Transcription
What, what, uh, Nikki suggested today. I'm actually rather excited about. He suggested I do something a bit different and, uh, and talk to you, uh, more not so much from like a spiritual devotional standpoint, but more speak to you as leaders. And this is quite exciting to me because I really believe that Jesus, uh, beyond being sinless and the savior of the world, is by far, in a way, the greatest leader in, in, in history. Uh, and we model after him as he calls us to lead people to know Christ. And so what I want to do today is talk to you about something that I, I believe will help make you perhaps, um, a stronger leader in your schools, or in your family, uh, or certainly in the church and beyond. So you might want to jot down a few notes as we're going through.
And I want to start with scripture. I'm going to start in Ephesians chapter 3 and we'll look at, uh, verses 20 and 21. Ephesians 3, 20 and 21. I'm going to move this so I can wander. Uh, and let me read this to you and then I'm going to ask you to help me out with this verse. Ephesians 3:20 says, "Now to him, now to, now to Christ who is able to do immeasurably more." Can everybody say, "more"? Let me read this again and then help me out. "Now to him, now to Christ who is able to do," help me out, "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, not to our power, but according to his power that is at work within us. To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever."
What I'd like to suggest is, I believe with all my heart that our good God wants to do more in you and more through you than you have the ability to comprehend. I, I would, without even knowing the whole story, I can guarantee you and would bet my life on it that when you all started Alpha, you had no idea that you would impact tens of millions of people. This goes beyond our ability to even plan or comprehend. And wherever you are, I believe that our good and powerful and loving God wants to do more in you as he draws you and conforms you to the image of his son, Jesus, and use you to make even a bigger difference in this world than your mind has the ability to grasp.
I give you an example of an unusual story. Um, our family for 12 years, we went to a, a camp much like this. It was a camp for families, um, and they had a swimming pool at this camp. And I was out with my kids swimming and a guy came up to me. I hadn't met him before. He introduced himself. He said, "My name is such and such." And he said, "I bet you, you can't hold your breath under the water for a full minute." Now, I didn't know this guy, but I'm always up for a good contest. I said, "Pull out your stopwatch and let's get it on." And so, I mean, here I am, just, you know, 30 seconds into knowing this guy. He said, "On your mark, get set, go." And so I, and I went under water and I could hear him above the water telling me how long I'd been under. He said, "You've been under 10 seconds, you're doing good, but you won't make a minute." He said, "You've been under 15 seconds, you're doing good." At 15 seconds, I thought, "This is so easy. I've so got this. I've got this. It's easy." At 25 seconds, I thought, "This is going to be harder than I thought." At 30 seconds, I thought, "I may die, but I'm not coming up till there's a minute." At 35 seconds, I felt my lungs contract. They went like that. At 40 seconds, I rededicated my life to Jesus, just in case. I mean, I, I, you, you never know. You know, it's like, I, I repented of every sin I could. At 55 seconds, I started to visualize Jesus in heaven. At 60 seconds, I exploded out of the water. Victory! 60 seconds, and I'll live to tell about it.
The guy looked at me and he said, "Not bad for a beginner. But I guarantee you, this next time, you can do it twice as long." You have no idea how close I was to the afterlife in that first 60 seconds. There is no, no way possible that I could ever do two minutes. No way. Totally impossible.
Well, the guy went on to explain that he is actually a consultant and he coaches CEOs for a living. And he said, "This is an example that he takes CEOs through." Rather odd. I don't know how he gets them in a pool, but that's a whole another story. But he takes them through to prove a point to them. And he said, "If you will do what I tell you, I guarantee you this time you can over double your time on the very next try." He said, "What you need to do is, I want you to breathe in four times as deeply as you can, and you're going to expand your lungs so they can contain more oxygen. Then when you go in, do not do what you did last time. You were flopping like this. Just float like a butterfly and listen to what I say. At about 45 seconds or so, your lungs are going to contract." I'm like, "I remember that very well." And when that happens, that's simply your body telling your brain, you need oxygen soon. What we're going to do is trick your brain. When that happens, I want you to blow a little bit of oxygen out. That's going to trick your brain to think that you're about to receive oxygen, and your body is going to relax. Then when you can't do it anymore, I want you to open up your eyes and find something floating in the water and I want you to watch it and count slowly to 10. And that again is going to distract your mind, and you will do over double the time."
So I did. But he said, "Four times. Float like a butterfly. Listen to his voice." He said, "You're at 15 seconds. You're at 30 seconds. You're doing good. Don't come out. There's more in you. You're at 35 seconds. Do not come up. There is more in you. I promise you, you can do this. There is more in you." At 45 seconds, my lungs were, he said, "Your lungs are going." And when he did it, he said, "Blow some air out." I blew some air out, and my body relaxed. I tricked my brain thinking there's more oxygen to come. And he said, "You're at about a minute." What I didn't realize is he had been lying to me the whole time about how long I'd been under. I'd actually been under a considerably more amount of time than what he was saying because he again was tricking my brain. When I was at a minute, I was actually about at a minute 30. When I came out, I had done two minutes and 45 seconds. Someone here ought to give glory to God because that is amazing. Come on, somebody. Don't leave me hanging up here. I came a long way to do this. You got to help me out. Two minutes and 45 seconds on my second try, when I thought a minute would have sent me into eternity. I've since been able to get up to over four minutes and 30 seconds doing this. Why? I don't know. Because guys are stupid and we like to beat our own records. And I tell you all this to tell you what he told me at the end. He said, "Your body is capable of doing more than your mind believes is possible."
And I believe with all my heart that you, as followers of Jesus, empowered with his Spirit, are capable of doing far more than your mind ever believes possible. When we started the church 19 years ago, I never, ever dreamed what God would be doing would be possible. Now I tell myself all the time, "I will be big thinking, bet the farm, risk-takers. I will never insult God with small thinking or safe living." I came to tell somebody here, God wants to do more in you and more through you than you thought possible. So today, what I want to do is talk to you about simply increasing your capacity. Increasing your capacity. Because for you to go up, you're going to have to think differently and tap into the power of the Spirit in a way that you may not be familiar with just yet.
Uh, for example, how many of you are parents? You, you have kids that are here. How many of you have one child? Raise your hand. With one child, one. Okay. If you're married and you have one, it's, it's difficult, but it's, it's comparatively, it's relatively easy because if there's two of you and one child, you're in two-on-one defense, right? When you have two children, what are you in? Man-to-man. You take that one, I'll take this one. When you go to three, you're in zone for the rest of your life, right? You're just, you're doing this. Everything changes. When you have, you have six kids, you just give up. Like, just, here's money, good luck. You know, people, people say, "You have six kids, you must really love kids." Actually, I just really love my wife.
[Applause]
People always ask us, "Don't you know what causes that?" I was like, "Yeah, and we're unwilling to give it up, right?" Is that okay? I don't know. The truth is, my wife just won't leave me alone. You laugh, but it gets old sometimes. It gets old. I tell her all the time, "I'm a person with a heart and a soul. I've got a mind. Let's, let's, let's just, let's just cuddle tonight." But no, she loves it when I do that. So, so when you go from one child to three children, your strategy has to change. If you're a student pastor and you have 20 kids in your student ministry and it grows to 40, you have to change. If you're a leader in your business and you have three employees and it grows to seven, your strategy has to change. In other words, if you don't change the way you think and lead, you're going to become the ceiling on what God wants to do through you. In other words, what got you here will not get you there. We need to let God stretch us and increase our capacity.
So here's your assignment. What I'm going to do is, I'm going to give you five big points and we're going to talk about them, okay? At the end of our time, I'm just going to give you a little prep. I'm going to ask you to commit to one of the five and ask the Holy Spirit to show you which one of these five is yours to work on. You can't, cannot have two. If you're going to work on two or three, you're probably not going to get very far. But if you let God show you one specific area for you to work on, I promise you, God will increase your capacity as a parent, as a, as a pastor, as a leader, as a follower of Jesus, that you can make a bigger impact in the world. So we'll put them up on the screen and you can jot these down and we'll talk about them one by one.
And the first one, if you're taking notes, is we're going to ask the Holy Spirit to build our confidence. To build your confidence. The second one, we're going to talk about expanding your connections. Number two, expand your connections. And I'll go over these again so you can get them. Number three, we're going to ask God to help improve our competence, to make us better at very specific things that might help us as leaders and followers of Jesus. Number four, we're going to ask God to strengthen our character, to strengthen our character, to make us more like Jesus in integrity, in all that we do. And number five, we're going to ask God to increase our commitment. Let me give them to you again. Number one, build your confidence. Number two, expand your connections. Number three, improve your competence. Number four, strengthen your character. And number five, increase your commitment. And you're going to ask God to show you one specific area for your life.
Let's start with confidence. Some of us, we need to ask God to build our confidence. How do we know this? For me, I know that I'm lacking spiritual confidence when I start to use what I call the language of the lid. The language of the lid. There, there is a lid reflected in the words that I speak that show that I'm limited in what I can do. For example, "There just aren't enough hours in the day to get it all done." Language of the lid. "I'm just not good enough to get it done." Language of the lid. "I don't know if I have what it takes to go to the next level." "Our church, we just don't have the staff, or we just don't have the resources." There, I've got too many little children in the house and there's not enough time in the day. I'm trying to work and hold a job and feed the kids and I just can't get it done. The language of the lid. And our language reflects our lack of confidence. Every now and then, we need to learn to do what David did when scripture says that he actually, and I love this, he encouraged himself in the Lord. Every now and then, I believe you just need to learn to preach and preach to yourself. Tell yourself, "Hey, Christ in me is the hope of glory. Greater is the one who is in me than the one who is in the world. My God has given me everything I need for life and godliness. That, that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." I don't know about you, but every now and then, I just have to preach to myself some spiritual confidence because I don't have what it takes. But the good news is, in my weakness, Christ's strength is made perfect. His strength is perfected when I don't have what it takes. And you literally learn to preach to yourself.
For example, I'll tell you, just very honestly, one of my biggest insecurities, uh, for years and years and years was speaking publicly. I became a Christian in college and then was in ministry very early after that, and teaching the Bible horrified me because I didn't feel like I knew enough about the Bible. I felt like people knew way more than I did. I didn't feel like a good speaker. And so I, I lacked so much confidence. I would go in my prayer closet and pray right before speaking. And then before walking out the door to go into the church, I would always throw up in the garbage bucket. How spiritual is that? Okay. The good news is, I don't do that anymore. Okay. Now I just throw up in my mouth and I swallow it and I'm good to go. Okay. It was so bad, I had a, a pastor much like your pastor, who was a great man of God, who took risks on young guys like, like your pastor does. And, and I, I would get there and I would be preaching and I'd forget what I'm going to say and I just panic. And I would always go, "I forgot what I was going to say. Help me, God." He's like, "Don't do that." And he said, "Whenever you forget what you're going to say next, he said, just repeat the last thing you said and then walk back to your notes." Very powerful. Just repeat the last thing you said and walk back to your notes.
You see, here's, here's what I learned to do, and this is, this is so, so important to me. Every time now before I speak, "God, build my confidence." What I do is very simple. I take one step forward. And what I'm saying to myself when I do that, every single time, and it's very meaningful, is I'm stepping out of the weakness of the flesh of Craig Rochelle, and I'm stepping into the authority, calling, anointing, and power of God. I don't have what it takes, but He does. Some of you, in some area of your life where you lack confidence, it's time to take one spiritual step forward. There may be something that you're afraid of. The pathway to your greatest potential is often straight through your greatest fear. And you take one step forward and say, "God, I'm stepping into who you say I am. I am not who others say I am. I'm not who I think I am. I am who you say I am. And you've said I'm called. You've said I'm equipped. You've said I have the power of Christ." Somebody might want to give God some glory for that because you're going to take a step forward into who God called you to be. You preach to yourself, "God, build my confidence through the truth of your word, empowered by your Spirit." Some of you, that's yours right there. You know it. You're done. You can daydream for the rest of the four because God has showed you that's your one. You need the Holy Spirit not to give you self-confidence, but to give you God confidence. God confidence that He in you is the hope of glory.
The second seed I want to talk to you about, and I hope you appreciate they all begin with C because I took a long time to get that right. There's more power when they begin with the same letter, sayeth the Lord. Okay? Then number two, some of you need to expand your connections. You need to expand your connections. You show me who you're listening to, and I will show you who you're becoming. Guaranteed. You show me who you're listening to, and I will show you who you are becoming. You see, it's incredibly rare, studies show, for you ever rise above the five most dominant voices in your life. Sociologists study that. It's, it's in income and leadership and mindset, again and again and again. You show me who you're listening to, and I will show you who you're becoming. In fact, that's one of the powerful things about this week is you have access to greatness right beside you. There could be divine relationships that you make in this week that change the course of your life. Think of it this way, and this is so true and so powerful. You may be one relationship away from changing the course of your destiny. You, you may be one relationship away from changing the course of your destiny.
If you know about the Apostle Paul, who was Saul, we all know that Saul hated Christians, killed Christians, despised Christians. And then he met the Risen Christ. And so Paul wanted to preach the gospel. The only problem was, Christians didn't want to hear from him because he'd been killing people. And what happened? God used one man, Barnabas, who gave Paul the authority and said to the other apostles, "This guy has been converted. He's the real thing. He's truly experienced Christ. You should listen to him." And God used one man, Barnabas, to open up divine doors for Paul. Now, two-thirds of our New Testament is in our hands because God used one man, Barnabas, to help change the course of Paul's destiny. Just as, even I believe this week, in short conversations with your pastor, I'm already learning stuff that are going to make my life better. And perhaps by the grace of God, there may be something that we deposit in his heart that takes the, the ministry of your church to a whole new level because God uses relationships in such a way.
For example, when, um, when I was young, uh, 29 years of age or so, our church was, was small, but we were filling up the small room, uh, three different times back in 1997, '98. Then in the United States, no churches, to my knowledge, had more than three services. That might have happened around the world, but, um, nobody had more than three services back then, to my knowledge. And doing four was unthought of. Just no church would do four services back then. And I thought, "Four services is possible, and we should do it." But my overseers said, "That would be too much, and churches just don't do that." So I was snowed in, um, an airport in Chicago, um, with a brilliant church consultant, uh, his name is Lyle Schaller. I don't know if any of you have heard of Lyle. Lyle was so forward-thinking that people thought he was crazy. He would say things and they're like, "He's a crazy man." And then 10 years later, they'd be like, "Wow, Lyle was right." I still think he's crazy, but he was right about that. And Lyle, he was 75, I was probably 29 or so. I said, "Lyle, uh, we're full in three services. I'm thinking about going to four. What do you think about this?" And Lyle looked at me and he shook his head. He said, "That's the problem with you young guys. You young guys all think so small. He said, you shouldn't be thinking about four services. You shouldn't be thinking about five. You shouldn't be thinking about six. You should be thinking about doing seven services at your first church location, and then seven at your second, seven at your third, seven at your fourth, seven at your fifth, and so on." And I remember hearing that going, "He is a crazy man. Four would be impossible. Seven? No way could that ever happen." I, I, I got up the next day with like a spiritual hangover. Like, that's crazy.
Well, guess what? Lyle became a friend. And that one conversation planted a seed in my heart that several years later bore fruit when we were full then in five services at one campus. Someone said, "Well, what if we met in a second location?" And we started doing church in a second location. To our knowledge, we were the only church in the world doing that. Actually, it wasn't true, but we just hadn't heard of it before. So we thought we were kind of breaking new ground. Then we went to a third location. And I'll tell you today, uh, humbly, we have 19 locations. In two weeks, we'll have our 20th. And by the end of the year, we'll have 22, um, paid for by the glory of God in cash. As of today, we have, we do up to eight services at a single location. As of this moment, we have 120 services at all of our different churches. By the end of the year, it'll be somewhere around 140. Here's what I want you to see. God used one relationship to change the course of my destiny. God used one conversation to open up a window of possibility that I never, ever thought possible.
I called Lyle recently. He's 92 years of age. I said, "Lyle, I just want to tell you, remember when you said to do seven services? We're doing eight." He said, "Eight?" I thought that was impossible. I just knew seven was the, the cap. And I said, "Lyle, that's the problem with you old guys. You all think so small." You see, I'm eternally indebted to him and other great leaders who've spoken into my heart. You may be one relationship away from changing the course of your destiny. And, and when you find people like this, don't try to copy what they do because I could never do what your pastor does. You see, he's smart. I'm not. Okay? I just married well. That's kind of like my strength, you know? He's brilliant. I could never do what he does, but I can learn how he thinks. I can get into his mind. I can ask him questions. I can learn what books have influenced him. I want to be a student with him because I may be one relationship away today from changing the course of my destiny. Some of you right now, you're hitting a lid, and you need to find someone not who's one step ahead of you, not who's two steps ahead of you, but literally find someone who's four or five or six steps ahead of you. That way, they give you the gift of disorientation where you're, you're unsettled, like, "Oh, I never thought of that. That's way beyond anything." And suddenly, you're able to stay underwater for four and a half minutes one day when you thought one was the most you could ever do. For some of you, this is yours. God, expand my connections. Give me a mentor. Someone to help push me to remove the lid and the barrier from my life.
The, the third thing is this. I want to talk to you about is this. Some of you, we need to ask God to improve our competence, to help us to become better at something very, very, very specific. And for you, you'll need to decide, what area of my life or leadership or parenting or spiritual leadership of my family or, or whatever, what specific area does God want to stretch me in to make me better? And the funny thing is, you may say, "Well, I, I don't know." I would suggest just ask the people around you because they all know where you need to get better, okay? If you're a leader, the people that work for you, they know where you need to get better. And we often don't see it. For example, I told you I was nervous about preaching. I asked, um, I asked Amy one time. I said, "Tell me, how am I doing as a communicator?" And she's like, "You're doing a good job." And you have to work to get the truth out of people because nobody lies like church people, right? Have you noticed that? Nobody lies like church people. You have the worst singer in the world, they sing and they're horrible, and you're like, "Oh, that was so good! Oh, glory to God!" You. And so you have to work to get the truth out of. I said, "How am I doing?" She said, "You're doing great." I'm like, "Well, be specific. Is there anything I I can improve?" She like, "No." And I said, "Be, come on, give me something I can improve." She goes, "Okay, I'm sick and tired of the box." Said, "The box?" "What do you mean, the box?" She said, "You're always carrying a box." "What do you mean?" She said, "Here you are, you're preaching, you're carrying a box. You got, you got a box everywhere you go, there's a box. You got a box, you got a box, you got a box." She said, "Put down the box." And I never even knew I was doing something. And everybody made fun of me carrying the box. Okay. I'm afraid like I'm going to talk to you like this. Okay.
In, in your own life, in leadership, ask yourself, what specific area do I need to improve? Now, let me go over some, some real specific areas because you may not be thinking as specifically as I am. So I'll just give you a few. Uh, some of you need to, in leadership, you need to to improve at your communication. It could be that you always have answers and you, you never ask questions. The best leaders ask questions. It could be you need to be a better listener, that the smartest are those who listen the most. It could be that you need to get better at delegating. You see, so often in the church world, we're not good delegators. We think delegating is telling people what to do. When we delegate tasks, what are we doing? We're creating followers. We're creating people who do what they're told. When instead of delegating tasks, we delegate authority, we're creating leaders. You see? And there's a difference. They're, they're learning and they're growing. And the only way that we're going to keep the best of the best in the church is to give them the authority to lead and fulfill their own vision, instead of unfortunately losing some of the best minds out of the church into other things. Some of you, it's receiving feedback. It's getting people to tell you the truth. Others of you, it's giving feedback. We're too polite. Some of us, it's hiring. We need to, we honestly need to get better at hiring in the church world. We're like, "We need to hire well. This person's been unemployed for the last seven years. Let's hire her." Like, there could be a reason she's been unemployed for the last seven years, okay? We, we're going to, we're going to hire the right people. It could be, uh, you need to improve at casting vision, of saying, "This is where God's taking us. Uh, it's, this is, this is what God is calling us to do." It could be that you need to get better at details, uh, and, and communicating the details. And the list could go on and on. Encouraging instead of always telling your kids where they're wrong. Encouraging your children to be who Jesus created them to be. And the list could be infinite. But some of you right now, you know there's a very specific area of your leadership that God is showing you, "This is what needs to improve." This one is mine of the five. Improve your competence. For me, the specific thing I'm working on is initiating rather than responding. Because at this season of my life, so many people want something. "Hey, can you meet with me? Can you do this? Can you come to this meeting?" That my schedule has become full in responding to others. And so what I'm doing is, I'm initiating and saying, "I'm going to attack my schedule first. My priorities, what God has calling me to do goes first. And then I'm, I'm going to say no to the other things. I'm going to initiate rather than respond." Some of you, it's your competence. One specific area you need to improve.
Number four, let's talk about character. Holy Spirit, strengthen my character. I, I like this line. You may want to jot it down. Talent can get you to the top, but but only character can keep you at the top. Your talent can take you to the top, but only your character will keep you at the top. In other words, if your character isn't strengthening, your future potential is weakening. It doesn't matter if we're talking about increasing our capacity. It doesn't matter how big the, the, the container gets, if there's a hole in the bottom of it, then it can't contain more. We want to, we want to patch up our in gaps so that we can be all that God wants us to be. It's, it's who we are when no one's looking. We're not talking about our reputation. Reputation and character are very different. Reputation is who others think we are. Character is who we really are. And I want, I want my character to be solid.
For example, I serve on the board of, um, a nonprofit that has, in the United States, that has, um, probably six of the top business leaders around. We're talking billionaires, geniuses. The guy who invented DSL, the guy invented the credit card swipe. Uh, if you study business books, these are like the, you know, you've read these guys' books, the best of the best of the best. And I guess I'm like the token pastor guy on there. I don't know why I'm on there, but I'm on there. And so they had a board meeting in California and I couldn't make the board meeting. And one other guy couldn't make it. So we called in. Well, this board meeting went on and on and on and on. Two hours into it, I'm getting kind of bored, even though these guys are great. Two and a half hours into it, I'm at my, my house. And I, God, I, I'm, I'm going to go work out while this board meeting is going on. So I just put my headphones in and I went to my, I've got a little home gym. And it was my back day. And so I just, I'd say something like, "Oh, that's a good idea." Then I hit mute and then I start doing pulldowns. And my, the machines are kind of loud because it's old. Clank, clank. Okay. And then I, I'd unmute, "Oh, yeah, that's a really good idea." Mute. Put the weight up. Okay. Well, I just, I was on probably my fourth set or so and I forgot to hit mute. And it was the heaviest weight. And so I was grunting. And I heard someone yell, "Craig, are you okay?" I looked down and it was not on mute. I was like, "Oh, Jesus, help me." Then I brought the weight down. I'm breathing heavy. "Are you okay? Do we need to send help?" So what do you think I did? I lied. Lied. Bold face lied. The one pastor in the group, and I lied. I, I'm fine. That wasn't me. "Are you okay? I was worried about you. I'm about to pray for you." What was that? That was the worst thing ever. Like it sounded like you. No, wasn't me. Totally fine. Here I'm just enjoying the meeting. And I lied, lied, lied. Pastor Craig lied.
So I got very convicted by God and I humbled myself and I individually called each man. I said, "I just, I just threw myself on the store. Like, you're not going to believe this, but I was working out." He goes, "Yep, I believe that." "Well, you probably won't believe anything else I said because I lied to you." "I know that." "I, I just had to tell you. I'm so sorry I lied because I, I didn't want that. I didn't want that seed of, of, um, breach of integrity to be in my heart and to be held against me." And, and there may be some of you, if when you look at your life honestly, there's going to be an area of your character that really needs to be brought before the light of Jesus and to let him shine his light into your heart and reveal, uh, any area that, that needs improvement. In fact, let me give you just a few things I wrote down in my notes. And, and God will show you anything you need. For some of you, your marriage is shaky right now. And sometimes in Christian ministry, we don't want to admit that because we're leaders in the Christian church and we need to admit it and we need to deal with it and let God bring healing. Um, when there's trials. Some of you, your time with God is more sporadic. You, you, um, you know, as a pastor, this is kind of crazy. When I went into ministry early on, I thought, "Man, I'm going to be close to God because I'm serving in the church." And unfortunately, I kind of let the church become a replacement for my intimacy with God. And one day, I believe the Holy Spirit revealed to me that I'd become a full-time pastor and a part-time follower of Christ. Okay? This will speak to some of you. You become a full-time business person and a part-time follower of Christ, or a full-time parent and a part-time follower of Christ, a full-time student and a part-time follower of Christ. And you recognize that, that, that my prayer life is flat, or my time in God's word is not what it should be. It could be you're, you're telling white lies, kind of like, like I did, or, or, you know, real gross lies. And some people have a double life going on. It could be that there's a secret sin in your life, something that you've been battling with for a long time. And sometimes you think, "Well, nobody knows, and this isn't hurting me." But we need to understand that darkness, uh, always hurts us. That sin, that sin grows. It's progressive. And even though someone else may not know, God knows, and we know, and that's enough. We need to deal with it and confess it and be honest. And you may think, "Well, I handle this myself." Listen, there are some things you've been fighting for a very long time. And if you could have gotten out of it yourself, you would have done it a long time ago. It's time to confess to a brother or confess to a sister and say, "I need some help. I, I need, I need you to, to pray for me. I, I want to get well." Here, here's the bottom line. This is so important. You are only as strong as you are honest. You're only as strong as you are honest. God, strengthen my character. Are you doing something privately that could impact your life and your witness publicly? Your personal life always impacts your, your, your spiritual life. So some of you, that's yours. Strengthen my character. Build my confidence. God, increase my connections. Improve my competence. Strengthen my character.
And then number five, for some of you, this will be yours. And again, think about which one is yours. And we're going to pray in a moment. Uh, for some of you, it's, it's, it's commitment. "God, would you increase my commitment?" You see, there's a difference between, "I want something," and "I will do anything to get something." There's a big difference. There's a big difference between, "I, I, I hope to change," and "With the power of God, I'm going to change." There's a big, big, big difference. Uh, for example, um, my workload has been great in the last few years. And so I decided, "I want to be the top of my game." And every area of my life, I want my marriage to be better than any marriage around. And by the grace of God, it's really, really good. I want spiritually to be so dependent on God that I'm in His word every single day in prayer. I need that spiritual strength. Physically, I wanted to be at the top of my game. And so about two years ago, I totally and completely kind of overhauled my diet. I went for a whole calendar year, I only had one cheeseburger and two pieces of pizza. And outside of that, man, for a whole year, like I was super, super, super disciplined. I've lightened it up now because I figure I'm going to die anyway, I might as well die with a good taste in my mouth every now and then, you know? But, but I just decided, "I'm going to be, I'm going to watch what I eat and take care of my body." And I was having lunch with a guy and he had like everything unhealthy you could imagine. Big old double cheeseburger, fries, Coca, you know, extra large Coca-Cola, brownie and ice cream. And I was eating my chicken salad, which has been pretty much my lunch for, you know, two years. Chicken salad after chicken salad. He looked at me, "You're making me feel bad." He goes, "Here I am on a diet, and you're eating chicken salad. What kind of diet is that?" Like, like a seafood diet. Seafood needed. You know, I don't know. It's like, you, I'm looking at this going, you know, there, there's, I'm kind of on a diet that's not a diet. Okay? There's a difference between, "I kind of want to lose weight," and "God has called me to treat my body as a temple of the Holy Spirit. I'm going to do this." There's a difference in the church world between saying, "You know, we want to reach the next generation." And I'm going to talk about more about this tonight, so I won't spend much time here. But there's a difference between saying, "We want to reach the next generation," and saying, "We must, because we're called by God to reach the next generation for the glory of God." There's a difference between saying, "You know, we go to church and we want our church to grow," and saying, "We are the church, and we're called to make disciples." You see, the, the whole mindset of, "You know, I want a church that meets my needs." I don't know if that's a big deal here, but like in America, like, "I'm looking for a church that meets my needs. I want a church that meets my needs. They're not meeting my needs." What we need to understand is is that we don't go to church, but we are the church. And the church isn't here to meet our needs, but we are the church, and we're here to meet the needs of the world. And there's a difference in our mindset and a difference in our commitment. And some of you, God is going to speak to you about increasing your commitment. Because how bad you want something determines what you'll do to get something. And suddenly, you're going to realize, "I want this. I want to purify my life. I want a good, godly marriage, and I'm not going to stop until I, I have it. I want to be a witness for Jesus. I want to be in shape. I must overcome this addiction. I must be a witness. I'm going to pray and pray and pray until my, my, my, my friends come to Christ." Because there's a difference between, "I want something," and there's no power on Earth that will keep you from it. Some of you need to increase your commitment.