Connecting With God

Unstuck has been the name of our summer series on how to get unstuck from whatever it is that is holding you back. My name is René. I'm another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. And because of a bizarre set of circumstances, I am actually wearing John Ortberg's clothes today. I don't know how that happened.

I was thinking earlier this morning when our two oldest kids, Jonathan and Elizabeth, were just young teens, like junior high age, they decided to play a practical joke on me. I am the kind of guy who never has his phone on ring. I live in dread of my phone going off with some kind of loud ringtone in the middle of some public thing. So it's always on silent. Well, they knew this about me. And so they decided to grab my phone one day when I wasn't looking and put on a super loud rock and roll ringtone and then put it back. I was totally unaware of this.

And then they decided hours later when I was at work in some meeting or something, they would call it. That would be a funny, funny, practical joke. Well, what they didn't know when they called it was that I was indeed at work. I was doing a funeral on stage in the middle of my eulogy. And my phone was not with me. My phone was in the front pew. When it went off to the tune of Rod Stewart singing, If You Think I'm Sexy. Now, if you know that song, you know the next line. And you want my... And there was a body right next to me on stage. Open casket funeral.

So what am I going to do now? My phone's just blaring away on the front pew. I'm up here talking. And I kind of quickly went through my options and I decided to pause and look up and say, would you please silence your cell phones out of respect for the family? And then when it stopped ringing, as I knew it would, thank you. So that was a disaster averted. But I was thinking about it because of the topic for today. And it's about something that happens with these that affects all of us.

I want to talk to you today about what I think is the single biggest challenge to your spiritual growth and mine. It is robbing you of joy. It is stunting your spiritual growth. It's actually making you stupider. Are you ready for it? Here it is. distraction. That's the word. Say it with me. Distraction. That is the problem, specifically how these things are better than anything in human history at distracting us. And this is getting the attention of researchers.

Time Magazine a little while back had an article headlined, distraction is the preeminent condition of our age. First line, we are in a distracted, multitasking culture. Raise your hand if you would agree with that. Can I say a show of hands? Some of you are not raising your hands because you're actually on your phones right now, checking scores. Well, there was an article also in the Atlantic magazine. I thought this was fascinating. Headline, why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid. And they talk about social media platforms and news apps and so on.

And one of the things they observed was these platforms are almost perfectly designed to bring out our least reflective selves. The volume of outrage now is shocking, a kind of twitchy and explosive anger. They say now our attention span as human beings, because of these things, is less than the attention span of a goldfish. I'm not sure how they measure that, but that's intense. There was another article in an academic journal, Neuro Image Magazine. In fact, I'm going to give you a couple of articles from this. This is made for professionals in like the MRI, CAT scan world, right?

And so they did brain scans of people who were looking constantly at social media apps, news apps, and so on. And indeed, here's what they discovered. They said, in general, activities that required sustained attention, like reading, math, decision making, and impulse control, were stunted. Wow. We're talking about distraction. In fact, if you want to know sort of the theme of the whole sermon, the sermon in like three words today, it's this. Distraction, that's the problem. That's the word. Say that again with me. Distraction.

Now, if distraction is the problem, then what's the solution? What's the opposite of distraction? Yeah, focus. Another word to put it, sustained attention. say sustained attention. Sustained attention. So that's the sermon in a nutshell. Distractions problem. Sustained attention is the solution. Now the Bible has a word for sustained attention. What do you think it is? Meditation. That's right.

Here's another article from that trade journal for CAT scan and MRI professionals. It was called the meditative mind and they did research on people who were praying or meditating for just 20 minutes a day at a time. That's not very much, right? Pray or meditate for 20 minutes. Here is what they found through research. This isn't some pastor. These are professionals. Well, I'm a professional too, but these are other professionals. These aren't just pastors. These are smart people.

And they said, here's some of the results. Relaxation, you can predict that, but also a better memory, a longer attention span. Look at this, more compassion and emotional control. Now, here's the really incredible thing about all these results. These benefits continue for hours after the meditation has stopped. For most of the rest of the day, people continue to be more relaxed, recall better, have longer attention spans, be more compassionate, and have more emotional control for hours after they are done meditating.

Now, wouldn't you love to have those kinds of benefits in your life? Well, let's talk about prayer and meditation today. Now, before we dig into the message, just a quick preview. Next weekend, we start a brand new series. I'm really excited about this called Investigating Jesus. It's an overview in just a few weeks of the Gospel of Luke because the Gospel of Luke's a little different than some of the other Gospels. It's the only one written by a non-Jewish person, a Gentile.

And he goes into it and says, what I did was I interviewed eyewitnesses. I investigated Jesus and only wrote down what I could corroborate with one or more sources. So a fascinating first century document to learn more about Jesus, investigating Jesus in Luke. That starts next weekend. And in two weeks, as part of that series, we have one of our favorite speakers. Herman Hamilton is going to be here in John Ortberg's clothes, but it's going to be fantastic to have Herman with us again.

Now, today we wrap up this series, Unstuck. And if you're just joining us, we've been looking at the biblical foundations underneath the famous 12 steps of recovery, of Alcoholics Anonymous, and so on, because those all originated in a church small group, believe it or not. And so this is helpful not only for those with addictions, but this is a great growth plan for anybody who wants to grow in their lives, anybody who wants to get unstuck.

And we've been tying into a book called Steps by John Ortberg. And as we wrap this up, I just want to quickly do an overview of the first steps we've looked at. We summarize them like this. Step one was I admit I can't, but God can, so I think I'll let him. I admit my powerless over whatever it is I want to change. and I accept his grace and power.

Then I really fearlessly do a moral inventory of my life, and when I find a sin, I confess it to God and to at least one other confidential human being. And of course, what happens is you end up seeing a lot of things inside of you that you want to change, and you become entirely ready. You truly desire change, and you ask God to change you. Now, so far, that's pretty me-focused. Then I go from me to we.

I list those I've actually harmed in my life, and I make amends wherever possible. And I do these first steps daily. I keep short accounts. You know what this really is? This is a plan for a very important biblical word, repentance. In church, in the Bible, you hear the word repent, repentance, and it sounds fine. Okay, I want to turn from bad things and turn to God. But I found in my own spiritual life, so rarely do people actually tell you how.

And this is one plan, one way you could organize living in a lifestyle of daily repentance. And then this morning, we're going to wrap up the series with steps 11 and 12. And these address a major issue when it comes to change. And that is this. You cannot tell your mind what not to think when it comes to change. It's like, don't do that thing, don't do that thing, don't do that thing. That's a guaranteed way to do that thing.

Like, don't think of a pink elephant, right? One time when our youngest son, David, was about four or five years old, we had some candy by the front porch in a big bowl for the Halloween trick-or-treaters that were going to come by later on in the day. And we discovered David had been helping himself generously to those candy bars. They'd become breakfast that day.

And when we realized what he was doing, of course, we said, David, that's enough, no more candy. Yet, every single time I walked by the front door where the bowl of candy was David was standing like this stock still right in front of the candy bowl every single time and finally I said David what are you doing and he said with a big sigh oh just looking at something I can't have and how many of us are trying to change by doing that just looking at something I can't have.

You cannot change by just thinking about what you do not want. You've got to replace those thoughts with something positive. And that's the idea behind step 11. Watch this now. Which says, we sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.

What we're going to do today, as we've done in all these messages in this series, is kind of look at the step and then look at one example from the Bible that demonstrates it. And specifically, I want to zero in on the words prayer and meditation. Now, in your own life, you probably pray. But I've discovered for a lot of people, even a lot of Christians, prayer can seem dry. Prayer can seem like an obligation.

And even worse, prayer can seem like something, if you're not doing it exactly right, you're not going to get what you really hope for from God. Well, I want you to look at this beautiful invitation to prayer from Hebrews 4:16. It says, Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time. Isn't that beautiful?

I'm going to paraphrase John Ortberg from his book a little bit here, but look at, just examine what this is saying here. When we pray, we're not just whispering words into the universe, and we're not coming before an angry judge, and we're not just, it's not positive thinking. We are approaching a throne, and there's someone on that throne, and that someone on the throne of life is not me. It is God, and that throne has a name.

And the name is not the throne of condemnation or the throne of religion or the throne of guilt or the throne of performance. It's the throne of grace. And grace means it's meant for the misfits and the failures and the disappointments. It's meant for, in other words, real human beings because grace is the unmerited favor of God. One for us through Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross for our sins.

So we're approaching God's throne of grace. And because it's a throne of grace, we can approach it with confidence, not with groveling. Why? Because we know we will find mercy and grace to help us when we pray. Isn't that beautiful? Prayer is not just a dry obligation. Prayer is approaching God. We don't pray in order to get God to love us more or get brownie points from God.

We pray in order to sense and experience and know the love, the unconditional love and mercy and grace of God that's already there. That is awesome. That's where we're going in prayer and meditation. Remember, we said if distraction is the problem of our age, then meditation, sustained attention, is the answer. Did you know that meditation is so important to God that it is mentioned 50 times in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, alone?

Like the chapter I want to do a deep dive on this morning, Psalm 1. If you have your Bibles, open them up to Psalm 1. Psalm 1 is the first psalm, and it's kind of the gatekeeper to the rest of the 149 other psalms that will follow. It's saying if you meditate on the psalms that are about to follow, you are going to reap these amazing benefits.

Look at this. Blessed is the one who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. In other words, who does not hang out with people that are going to be scornful and angry and so on, who doesn't constantly doom scroll and listen to bloggers and podcasters that are that way. But instead, what does he focus on? His delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law, he what? Meditates day and night.

He will be, or she of course, will be like a tree planted by streams of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf does not wither, whatever he does prospers. This is talking about three amazing benefits of meditation. First, happiness. Actual joy. It says, blessed is the one. Blessed sounds religious, but really it just means happy. Joyful. Whole peaceful and then second stability real stability did you see verse three talks about how you'll be a tree planted by streams of water why that specific this was written remember in israel which is a climate a lot like california and in that kind of a climate a tree that is not planted by a stream can't be sure of always being green.

This is an example of a tree that is not always green, clearly, in Israel. Because a stream not planted by a stream, listen, a tree not planted by a stream depends on the rain, right? Which, as we know around here, is inconsistent. And the psalmist is saying that is like a believer who always just depends on stimulation just just serendipitously falling on him or her rain falling for their spiritual growth maybe they happen to hear a great song at church that's awesome or a great song on the christian radio station or a good sermon that's rain and they get they receive the rain and if it connects with them They blossom for a little while, green up, and that's great.

But if you are planted by a stream of water like these trees that I also saw in Israel, then you are going to be green all the time. These trees have put down their roots into an underground aquifer that's in this park there in Israel. It is literally a stream that never runs dry. A tree like that, these are olive trees, they're going to bring forth their fruit in season. There's still seasons. Every life has its seasons. But this tree does not die, whose leaf does not wither, because it's tapped into a continuous underground stream of living water. And that's what the practice of daily meditation on God's word does for you. Does that make sense?

And then finally, this verse talks about prosperity. It says, whatever he does, prospers. Now, this is not necessarily prosperity the way we think about it. Like, you know, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? This means that no matter what happens to you, you'll ultimately benefit. You'll ultimately prosper. It will have beneficial effect. That is quite a promise. Soul prosperity. These are powerful promises. So you might be going, yeah, I want this. Renée, you've talked about this for 10 minutes. I want, how do I do this? What's the fuel for meditation?

Well, that's an important question because you could be meditating on your worries, right? You could be meditating on, you know, the news headlines all the time. And this is a problem. I mean, honestly, I feel like I've developed almost an addiction to reading the news on my phone. I'm just, I grab it if I'm not watching it first thing in the morning. and before I know it, an hour's gone by and I'm just, and I ask myself, why do I do that? Is it because like, well, you know, the world leaders might just give me a call and ask for my advice and I need to be updated on what's going on. I don't know why I do, but I do. And it's an addiction I need to overcome.

In fact, let me ask you a question. How many of you would say you are able to worry? How many of you are able to worry? Well, if you can worry, then you can meditate. That's the good news. Because worry, think about this, worry is just negative attention. You're meditating on the stuff that stresses you out. If you worry, you can meditate. Just change what you focus on. Like what? Well, Psalm 1 says, first meditate on the word of God. It says, the law of the Lord. In his law, he meditates day and night. And this is important because there's a lot of material on meditation that's not primarily based on meditating on the scripture.

You need to tap into that underground spring. First, let the word of God nourish you and feed you. And then your paradigm is going to be shaped by the truth. And then you can go on to it in other psalms. I see that I can also meditate on, for example, the wonder of God. Many, many psalms talk about this. Like Psalm 145 says, I will meditate on what? The glorious splendor of your majesty. the wonder of God, like the attributes of God, God's love, God's grace, God's sovereign power, the fact that God is always with you all the time, that's part of the splendor of his majesty.

And then third, you can also meditate on the works of God, the rest of Psalm 145 verse 5, and on your wondrous works. What do I mean by that? Well, part of that is God's creation. Here's some of what I like to meditate on, our Redwood Forest. There's a couple of benches in Henry Cowell State Park that I love to sit on like this one. And you just sit and look at the forest. And if you stay still for a while, the animals start to think you're part of the scenery. And they just kind of start coming out. The birds and squirrels and deer. And it's just absolutely inspiring.

Or at night, the night sky. or, of course, the ocean. I really love to just look at and listen to the waves. And these days, especially when I've just got my eyes closed, lying in bed at night, I especially love sustained attention on my grandchildren. In fact, I invite you to meditate on my grandchildren right now. That's one of the works of God, right? So let your imagination be formed by the Word of God and the wonder of God and the works of God.

Now, again, this can be a big challenge for us because we're really tethered to these things. In fact, I was reading the other day that a restaurant in the UK offers customers a 20% discount if they will not use their cell phones during the entire time they're there. But to get the discount, 20% off, they have to lock their phones in a cage at the register. And according to what I read, about 40% of the customers turn down the discount. No, I can't be without my phone. Don't lock it up. It's cruel. It's my friend, right?

Man, for 20% off, you could lock up my phone and my wallet, my keys, and possibly my grandchildren. I'm just telling you right now. we love our short attention span triggering devices right this is a challenge for me too so let me dig in just a little bit deeper into how i do this and i really want you to hear me on this nobody's got one way that's the right way but let me just give you one tip that opened this up for me a few years ago the hebrew word for meditate comes from the hebrew word for ruminate as in how a cow chews its cud.

I was hiking in Arana Gulch the other day here in Santa Cruz, and they had their herd of cows there, and it looked like they were all chewing gum. What are cows doing when they do that? Well, it turns out, as you may know from elementary school science, cows have four stomachs, and they chew the hay or the grass or whatever, and it goes down to stomach number one, where it gets worked on a little bit, gets digested a little bit, back up, and they chew on it a little bit more, down to stomach number two, a little bit more digestion, back up, chew on it some more, one, two, three, four times this happens, and that sounds gross, but that's how you get ice cream. So that right there.

And that's what ruminate is. So how do you do that with meditation? Well, you choose one single piece of scripture that you just sort of live with for one day. You chew on it a little bit, send it down to the subconscious level where your brain keeps working on it, then you think on it again a little bit later on. Again, maybe when you're walking, you say it out loud, maybe throughout the whole day or maybe a whole week or maybe a whole season or a whole year. Let me explain how I do this.

I've done this many, many times, especially in the last about six years. This has really become a habit for me. And I put some of the verses that I have done this with on the back of your message notes, like the one at the top, which I mentioned in Friday's video Devo, which is from Psalm 46:10. Be still and know that I am God. This is what the Lord says to us. So let's say this out loud together. Be still and know that I am God.

When you're ruminating or meditating on this, I mean, this is easy to memorize, right? You've probably all already memorized it just now. Be still and know that I am God. So you just live with that. And you just start by repeating it to yourself. Be still and know that I am God. This is what God is saying to you. Be still now and know that I am God. And then maybe when you go for your walk, you repeat it out loud to yourself. Be still and know that I am God.

And then the more you repeat it, you start thinking about the individual elements here. Be still. This is God's telling me, be still. Okay, okay, God, as best I can today, I'm going to find some moments to just be still. and then you keep thinking about it you know what else that means not just moments to be still like in the forest but but when i'm with people i'm gonna be still i'm not gonna chatter thoughtlessly i'm gonna listen more and be still say less i'm not gonna feel like i've got to constantly say things to defend myself or or make sure people think of me the way i want them to i don't have to say things to always get my way and correct people when they're wrong.

Be still and know that I am God. Maybe you think, you know what that means? That means before I make decisions, I'm going to pause and I'm going to listen for God's voice. Be still and know that I'm God. When I start to get freaked out, I'm not going to be tossed around by anxiety or anger. I will be still and know that I am God. I'm going to know that there is a God and that that is not me. I will be still. And you start to think more about it. I will ask, how would you like me to respond before I respond? Instead of afterwards saying, Lord, I'm sorry I responded that way.

As John Ortberg says in his book, as you do this, a wonderful thing will happen. You will discover you do want to be still. And you will really somehow know that the Lord is God. Just one more example. One entire summer, I chose this verse to meditate on every single day. Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. and every morning and throughout the day, I just imagine Jesus saying this to me and I meditate on this for a whole summer, so life-giving.

And you see there's some other verses in your notes that you can try. And what happens, as step 11 says, is through prayer and meditation, you're developing this conscious contact with God and it's refueling you so that you can get to step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we try to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs. That's the evangelism step. You tell people what God is doing and did in your life.

And that includes what he did with the tough times in your life. There's a saying in the 12 steps, by God's grace, I can make my mess my message. Your greatest trials can become your greatest testimonies. like they have for the founder of our church, Women's Recovery Group from Alcohol and Drugs. It's called Beloved, and it's now spread to other churches as well. And the woman here at Twin Lakes Church who started it about six years ago is named Natalie, and here's part of Natalie's story.

I had a normal childhood. I grew up in a Christian home. I went to a Christian school K through 12. When I was 16 I was introduced to alcohol and I discovered that when I drank I could numb the feelings of expectation. I would go to school I'd get straight A's and then on the weekends I'd go to parties and then start the week over. So much shame, so much embarrassment. And so when I left for college, I was like, okay, I'm going to recommit my life over to God. But no one talked about addiction and no one, I never heard anything about addiction or alcoholism or the 12 steps.

And so I continued in these cycles of not drinking and then going, oh, it's okay. I can now drink just a little bit. I was told, read your Bible more, pray more. That issue wasn't addressed or brought to my attention. It is a progressive disease. And progressively, there was just more shame. It was destroying my life. And so one weekend, which was my bottom, I drank more than I had ever drank before. And I remember not being able to stop. I laid there hungover at the airport and cried out to God as I had done so many times before. And I just said, what is wrong with me? Would you show me?

For me, I had an audible alcohol in my head and I was like, what? And I started Googling there in the airport, alcoholism and podcasts. And the scales came off my eyes and I could see it for what it was. God will show us and then we have the choice what we're going to do with it. And when I got home, I had a friend call me and asked me how my trip was. And I feel like that was a very pivotal point in my journey where I could have tucked it back in hiding again and stayed in the shame and said, fine, it was fine. Or I could speak the truth.

And I said to her, I think I'm an alcoholic and I have no idea what to do with that. She said, I do. And that's the really cool thing about God is that when we are willing, he will show us the next step. And she brought me to a couple women who, to this day, journey with me as mentors, doing the 12 steps with me. I started showing up at meetings. I did whatever they told me to do because I so desperately wanted change. And I'd want to change for so long to see that God's grace, that he loves me no matter what, no matter where I'm at, and no matter what choices I'm making, that he still says, I still choose you. You are my beloved.

Slowly, I remember feeling comfortable in my own skin for the first time. Step 11 is the meditation, meditating on his word. It right sizes us each day where we're surrendering our will to his. Step 12 for me turned into something that I could have never imagined. Think about how many women show up at church with a smile on their face and they maybe had a night like I did where they're just walking in with this huge bag of shame. I wanted a place for me to go that was women only, that I could talk about my love for Jesus and my struggles.

And it was over the pandemic. So every meeting was canceled. Nobody was meeting on campus. And I'll never forget, we sat there in that room and we thought there might be like one woman that comes. We don't even know what's going to happen. 25 women came. And that was when the whole world was shut down. And I remember looking, we looked at each other and we just tears. God was moving and that there were women who were seeking freedom just like we were.

And from then, God has continued to just open the door to grow Beloved to other churches. Beloved now meets at four locations. Twin Lakes, Monday at 10 a.m., Vintage Faith Church, Thursdays at 7 p.m., Gateway Bible Church Wednesdays at 9 a.m. and Venture Christian Church 7 p.m. on Thursdays. Don't stay there in that dark space of hopelessness because he is a God of hope. He can, and I am a testament of that, restore you. I'm so grateful. I can now say I'm a grateful alcoholic. And I used to laugh when people would say that. But he has absolutely changed my life. And it's a gift one day at a time.

Natalie is great. Can we thank her for her ministry here at the church and her whole team? Well, before we close with a couple of worship songs and our baptisms, and it's been so wonderful, by the way, through during this series, we've seen so many people find freedom from drugs and alcohol or just other habits that have had their claws into them and commit their lives to Jesus. and you'll see some of them be baptized in all the services this weekend.

But before we do that, I want to give you a chance to just practice what we've been talking about. Instead of closing in prayer the usual way where we all bow our heads together and I lead you in prayer, I'm going to put up a film of a restful scene, The Ocean Waves. and I just want to invite you to sustain your attention on this and then we're going to sing our songs and have our baptisms together. Here we go.