Replace Bad Habits With Good Habits

Ready for a restart is the name of our teaching series. My name is Adrian. I'm one of the pastors here and I'm so excited to be sharing with you today because we are in a moment, right? I mean, it's been over a year since the pandemic started, but we can kind of see a light at the end of the tunnel. And if you go online, you can read article after article titled something like after the pandemic, "I'm trying to find time for the big reset or the big restart." It's like we're at the beginning of a brand new year.

And I don't know about you. When December rolls around and the new year is about to come, one thing I'm thinking about is my habits. Maybe you're thinking the same thing. Or maybe during the pandemic, you started some good habits and you want to keep them, like spending more time with your family or exercising or cooking more at home. But probably a lot of us started some bad habits. We want to change like binge watching every show and movie that comes out or stress eating. So that's what we're going to talk about today.

Go ahead and grab the message notes at TLC.org/notes or in the Twin Lakes Church app. Today we're going to look at how we can replace bad habits with good habits. You know, four years ago here at Twin Lakes Church, we did one of the most popular series showing the Biblical foundation behind the best selling book, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. And what I want to do today is sort of give you a summary of that series we did, because if you understand the Biblical principles behind what Charles Duhigg found, they can change your habits and in turn, they can change your life. They can literally change your destiny.

Are you ready? Well, let's dive in. We're going to go into our main passage. It's in Galatians 6:7. It says this, "Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." I want to give you a little context of what's going on here. We're at the end of a letter that Paul wrote to the Galatian Christians all about grace. You're saved by grace. You grow by grace. You go to heaven by grace, grace, grace, grace.

But something that might happen to you naturally, if you believe that, that you're saved all by grace, all 100 percent by God. And maybe you thought this or heard somebody speak this out loud. If I'm 100 percent saved by grace, why can't I just live like I want? If nothing I can do can affect God's love or my salvation, then why do I need to worry about my bad habits? Well, Paul answers that question right here. He says, "A man reaps what he sows." You reap what you sow. If you have bad habits in your life, you're going to reap bad things. If you're planting seeds of destruction, you will reap destruction, it says.

And it won't affect your place with God or his love for you, but you know what it can do? It can wreck your life. He goes on to describe what this looks like starting in Galatians 6:8. "Whoever sows to please their flesh from the flesh will reap destruction. Whoever sows to please the spirit from the spirit will reap eternal life or abundant life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." In other words, you go to heaven as a free gift. There is nothing you can do to lose God's unconditional love, but here on earth you are a creature of habit, and your small daily habits, they add up.

And if there are bad seeds, if there are bad habits, they can lead to death. But if they are good habits, they can lead to life. So the question today is, how do I purposely develop life-giving habits? I want to start with a story. It's a story of one of the most influential men of the 20th century, and you might never have heard of him or seen his face. His work, his life has touched the lives of millions and millions of people. And I bet every single one of you has been impacted by or knows somebody who has been impacted by his life and his work.

His name was Bill Wilson, known to many as Bill W. Bill grew up in a dry home, meaning he never touched alcohol in his life. And then World War I rolls around and he enlists in the army, and he's a really sharp guy and moves up the ranks. He becomes an officer, and one evening at an officer's ball, somebody hands him his first cocktail. It was called a Bronx cocktail. I looked it up. It's gin, vermouth and orange juice. And after taking one sip, his eyes widened. He turned to the person next to him and he said, "I have discovered the elixir of life." And for the next two decades, alcohol began to rule his life.

And by the mid-1930s, his life was falling apart. His money was gone. His job was gone. He was on the brink of losing his family. He was getting near to losing his own life. Then one day, an old drinking buddy from the army called him and said, "Hey, let's have dinner." He comes over. And at dinner, Bill passes him a glass of gin like he normally would do. But his friend pushes it away and says, "I'm not drinking anymore. I've been sober for two months." And Bill thought, "What? How is that possible?" Bill himself had tried to quit before but couldn't.

So he asked his friend, "Well, how did you do that? How could you stop drinking?" And his friend proceeds to tell him about Jesus, about how God changed his life and talked to him about sin and how sin can entrap you and enslave you. And the only way to break free is through the power of God in Jesus Christ. The only way to break free from this alcohol is through Jesus. And so Bill thought, "Man, my friend is crazy." He thought, "He used to be drunk on alcohol. Now he's drunk on Jesus." And so he totally rejected his friend's advice.

And what happened was his downward spiral continued. It got worse and worse until one day he hit rock bottom, sitting by himself on the floor without any hope. This lifelong, die-hard, staunch atheist cries out, and this is what he says, "Okay, if there is a God, let him show himself to me because I am ready to do anything." He was so desperate. And what happened next has been told and retold thousands of times in 12-step groups for decades. Bill Wilson experienced the ecstasy of what he would describe as the very presence of God and the desire to drink was gone in an instant. He never touched alcohol again.

But this is the thing, Bill knew that most people would not have this experience. Most people would conquer alcohol, not through this supernatural presence of God. So he spent the rest of his life dedicated to helping others change the habit that almost killed him. And the result of his life's work, well, it's the 12-step program we know as Alcoholics Anonymous. And it's the same 12 steps of recovery that are a huge part of our recovery groups here, where you can find more information. At the bottom of your notes, I put the URL, tlc.org/recovery.

Well, after reading his story, it leads us to our key concept for today. This is it. It's not easy to erase a bad habit. In fact, it's almost impossible. Why is that? This is the thing. Our brains, when we develop a habit, our brains literally change. When you repeat a habit over and over, neural pathways are formed and they are etched into your brain and you cannot change them. But there is hope. Wow, it's not easy to erase a bad habit. It is relatively easy to start a new habit. And what that does is it crowds out the old habit. What it can do is sort of reprogram that neural pathway in your brain.

And Bill Wilson knew this idea and he implemented it in AA because one of the first things you do when you join AA and you commit to it, you commit to spending 90 days or go to 90 meetings in 90 days. And if there isn't a meeting available, you call your sponsor. So he doesn't just say, "Stop drinking. It's bad for you. Just stop it." What he does say is substitute that habit with this new one. And for the rest of our time today, what we're going to do is answer the question, "How do I start a new habit? How do you start that new substitute habit?" Because there are ways to do it that are crucial and are biblical.

And once you understand it, you will see it repeated over and over in Scripture and it can change your life. So first what we're going to do is look at how do habits work. Scientists have discovered what they call the habit loop. It's a three-phase process when we build habits. It starts with the cue. The cue could be feeling loneliness or hunger or boredom or pain or maybe it's just the time of the day. So you've got the cue. Then you move on to the routine. When you feel that cue and that cue happens, you reach for a drink or you start aimlessly stress eating or you start browsing the internet or grab your phone and spend hours on social media or for some people it's raging or some other compulsive behavior, the routine.

Then you get the reward. And the reward is a buzz or a high or a sense of release or just a distraction from your loneliness or boredom. Well, I want to show you an example of the habit loop, the cue, the routine and the reward. Maybe some of you in the mornings, you can't get your day started until you've had your cup of coffee, right? You look like this guy because he hasn't drank and maybe you've told your kids don't talk to me until I've had my first cup of coffee. Well, I'm guessing there was a time a while ago where you woke up one morning and you wanted to feel alert. That was a cue. And then your routine, your response was to drink a cup of coffee. And then the reward you got was that boost of caffeine.

And so then you felt good. And so the next time, the next day you woke up, you wanted that alertness, you grabbed a cup of coffee, you repeat that enough times. You know what happens? That loop happens and you start to associate, your brain associates waking up with getting coffee. You might not want to feel alert. You might be, have gotten a great night of sleep, but you wake up and you just feel like you got to have that coffee, right? Some of you out there do that.

We also see this in the animal world. Have you ever been to a sea world? When I was, I grew up in Miami, we had what we call the Miami Seaquarium. They had a flipper show. It was really cool. But if you go there, one of the things that they have are these sea lion shows. Maybe you've seen this and it's pretty amazing, right? The sea lion, because especially if you're here in Santa Cruz, you know sea lions because you can go out to the wharf and look over and see them. And when you look at them, they are some of the laziest, most selfish tubs of lard out there. They're just laying around doing nothing.

But you go to sea world or the Miami Seaquarium and they're like, they're clocking in and they're working for a living. I mean, have you seen those shows? They're dancing, they're balancing balls on their nose, they're high fiving, they're starring in movies these days. It turns out a sea lion will do just about anything for a couple of sardines. And that is a picture of that habit loop. Because, you know, there was a trainer who, he blew a whistle, or he had some kind of hand cue and he taught the seal to do the trick. And if he did the trick, he would give them these sardines and they would repeat that over and over until the seal associated that whistle or that hand with that routine and he knew those sardines were on their way.

So here's a question for you. What's your sardine? What's my sardine? What rewards motivate you? It's important to find these out. And to help you do that, researchers have found that basically there are three kinds of rewards for humans. The first one is pleasure. A sense of I feel better. You know, that high or that buzz. There is also social rewards. A sense of I am liked, accepted. I belong, I'm part of the group, very powerful. I am making pleasure, social, and then there are achievement rewards. I am making progress. And for some of you, checking that box on your to-do list is like the greatest experience of your life.

Let me get back to Bill W and the 12 steps. You know, the genius of Bill Wilson and the 12 steps, which again is inspired by principles found in scripture, is that for lots of problem drinkers, very few of them were chasing that buzz or to get drunk. Most of them drank because they wanted the social benefits. They wanted to go to the bar with their buddies or go to the party with their friends. So the 12 step group replaced the party or that group at the bar, the social reward. And then there's the reward of achievement. There are 12 steps that you work through. I got through step one, now you're on to step two, and you have that achievement reward built in.

And some 12 step groups, they give out chips. Chips like this one, one after your 24 hours of sobriety, after six months, after a year, some of you out there, you have 10, 25, even 50 years of sobriety, which is amazing. So there is that achievement reward built in. Well, what about the pleasure reward? Well, brilliantly and biblically, Bill W. said that there is a pleasure reward that comes from living soberly and righteously, and he called it serenity. And the Bible calls it peace. He said, this is something that you don't have in your life when you are addicted to a self-destructive pattern. You might get a buzz or a high, but you don't get wholeness.

You don't experience the integrity, the serenity, and the peace that comes with a holy, righteous, and sober life. And when you understand this, you start to see the habit loop used in so many other places. The best recovery and exercise programs, the best dieting programs, they use this habit loop and they use those three rewards built in. And you start to see this loop all throughout Scripture, because this is the thing God designed us, God designed you to function this way. He built into our brains automation, autopilot. You know why? It's so that we could use more of our brain power for bigger decisions and not all the minute decisions of our lives.

Think about when you tie your shoes. You don't have to think about which shoe to tie first or how to tie your shoes. Do I use bunny ears today or do I do around the tree or whatever you call it? You just tie them the way you know how to tie them when you brush your teeth. When you drive, if you drive the same route to work or to the store every day, have you ever gotten to the end of your destination that you've gotten so many times and you don't remember how you got there? Like all the turns and lane changes, it just happened because all that habit in your brain, that processing is built in there by God.

So how do we change our habits? Today, I want to give you three keys to do it because I know out there, there are some of you right now are like, yeah, I got a habit I want to change right now. Can you get to it already? Well, here's the thing. It's not going to be easy, but it is possible. And here's how it works. The first key to changing your habits is this. Identify your cues, substitute a new routine and enjoy the rewards. Here's an example. Charles Duhigg in that book, The Power of Habit, he talks about something that happened while he was writing the book. He's writing this book about habit change and something happened.

Every day at 3 p.m., he would feel this urge. He'd feel this urge to kind of get up and get a break. And so he'd go and he'd go to the cafeteria and he would buy this massive cookie. This huge cookie at his cafeteria. So he'd get up from his desk, he'd go get that cookie, and then he would hang out for about 20 minutes socializing with his coworkers. And so he kept doing this over and over and over, day in and day out, and he had this cookie habit. And by the end of the year, he found out that he gained a few pounds.

So he does some analysis. He wants to find out what's going on. He wants to put the research he's doing in the book he's writing at that moment to work, to the test. And so he tries to find out what is my cue, and he does research and looks at all the things going around before he eats that cookie, and he finds out, okay, my cue is it's 3 p.m. And at 3 p.m., he feels the need for a break. And his blood sugar is low. And so the routine was originally he would go to the break room, the cafeteria, and grab a cookie. And then there's the reward.

So he knew what his cue was. He knew what his routine was. But the reward, he started to think, you know, he didn't really care about what he was eating. He says, honestly, that cookie was not that good. But when he realized that the real reward was hanging out with his coworkers, socializing was the reward. So here's what he did to change it. At 3 p.m., when he felt that low blood sugar, he got up from his desk, he went to the cafeteria, and instead of getting a cookie, he grabbed a piece of fruit or some carrots or some nuts that he brought from home, and then he rewarded himself with hanging out with his coworkers before he went back to his desk.

He found that by keeping the cue, substituting a new routine for the same reward, his old habit would eventually be replaced with the new one. So his cookie habit became a healthy snack habit. And we see this happening all throughout Scripture. One example is in Philippians 4:6–7. It says this, "Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God your needs, and don't forget to thank him for his answers. If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts quiet and your heart at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus." If you look at these verses, you can see the habit loop in there and Paul giving them a way to change a habit.

So what's the cue here? Well, if you know the Philippians, Paul's writing this letter to the Philippians, they are living in a place that doesn't like them or want them. They don't like Christians and they're being persecuted. Their lives are in danger. And so it can cause them to have worry, the routine. So they respond to that cue, that hardship with their routine. Normal routine is worry. And so what is the substitute routine that Paul gives them? We see it right here. "Instead, pray, and not only pray, but be grateful. Thank him." Now, what's the reward? He says, "If you do this, you will experience God's peace or serenity." It's that same pattern. Old cue, new response, receive the reward.

That's the first key. And the second key to changing your habits is this. You know, a lot of times when we try to start a new habit like eating better or exercise, we try to do too much all at once. Like, I'm going to exercise. I'm signing up for the gym, a five-year in advance payment, and I'm going to go two hours a day, or you want to eat, and you go into this crazy program. I'm throwing away all my foods. I'm in my house. It's water and celery, and I'm going to lose weight. And then what happens? Two days later, you're trying and your trial is over, and you quit because it's just overwhelming. That's the most common mistake people make when they try to change their habits.

So the second key is this. Number two, focus on a keystone habit. What's a keystone habit that can jumpstart or help other habits flourish? Let's look at an example. In Psalm 1:2–3, the psalmist writes, "Blessed is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night," talking about scripture there. "That person who does that is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither, fruitful, strong, and whatever they do prospers." Let's look at what the psalmist is saying here.

He's saying a person whose life is fruitful, whose life is full of strength and is prosperous. That is promise to the person who does what? Does it list a huge, long list of things they need to do? No, one thing. It's to meditate on God's law day and night. Meditating on scripture, one keystone habit brings an amazing life change. I discovered this in my own life just a few years ago. If you've been here for more than six years, you might remember when I looked like this. I was a bit bigger. I struggled with weight my whole life. And by this time, my health was declining. I had multiple knee surgeries. I had debilitating back pain. I had sleep apnea, and I started to have anxiety attacks about dying, about having a heart attack or dying in my sleep.

And so then I started to think about my family, my wife, Jamie, daughter Ella and Penelope. Penelope had just been born. And I thought if I didn't change, all of our the Moreno future family pictures would look just like this without a dad and without a husband. And I thought, I got to do something. I got to change. So I was on Instagram and I saw a post by a pastor, I know, and he had lost a bunch of weight. And he said, hey, I'm going to start a new fitness program called Fit By First. Why don't you join in? And Fit By First was this thing where December 1st, he's like, let's start a fitness thing on December 1st. So by January 1st, we will have conquered our resolution and not wait till then. That was like the play on words with Fit By First.

And he had done this a few years before and I'd seen it and never tried it. But then I started to see pictures of people who had done it and like changed their lives, guys who look like me, who look much different. And I thought, if they can do it, maybe I can do it. And I was desperate. So I signed up. And so day one, I get an email and in there is a daily workout. Basically, the program was you work out five days a week. There's some other tips and tricks about eating and stuff. But the primary thing was workout every weekday. One workout a day, about five to ten minutes, stuff you can do at home. All like pushups and sit ups. You don't need any equipment, all body weight stuff. And I had a lot of body weight to use.

And so I committed and I started working out one time every day, every weekday. And by week four, by that 30th day, I had done it. I worked out every weekday. Now, at the end of that first month, I hadn't lost a ton of weight. I didn't see a lot of physical change, but there was a change that happened that would change my life. I had built a habit of exercising every weekday. It was a keystone habit. Because this is the thing that happened day 31, that next month, day one, I worked out again because I was so used to it on, well, I might as well do it again. And I kept at it day after day, weekday after weekday, month after month, until a year and a half later, I had lost about 100 pounds.

Now, just that exercise, I didn't lose all that weight. But you know what happened? I had to get my eating in control. But the only way I could do that is because I had built this habit of exercise already, I had built this self-discipline. I knew that I could accomplish something. I thought, well, I can accomplish eating better too. And so I did that. And let me tell you something, that keystone habit of exercising changed my life. Not only did I lose weight, but other things in my life, things that I needed self-discipline for, I started to do. Like, our finances, we got out of debt. And I attribute a lot of that to be this keystone habit of exercise.

And now I joined a local CrossFit gym a few years ago that I go to, CrossFit Amundsen with a lot of friends out there. And you know what? I work out, one workout every weekday. It's the same every week. What is that one positive habit you can start that can jump start your change? Here are just a few ideas for you. Maybe for you it's exercise. And you've tried it before, but it's been so hard. I want you to start small. Grab your sneakers, put them next to your bed, get your workout clothes next to your bed, so that when you wake up, you just put them on and get out there. And you know what? Go for a walk for five minutes. Set a timer at two and a half minutes. You stop and you return, and that's it. But do that every weekday. A small keystone habit.

Or maybe Bible study. Maybe you used to waken up and reaching over when you wake up for your phone and searching, you know, doom scrolling Twitter or whatever thing you're looking at. Maybe put your phone away, put your Bible there, and start to meditate on that every day. And for some of you, you started before and you failed. You wanted to try a read the Bible in a year program, and you fell off and you quit reading the Bible. Start with a verse. Start with a minute. But just start something small every day. Or maybe service. Helping others. You can volunteer. Here at church you can go to tlc.org/volunteer and find ways to volunteer like at People's Pantry or other ways. Or like what Mark talked about earlier, Save Families for Children. This program is amazing. It keeps kids out of the foster care system by helping families. And you can serve there so many different ways in our community, in our church, serving.

Many people have found the practice of gratitude, being grateful, maybe for a minute a day. That keystone habit changes everything. Find that one thing. Okay, so we're going to wrap it up. How do you change your habit? Do you recognize the cue? Change your response? Enjoy the reward? You focus and start a keystone habit instead of trying a dozen things. And finally, and most importantly, you trust in God. Trust in God. This brings us back to Bill Wilson again.

I want to read a passage from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, which again is not a Christian book at all. It is like a business book, a self-help book. But in this book, he quotes researchers who find an amazing thing. Researchers wanted to find out what made AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, successful more so than any other habit changing program out there. And so they did all these interviews and they found a pattern. Watch this. Over and over again, Alcoholics said the same thing. Identifying cues and choosing new routines is important, but without another ingredient, the new habits never fully took hold. The secret they said was God.

And researchers hated that explanation because God is not a testable hypothesis. Then in 2005, scientists looked at data to see if there really was a correlation of religious belief and how long people stayed sober and a pattern emerged. Those who believed were far more likely to make it through the stressful periods with their sobriety intact. Isn't that amazing? I love it. I love it when researchers and scientists come upon something that's like, "I can't explain it, but it's God." And that's what happened here.

This is so well summarized in our last scripture for today. It comes from Philippians 2:12–13. It says, "This work out the salvation that God has given you with a proper sense of all and responsibility." Check this out though. "For it is God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve His purpose." What it's saying is, yes, you and I being saved, knowing Jesus and having faith in Him, we have a responsibility to sow good seeds, good habits in our lives. But the harvest, the power to grow the seed, it is not up to you. It's not on your power alone. It's about God's power working within you to not only achieve it, but gives you the will, the desire to do it and the power. And that is the amazing grace of God.

God sent Jesus to live a life here on earth, a perfect life. He came to this earth to live here because He wanted to go through everything that we would grow through, experience everything we would experience, to be a sympathetic, empathetic savior. And then the only difference is He lived life here on earth sinless. And then He went on the cross and He died innocently to pay the penalty of our sins, which is death. And then what we celebrated just a few weeks ago on Easter, He rose from the dead, defeating death through the power of the Holy Spirit.

But check this out. The craziest thing, the coolest thing about God's love and His grace for you is this, it says, when you believe the same power that rose, Jesus from the dead lives inside of you, empowering you to live the life God has called you to here on earth. Because this is the truth. He didn't save you just to give you a ticket to heaven, to get you into heaven. If that was the truth, He would have just beamed you up once you believed. Not only does He save us, but He fills us and empowers us to change our lives here on earth because He knows how hard it is to live on this earth, to accomplish His purpose.

And you know what the purpose of God is? It is to transform the lives of the people He is saving. So church, remember this truth. You are not alone. God is with you a hundred percent, and you have His power living within you to change the things in your life you need to change and start life-giving habits that can lead to a new life, a prosperous and strong life. Amen? Let's pray.

You know, as we pray, I just want to say this. If you're here, if you're listening to this and you are struggling with an addiction, I want to encourage you, you know, these principles we talked about today are useful and are powerful, but if you have a strong addiction to something, I want to encourage you to get help. We have recovery groups here again at the end of your notes. You can go to TLC.org/recovery and find out the days and times that they are meeting or find an AA group, find a system that will help you get the help you need. But remember, God is with you.

Father, we thank you so much for your love, your grace, and your mercy. And we thank you that not only do you save us, but God, you transform our lives. I pray, God, you help us identify the destructive habits in our lives and help us create new, good habits to sow good seeds of good habits that will result in a life-giving harvest. And God, I thank you for filling us and being with us always. And it's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.