Improving Your Spiritual Fitness

I'll grab your message notes out of your bulletins that look like this. Let's talk about it as we continue our series, "Prepare to Meet Your Maker." We are in the series preparing to meet God in a fresh way, a vibrant way, a revitalizing way during our "God is" series. And it's very appropriate that the series is called "Prepare to Meet Your Maker" because I got to tell you, I thought I was quite literally ready to meet my maker one night several years ago.

I've told some of you how I collapsed on the couch as Lori and I were getting ready to go out. And my wife, Lori, said, "What's wrong?" And I said, "I can't catch my breath. I have tunnel vision. I'm only seeing kind of what's directly in front of me. There's black all the way around, just a pinhole of sight in front of me. And there's ringing in my ears and it feels like there's a bowling ball on my chest. And I can't stand up." And of course, she says, "We got to get you to the doctor right away," which kind of encouraged me about the state of our marriage.

But she said, "Let's go to the doctor." And she rushes me to emergency. The doctor does tests, comes into the waiting room, says, "I got some questions for you." I said, "Yes, doctor." He said, "Are you exercising?" "Uh, no." "Are you eating right?" "No." "Are you eating junk food after you've fasted unintentionally from good healthy food?" "Yes, I am." "Are you getting enough sleep?" "No." "Are you staying up late at night worrying?" "Yes, I am." And then he said, "What do you do for a living?" And I said, "I'm a pastor at Santa Cruz Bible Church." No, I didn't really say that. I said, "What's your point, doctor?"

And he says, "René, I go to Twin Lakes Church. I know who you are." And in fact, you know who it was? Rebecca Jackson, who plays violin up here sometimes, it was her dad, Dr. Jackson, who was the attending physician. I didn't know him yet. And he says, "You want my diagnosis? A, you are having anxiety attacks. And B, you are really out of shape." Now who wants to hear that? I told you last year about my visit to this ER and how I got over the anxiety attack part of that diagnosis. But what about part B? I don't think I've ever told any of you about how I got over the part B part, the out of shape part.

In many ways, that was a lot harder because the doctor went on. He was merciless. He said, "René, I got to be honest with you. You're at least 30 pounds overweight. You are going in the wrong direction. All your habits are self-destructive. The way you eat, the way you sleep or don't sleep, everything you are doing." Now what do you do with that? Well now, I am not today some kind of paragon of physical fitness. But if you know me, you know that that day really changed my life in many ways. Spiritually as well as physically.

At the time, I weighed nearly 200 pounds. It was the most I'd ever weighed in my life. And since then, I've dropped to the doctor's goal for me, which was about 170, about my high school weight. I started running again. I watched my diet. I didn't change my diet, but I watched it. There goes some ice cream. There's another french fry. No, just kidding. I'm going to go to my diet. And some of you are going, "Wait just a minute. Is this a message about diet and fitness in church? I didn't come here to hear some message about food today. Are you kidding me?"

Well, I am preaching about getting fit today, but not physically fit, although that's important. This morning, I want to talk about something even more important. I want to talk about recovering your spiritual fitness, because maybe spiritually, you've been feeling a little bit flabby. Spiritually you feel a little bit out of shape. Spiritually, you feel like there's a weight on you, like you can't ever seem to catch your breath, like you've got tunnel vision. All you can see is what's right in front of you. You have no perspective, no sense of purpose in life.

Well, let me kind of play the role of the doctor in that case for me many years ago. You're out of shape, and you need to get spiritually fit. It's a biblical concept. Let's read this key Bible verse together. The Apostle Paul said this, let me hear you. Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is valuable in every way, because it promises life both for the present and for the future. He talks about physical exercise. In the Apostle Paul's day, I don't know if you knew this, but going to the gym was a huge part of the culture.

These are pictures of the very well-preserved ruins of the gymnasium at Pompeii. The first century Greek and Roman cities all had huge gyms like this with grounds for exercise and running and wrestling, competition, swimming pools. It was the center of the city. Paul does not dismiss this. He says physical exercise has some value. I mean, you have to be in shape, but after all, the body won't last forever, right? The body decays. The body ages. How many of you are living examples of that right now as I speak? How many of you are sitting next to somebody who's a living example of that right now?

Okay. But spiritual exercise, he says, is valuable in every way, because it promises life both in the present and in the future. It does promise life in the present, study after study. And there's some of these in the back of the God-Is books. The benefits of belief shows that people who are spiritually healthy are in fact physically and mentally more healthy also. You not only lose your spiritual flabbiness, but you gain in confidence and insight and joy plus your spirit lives forever and so the gain never ends.

So he says, and let's read this verse out loud together because this is really the key to the rest of what I'm saying this morning. I hear you, Take time and trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit. Say that again. Take time and trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit. So how do you do that? Who doesn't want to be spiritually? Who wants to be spiritually flabby? Who wants to be spiritually out of shape? Nobody, but we don't always know how to stay spiritually fit.

Well I was thinking about this. The same four principles the doctor gave me that day for my physical flabbiness apply to our spiritual flabbiness as well. So I want to give you these same four principles and they apply to you and they apply to me today. And I challenge you to see how the Bible supports these four principles and put these into practice in your life. Jot these down. Number one, take control of your mental diet. Take control of your mental diet.

All right, I want to give you guys a pop quiz. I'm going to show you a picture and I want you to just shout it out if you know the answer. Do you recognize this man? Who is it? That's right. I can't believe you know his first name. This is Jared, Jared Fogel, who is otherwise known as what? The Subway guy. That's exactly right. What is the real story behind Jared, the Subway guy? Well I researched it this week. Let me tell you. In 1999, his former college dorm mate happened to run into him and didn't even recognize him.

He had to say, "Hey, I'm Jared. Jared Fogel." And this guy said, "What? I didn't even recognize him because of his dramatic weight loss." And that former roommate wrote an article for the Indiana Daily Student Newspaper, a college paper about him, wrote about how Fogel became obese by eating junk food. Nothing but junk food. He's holding up his old pants. That's how huge he was. But he lost all of that weight primarily by eating only healthy foods. And he knew he loved junk food, so he knew he had to find a place where he could get fast food that was healthy. And so he ate that mostly at Subway.

Well Men's Health magazine saw that story in the student newspaper, investigated it, found out it was true, and wrote about Jared in an article titled, "Stupid Diets That Work." Subway's Chicago ad agency heard about it, and the rest is history. He's been on Oprah in USA Today on Fox News, and he's mostly kept the weight off. Late last year, he finished in the New York City Marathon. That is a huge accomplishment.

Now, he says he's retiring as spokesperson at the end of this year after one final round of publicity. He calls it the 2011 Tour de Pance. I love that. He actually tours with his actual pants before his weight loss and says, "Look at this, and look at this." He says, "This is the difference." He says, "I made one change in my life. I stopped eating junk food, and I started eating healthy food." It makes a huge difference, and this goes double for your mental diet.

Check this out. One study, violent music lyrics, increase aggressive thoughts and hostile feelings. That was a study done by Iowa State University and the Texas Department of Human Services. So is that what you're feeding yourself? What about this? Heavy TV viewers tend to what researchers call "mean world syndrome." I love that. Do you have mean world syndrome? Here's some examples of it. They overestimate the risk of being victims of crime. They believe their neighborhood's unsafe when it's really not, and they assume the crime rate is rising much faster than it is.

Ask yourself, "Do I fall into mean world syndrome? Maybe a little bit. Is the stuff I am feeding myself making me paranoid?" It's not only what we eat mentally, it's how much we eat. I think we're overeating. I Googled the phrase "information overload" this past Tuesday when I was writing this message, and I got over 7 million results. I got information overload about information overload, and that just says it all to me. We're eating too much. We're overloaded. We're obese.

So what's the answer? The Bible says to feed your mind with this, whatever's true, whatever's noble, whatever's right, whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy. Think about such things. The Apostle Paul is saying, "Detoxify your mind." You've heard people talk about detoxifying their bodies, right, by going for a long time eating only pure, good food. Well, detoxify your mind. How do you do that? First, try very deliberately to only have healthy mental input. Decide to have healthy mental input.

And this is where the God Is Project comes in. And while I was away this summer, I wrote this book, God Is. It's a 50-day exploration of the attributes of God. Every day for 50 days it has this. Here's a sample page from day one, God Thirst. You see it has a scripture reading, which you look up and read. Read this with a Bible right next to it. And then it's got a verse that you can memorize or meditate on, and then a daily devotion. And starting in two weeks, these will all tie directly into the weekly sermons and the small group lessons. And, by the way, also our kids' programs, our youth programs, and everything else we're doing as a church.

So we can sort of detoxify together for 50 days. It's about focus, really. Because I don't know about you, but left to myself, my mind is kind of like Billy in those family circus cartoons. You know what I'm talking about? Where he wanders all over the place and never goes in the straight line. That right now, that's a picture of my mind. It might think about God for 20 seconds, right? And then it goes, hey, listen, a dog. My neighbor has a dog. Why does my neighbor's dog bark so much? That makes me mad sometimes. And suddenly, you know, I've forgotten about my beautiful thoughts about God.

Well, when you immerse your mind in thoughts of God, the whole point behind this book is, when you think about God and what you think about God, it changes everything about your life. What you think about God can make you confident or anxious. What you think about God can give you joy or can give you stress. And we often, A, don't think about God very much. And when we do, we have these lazy preconceptions about God, many of which aren't even biblical.

So what does the Bible really say about the majesty and the power and the love and the mind-blowing grace of God? When you immerse your mind in thoughts like that, you start to find that your mind, you think I'm going to say, goes in a straight line. No. I think God made your mind to wander. It's part of creativity. Your mind will still wander. But instead of wandering straight to anxiety and anger and frustration, you'll find that it wanders to hope and joy and insight and discovery.

Now, I want to say something right up front. I don't get any of the proceeds from this book. One hundred percent of the money goes to the church. And then they cut me a check. No, just kidding. That's not true. That's not true at all. Hundred percent of it. Because I wrote this because I'm your pastor and this is just a tool that we are giving to you to help you grow spiritually. It's just part of the ministry here at Twin Lakes Church.

And while we're suggesting a $10 donation to cover the printing costs, please listen carefully. If you can't afford it, take one anyway. In fact, here's my biggest hope. My biggest hope is that every single human being in this room walks to their car in the parking lot today or walks to the bus stop or walks home today with a copy of that book. You say, "I didn't bring $10." Bring it next weekend. We'll bring it at the end of our 50 days if you think it was worth it. I don't care. Because our point is we want to get this into your hands so that you can help to detoxify your mind. You'll find it makes such a difference.

How else do you detoxify? Try this one. Play a positive soundtrack to your life. Play a positive soundtrack to your life. What am I talking about? In the movie industry, they know something. A soundtrack changes everything. Like imagine this staircase, typical suburban snapshot staircase in a house. Now a person is walking up the stairs. Let's say the music is this. Uh-oh. What kind of a mood is it setting? Shout it out. What are you expecting to find at the top of those stairs? Yes, a Landshark. Exactly. Thank you former Saturday Night Live fans, right?

But if the music is more like this... Alright, what kind of a mood is it setting? What do you expect to find at the top of the stairs now? You expect to see Captain Kangaroo? Yes, exactly. Music sets a mood. Music changes your expectations. And that's why in the God is book there's a suggested playlist of songs on some pages in the back. I encourage you, download these songs or songs like them that you already have. Put together a playlist or some CDs to give your 50 days God-oriented theme music. You will find it makes a huge difference.

A third suggestion, to detoxify, meditate on great thoughts. Great thoughts. You might know that the biblical word for meditate is related to the word for a cow chewing its cud, right? The idea being when you let your mind graze, what is it ruminating on? What's it chewing on? Fear? Trivia? Obsanity? Spiritual flab happens when I just allow my mind to wander around and eat whatever poisonous weeds and thistles that it finds. Instead, put your mind in a pasture full of good things and then let it go.

In fact, look at this picture. Picture a happy little brain grazing in this meadow. That is your brain on God, right? Like Benjamin Disraeli said, "Nurture your mind with great thoughts for you will never go any higher than you think." Do you agree with that? That's why in the God is book we have Bible verses and also great quotes by great thinkers sprinkled throughout the book to stretch your mind, to challenge your mind.

Because here's the problem. Let me kind of explain it this way. I have here in this bag a box of grocery store donuts. These are not fresh donuts. These are grocery store donuts. They have the unique waxy, oily, dense, heavy rancid texture that you can only find in grocery store donuts. They put the gross in grocery store, right? Well, let's say that I kind of relax with these donuts. I have them kind of handy right next to my bed so that when I wake up in the morning I can say to myself, "You know what? I would just love to have just a bite."

Last thing in the morning when I gave up, "Mmm, have a little bite of these waxy donuts." I can hardly talk anymore, but they're fantastic. Then I go upstairs and I have some donuts for breakfast. Then after I've had breakfast I get in my car and I drive to work with my box of donuts. I shove another couple of donuts down my throat. When I get to work at Coffee Drake I have another donut. For lunch I have a donut. When I get home I have a donut. Before dinner for dinner I have a couple of donuts. Then after dinner I relax for two or three hours with my box of donuts. Then for two or three hours I'm just eating one donut after another.

Now I do vary my diet a little bit. I have a chocolate donut right there in the middle because I don't want my diet to get monotonous. Then when I go to bed I bring my box of donuts along with me and I like to for 20 or 30 minutes before I go to bed just munch on another tasty donut. Now what would be a word for that kind of a diet? Nobody said delicious. It would be delicious. In fact I think I'll take home this box of donuts with me right now after the sermon. It would be delicious but what else would it be? Yeah insane right? You would never eat day after day nothing but donuts.

But do you basically have a diet like this? Mentally. When you get up in the morning first thing classic rock station snaps on you hear AC/DC highway to hell. Yes I like to think about the nether world when I get up in the morning. Then you go upstairs and during breakfast you turn on bad morning America. Get the update on every horrible incident that took place so no terrifying tidbit escapes your notice. Then you get in the car on your way to work. You're listening to four shock jocks on sports talks screaming at each other using language that you're glad your five year old isn't hearing in the car.

Then when you get to work at the water cooler you have gossip. Then when you get home for an hour before dinner you surf idiotic websites. Then after dinner you spend two or three hours in front of the TV watching sitcoms and getting alarmed by the news channel. Then when you go to bed you're reading your crazy romance novel or spy novel or surfing some other idiotic website putting other junk into your head. One piece of junk food after another. It's not that once in a while a donut is bad for you but a steady diet of donuts that'll kill you.

It's not that once in a while some you know media junk food. I'm not talking about something that's toxic but something that's just empty calories. It won't kill you once in a while but a steady diet will. Now here's the problem I'm saying you know what you guys ought to change your diet. You guys ought to get the God is series. Now if all you're doing is getting the book and adding it to a steady diet of media junk food that's like saying you know what I'm going to eat a carrot every day and I'm going to add it to my box of donuts. That's a healthy diet right there that's a square meal.

The God is book isn't just about addition right. It's about replacement. You got to go you know what I got to replace my diet of empty calories with something that's going to be better for me and here's my personal plan. Every single morning part of my morning routine is I watch my T-vowed sports center from the night before for a half an hour while I'm eating my breakfast. It's got to catch up on everything that happened with my favorite sports teams right. It's not toxic it's not bad for me. It's empty calories though and so at least during the 50 day series what I'm going to do is replace those empty calories those kind of mental donuts with my God is devotional.

I'm going to look up the scripture that's attached to each day. I'm going to meditate on the verse for each day. I'm going to read the devotion. I'm going to say what an incredible writer who wrote this. No, I'm just kidding I'm going to that's a joke but I'm going to read these things every single day as a replacement to change my mental diet and it'll really I'm asking for a commitment from this church because that's going to take depending on how fast you read you know 10 to 30 minutes a day kind of meditating on this stuff and replacing those empty calories with some productive healthy thinking.

Now this is a commitment but changing your diet is just part of a complete fitness program and I'm going to go through the rest of this very quickly because I focused on point one today. I want you to number two also consider getting a support group. Get a support group. What am I talking about? Look at this amazing fact according to an article of the April 2003 Journal of the American Medical Association people who go to weight loss support groups get this lose three times more weight than those who go it alone. Isn't that amazing? Spiritual growth same thing.

The Bible says though one may be overpowered two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. You need friends in life. You know who was the best example of this? Jesus. If anyone could have been an independent self-made guy it was Jesus Christ yet he surrounds himself with 12 apostles. Now if Jesus needed this so do you. So a major part of this God is series is the small groups that we're starting all over the place and I mean all over the place.

It's very exciting. I don't even know how some of these people hear about this stuff but we already have a small group in London. They ordered books already and they're getting all ready to get started in a couple of weeks. We've got a small group in Missouri. We've got a small group up in Grass Valley California and all over our county. Now I know most of you are going well if the book you know is you know kind of a donation only thing. Sure I'll pick up a book why not but a small group. I'm not really sure about that.

You know we usually get maybe about half of the people here at the church into a small group but the other half identified with a guy who came up to me the other day and said "René I don't know about the whole small group aspect of it." And I said really tell me about it. He said I actually have small group nightmares that I'm going to be called upon brother. Welcome to the group. Confess your secret sin. Let us hold you accountable. He said I don't want to be a part of that. He said I also don't know much about the Bible. Is somebody going to say you new man. Share with the group. What do you think of the Deuter Isaiah theory of textual criticism as it relates to our understanding of the Quranic community.

And he says I wake up from these things going I don't want to be part of a small group. I want to put your mind at ease. These small groups are designed specifically to not be like that. You don't have to be a Bible genius. They are entry level. You won't get asked trick questions. In fact you'll know all the questions in advance because the questions are all in the book. It's a little bit more like a book club than a seminary class.

And I've been filming little 10 minute video lessons for each week so I'll be your teacher via video in your group. And if your group has questions that the group leader can answer you can just email them to me and I, sorry, too many donuts this morning, but I and another one of the pastors here will answer it. Plus you know what let's face it. It's only a 50 day commitment. It's only seven weeks. You can put up with anything for seven weeks.

So if you get into a group with a bunch of weirdos which could happen I'll admit it could happen. It's only seven weeks you know just hang in there. And by the way kind of I've noticed that every small group you know no matter whether it's a work group at work or a small group at the church you're always going to average you know one weirdo per group. Okay. So if you look around and go I'm in luck no weirdos. Guess what. It's you. Okay so have mercy on the other ones.

Hebrews 10:24 and let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing but encouraging one another. Don't be a lone ranger Christian. And third this is huge start exercising. Start exercising really working out. You've heard them say that pro football is 40 people desperately needing rest being watched by 50,000 people desperately in need of exercise right. Well a lot of Christians are right up there in the stands.

Spiritual couch potatoes reading about great people of faith doing great things in the world but not doing it themselves. I say we change that. Last weekend we talked about this equation if we all set aside a dollar and a half a day for 10 weeks starting last weekend for a total of 10 bucks a week and then brought in the hundred dollars we'd have on the weekend before Thanksgiving we could raise money equivalent to a million pounds for the food bank plus feeding a village of a thousand people on the Smalyan border with Kenya for a year and that all comes from just 10 weeks of a dollar and a half a day.

But I would urge you to consider this a spiritual exercise. I put extra envelopes in the bulletin in case you lost yours or weren't here last week. I started my own envelope last Monday. It's sitting right on my desk and I'm putting something into it every day as spiritual exercise. You know what's encouraging to me as a pastor? So many people are responding to this. For example, I could read so many emails and letters I've already received just this week but here's an email.

I know the guy who sent this very well. He's in construction. He's got two kids and his wife has cancer and he wrote, "Hey René, you know God has really been putting the hungry of the world on my heart too already and the message last week can help me to know that together we can make a difference." But I was thinking I'm already stretched so thin. Maybe you can relate to this. How can I come up with $400 for the four of us in our family for the food drive, $100 per person as you suggested because we've been hit again with a barrage of medical bills.

I was thinking no way would we be able to participate using the medical bill excuse and I'll be honest I read this and I thought to myself, "Dude, you got a good reason. Don't worry about it." I was about to email him back but then I continued reading. Well I prayed to God to show me what he wanted me to do and I just opened a letter from my medical insurance company telling me they made enough profit for the year and are refunding us $500 check and closed. I knew just what to do with us. Count us in for $500, your friend in Christ. Isn't that amazing?

I sat there and I just cried reading this. But you know why I cried reading this? Because this email here I know that this is just one example of how many people do we have here at church over 3,000? There's going to be 3,000 stories like this where God is going to work in you as you spiritually exercise to increase your faith and do amazing things through this church as we just bring God our loaves and fishes.

I talked with one of the moms who was picking up her six-year-old son from school here and she says, "My son got so excited about this, six years old." And he was thinking, "How can I raise $100? Six, right? What kind of income does a six-year-old have?" Well he goes home and he makes kites out of paper and he went door to door in his neighborhood and sold kites. I asked his mom to send a picture from her cell phone. Here he is. He was going door to door saying, "We're doing this as a church to feed the hungry and I'm asking $2 a kite or whatever you'd like to pay." He made 70 bucks already and he's giving it all to the food drive. Isn't that awesome?

Story after story like this. Exercising your faith isn't just opening your Bible. The Bible says religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless as this to look after orphans and widows in their distress. In Isaiah 58 we saw this last weekend, "Spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry." Now again, please do this in a context of grace. God saves you by his grace. You don't earn anything from God but for your health. For your health, God says. Exercise.

Why should I exercise? I like the way Mark Twain puts this. If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you cannot learn any other way, right? You learn by experience things you could never learn from a book. And then finally, number four, spend time with your coach. And I mean God in prayer. You say, "I try and my prayers always come out lame." You know, "Dear God, please bless me today and be with the sick people I know. Amen." You know, it's just not a vital prayer life.

Well, every day in the book at the end of the devotion there's a suggested prayer guide to deepen your prayer life with God. And let me start with this. Listen, I want to ask you as your pastor that as a church we would please pray the prayer of the Apostle Paul for the Ephesian church in Ephesians 1:17. But pray it for us as we get ready for a study of God because unless the Lord builds the house the builders labor in vain. We've done DVDs. We've done a website. We've got people organizing this. We've got a book. But if God doesn't bless this, it's all a lot of storm and fury, right?

So pray something like this. I keep asking that you, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father may give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we may know you better. So that's your spiritual fitness plan. But really the key to all this is to stick with the plan, right? Just like any fitness plan, a spiritual fitness plan is not going to help you if you don't stick with it. The Bible says at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

You know my biggest problem when it comes to actually doing an exercise program whether it's running or dieting or anything else? Here's my biggest problem. I just forget. Are you like this? I forget. I forget to run. I forget to eat right before I know the day is over. Oh, I didn't exercise and didn't do my diet. And then the week is over. And then a month. And so what I do is I put post-it notes everywhere so I remember stuff. And I put it on my calendar.

And I figured, well, I'm not alone. I don't think in this. So I made this commitment card. Look at this. It's in your bulletins. And this is not for you to turn in. This is for you to keep somewhere where you'll see it as a reminder. The only ones to see this will be you and God. It says four elements of spiritual fitness in the God Is series. And it talks about mental diet and a support team and exercise and time with my coach. And this is important. Understanding that God loves me already unconditionally.

And that this commitment is for the spiritual growth of myself and my church. I am in. And then there's a place for you to sign. I put that phrase in there because this is all under grace. But I want to encourage you to sign this as a commitment and put it someplace where you can see it. Now if you still aren't certain that it will make a difference in your life. If you're going, you know what? I don't know if this is really going to-- is René pushing this thing? I don't know if I want to be homogenized and do something that 3,000 people are doing. I kind of resist that. And I understand that.

A couple of things I want to say about that. Do you remember the old joke about the guy who was trapped on a roof during a flood? And he prays that God will save him. God saved me. And a guy comes by in a boat and says, hey, jump into the boat. And he says, oh, that's OK. I'm waiting for God to save me. It says the same thing to the raft. It says the same thing to the helicopter. And he drowns. And he goes to heaven. And he says, God, why didn't you save me? I trusted in you. And God says, well, I sent a boat a raft in a helicopter, you know?

Well listen, maybe you've been saying, God, help me grow closer to you. God help my spiritual life to get more vital. God, I want to know you more. This program, the God is book, it isn't the only way you can grow spiritually, but it's the way that's here. It's the raft that's right in front of the roof right now. So why not jump in? Maybe this is one of the ways that God is answering the prayers that you've been praying so desperately.

Now if you're still thinking to yourself, I don't know if this is going to make a difference. It's for me to get spiritually fit. I want to encourage you to do something today. If you get the Sentinel, go home and read the front page article. Faith and Forgiveness is the headline, the subhead, "10 years after losing their daughters, the wagners have turned their grief into grace." It is a poignant, tender article written by the Sentinel's best writer, Wallace Bain.

And he interviewed Dan and Lynn, who attend church here, upon this, the 10th anniversary of the tragic loss of their daughters, Mandy and Kerry. And I have never seen in our newspaper a more powerful testimony to God's grace than I read this morning. I'm reading this at the breakfast table just going, "Wow, wow, wow. If you don't get the Sentinel, it's worth it to pay the buck or whatever to pick this up at a newsstand or go online and read the article there." And there's another article written by Dan, actually, that they also printed. I just couldn't believe it.

Right there in the first section, pages one and two. And what I'm getting at is this. Dan and Lynn had spent years working on their spiritual fitness, years coming to church and studying the Bible and memorizing scripture and praying. I'm not saying that faith wasn't challenged. It was rocked. But the spiritual foundation they laid was a key to dealing with life's tough times that inevitably happen.

I'm not asking you to do this God-ears series because I want you to just kind of feel happier about today or because for my ego I want to get, you know, 3,000 people involved in some program. As your pastor, I really, genuinely love you. And I want you to continue to lay a foundation for the inevitable tough times that will happen. In those tough times, it's going to be very difficult to scramble and go, "Oh, what does the Bible say about this again?" You got to internalize it to the point where it comes out and it'll be a testimony to what God is doing in your life.

Now for some of you, the challenge will be to stick with it. But for some of you, the challenge will be to start with it. And let me just encourage you not to wait. You know, you've heard the phrase, "Quantities are limited." Well quantities really are limited here. Starting in two days, we kick off this for 50 days and then that's it. And then in 50 days, it'll be over and we will never repeat it, just like we've never repeated the hope experience or the grace immersion.

So please don't look back on this at Thanksgiving and hear how people grew and think, "Why did I not devote just 50 short days to this? I can't remember. I'll do it next time." I'd encourage you to take advantage of this now. Now let me just close with this. In the thrill ride book, I tell the story of how my son David a few years ago was so looking forward to going on a roller coaster called Wildfire, one of these crazy new modern roller coasters at an amusement park in Branson, Missouri at a place called Silver Dollar City.

It was near a place where I was going to be speaking. David had heard about this roller coaster, had seen something on TV about it. He'd read online about it, had anticipated it, talked about it, probably dreamed about it. He told me every morning, "We're one day closer to riding wildfire." Yes, Wildfire Roller Coaster coming up. He woke up that morning, "Today's the day, Dad. We're going on wildfire today." As we were walking through the gates of the amusement park, I thought he was short circuiting going, "Wildfire, wildfire, wildfire today, wildfire, wildfire."

Let's go to Wildfire right away, Dad. Okay, here we go. We get in line, we get up to the front, he looks at the ride, he looks at me, and he says, "Dad, I don't want to go on wildfire. Don't want to. It's scary." He thought about it so much it had freaked him out. And I said, "Look, it's right here. The gate is opening. I'm right here. So let's do it together." And here's what happened next.

Isn't that great? Now, again, we started out with reading lips of the guy that Dave almost killed when he baptized, right? Well, let's read David's lips. If you can read lips, what did he say to me as soon as the ride ended? He said, "Dad, when can we do this again?" Here's my point. Thinking of doing any fitness program is a lot like his anticipation, right? Yeah, I'm going to do that fitness program when the new year starts, or I'm going to do that 50-day program when it comes around this fall. I'm going to do it. I'm thinking about doing it. Well, maybe next year, right?

Maybe you've been thinking and thinking and thinking about maybe doing one of these 50-day projects, and now the signups are here, the gate's opening, and you're going, "I don't know if I want to go on this ride." I've never been in a small group before and done this. Listen, try it. You'll love it. We'll be on the ride together with you, and it will be the ride of your life. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we know this is going to be the ride of our lives because we're going to be studying scriptures about you, and we're going to be looking for evidence about you, your love, your power, and the world all around us for 50 days. And God, if there's anybody here who walked in crumbling under the weight of their stress, I just pray that they would, first of all, know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're real and that you're powerful and that you love them and have a plan for them.

And now, because of what you did for us in sending your son to save us freely, help us to be motivated by your grace to get to know our grace-filled God better. I pray for this church, God. May we be known as a place where you're known, where you are reflected, and may we grow to know and love you more in your gracious name, we pray. Amen.