able to oppose him, or no one has gone out to fight him, how the situation that's happening is Goliath is there, and he's now cursing at God's name. He's now spewing things against the nation of Israel. And so, this didn't go on for just moments or hours, right? This went on for days. And so, you have this full-blown Israelite army that would not go out to fight this giant.

And so, they needed someone to do it. And so, here comes David. And at this point, David is a teenage boy, right? He is not, it's not like he is a full-grown man, and it's not like anyone would look at him and say that you are a warrior, and not like anyone would look at him and say that you are qualified to be in position to go out and fight this giant. But how many people know that God does not look for us to be qualified? He qualifies the call. So, when God gives us that call, he says, "I will make sure that you have "all the qualifications that you need." All we need to do is be prepared to go into battle. And so, David, who was literally the last election for this, he goes in and he says to Saul, 'cause Saul's like, "Hey, there's no way "you could possibly fight, you're too young." Right, there's no way that we could put you on the battlefield because we want to win this battle. But David said to Saul, he said, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep." When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, shook it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, shook it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear.

because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the pot, this is the key. Everything that David said before, that was factual, but he was kind of like boosting it, hey, here's my resume, right? This is what I've done. He's basically been saying, hey, I've been practicing. I'm prepared for this battle. But he was saying, this is my resume, right? When the lion came and the bear came and they decided to take the sheep that belonged to me, I went after them, handled them, and that's what it was. But here's the most important part. David doesn't just tell Saul about his resume. David tells Saul about God's resume. You see, a lot of the situations in our life, we don't need to just tell about our resume, hey, this is the work that I've done. This is the work that I've prepared and I put in. What we need to begin to do is be like David and say, hey, but this is what my God can do because this is far greater than anything that I can do. So in verse 37, it says this, it said, the Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this filicine. So David let Saul and the Israelite army know that he was prepared. Everybody say prepared. He didn't look like the perfect candidate,

but he was the most prepared. You have to think in this army, you have gods that have been fighting all their lives. They know what it is like to be a soldier. They know what it is like to be in a battle. They know what it is like to fight. But in this moment, they were not prepared. They looked like the perfect candidates, but they were not prepared. And so David went before in this battle and he knew that it wasn't just him that was fighting Goliath. And this is the point that I think we need to get to as believers and as a church body, that when we deal with and go through situations in our life, it is not just us that goes through these fights. It is not just us that goes through these battles, but it is God that is going before us. And if God is for us, then who can be against us? That is the reality that we have to live in. You see, you may be in this place and you may be looking at a financial battle, but guess what? You have to tell your situation, I've been practicing. You may be struggling in your marriage, but you have to look at that situation and say, I've been practicing. You may be praying for a friend or a parent or a spouse, someone that you want to come to Christ. And it seems as if they are too far gone,

but you need to look at that situation and say, I've been practicing. You don't practice to be perfect. You practice to be prepared. You don't practice to be perfect. You practice to be prepared. Because guess what church, what would it look like if we were all prepared when the situations in our life came about? We all know that one person that carries everything in their purse or in their bag, they have some, you know a God that knows, has something for every situation that you can call on you and be like, hey, do you have this? Yeah, I have it, right? Someone that has it, why? They're always prepared. So what would it look like as a church body if we were prepared for when situations came? 'Cause it doesn't talk about these battles as if they're not gonna happen. The Bible constantly talks about battles as when these battles happen. And so if I know that a battle is coming, then I need to be prepared for the battle. 'Cause the quote is true, that we fight from victory. The battle is already won, but here's the reality that we have to live with. It is hard to win a battle that you're not prepared for. It is hard to win a battle that you are not prepared for.

When you are constantly getting blindsided by life, and it seems as if you can never catch a break, it seems as if you can never get ahead. We have to realize that what we practice shows up in the preparation later. But when we are prepared, then God can come through and say, "I'm going to take over this situation." David was very aware of his place in this battle. He knew that he wasn't the one that was going out to fight Goliath in the sense of he was the one that was giving himself the victory. You see, to David, it didn't matter who was opposing him. As far as he was concerned, as long as someone was opposing God, they were never going to win, right? They were never going to win. It's a fail-safe, it's an area where we can say, this guarantees our victory whenever you decide to put God in the battle first. But you see, what happens is a lot of times We like to put our careers first. We like to put our safety valves first. Our plan B becomes our plan A. Our fallback becomes our first option. And when God is not the first option then everything else gets out of place. Right, you ever rush somewhere and you're trying to get ready? And I know that this happens to me more often than I like to admit.

But hey, we're all family, I can speak. I'm with you guys. So I'm rushing places and I'm trying to get on and these are like the shirt, the type of shirt I have on right now, these are the worst shirts to rush and put on. You need to put on something that you could just zip up real quick, maybe throw on really quick, not a button shirt, okay? Don't put on a button shirt when you're rushing 'cause this is what tends to happen. You're rushing and you miss place where the buttons go. And guess what? If you miss that top button, all the buttons look and now you look lopsided. You look like you're leaning one way and you're really standing straight. But that's what happens. God should be our top button. When he's not, guess what? Everything else gets out of place. And so we need to realize that if we want to do things the way that God has designed us, we wanna win these battles and these and have these victories in our life and have the victory that's already one that the Bible talks about, we need to put God first. Without that, everything else is going to fall out of line. And so we need to get familiar with this idea of practicing.

And the reason I say practicing, I don't mean as you're going and you're basically saying like, I'm never going to get this right. But you're constantly practicing to improve because you know that there is a never ending cycle that you can always be learning. You can always be improving. There's always something that God can teach you. You see, the moment where we get dormant as Christians is when we believe that we've learned everything about Christianity. I've learned everything about God. I don't need to go there. I've already heard this one before. I've already read this passage before and that's when things in our life begin to be dead. PR just talked about it. Why is the Dead Sea dead? Why? Because there's no fresh water that is flowing through it. It is just gathering. There's no output. And so there needs to be an area where we're constantly going and saying, I am practicing my walk and my faith. And I used to think that this was just a church thing, but we see this in the world. We see this in professions. You ever wonder why specialized professions are called practices.

They're called practices. If you are a doctor in the room, that is your practice. If you are a lawyer, that is your practice. Now, this sounds a little scary, right? Imagine you're sitting down, you need like open heart surgery, or you have a case that is like, hey, if this case does not go well, I'm gonna be spending time in a place I do not wanna spend. You're sitting in that situation, you look at your lawyer and they're like, I'm just practicing. You look at your doctor and they're like, hey, I don't know how this is gonna turn out. Why do they call it practices? Because every situation is unique. They can't look at something and say, this is the exact same body as this body. This is the exact same case as this case. So because there are new cases, because there are new bodies, they have to say that we are practicing 'cause we're always learning. There's always something that can change. There's always something that can be different. Now, here's the reality. The situations in your life can change. But the way that you get prepared by practicing for them does not.

We have the same blueprint that we use every single time. And this is what it looks like. I'm gonna get out of the way and God, you go first. And after that, that is when we are able to get the victory. So here's the first point. We need to practice putting God first. Practice putting God first. It says this in verse 38, it says then Samuel gave his own armor, a bronze helmet and a coat of mail and put it on, this is like chain mail. So this is to protect, not like a coat of envelopes. All right, so a chain of mail, put it on, shot the sword over it and took a step to see what it felt like. So David is trying out this armor, right? He's feeling it out. What does this armor feel like? 'Cause Saul said, hey, you can't go in this battle the way that you are right now. We need to make sure, he's like, listen, I'm the king and as a good king, we need to make sure you're protected before you go fight this giant as a teenage boy. So he goes and he puts this armor on him. And so David, he puts this armor on him. And he says this. He says, "David took a step to see what it was like for he had never worn such things before." And David says, "I can't go in these."

He protested to us all, "I am not used to them." What is he saying? I didn't practice with these, right? The, when I was tending the sheep, I didn't have this armor on. I had a different armor, I had the armor of God, but I wasn't practicing with this armor that you gave me. So he picked up five stones, five smooth stones, from a stream and put them into his shepherd's bag. Here's the reality, and as I'm looking through this passage, again, I've read this passage so many times, but this is something that I believe that God was not only trying to speak to you guys, but also trying to speak into my life as well. The reason David went without Saul's armor, because he knew his greatest weapon was God and not his slingshot, right? He realized that his greatest weapon was who was going before him. David probably didn't need the armor because he probably didn't intend to get hit. Right, he knew like, "Hey, as when I send this shot, "because God is going before me, "this is going to take this giant out." Right, I'm not really going to go into a back and forth battle, because once God gives the final word, that's the final word. But here's the thing, oftentimes, how many of us would have went into that situation and said, "You know what?

"Give us that armor." Right, oftentimes we take what God has given us and we try to add on to it. Right, we say, "Hey, I want to hear the voice of God, "so guess what we get given, a Bible." 'Cause that's everything that God has ever said that he will continue to say is in your word. And so we say, "Hey, I want to hear the voice of God, "so we get given the Bible, and then what do we start doing?" We start adding on to it. We start putting our feelings in it, our emotions in it, our opinions in it. And instead of taking it for the way that God has designed it, we say to God, "Hey God, you need my help." But here's the reality, God does not need your help, but he invites you into a partnership, a part to be a part of what he's already doing. Right, so God does not need your help recreating the will. Right, there is an aspect of, "Hey, this has gotten people "through and delivered people through for generation "upon generation upon generation." What makes us think, "Hey, when we add in our little point "into it, that it's going to be revolutionary." We need to understand that the best type of revelation that we can give to someone, the best word that a preacher can ever give to you is awful what the Bible says. If I started to come up here and add in what Chris thinks and Chris's opinion, it gets messed up. Right, God has given me the recipe.

All I am is a waiter, I'm a server, hey, you take what God has made, here it is. The moment I start looking at it and say, "Yeah, well, I would do this a little different "and I will put this in here." That's when it doesn't have the same power, why? Because it's not from God, it's from me. I understand it, so we need to understand that God does not need our help, but he invites us into a partnership of what he is already doing. Now, the question remains, how do I stay prepared for the inevitable battles of my life? This is what we need to do, you need to, we said this before, you need to practice putting God first, but here's the next one, you need to practice being in your word. Practice being in your word, Joshua 1-8 says this, study the book of instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so that you will be sure to obey everything that is written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all that you do. Makes it very clean, very plain to us. That in order for us to live a life that is prosperous, live a life where we are blessed, live a life where God goes before us and we're able to succeed in the things of life, doesn't mean that everything is gonna be okay, doesn't mean that everything is going to go the way that we intended, but it says that you will succeed in all that you do is if you follow the book of instruction continuously.

If you are constantly in your word, again, it is a practice, you do it over and over again because there is always something to learn. There's always something to learn, always something to receive, always a new revelation that God wants to share. but the blueprint to win does not. We have the same playbook. It is the same playbook that has brought people out of addiction, the same playbook that has brought people to salvation in Christ, the same playbook that has changed families, the same playbooks that have changed relationships, the same playbook that have taken people who were lost and now made them found. It is the same playbook. The situations may change. The blueprint does not. But in your word, that's where you hear the voice of God. That's where you hear God speak to you. Like I used to always think that the voice of God was just gonna be this audible voice, right? - Chris, go here. Do this. Like it doesn't work like that. Honestly, I would probably be scary if it worked like that. Like I'll be like, "Oh, who is that?" But what I do get reminded of is when you're walking in a way that God has intended for you and you are constantly in your word,

you'll remember scriptures and you're like, whoa, that scripture aligned exactly with what I'm dealing with right now. That scripture has kept me away from what I'm dealing with right now. That scripture has been brought back to the forefront of your mind. Why? Because that is God speaking to you. The Bible is inspired. And so this is God speaking to us. So we need to practice time in our word. And here's the thing, we need to make it practical for us. A lot of times we like to give ourselves an unrealistic goal. Make sure that you are spending, if that is in the beginning of the day, make it like we need to begin to discipline ourselves into putting God first. And you do that by practicing being in. Your word, the next one is this. Practice spending time in God's presence. You see, while tending to the sheep, David had ample time to be with God. Ample time to see the direction that God had for his life. Right, he wasn't sitting there being overstimulated. Now think a lot of times that is what we deal with today because of the access that we have to our phones,

into social media, into different influencers. And even though we're looking at, sometimes you can be looking at Christian content, you can be looking at all of these different good things in your life that you can fill your life with, but sometimes we're overstimulated. Sometimes we need to just sit and take time in God's presence. Right, whether that's for you, that's going for a walk. Right, that maybe for you that's sitting in the presence of God at the end of the day. Early in the morning before anyone gets up to set time aside with God. We need to spend time in God's presence. It's important. In his presence, that's when you're going to find out what his plans are for your life, how to win these battles that you are facing. But when you are overstimulated, it is very hard for that to happen. And this is the last point that I think David did so well. But let's just read this scripture first. In 1 Samuel 17, verse 48, it says this, as Goliath moves closer to attack, David ran or David quickly ran out to meet him. Right, David did not wait for the engagement of Goliath. He ran toward the giant. Reaching into his shepherd's bag, taking out a stone, he curled it with his sling and he hit the Philistine in the forehead.

The stone sank in and Goliath stumbled and fell face down on the ground. Here's the thing, David ran toward Goliath. He didn't just talk about his preparation. He put it into action. That is the last point that we need to understand is that being prepared to put your practice in to action. We can't just be Christians that talk about it. We need to be prepared to put our practice in to action. That's what it looks like to be a believer. That's what it looks like to have a faith to where we say, not only am I going to talk about believing this, but I'm only going to talk about it. I'm going to be about it. I'm gonna put my faith in to action. 'Cause guess what, when we say God, I wanna be available to put your faith into action. Trust and believe God will put you in situations where that happens. Trust and believe that he will. Yesterday, we went to the FSU game and we're going to a certain area of parking. And you know how many times I have said I'm going to pray for a person session. You guys are sitting down like, all right, but I've said it and it's not intentional but I've said I'm gonna pray for you and then it just didn't happen, right? I've got busy with something or I do like one of these quick prayers like God bless them, God, you know, change the situation in their life or whatever but but I'm not really sitting down and doing it in that moment. So we're going to the game and so we bought some of our some of our friends with us and in the back we have one of my boys Sam and so he's in the back. He introduces

himself to the God that was doing the parking for the event and he was talking about he's like, hey, I just want to let you know that Jesus loves you. I'm like, where is this coming from? Right? And so he tells this guy, he's like, hey, I just want to let you know that Jesus loves you and he says, the guy says, amen, what church do you guys go to? So we're like, oh, we go to transformation church. He see, he's like, yeah, actually that's our pastor right there. He can pray for you right now. And I'm like, there's no way he does offer me to pray for this God on the spot. So like we continue the conversation. He had to actually talk to someone and tell them and he's like, oh, no, he's going to continue to pray for you. I'm like, Sam, what is happening? But that was something that I needed to do. So we go and we actually end up praying for him and and he said he was coming today. So hopefully he's here, but I just want to be here to say that we need to be prepared to put our the words that we say into action. Put the words that we say into action because it's not about being Christians that can just talk the talk, but we need to be able to walk the wall. Why? Because then other people can look at our lives and say that is evidence of God doing a transformative work in somebody else's life. And because I can see them doing it, I can have faith for myself to believe that I can do the same thing. Right? Because we carry that label of what it means to be a believer. So if you were the only version of Jesus that someone saw, would you be a good representation of who Jesus is? That is what we need to challenge ourselves with. We need to understand that we need to be prepared to put our practice into action. See what I love so much about David, but David was about that life. He was like, hey, listen, I'm not going to wait for this giant to come to me. I'm going to run toward him because I know whose power and authority I'm coming with. It's not just me that's going to fight this giant. It's God in me. In the situations in your life, it is the exact same thing. It is not just you, it's you with God. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, make sure you subscribe. Also, if something spoke to you in a special way, share it with a friend because you never know how it could transform someone's life. If you're interested in checking out our service times, make sure you go to our website at transform T L H dot com. And we hope to see you at TC on a Sunday. Thanks so much and have a great day. [BLANK_AUDIO]