Why Consistency Changes Everything | I Declare

How many of you have ever made a New Year's resolution? You ever made a New Year's resolution? Yeah, a lot of head nods there, that's great. Well, it's January 4th, and of course, this is the time to make those resolutions. I have made in the past resolutions to eat healthier. How do you think that went, Steve? Not well, not well, it just never does quite work out. I made resolutions to lose weight, that doesn't work out. I've actually, thinking of working out, I've made resolutions to work out and get ripped. Well, as you can see, that has never occurred. At one time, I made a resolution to stop drinking Mountain Dew, and I kept that for quite some time until we had a flooded basement of somebody's house, and Nick, who's sitting in the circle, brought me a Mountain Dew. It was his fault, not mine, but I was already off the wagon anyway, right? So what are your New Year's resolutions? If you just think about that, you probably have one or two, something like that. I really hope that you succeed. I mean, I really hope that you succeed, but I wanna let you know, it's very likely you will not, okay, that doesn't sound like a great encouragement to start the day today. Do you know the average time it takes to fail on New Year's resolutions?

I Googled this, so according to Google, which maybe isn't the greatest research, it says a large percentage of people give up on their resolution within the first month or two, that many, actually, they give a number, 80% of all people who had a resolution will have abandoned it before the end of February and some way ahead of that. Other research say, and this is much more depressing, it says a significant number of people abandon their resolution within the first two weeks. They even pinpointed that it's the second Friday of January. It's often called quitter's day, okay? It's the second for you're like, I've done this, I'm sick of it, I'm done. By the way, that's January 9th this year, 2026. If you wanna quit, quit on January 9th. You'll be like everybody else, right? So this year, instead of resolutions, we're talking at the church and we're saying, hey, wouldn't it be great if we, instead of making resolutions, we made declarations. We say like, I declare that this year is gonna be different. A declaration is like drawing a line in the sand. It's a decision. We're gonna make some declarations over the next few weeks that are gonna be absolutely transformative in your life. In fact, this particular day, we're gonna start with the one that I think

is the most important declaration that you can make. And I'm gonna, before we say it out loud and before we talk about it, I wanna just say, if you can get this one right, this idea right, it will not only affect your spiritual life, it'll affect your physical life, your financial life, your relational life, and it all can boil down to one simple word. And that word is consistency, consistency. So the declaration, you've got it with you. It's on the screen with me. We're gonna say it together. I'm gonna count to three and we're gonna say it together. Ready, one, two, three, here we go. This year, with God's help and the power of the Holy Spirit, I declare I will be a person of consistency. Isn't that great? With God's help, not just my personal will, and the power of the Holy Spirit that works inside of each one of us when we have declared Christ as our Lord and Savior, I will be a person of consistency. Why is consistency so important? Well, here's why. This is great, ready? Transformation happens when I do consistently what others do occasionally. That's good, I wanna say it again, ready? Transformation in your life and in my life spiritually happens when I do consistently what others do occasionally.

Think about that. How many of you would honestly say consistency comes natural for you? Like I'm just naturally, most of us would say not particularly. How many of you would say consistency does not come naturally to you? It's hard to be disciplined. Well, I'm not just talking about workouts at the gym. We're gonna be really focused in on the scripture. And actually the Bible talks about this. 1 Timothy 4, verse eight. If you have your Bibles, we'd love for you to go ahead and go there. You can get it on your phone as well. And I'm gonna be reading this particular scripture from two different translations. The first translation is the New Living Translation. That's the one that we use predominantly here. We love that translation. Easy to understand, easy to understand. But the second one is from the Message Translation, which is kind of a paraphrase. So the first one, New Living Translation, 1 Timothy 4, verse eight says, physical training is good, but training for godliness is, you can see the next two words, much better, isn't that great? Promising benefits in this life

and in the life to come. So it's good to be physical and be fit and all those different things. But it's way better to train for godliness because that's gonna matter forever. The Message Translation of this same verse goes like. Yes, workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit for today and forever. Isn't that great? Like when we're consistent in our spiritual life, it's not just a, you know, day-to-day, it's a forever kind of deal. There needs to be priority in our consistency. So we're gonna talk about spiritual consistency today. And I wanna begin by just asking a question. Hey, where are you on that? Let's ask the question, what's something spiritually you need to do more consistently? That's a great question, isn't it? What's something spiritually in your walk with the Lord that you need to do more consistently? Now to that end, I wanna talk about four ways that we can grow in our consistency and in our relationship with God. And the first way is to start small. Can you guys say that back to me, ready? Start small, that's so important. Small things done consistently, trump big things done occasionally.

That's very important to know. If you just do the small things consistently, it's way better than doing like one big thing once a year or twice a year. It's incredible how meaningful change actually happens. It just happens one step at a time. So I've talked to different people and I've been one of these people, it's like, I'm gonna lose this much weight in two weeks, like 20 pounds in two weeks. Is that healthy? That is not healthy. That is really bad idea. But yet that's sometimes what we do. I wanna just get through it really fast and so forth. What if we said, I wanna lose a half a pound for every week and if I did that for 40 weeks, I'd lose 20 pounds. That'd be a way more healthy, sustainable way to do it. We start with small, incremental change. We say, I want my marriage to be different. And we're like, we'll have one conversation with each other or we'll take one counseling appointment or we'll go on one big trip and we'll think that's gonna change everything. It's gonna help. But you know what's most important? The small, daily, weekly changes that compound over time so that we can consistently see growth in the marriage. Let's talk about it from a financial standpoint.

I'm gonna ask everybody here, what would you prefer? I give you $500,000 today, by the way, just to be super clear for the, I'm not, okay? This is just an example, all right? I could give you $500,000 today or I could give you one penny and let it double every day for the next 30 days. Which would you choose? 500,000 today, right now, or one penny doubled every day for the next 30 days. Steve, you want the 500K? Okay, he's taking it. Amy? You want the penny? Ken's? Penny? Half million, Nick's like, I need that money. Okay. One penny times two is what? Two cents. Two cents times two is what? Four cents. Times two is eight. Times two is 16. Times two is 32 and on and on. By day 10, Steve, you're at $5.12. Doesn't sound very good. By day 20, you ready? $5,242.88. Still doesn't look very good, does it?

Day 30, are you ready? $5,368,709.12. Small changes incrementally, they compound over time, really make a difference. So let's talk about three small things today that we can really work on and have it make a massive difference in our life over the next year, decade and beyond. The three things are, number one, we need to read God's word and apply it every day. It's very important to get the second part right, right? It's that we want to read God's word. That's important, so that's information, but application is the key, right? We need to pray, which means we need to talk to and listen to God every day. The first two are daily deposits that we're making into our spiritual life. Let me emphasize prayer again. We're going to talk to and listen to. One of the best things we can do in prayer is to close our mouths and to listen to what God is trying to say back to us. The third thing is we're going to engage every Sunday in church or online, if you have to work and can't make it physically, every single week. So the first two are daily deposits and the next two are weekly deposits.

So right now, everybody in this room, if you have your phone with you, I want you to pull out your phone, okay? And I want you to make an appointment with God every day. It's really easy, right? I do this. So I have an eight o'clock standing appointment with the Lord, eight o'clock in the morning. I'm not a great morning. person. So a lot of you that can get up early and get your life organized, I have so much great respect for you. I just can't do it. So I get up a little bit later and then I make sure my time with the Lord, that's the first thing in my calendar is time with God, prayer and Bible reading. Do I hit it every time? Maybe not every time, but most generally that's the main thing. Now I want you to note that every seventh day it's Sunday. You guys aware of that? It's pretty cool. And Sunday, the way I was raised, is the Lord's day. That's the Lord's day. It's a Sabbath. It's a time to be with Him. And where do you go to be with Him on Sunday, the Lord's day? You go to church. That's a very important thing. So if you're watching and you're with our Sheridan group, you guys are like, well, we don't have church on Sunday. That's right. You're at Saturday at nine o'clock. That's your time. We're going to never miss that. We're going to be in God's house with God's people. You know, if it's in gymnasium, in a prison, that's where God's people are. That's where His house is. That's what we're going to do. If you are at our Minooka or Coles City or Seneca campuses, in the month of January, you're going to have an eight o'clock, a nine o'clock, and a 1030 service at the very end of the month with Coles City and Seneca. They're going to start that eight o'clock. And if you're in Shorewood, you're going to make that 930 every Sunday morning. We're going to say, hey, we're going to make this commitment because small things done consistently, way overwhelms big things done occasionally. Take the 500 grand. No, give me the five and a half million. That's what I'm looking for over time. Okay? 365 days of being in God's word and applying it and then talking to and listening to God, plus 52 Sundays in a row being with God's people in His house. You think that'll make a difference? That will make a massive difference in your life. Zechariah chapter four, verse 10. If you want to go to that, it's

one of the last books of the Old Testament. It's one of my favorite verses because we're always starting things around here. We're always starting new churches or new ministries and all that kind of stuff. And a lot of it has just become, God has just captured my heart with this verse. Zechariah chapter four, verse 10, New Living Translation says, do not despise these small beginnings for the Lord, what's the next word? Rejoices. Isn't that great? For the Lord rejoices to see the work begin. Start small. I want to read that again. Do not despise these small beginnings for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin. You may feel, if you're watching this, you may feel like, I just don't, I don't know a whole lot about faith. I don't know a whole lot about God. I'm really brand new to this. Welcome to the club. That's where we all are. We're just getting started. Start small because small things done consistently have a massive compounding effect in your life. Number two, ready? Don't give up just because you don't see change fast enough. I want to say that again. That's true in all of life. Don't give up because you don't see change fast enough. Let me give an example. You show up at the gym three times a week for a month. You're going to see a major radical difference. Probably not unless you're on steroids or illegal drugs, but hopefully you're not going to do that either. But if you go to the gym three times a week for 12 to 18 months in a row, you're going to see a difference. You're going to see a difference, right? Because when you do it for the period of time, small things over time, they compound, but sometimes we just give up. We give up because we don't see the change fast enough. Now think about the farmer, okay? We live in Midwest, so we got a lot of people that, you know, a lot of farmland around. When they plant that seed in March or April, in May, when they don't see that plant coming through the ground, do they give up? Does the farmer give up? No. They're like, it just takes time, right? And then it comes up through the ground and it's just a little bitty stalk of corn or a little bitty thing of beans. And you're thinking, well, that's never going to work out. How's that? Do they give up in June? No, they don't give up in June. In July, when it gets really hot and there's no rain, you're like, some of them might give up, you know, like, is this going to work? I don't know. But always God sends the rain. And then in like October, usually September, October, Nick, that's about the right, sometimes even November, that's when the harvest is. And if they would have given up in April, May, June, July, August, September, would have missed it. Would have missed it. Galatians chapter six, verse nine, incredible scripture. It says, let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, that's key, at the proper time,

we will reap a harvest if, and I love the last several words, last several words, if we do not give up. I'll just read that again. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up. Because transformation happens when I and you do consistently what others do occasionally, right? So we're going to start small. We're not going to give up. Number three, ready? We're going to Plan for failure. That sounds exciting, doesn't it? We're gonna plan for failure because being consistent is not the same as being perfect. I think so many of us struggle with being consistent because we have an all or nothing mindset. We think perfection is the goal. So if you fail once or you fail twice, you're like, that's it, I'm out, never gonna try again. Wrong, wrong. If the aim is perfection, you'll miss it every time. There's only one guy who is perfect, Jesus. That's it, and you're not Jesus, and you're not Jesus, and everybody's like, we're not Jesus, okay? But that's what Satan wants to do is he wants to cause you to have shame and to feel like you're a failure. And that will then keep you from consistency. See a little game he plays there? Let's just make him think they're bad, then they'll just stop. Planning to fail doesn't mean you expect to fail. So I wanna make that clear, okay? It means you know how to get back on track.

It means if you have a miss, you don't give up. Hey, you wanna read your Bible every day, that's great. If you miss one day, don't miss two. Does that make sense? It's like, we're not gonna beat ourselves up and like, well, it's all over, we've totally ruined it, it's January 9th, it's Quitter's Day, so we're just gonna quit. Don't do that, just don't miss two. Hey, you wanna come to church every Sunday. I get it, that's awesome. Well, you got a Sunday where you're sick. Watch online, that's what we have online. Or maybe you're just like, I just don't wanna go today, right? I'm just gonna stay in my pajamas. That's okay, don't miss two, right? You wanna pray with your kids at night. You miss one night, even if you miss two night. Don't give up, just plan that, hey, I'm not gonna let it be three, I'm not gonna let it be two. Your enemy is after your consistency. And oftentimes what he'll do is he'll make you feel so bad about it that you'll just stop. Romans 8, chapter one says, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's huge, right?

If you're in Christ, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. When we fail, we don't give up. We knew we were gonna make a mistake along the way. We just stay at it and we stay at it. So I knew that I was gonna be giving this message about three or four months ago when we were writing these. And I thought it would be really neat for me to keep a little spreadsheet of consistent things that I wanted to do. Here were the four consistent things that I wanted to do. You ready? I wanted to exercise. Actually, hold on. Number one was Bible and prayer. So I wanted to read the Bible, do the prayer time. That was good. The second thing was I wanted to exercise, meaning I wanted to do pushups and I wanted to do sit-ups every day, okay? The third thing was I wanted to read 10 pages a day of some sort of a leadership book. I just really wanted to focus in on leadership. And the last thing was I wanted to not eat past five o'clock. So anything past five o'clock, no eating whatsoever. I wanted to really focus on that. So I made a spreadsheet like you did in the old, like when you're in the kindergarten, you know, if you'd go to the potty, you get a sticker. If you do, you know, that kind of thing.

So like, I actually did this and I was like, days one through seven, I was on it every single day. Day eight, nine, and 10, struggle bus, okay? Major struggle bus. I got back on, did pretty good. And then I think it was days like 20, 21, it got off the struggle bus a little bit. Days 24, 25, I got back on and then I just said, forget it, I'm too stressed. I'll do it in January, whenever I preach this message, that's when I'm gonna do it. So it's interesting how that goes. I think one of the things that I needed in that moment was accountability. So here at the church, this was a couple of weeks ago, we were doing a whole bunch of work around the church. We had to clean some things out and I involved a lot of people in that process and it took a couple hours for us to do it. And I just thought, you know what? We've worked hard today, we've done a lot of good things, I'm gonna take these people to lunch and just thank them for that. So I said, let's go to Fat Boys. Now, Fat Boys is a pizza place in our area that is not healthy, you can tell by the name, right? Fat Boys, but they are, man, they got some great pizza. And one of our guys on staff, he was, you know, he's like, yeah, and he's pretty diligent, very disciplined is eating.

And he went with us and his wife on the location saw where he was, took a picture of the location and said, don't do it, right? So you need accountability in these particular things, okay? So let's be consistent, I wanna repeat these for these three things. Number one, we're gonna read God's word and apply it every day. Psalm 119, verse 105 says, your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path. Now, we talked about this a little ahead of taping, like, how do you do that? Some people use the Bible recap and I'd encourage, hey, Google that, Bible recap. It's a daily reading. And then someone explains like what the scripture said. If you do it every day, you get all the way through the Bible in a year. Incredible, okay? I prefer the YouVersion Bible app and it has a daily Bible verse. Just, you go on that YouVersion Bible app and it's got a verse and you just read the verse and then it has a two to three minute explanation of that verse. I do that every day on my way to the office. It's absolutely wonderful. Others are like, I like the paper Bible. Some of you have the paper Bible

and that's a wonderful thing. I would recommend the Life Application Study Bible. So if you're looking for a Bible, I think that's a great one. Pray every day. So we're gonna read God's word every day and we're gonna apply it. We're gonna pray every day. We're gonna talk and listen to God. I love this verse in 1 Thessalonians 5 verses 16 through 18. It says, rejoice always, pray continually. That's all verse 17, it's just two words. Pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Remember at the beginning of the day, I said, let's schedule that on your phone. Let's do that, it's just a reminder. Let's schedule that and make sure that we're setting time aside to pray. We're just talking to God. Maybe you're like, I don't know what to say. Maybe you're familiar with the Lord's Prayer. Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Just use that as a model. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. That's to praise God. Your kingdom come, your will be done. That's like, okay God, what do you want me to do? If things are getting done up in heaven

because you say it, you want it to get done on earth. That's good, there's an important part of that. Give us today our daily bread, just what we need to kind of survive. Forgive us of our sins as we forgive those who sin against us or trespass against us. So if you want God to forgive you, we gotta be getting good at forgiving. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. God, help us with that. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Number three, engage every Sunday in church or online. Those are important opportunities for you. And you can really get some things going. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 25 says, let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let's encourage one another all the more as you see the day approaching. Transformation happens when you do consistently what others do occasionally. It's all about consistency all the way through. So let me ask you a question. What's one thing that you need to be more consistent in your life spiritually? What's that one thing? What is it? Could be reading the Bible, could be praying,

could be engaging in church, or it could be something completely different that's just on your heart. And I would encourage you to really consider that. Let's make this year of 2026 something really significant. So we're gonna make that declaration together. We're gonna say it, we're gonna mean it, and then we're gonna conclude our time right now. Here we go. This year, let's say it together. This year, I declare with God's help and the power of the Holy Spirit, I will be a person of consistency. Thanks for being with us today. We've got a little QR code that you can scan. And in that, you'll have an opportunity to receive prayer, communion, worship, talk to a pastor, connect in a Bible study, be baptized, whatever it is that you would need, we'd love to be able to serve you. We look forward to meeting you there.