Your Practice Is the Product of Your Life

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♪ Come on and lift your voice with me ♪ ♪ The skies will hear me above ♪ ♪ I'm raising my knees ♪ ♪ Come on and breathe your water in ♪ ♪ Sing if you know it's right ♪ ♪ Come on and lift up your holy hands ♪ ♪ He's worthy of all our praises ♪ ♪ He's worthy, worthy of us ♪ ♪ Bless God in the sanctuary ♪ ♪ Bless God in the darkish valley ♪ ♪ Bless God in the fields of plenty ♪ ♪ Every chance I get, I bless your name ♪ ♪ Bless God when my hands are empty ♪ ♪ Bless God with the praise that caused me ♪ ♪ Bless God when nobody's watching ♪ ♪ Every chance I, come on and bless his name, come on ♪ ♪ Bless God when the weapon's falling ♪ ♪ Bless God when the walls are falling ♪ ♪ Bless God cause he calls me for me ♪ ♪ Every chance I get, I bless your name ♪ ♪ Bless God for he owns the day and creates ♪ ♪ Bless God for he's always with me ♪ ♪ Bless God for he's always worthy ♪ ♪ Every chance I get, I bless your name, hey ♪ ♪ Every chance I get, I bless your name, hey ♪ ♪ Every chance I get, I bless your name, yeah ♪ ♪ Come on and praise the name of your blood in me ♪ ♪ Seek this pure love, it's waiting there – oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Come on and use your voice with me ♪ ♪ He ownership, oh, I'm worthy of and I believe, yeah ♪

♪ Come on and bring me over rock and beach ♪ ♪ Seek this pure love, it's waiting there – oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Come on and lift the body of holy gaze ♪ ♪ He's worthy of all, I'm ready for you, yeah ♪ ♪ He's worthy of all, I'm ready for you, yeah ♪ ♪ He's worthy of all, I'm ready for you, yeah ♪ It is so great to be back here in person with you all this weekend. I'm so excited that we get to continue singing. We get to hear the word of God preached and as we continue together this evening, we're gonna do so by reading God's word. So can I invite you to read our call to worship out of Psalm chapter nine. Will you say these verses with me today, church? I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart. I will tell of all your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and rejoice in you. I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High. My enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before you, for you have upheld my right and my cause, sitting enthroned as the righteous judge. You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked. You have blotted out their name forever and ever. Endless ruin has overtaken my enemies. You have uprooted their cities. Even the memory of them has perished. The Lord reigns forever. He has established his throne for judgment. He rules the world in righteousness

and judges the peoples with equity. The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name, trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you. This is the word of the Lord, and we all say. Let's continue. ♪ My hope is built on nothing less ♪ ♪ Than Jesus' blood and righteousness ♪ ♪ I dare not trust the sweetest rain ♪ ♪ But wholly trust in you, Lord Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ In Jesus' name ♪ Let's sing that again. My hope is built. ♪ My hope is built on nothing less ♪ ♪ Than Jesus' blood and righteousness ♪ ♪ I dare not trust the sweetest phrase ♪ ♪ But only trust in Jesus' name ♪ Christ alone. ♪ Christ alone, cornerstone ♪ ♪ Remains strong in the Savior's love ♪ ♪ Through the storm, He is Lord ♪ ♪ Lord of all ♪ ♪ When darkness seems to hide His face ♪ ♪ I rest on His unchanging grace ♪ ♪ In every high and stormy gale ♪ ♪ My anchor holds within the grave ♪ ♪ My anchor holds within the grave ♪ ♪ Christ alone, cornerstone ♪ ♪ Remains strong in the Savior's love ♪

♪ Through the storm, He is Lord ♪ ♪ Lord of all ♪ ♪ Christ alone, cornerstone ♪ ♪ Remains strong in the Savior's love ♪ ♪ Remains strong in the Savior's love ♪ ♪ Through the storm, He is Lord ♪ ♪ Lord of all ♪ ♪ Lord of all ♪ ♪ He is Lord of all ♪ ♪ Christ alone, cornerstone ♪ ♪ Remains strong in the Savior's love ♪ ♪ Through the storm, He is Lord of all ♪ ♪ Christ alone, cornerstone ♪ ♪ Remains strong in the Savior's love ♪ ♪ Through the storm, He is Lord of all ♪ ♪ He is Lord of all ♪ ♪ When He shall come with trumpet sound ♪ ♪ Oh, may I then in Him be found ♪ ♪ Dressed in His righteousness alone ♪ ♪ For less I'll stand before the throne ♪ ♪ And sing Christ alone ♪ ♪ Remains strong in the Savior's love ♪ ♪ Through the storm, He is Lord, Lord of all ♪ ♪ There is a Redeemer, there is a Redeemer ♪ Jesus, God's own Son, Blessed Lamb of God, Messiah, Holy One. Jesus, my Redeemer, Name above all names, Precious Lamb of God, Messiah, All-forsinner's Slave. Thank You, O my Father, for giving us Your Son, And leaving Your Spirit till the work on earth is done. And when I stand in glory, I will see His face, And there I'll serve my King forever. In that holy place we praise You. Thank You, O my Father, for giving us Your Son, And leaving Your Spirit till the work on earth is done.

Thank You, O my Father, for giving us Your Son, And leaving Your Spirit till the work on earth is done. And leaving Your Spirit till the work on earth is done. Thank You, O my Father, for giving us Your Son, And leaving Your Spirit till the work on earth is done. Thank You, O my Father, for giving us Your Son, And leaving Your Spirit till the work on earth is done. Thank You, O my Father, for giving us Your Son, And leaving Your Spirit till the work on earth is done. Thank You, O my Father, for giving us Your Son, And leaving Your Spirit till the work on earth is done. Thank You, O my Father, for giving us Your Son, And leaving Your Spirit till the work on earth is done. ♪♪♪ ♪♪ No sin is bigger than Your love ♪♪ ♪♪ No chain is stronger than Your love ♪♪ ♪♪ You said it's finished, it is done ♪♪ ♪♪ And to hallelujah, hallelujah, oh ♪♪ ♪♪ Death couldn't keep You in the ground ♪♪ ♪♪ Cause You were losing power into hell, no ♪♪ ♪♪ Cause that power's living in us now, so hallelujah, hallelujah, oh ♪♪ We all sing together today! ♪♪ We sing Christ, Christ crucified in You ♪♪ ♪♪ We wait from death to life ♪♪ ♪♪ We sing Christ, Christ crucified in You, hallelujah, hallelujah, oh ♪♪ ♪♪ We sing Christ, Christ crucified in You ♪♪ ♪♪ We wait from death to life ♪♪ ♪♪ We sing Christ, Christ crucified in You, hallelujah, hallelujah, oh ♪♪ To God be the glory! To God be praise today in this place! We worship You and You alone, for You are good! You are worthy to be praised in this place! I know, I know, death couldn't hold You down Oh, death, it couldn't hold You down Death couldn't steal Your crown Resurrection power

In Your name, in Your name, oh let All the earth cry out, lift up a holy sound And give them all the glory now To Jesus' Name How could it hold You down? It couldn't hold You down It couldn't steal Your crown Resurrection power In Your name, in Your name, oh let All the earth cry out, lift up a holy sound And give them all the glory now To Jesus' Name, Jesus' Name We see Christ, Christ crucified in You We wait from death to life We see Christ, Christ crucified in You Hallelujah We see Christ, Christ crucified in You We wait from death to life We see Christ, Christ crucified Hallelujah Hallelujah As Your people today, we say thank You It's because You chose to be crucified That we have a life And a life of abundance And a life of peace And a life of hope today Because of what You did And so Lord, we say thank You One more time, church

Can we clap our hands? One more time, can we lift up our voices? Hallelujah Amen It's great to be gathered back together Why don't you guys do this? Turn to your neighbor, tell them hello, greet them. We'll keep things moving tonight. Well, good morning, church family. So good to see you this morning. It's great to be back together. We survived the baby blizzard of 2026. I said this in the other services, maybe we gained 10 pounds together as well, eating all those snacks and being snowed in, that's fine. It was really nice to gather with you last weekend online, but there is nothing like being together as a church family worshiping in person. So we're really glad that you're with us. If you're new to Church on the Move, my name is Priscilla. I'm up here with my friend, Britton. We are a couple of pastors here at Tulsa. And this weekend, as Micah mentioned earlier, Pastor Witt will be out in just a moment to continue our series called Breakthrough. We'll be walking through some of the passages found in 2 Peter chapter one together. But before he joins us, we just wanted to come out, say a quick hello, also welcome anyone who's here, maybe for the first time, if that's you,

we would love to give you a gift. Yeah, and if that is you, like she said, we would love to get you a gift. You can take out your phone and just text the word new to 23101, we just wanna send you a Chick-fil-A gift card, our way of saying welcome to Church on the Move. We're glad you decided to come and hang out with us this weekend. And also, maybe you're not so new, but you're interested in taking a step deeper into the community of Church on the Move. What I would encourage you to do is take your phone out as well and text the word next to 23101, and that's gonna get you signed up for something we do around here called Next Move. Next Move is just an opportunity to come, hear some vision from our lead pastor, Pastor Witt, around what it means to be a part of the community of Church on the Move, why we think that this is a valuable place to be a part of, and really, for you to help figure out, is this the church you want to plug into? That's right, really our heart with Next Move is to help you decide if this is a church home you wanna get rooted and planted in. So as Britton mentioned, you can get signed up by texting next to 23101. Also, mark your calendars, February 22nd is our next gathering,

and that'll happen right after the 1130 service. So hopefully we will see you in Next Move. But coming up a lot quicker on the calendar is something I know the men of Church on the Move is really looking forward to. That is our Forming Men Conference. Yeah, so excited for Forming Men. And I just wanna take a moment, if you're a father in this room, if you're a father in this room and you have a son that's high school age, maybe a young adult, college, or even older than that, you have adult children, I can't think of a better place for you to be next week than here with your sons attending Forming Men. There's something about stepping outside of the everyday rhythms. It's like less than 24 hours. There's no work you will get done outside of this place that will be more valuable than the work that the Lord could do in your heart and spiritually. So I would encourage you, take that step, come hang out with us, come enjoy the sessions, come lose to me in the golf simulator, whatever you need to hear to get your pride there, right? I will smoke you at everything. Come hang out with us, but Forming Men is coming up. And also for the 180 parents in the room, we put together this card for you. So on your way out today at all the doors

is this 180 Save the Date. Simply all this is is it has all of our registration dates coming up for the year on Common, Retreats, J-High Trips. It has the prices and when those prices change throughout those registration dates. So we know that what we do here at 180 can get expensive sometimes with all of the things your children want to go to, so we want to come alongside you to help you prepare. So grab one of these, throw it on the fridge, whatever you need to do, give it to a friend, but we want to see your students at all of these events. That's right, as Britton mentioned, grab one on your way out. Well, before we move on with the rest of our service, let's take a moment right now to honor God with our giving. And as you prepare to give today, there may be some of you who are newer to Church on the Move and you're really curious about the ways to give around here. I would encourage you to grab the generosity card that's in the seat backs in front of you. It explains the three different ways to give at Church on the Move. Take that card with you and really prayerfully consider going on this journey with us. If you did come prepared to give in the room today, you can text the word give and the dollar amount to 23101 or you can use those offering envelopes in the seat backs in front of you and drop those off securely as you leave today.

Well, we are really looking forward to hearing from Pastor Witt. Before he joins us, Britton, would you pray over our time together? Heavenly Father, thank you. God, it's good to be back with our church family in the midst of snow and disruption. God, staying at home seems like a good idea sometimes, but it's good to be back. It's good to be back with our church family. The joy as you walk into this place, God, and just enter into the lobbies and you begin to see the familiar faces. God, I just ask that we wouldn't take it for granted, but God, we would see it as the opportunity that it is to live the life you've called us to live in community with your people. God, as we open your word this morning, I just ask that we would be open to it, that it wouldn't just be another message, but it would be something that we were prepared to live out, to respond to, Lord, that you would meet us with conviction and with hope and joy, and we just thank you. And it's in your son's Jesus name that we pray, amen. Good morning, Church on the Move. Good to see everybody this weekend. If you're new around here, my name is Witt, and welcome. Welcome to those of you who may be joining us here for the first time, first time in a long time.

Let me welcome also everybody that might be joining us online, whether you're traveling this weekend or maybe you're in a hospital room and you're unable to come this weekend, whatever the case may be, welcome to you. And then let me also welcome our men at DeConner and our ladies at Eddie Warrior. This is our churches in prisons and we have a couple of those here and we like to welcome them every week. So can we put our hands together, say welcome wherever you may be joining from. Before we dive in together today, I wanna give you a little bit of an update on the expansion project. If you're new around here, we've been under construction for some time. In fact, for the past eight months and I'm happy to tell you that next weekend that fence will be down and that front door will be open, which is awesome. Because you're no longer gonna have to park all the way over in Broken Arrow. You can park in front of the building now, which is gonna be so good. It won't be everything done, but we'll be getting closer. Our goal is to kind of have everything done and wrapped up by Easter, but we're gaining access to the building

that we really have needed. The cafe will be opening soon. Everything will be in full operation and I'm so looking forward to this. I think it's gonna make a massive difference. Let me give you a little bit of an update where we stand financially with this campaign. Our goal is to raise $12.5 million and so far you have generously given $9.7 million, which is awesome. Give yourselves a round of applause, because that's awesome. We're about 80% of the way through our goal and we are about 80% of the way through the construction, but the construction that you see out here isn't the only project in this expansion campaign. We're at the point where we're kind of shifting our focus. Yes, we've gotta finish this new lobby and the whole front space, but our goal is to kind of expand what God is doing in the Reach Through Church on the Move into our city, if possible. Let me show you a little bit of a chart that gives you an idea of kind of what I'm talking about. This is an attendance growth chart and I haven't put numbers on here for a reason. It's not really about that, but I wanna just kind of show you sort of the rate of growth and at the bottom it might be kind of hard to see.

We got 2020 here, 21, 22, 23, all the way to 2026. Kind of shows you the growth curve of Church on the Move collectively and if you didn't know, we're three churches in the city. There's Church on the Move Broken Arrow and there's Church on the Move West. Those churches have their own pastors, but we are one family of churches and we've been growing, all three churches collectively, at a pretty significant rate, which means for us that we really believe that we're getting very close to planting a fourth church in our community somewhere. Now we don't know where and we're looking for that, but some of you are excited about that, so go ahead, I'll give you a chance to applaud. We have a couple of pastoral candidates lined up in-house. This has been our desire is that we would train up pastors here within our kind of Church on the Move family and ecosystem and then send them out to plant a church in the part of the city that we feel like would benefit from it. And the cool thing about doing this as a family is that you get the benefit of all the kind of family resources, meaning there's like all of this established equity that Church on the Move has as being a nearly 40-year-old church now that allows us to launch a church and get a lot of momentum going really quickly.

And so we're looking forward to this. So would you be in prayer about this? But two, as you keep giving to this expansion campaign, that's what you're funding. We've been able to do all of this out here without debt, which is wonderful, but now that we're coming to the end of this construction project, you might say, well, should we keep giving? And the answer is yes, because we wanna kind of keep this fund open to fund projects like this, this fourth church launch. So as you give to eXp, that's what you're funding is this new church that we intend to plant. Hopefully, not making promises, but hopefully this year, that would be something really, really cool. So we'll keep you posted about all of that, but great things are happening. God is so, so, so good. So anyway, really, really excited. All right, if you have a Bible, open it up to 2 Peter chapter one. We're in week five of this series called Breakthrough. It's based on this verse here. This is Jesus speaking, John 10, 10. Hopefully you have it memorized by now. A thief comes only to steal, to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

By the way, did I say 2 Peter five? I meant 2 Peter one. 2 Peter one, we'll begin actually in verse three. Five has no relevance to it whatsoever. I don't know why I said that. Thief comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. What does it mean to have life to the full? That's a great question. This is not sort of a cushy, comfortable life that we're talking about. It's not a complete change of circumstances, though that sometimes happens when God goes to work in your life. He often does work in our circumstances, but the deeper work is something that he does in you. Heather and I were reflecting on kind of our life together this last Friday. We were talking about sort of the different eras of our life. I don't know if you kind of think about that. We sort of mark ours by the homes that we've lived in. And we were thinking about living in this house and what life was like. And then we moved to Broken Arrow and what life was like and so forth. And we were kind of thinking about the first, I don't know, 10, 12, 15 years of marriage and just how hard those years were for us.

Objectively speaking, there really wasn't all that much hardship that we went through other than, you know, raising three small kids is tough. But, I mean, we didn't really face that much difficulty. What made it hard was us. We were emotionally immature, spiritually immature, right? We made life hard for ourselves. In contrast, what was interesting is as we thought about kind of the last 10 to 12 years, which have been, objectively speaking, the hardest of our lives, they've actually been really good years for us. We faced difficulty. What's changed? We have. God did something in us. And that's what I'm talking about when we're talking about life to the full. It's not just a change of your circumstances where Jesus makes all of your problems go away. He changes you so that you face the difficulties of life in a new kind of way. And that's what we're gonna talk about today as we look at this passage that we've been in for the past few weeks in 2 Peter chapter one. So if you've got your Bible open, we're gonna read from verse three all the way down to verse 11. And, yeah, that'll be our text for the day. We're gonna focus on really the back half of this.

But we'll start reading in verse three. Here's what it says. His divine power, Peter writes, has granted to us all things. Somebody say all things. All things. You have everything you need. He has granted it. He has provided it. What has he provided? All things that pertain to life and godliness. That's this life to the full that Jesus is talking about in John 10, 10. He has provided all things through the knowledge of him who has called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious, very great promises so that through them you may become partakers in the divine nature. This is the idea that we would take on God's nature. We'll talk about that as we dig into this text a little further. Having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. What we've been saying is that sin is desire gone rogue. It's desire aimed in the wrong place. And so we've gotta redirect our desires to the only one that can fulfill them. He writes, having escaped the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire, for this very reason make every effort

to supplement your faith with virtue. Virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice, somebody say practice. If you practice these qualities, you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is the word of the Lord and we all said, thanks be to God. So let's look at this text. What Peter's giving us here is an image, a picture. Look at what he says, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue. He's gonna give us a list of character traits. Virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness,

godliness with brotherly affection, a brotherly affection with love. Verse eight, for if these qualities. Now that word qualities isn't there in the original Greek that Peter writes this in. The translators added it to help it make sense. The original text says it like this, for if these. And I think it's good that they put this in there. It helps us understand what Peter's talking about here. He's talking about outcomes of a way of life, qualities. He's giving us a picture of what life with Christ or what the life of Christ is meant to produce in us. This is what your life should look like. Virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance. He's giving us a picture. And this is so huge that he's doing this. In fact, because it tells us something so significant about how transformation, deep change works in human beings. And what's interesting is that behavioral science is actually coming along and now confirming what the Bible has been saying for thousands of years. And it's this, that you don't stop bad behaviors, you replace them. It's not enough to just sort of try to negative bad behavior out of your life. Some of you have tried this, it doesn't work. You can't just tell yourself, stop being angry, stop being angry, stop lusting, stop worrying. It doesn't work. You've tried that. And it doesn't work.

And that's because a negative desire is never enough. It takes negative and positive, a will to want to stop, but wanting to stop isn't enough. My dad used to give this illustration for years. Some of you may remember it. He would say something like this, don't think about elephants for the next few seconds. Do not think about them. Don't let an image of an elephant come into your mind. Don't think about their big wavy ears. Don't think about that long trunk, that little tail in the back. Don't think about elephants. And of course, what have we all just been doing for the last 10 seconds? We've been thinking about elephants. Because negative desire, hear me, isn't enough. Telling yourself, stop, just stop, isn't going to change things. It takes the negative, but it also takes the positive. So let me show you how this kind of shows up all throughout scripture. The scripture has been pointing this out for years. Look at this. This is Paul writing in Galatians 5, and look what he says. He says, now the works of the flesh, what are we talking about here? That's kind of a Bible term for just desire gone rogue, is what we've been saying sin is. Desire is aimed in the wrong direction. Here's what they produce. And he's just going to give us a general list. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger. None of us have any problem with this, do we? Rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, things like these. I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom

of God. Put shortly, stop. Stop this kind of behavior. Don't live like this. But he doesn't stop there. Notice the next verse. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. In other words, the idea is don't do this, this. He's directing you away from this, but he's telling you to embrace this. It's a positive vision. And you need a positive vision for change. Let me give you some more examples. Ephesians 4. This is Paul again. Look how he puts it here. Put off your old self. That's what we're really trying to do in this series. That's what Breakthrough is about. I'm putting off my old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. Notice again, the root of the problem is desire gone rogue and amiss. Desires aimed in the wrong direction. Verse 24. Notice the contrast. Put on. Now there's the positive. The new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Now Paul is hitting at something here that's really important.

Really these character traits that are listed, what we call the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5, or this list that Peter gives us here in 2 Peter 1, are really just character traits of God himself. It's the character of Christ. That's what they're pointing at. Be like him. It's not enough to just be a virtuous person if you're a believer. We're called to become like Christ. That's the goal. So what they're describing here in the fruit of the spirit or in this new way of life is the way of Christ, the manner of Christ, his pattern of living and behavior. That's the idea. Now let me show you more. Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. What do we have here? Negatives. Not. Nor. Nor. In other words, not this, nor this, nor this. But notice the contrast right here. But his delight. Now we have the positive. It's in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. One more example. Maybe my favorite. Hebrews chapter 12. I quote this all the time because I love this passage, but look at how it goes.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside. That's a negative. Set this aside. There's some things in your life you need to set aside. Stuff that's holding you back. You are not running your race at the rate and speed which you could be running it at. Peter calls it being ineffective or unfruitful in your knowledge of Jesus Christ. Some of us, there's certain habits of behavior, patterns of behavior that we've allowed in for a long time that are keeping us from effectiveness and fruitfulness in our knowledge. This is basically what it is to be a Christian but have no real fruit or effectiveness. It happens all the time. What Hebrews 12 says is lay those things aside. Set those aside. That's a negative. But notice, notice the second verse, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher or perfecter of our faith. In other words, there's a positive. Now this is a principle here. You need an image, something that you're aiming at, a new vision. Where am I going? What am I attaining to? And what behavioral science tells us is interesting is that you never really want to get there. That human beings aren't made for the arrival. We're made for the journey. You ever notice that when you have a... It's like you're driven, and you have so much motivation, and then when you reach that goal, it's kind of like, now what do I do? People who retire find this all the time. It's like they've been working hard toward retirement.

I'm gonna retire at such an age. I have these goals. You meet all your goals, you get there, and then it's like, now what do I do with my life? And you know what happens? A lot of people end up blowing their lives up, ruining their marriages because they're restless. They don't know what to do. You weren't made to stop. You were made to continually pursue. This is the idea that as long as you live and there is breath in your lungs, as far as your relationship to Christ and your role in the kingdom is concerned, there is no such thing as retirement. You're pursuing the Lord continually. You're becoming more and more and more like him. You have a vision that you're pursuing. It's what drives and motivates you, and you need this. Let me show you how this kind of played out in my life. So I remember probably seventh grade was when I first became aware of Michael Jordan. I'd probably never up to that time in my life that I could think of watched an NBA basketball game start to finish before, but I started hearing about this guy at school, probably around this time. This is 1988, Chicago, slam dunk contest. Kids were talking about it at school. I was hearing about this, and so I started looking for him and seeing him in Sports Illustrated, right?

He was, I mean, blowing up. He was becoming the cultural icon that he has become. And I, it just took a little bit, and I was hooked. I was captivated. I'm like, this guy, he's incredible. I loved the way that he played. The highlights were amazing. I was basically one of so many young men in my generation that lived up to that Gatorade song. I wanted to be like Mike. That was the idea. You saw this guy perform, and then you wanted to become like him. So that's literally what I did. I spent, I don't know how many years of my life. We didn't have internet back then. We had VHS tapes, and I had a couple that I wore out. I don't know if some of you will remember these. Michael Jordan, Come Fly With Me. I had Michael Jordan's Playground. I watched those videos every single day. I watched the highlights. I studied how he played, and then I would go out in the backyard and try to practice. I would get in front of our basketball goal and work on all the moves that he would do. I wanted to be exactly like him. In fact, I was so reminded of this, and this was such a thing in my life for so long,

that I remember this picture that we took in 2009, I think it was, and I had them bring it to put it up just to show you how serious I was about this. This is 2009. And I'm not sure why you're laughing, because there's really no difference. We both wear the uniform really well. Take it down, please. No more. That was a joke, by the way. I got that jersey when I was like, I don't know, 12, 13 years old. I was, you had to have the shoes, right? I mean, we wanted to look like him. We wanted everything to be like Mike. Now, I get this is a lighthearted example, but it's actually a penetrating insight into human nature, and here it is, that we become what we behold. What you look at, what you are captivated by, what you find alluring, attractive, you will take on its characteristics. In the Old Testament, we saw this. The gods that the Israelites worshiped, the false gods, they became like them. You become like what you worship. Now, you might not think of it as worship, but the people you obsess over, that tech CEO that you're just all enamored with, you take on their characteristics. That influencer, you're taking on their way of life.

Whatever you look to and admire and are captivated by, you will become like it. So you have to first, if you want to change, you have to find what I would call a new motivating desire. Let me tell you what happened in my life. My life began to change when I went from finding Jesus, not just useful, he was useful for saving me from my sins. He was useful for getting me into heaven. Thank you, really appreciate that. I found him useful, but everything began to change when I began to find him beautiful. What does that mean? I love who he is. I want to be like him. I want my life to look like his life. Do you see the difference? That's the change. You get a new motivating desire, and this is what we're called to all throughout the scriptures, is that we're given these quality traits, these characteristics of Christ himself. Hebrews 12, verse three, the very next verse, we already read verses one and two, the very next verse says it like this, consider him. This is where change begins. Some of us, we just spend no time considering the Lord, thinking about him, thinking about his goodness. The Psalms are filled with this, recounting God's goodness, his nature.

When you spend time doing that, you know what we could really? Just call this very flatly worship. Spending time in worship and gratitude and thanksgiving, you're drawn to what you worship. And when you start there, what happens is you develop a new desire. My question for you is, are you spending any time doing this? Do you need to cultivate a new desire? Some of you, if you're really honest with yourself, you could admit that maybe never in your life have you found the Lord to be beautiful, maybe useful, but you've never found him to be beautiful. That's a great starting point prayer. Lord, I need a deeper desire for you because you will become like what you behold. Now, the second thing Peter tells us is kind of the second sort of stage in the process. Look again at verse 10. He writes this, therefore brothers become all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. I love this. For if you practice these qualities, this is so simple and yet so profound and so overlooked. If you practice, meaning that these qualities, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, these things have to be practiced. They're not just going to come upon you automatically

because you have prayed a prayer at the end of a service, because you had a moment at an altar. It's not just going to change your life without your permission or, let me go further, your participation. You're going to have to practice this. Now, let's just define our terms and talk about what does practice mean? A practice is a repeatable behavior that produces a specific result. So let me give you an example of kind of how this has played out in my life. So a couple of years ago, Heather and I bought golf clubs together. We got some, I had some sized for me, she had some sized for her. I had to have longer golf clubs because I'm pretty tall and usually when I play golf it was like this. So that was part of the problem, at least I thought. I thought I'm going to get these new clubs, I'm going to wreck this game, it's going to be so good. I don't know if you know this, I found this out, golf is hard. Really, it's not nearly as easy as it looks on TV. You watch those beautiful swings, they're so smooth, and you just, I'm totally going to go do that. I'm going to destroy, here's my problem, I slice the ball. And if you know what a slice is, basically what it is is when you leave the club face open, it puts a lot of spin like this on the ball

and it goes right. If only every hole on the golf course was a dog leg to the right, I would be the world's best golfer. Because I can so easily put it over that direction, getting it to fly straight so much harder. And I know what would need to happen to fix it, I've got to learn a new swing. I've got to be able to close the club face and the only way to do that is practice. I'm going to have to go to the range, I'm going to have to hit a bucket of balls. And I'm not just going to have to do it once, I'm going to have to do it over and over and over again. I'm going to have to train my body, my hands, my, you know, like the whole, the rhythm of the thing. And some of you are golfers, you know exactly what I'm, like it takes a lot of training. In fact, you never stop training in this way if you want to be decent at golf. It takes practice. What I've determined is I don't like golf that much. I don't want to practice. And so I have a slice. What are we talking about here? We're talking about practices are ways of instilling new outcomes in your life. Now, here's the principle. And you may never have thought of this before, this could be really eye-opening for you.

Your life is the product of your practices. See, have you ever wondered why do I sin so easily? Why is it that anger just comes so easily? Why is self-control so hard, but anger, worry, anxiety, why are these things so easy? Why is lust so easy to choose? Can I tell you why? It's because you've had a lifetime of practicing them. These are habits that you picked up when you were young. A lot of times they're coping mechanisms. Withdrawing from uncomfortable situations, so many of us do this. We don't know how to handle negative emotions, and this started whenever we were younger. And we just figured to retreat emotionally is easier, so we just kind of disengage whenever things get tense. Very hard for us to sort of initiate, to step in, to be present in the midst of conflict. We have a longstanding practice of withdrawing. Some of us blow up whenever things don't go our way. Why is that so easy? Because you've been practicing it for years. You've been working at it for so long, no wonder it's second nature. That's what practice is meant to produce. See, we understand this in the world of athletics, do we not? We understand that if you're a great athlete, it might be enough for you to kind of use your athleticism to make a difference in the world.

This is in high school and you can dominate everybody But it's not. It's not. without practicing because you could just kind of It's not. It's not. out-athlete everybody on the field, or on the court. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. But when it comes to the D1 level, It's not. or especially when it gets to the pro level, It's not. It's not. everybody there is like the best of the best It's not. of the best of the best of the best. So you're not gonna be able to out-athlete everybody there. It's going to take practice, and this is where the good ones and the great ones separate themselves from just the average players and those that you've never heard of before. What makes the difference? That practice, the consistent, continual practice. And what you're practicing are these motions, these qualities that you're looking for so that when game time comes and the pressure is on and you don't have time to stop and think about it,

it can just happen. Your training can take over and it becomes kind of like a reflex. That's the idea. And see, that's what's happening with sin in your life. It's just become reflexive. You've been doing it for so long, you just turn to it without even thinking. So if you want a different quality of character to be formed in you, Peter literally tells us you're going to have to practice it. And if you're gonna have to practice it, you should assume that it won't feel comfortable in the beginning because that's what practices are. When you try something new, it feels weird. It feels like you're doing everything with your left hand, right? Or it feels like you're wearing somebody else's clothes. It feels strange and foreign to you because you're not used to it, but you've gotta practice it and practice it over and over and over again so that it can be developed in you. I don't know if you've ever thought about that before, but you need to be practicing patience, self-control. You can practice these things, love. You can practice being of a calm and sound mind. These are things that you can practice. You can put literal practices in your life.

We call these spiritual disciplines. And what they are is ways of forming new habits of character in our lives so that when the pressure is on and we just react, we react now the virtuous way, the godly way, the Christ-like way instead of our old sin pattern way. Do you understand? So you're gonna need some practices so that these things can become second nature. So let me give you a couple of examples of this and how this has kind of played out in our life and family. So my son, my oldest son, Francis, has been on quite a journey. In fact, I'm so proud of what the Lord has done in him in the last several years. And I haven't talked super publicly about this because honestly we kind of want some of our family stories to just be family stories. But I asked him for permission to share a little bit of this and he was totally cool with it. So from about 14 years old to his early 20s, it was a pretty dark time in Fran's life. I'm not gonna go into all the details today. That's not really the point. There was addiction. We knew there was some stuff going on. We didn't know how much was going on. Somewhere a few years ago, all of this kind of came out. You can imagine if any of you have been through something like this, you know what it feels like.

It's disorienting, it's unsettling. But there was also a strange hope in it because when we kind of finally got the truth after having been lied to for so many years and if you know anything about addiction, you know that addiction and lying go hand in hand. That's how it works, it's secrets. And when the truth finally started to come out, it was like, okay, now we know what we can attack and what we can help them with and all of this. And by God's grace, he was able to walk out of that addiction pretty quickly. It didn't take as long as maybe we had initially anticipated. But what lingered or what kind of stayed around for a while was the lying. In fact, it seemed to take longer to break the addiction to lying than it did the addiction to the substance. And the idea was he had had such a long time practicing just hiding behaviors that were less than desirable. And it was just sort of like automatic. You could just see, he's not even thinking about it, it's just happening. He just talks and a lie, he's so good at it too. It's like a lie comes out of his mouth without even trying. And so we started to notice this and we sat down with him.

I think Heather specifically was the one that had the conversation with just like, friend, you're lying and you're not even realizing it or even thinking about it. You're going to have to make a practice of telling the truth. In fact, I can remember a couple of times confronting him on a couple things that we knew he had lied about and just even admitting it was like a catch in his throat. The words couldn't come out, why? Because he'd spent so long covering it up that honesty felt uncomfortable and awkward. So you're gonna have to practice this. By God's grace, he has. And today, I mean, I don't even recognize him in so many ways. He's a different kid. In fact, just this, I think this morning. I woke up to a text, one of the best texts you could ever receive is dad in our family group chat, Fran had completed reading the entire Bible cover to cover in 30 days, really proud of my son for doing that. I mean, that's how far he's come. Doesn't happen overnight, steady practice. That's what it looks like, putting these things in place where you're applying new behaviors to get different kinds of outcomes. I can remember in my life, an example I'll share with you

goes something like this. So one of the things that I used to struggle with was I found my identity, I didn't think of it this way, but after I thought about it for a while, I realized that part of my identity was found in how I performed on the basketball court. You could see, cause I had made, you know, MJ my God, if you will, and this was how I kind of found my worth. And what happened was that I would get really competitive, like so competitive that I would just be cruel to people that I was playing with. Friends, like people that I loved and cared about, I could just be cruel. I had to discount them doing well so that I could maintain superiority. So if anybody beat me, they were lucky. That was the only reason they won, you're stinking lucky. You're not better than me, you're just lucky. Had to kind of take away, couldn't say congratulations, couldn't say good job, couldn't be a good sport about it, had to cut you down so that I could feel better about it. It's pathetic, I know, but this is how I was. And so I started to see, and I justified it for years, for years I justified this. I told myself, well this is just how guys are on the basketball court, it's just competitive nature, no big deal. But then the Lord started dealing with me about this. And so I knew that it needed to change, but I wasn't gonna change just by saying,

don't be mean, don't be cruel. I needed a new practice. So you know what I did? When I would play basketball or when I would do it, I just decided, I'm going to compliment anyone who scores on me. If they block my shot, I'm gonna say, good block. If they play defense, well, I'm gonna say, great defense. I'm gonna cut that desire to put them down off by elevating them instead of tearing them down. That's a practice. Let me give you another one. One I've been talking about here lately. James 119 says it like this, or 120, I think it says it this way. The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Now there's a perfect example of what we're talking about. First of all, you have a new desire, the righteousness of God. I read that verse as I was teaching through the book of James and I was like, anger, this is something that I sometimes struggle with. I want the righteousness of God more than I want what my anger produces. That's a new desire. That's where you start. I want that. I want the righteousness of God. Great.

Now whenever anger starts rising in you, you can remind yourself of that. And it's happened many times. I've had lots of cause to be angry. Not just like blow up, go crazy angry, but just that simmering kind of anger under the surface. And so I'll feel those things and then the verse pops into my mind, the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. So I remind myself of that. I want the righteousness of God. And as soon as I do, here's what happens. No joke, and I'm not having to force it. A smile comes onto my face because I now know I have an opportunity to practice something that I want to develop. What an opportunity this is. In fact, I circle back to James one verse two. Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you enter trials of various kinds and I start thanking God. God, thanks. This is an opportunity for me to learn patience or an opportunity for me to learn self control or me to learn how to say no to my anger so that I can say yes to the righteousness of God. I'm viewing the situations in my life as training that the Lord can now form in me his character by applying certain practices. You will have to practice these things.

They're not just gonna happen automatically. Now, what then do I do? What are the practices? Well, I can't tell you exactly what you should be practicing. I can give you some general ideas because each of us is different, but let me give you a few examples. Reading scripture, let's start there. You know, you're formed by what you look at, what you consume. How many of us, we're being shaped, we don't think of it like this, but we're practicing scrolling all the time. We're practicing distraction. I have a really terrible attention span. No doubt, you practice it for hours a day. Maybe you need, I did this, I have a little device. It's called a Brick. I don't know how many of you know this. It's just a little thing. It's, I don't know, less than 100 bucks. You buy it, you can brick your phone. Basically, what you can do is you can tell it what apps you don't wanna be allowed access to while your phone is bricked. It has reduced my screen time by I don't know how much. Now, I only use social media when I choose and want to. I turn it on, then I turn it off. Some of you, you'd do well.

That'd be a spiritual discipline for you. It's just to learn. and how to have a right relationship with technology. Maybe start there. Prayer is another spiritual discipline that you can put in place. Serving. Some of you, you struggle with pride, ego, control. You wanna know how to deal with that? Serve. Serve other people. You need to work on humility. Serving is a great way to do that. It's a spiritual discipline. That's why we do this. It's why we have these opportunities to serve one another around the church. It's not just helping each other out. We are forming the literal character of Christ on the inside of us. Generosity is another one. When I give, nothing reminds me that God is my source more than giving away sums of money I would rather hold onto. What does that do? It tells me I'm not bringing all this in. I'm not in control of all this. He's the one that provides for me. What's happening? I'm learning to look to the Lord

because really this is what sin is. It is a trust issue with God. At its core, you're failing to trust God. So you need disciplines that help you practice how to put your desires in their proper place. Let me give you some real basic ones. Some of you who struggle with being in a hurry all the time and being in control or maybe barking at people as you're driving, maybe for you a practice would be just driving the speed limit for a while. I'm serious. Maybe choosing the longest line at the grocery store and not intentionally counting it all joy right now, Lord, that I have an opportunity to practice patience. That woman who's up in the front of the line talking to the cashier, taking forever. Instead of being mad about all of this, I'm just gonna breathe in, breathe out. Lord, thanks for teaching me patience right now. Seriously, you're left. But this is where this kind of character is formed. I know of a counselor here in the cities. I've gone to him, a lot of us around here have gone to him. One of his favorite things that sort of help people kind of grow in their spiritual disciplines is to take a whole box of Cheerios and just dump them out in their living room and leave them for a week. Learn to live with the uncomfortable mess in your life. All of us control freaks just kind of seized up

a little bit, didn't we? How are you gonna learn to do it any differently if you don't practice? You gotta have some practices in your life. So this is what we're doing here. Peter puts it like this. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement. This is the attitude that we're to have. Make every effort, whatever it takes, whatever it takes. This word supplement here is an ancient word that spoke about like an angel investor for the theater. And what would happen is there would be wealthy people who would come along and they would pay for theater productions to be put on. That's what this word supplement means. It means to supply, to give generously. This is what Peter's saying. Make every effort, whatever it takes, give all that you have to add these things to your faith. Add to faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and so on and so forth. My dad used to say it like this. He'd say, you don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your preparation. Don't expect these qualities just to show up when you need them most if you haven't been preparing for it. You got an opportunity every day. Maybe as you're leaving today in the parking lot, maybe you're just gonna practice letting some folks

go in front of you, being patient, taking your time, slowing down a little bit. What do you see in Christ? What is his character? Now start to practice it in your life. And if you do that, well, here's what Peter says. He says, for if these qualities are yours, in other words, you possess them, and are increasing, let's just pause right there and acknowledge that this is an ever, ever attaining, ever increasing goal. You're never gonna get there. Not in this lifetime. This gives you something to shoot for for the rest of your life. I'm becoming more like Christ. Now let me just pause and say that this is not a one time thing. You don't just get a dose of love or a dose of self control and that'll do ya. You're good. Nope. You keep working at this. You know what's tragic? Are Christians who grow older physically and don't increase in the character of Christ. In fact, they decrease. They become not more loving, more patient, more selfless, more humble. They become more selfish, more demanding,

more self-centered. Of course, no one in this room is like that. I know that. But people out there, you know what I'm talking about. Older people. They don't get nicer as they get older, so many of them. I don't wanna be like that. I don't wanna be the kind of person that as I age, I become more self-consumed, losing my filter, less patient with the people around me, and justifying it by the gray hair on my head. No thanks. I wanna be more like Christ. Peter says, if these qualities are yours and are increasing, we oughta be growing in this kind of character. Look what he says. you, they keep you. You know what that word means? It means to appoint, to put in charge. In other words, you develop this kind of character and it begins to take charge of your life. Some of you right now, you're ruled by sin. Your sinful habits and behavior rule and dominate your life and you are living with the result. Brokenness. It's difficult. Life is harder this way. But here's what Peter's promising. If you'll put these things into practice now, you'll give some new behavior. A new character will take charge of your life and you will reap the reward. It will keep you from being unfruitful or ineffective in your faith. I think too many of God's people, we believe in Jesus but it makes no kind of real difference what changes it. We begin to put these things in to practice. We hear and we do. And that's how change works. You get a new desire, it motivates you, you drive toward it. Now I have some practices I put in place so that I can, these things can take charge of my life, hold in my life, begin to form me and

shape me into the character and image of Christ. When I do that, real transformation, real life change, real effectiveness, real fruitfulness begins to happen and I become exactly who God designed and created me to be. I get the life that Jesus promised in John 10. Life and life to the full. Would you bow your heads, close your eyes, let me pray for us as we close today. Father, thank you so much for this word. It gives us a roadmap to real change. We're not just here going through religious motions. We're here to become like you. I pray that you would speak to us. In fact, I pray for every individual situation that's represented here is as unique as there are people in this room. Lord, we need to hear from you. You're the great counselor. What do we need to put in practice? Where can we start? Would you speak to every one of us? Give us ears to hear and the courage and strength of faith to obey. Help us to put these qualities into practice and in so doing become effective and fruitful in our knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray and everybody said amen. As we close today, if you have a prayer need in your life, something that you're going through, maybe a diagnosis, maybe something going on with a family member, maybe something that's just, I don't know, weighing heavily on your heart and mind, our prayer team will be down front if you're in a place where you are not right with God but you would like some information on what that looks like. Maybe you've been coming for a while and it's like, I think I'm a Christian or I think I'm curious about becoming a Christian. Our prayer team's down here for you too. We have some resources. We want to help you understand what it means to actually become a follower of Christ. So they'll be standing right in front of me, lining the whole front of the stage. We would love to be able to pray with you and minister to you as we as we dismiss today. Stand to your feet. We're gonna close with this blessing out of Numbers chapter 6 and we like to say it out loud so the words are on the screen. You can join with me as we dismiss today. Here we go. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

God bless you. I love you. You're dismissed. See you next week. [♪ Music ♪ and impressed with the results. They were so good. I am so proud of them. The graphics are SO good. It's still a bit too obvious, but it looks great. Love it! 🍪🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍈🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇🍇� ✨🔥🔥🔥✨🔥🔥🔥✨🔥🔥✨ 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥