Practice Makes Perfect

Transcript

So, earlier this summer, I went to a 45th high school class reunion. And during that reunion, I set foot back in the high school gymnasium that I spent four years at for track, cross country, basketball, everything else you can imagine. First time I'd been back into that gym in 45 years. And one of my best friends who lives near me here now, he was there and he and I were on the basketball team. And we started talking about, remember those 6 a.m. practices? And we would sit over on top of the radiators because it was so cold and try to warm up the basketballs and trying to warm up ourselves. And coach would come out and yell at us. And he said, yeah, we had some pretty bad practices those mornings and we just didn't practice well. That's sort of the impetus for this whole class was that conversation that Brian and I, my friend Brian and I had. So, as I started thinking about it, I've really liked this verse. For years, I've liked this verse in 2 Peter 1, starting verse 5. Now, for this very reason also, applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence. And in your moral excellence, knowledge. And in your knowledge, self-control. And in your self-control, perseverance. And in your perseverance, godliness. And in your godliness, brotherly kindness. And in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they do not make you useless nor unproductive in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the one who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choice of you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. I've always enjoyed that because I always think about all the sports practices that I was in once upon a time. And I thought to myself as I was preparing this class, why did I do that? Why did I subject myself, why do I subject myself now to practicing running a lot? But here in this verse, we've got the answer to that question, why? The very end. For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. There's the why of why should we practice these things. So I want to sort of set the stage there, and we're going to come back to this verse at the very end as well. But before we move on, I want to look at and what I put in the summary that I sent to Jason was sort of the question, what does practice make? I mean, if you ask the question to most people, if you just walk down on the street and say practice makes, they're all going to say practice makes perfect, right? Okay. I practiced basketball a lot in high school, and I was far, far, far from perfect. But I put in a lot of time. So the next question is, does practice make permanent? I think there's a lot more legitimacy to that statement. But the one that really got to me is something that Vince Lombardi, football coach, once a lot of time back in the day, said, he said, practice doesn't make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. So what he was highlighting was that just repeating an action isn't enough. The way that you practice is crucial. This is what we're going to dig into tonight. But as I was working on this class a couple weeks ago, I had this memory, which doesn't happen too often, but I had this memory of, I think it was a story, and you can tell me if I get this right. I think it was a story that Rich told during one of his Sunday schools or Bible classes or something about Rich and Jason practicing musical instruments, and the practice didn't really happen, and it got to the concert or something, and that's when it all came out in the wash. So I just sort of- Yeah, that's correct, Ray. Okay. But it was Jason that didn't practice, right? Not you. We both did not practice, and then I ended up doing a solo of another one bites the dust with my saxophone, and I didn't know any of it. You know, it's interesting how the practicing make perfect. It just doesn't work, you know? I mean, I guess Yo-Yo Ma and I don't know who else gets pretty darn close to perfect in his musical talents, but for the most part, repetition that we do is just, I don't know if it's the right word, right way to say it, ingrains our habits, which are either beneficial or detrimental. It can go either way. You know, you've got to develop the good habits or the good skills. Sometimes you've got to focus on the correct practice, the perfect practice, because practicing incorrectly is just going to make you do the wrong thing. You know, that's sort of what it comes down to. I found this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, interesting, that which we persist in doing becomes easier to do. Not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that our power to do has increased. So there's something to think about for a bit. As you're thinking about that, consider this. You know, you hear about people, exceptionally gifted people, who are at a really high level and able to master a discipline, master a subject, master a skill, just on their first introduction to it. Those are the exceptions and not the rule. Mastery takes hard work. You know, a lot of people say, well, he was the first one in and the last one to leave. You know, or they'll say, well, nobody worked harder than she did. You know, that's just sort of what it comes out to at the end. There's a journalist, Malcolm Gladwell, who's wrote a lot of, I don't know how you characterize, insightful books. But he says, he suggested that it takes roughly 10,000 hours to become an expert in your field. So 10,000 hours is basically five years of full-time work. So five years, so think, Rich, for a moment, five years, 40 hours a week of playing your saxophone, you probably would have done a little better. And I probably would have done a little better at basketball if I would have spent all that time. But, you know, 10,000 hours to become an expert. So practice, that's how you get good. That's how you grow. Just looking for a moment at the definition of practice. I'm not going to dig deep into this, but you know, it's performing an activity or an exercise or a skill repeatedly, regularly, just to improve one's proficiency, carrying out that thing habitually or regularly. And then the application of those ideas, beliefs, or methods, as opposed to just the theories. So this is sort of an idea about practice. So we've talked a little bit about sports, we've talked a little bit about music. The question tonight is, how does this translate to our Christian discipleship and to the Christian life? You know, is it possible? Is it possible to get better at showing mercy? Is it possible to grow in generosity? Can we become more loving? Can we become a better neighbor? If the answer to any of those is yes, is growth in those areas related to practice? You know, so putting it another way, is this Christian life that we live, like a lot of other things in life, is it a matter of putting in the hours or giving of ourselves over and over again to this discipline of cultivating a virtuous life? You know, sometimes you might hear somebody say, well, that's the most generous thing I've ever seen. And then you hear from them, they say, well, you know, the more generous I am, the more generous I become. You know, I think that all ties together with this Christian discipleship and the application to our own lives. I want to look just quickly at a few analogies, and we're going to come back to these later. First you've got Daniel. In Daniel chapter 6, now when Daniel learned that the document was signed, he entered his house and in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and offering praise before his God, just as he had been doing previously. And then looking at David in Psalm 55, day and night they go around her upon her walls and evil and harm are in her midst. As for me, I shall call upon God, and the Lord will save me, evening and morning and at noon I will complain and moan, and he will hear my voice. So those are the biblical, just a couple of biblical analogies, and we're going to come back and look at those a little bit later on, so I won't go any further into that. One other verse, I'm sorry, David says again, I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth. I'm going to go back to sports for a minute and look at sports analogies, because sometimes for me it's just easier for me to visualize when I think about sports.

I think for a moment about all those hours spent shooting free throws. If you look here, talk to anybody about basketball, they'll say at the end of practice coach made 200 free throws, you know, whatever, just over and over and over again, good form or poor form. You know, this friend, Brian, that I mentioned to you that he and I grew up together, Brian is a basketball fanatic, I mean, there's no other way around it, and you know, we'll watch a basketball game together or whatever, and he's always saying, well, that guy should shoot free throws with his elbow in and not his elbow out, or he should do this or that, and it's like, Brian, you're not the coach, just let him play, leave it alone here. But, you know, the same way in football, field goals, you know, the field goal kicker just over and over and over is kicking field goals, it's just, it's that muscle memory that you want to have. Playing the piano, music, I play the piano, so music is the same in a way. I was in Richmond, Virginia last week at my son Nicholas's house, no, actually I was at my granddaughter's house and her father happened to be there, but I was with Nicholas and I brought a duet book that he and I had played from 10 years ago, 12 years ago, I don't remember when, he's a lot better than I am, than I am at playing the piano, but I said, let's play this Joshua fought the battle of Jericho duet, he's like, do you remember it, I said, I think, I think I do, it's hard, it's above my skill level, but we practiced a lot once upon a time, but we sat down and that muscle memory was still there, Dana came in, she's like, well, that's pretty good, I'm like, well, I didn't think it was that great, but it was still that muscle memory that was there. I was thinking about that muscle memory, I'm sort of getting away a minute from the sports analogy, but the muscle memory that you have, I was thinking about this just yesterday, I went into, we remodeled our kitchen this summer and one of the light switches moved up on the wall about six inches, I still go in after 38 years of going in and reaching around the corner, turn on the light switch and it's not there, it's like, oh, yeah, I mean, it's that muscle memory, it's just doing it over and over and over again, Steve smiling, you know what I'm talking about, you understand, so muscle memory, practice, sports analogy, so I'm doing this for you all in Boston, so most people are from Boston, let's look at some of the, and this isn't up for debate tonight, so Jim, don't get on me and just deal with it, so some of the Boston athletes over the years, Ted Williams, Bob Cousy, this is an older crowd tonight, I know, so we're sticking with a little of the older ones, Bobby Orr, Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Tom Brady, do you think any of these guys spent much time practicing, yes or no, the answer is obviously they did, over and over, hours, 10,000 hours, you know, I was speaking to Mary Belello, Dana and I called her a couple of days ago and I said, Mary, I don't know if you can watch class or not tonight, but I said, I'm going to make a passing reference to John and it's not a big passing reference, but it's in the sports analogy thing, because I'm going to show you who I would consider and John would probably consider one of the greatest baseball players of all time, now I know you guys in Boston have a little issue here, but I'm going to say it's Yogi Berra, I just watched a documentary on him a few weeks ago and I was amazed because I didn't know much about him, but Yogi Berra said on hitting, one of his quotes, he says, I can't think and hit at the same time, that's because of muscle memory, a lot of it's because of muscle memory, it's just, it's what he did, it's, you just do it, like me playing the piano with Nicholas last weekend, you know, if I started to think about it, I couldn't do it, I just sort of did what I was used to doing, but I just like that quote from Yogi Berra, he had some interesting ones, but this one sort of fit with the subject, so those are the sports analogies, now I want to look at the Christian application for this whole subject of practicing righteousness, so we have to make choices, just like that chapter in Deuteronomy talks about choosing life or death, we can make one of two choices, we can either practice sin or we can practice righteousness, there's no middle ground, it's either one or the other, and when we think about practicing sin or righteousness, I think, okay, it's to do something, it's to keep doing something, it's trying to get good at something, it's loving and accepting that thing, it's striving to make it permanent in your life, think about that with those two choices, how we practice our spiritual habits will change us, it will shape our character, it will shape our life, and God's keeping an eye on that process, God's watching us and keeping us and saying, what are you guys, what are you really practicing that, what are you doing, these spiritual disciplines, these spiritual practices, these practicing righteousness and intentional behaviors that

are hopefully godly behaviors, helps become a permanent fabric in our life, and if it's practicing righteousness for the better, practicing sin for the worse, it becomes, again, I said this earlier, it becomes a grain as part of who we are, part of our character, part of shaping our spiritual direction, our relationship with God, I want to look first at practicing sin and just get that one out of the way, I want you to think about this for a moment, because I'm going to say the same thing in a moment about practicing righteousness, practice makes perfect, even if it's sin, practice makes permanent, what you practice becomes who you are, so the question is, how can we expect God to save us if we keep sinning, we get good at sinning, we love sinning, we accept sinning, and we make sin a permanent part of our life, you know, Romans 6, shall we go on sinning that grace may abound? There's a number of other verses here that apply, which I want to just read through these, in Genesis 5, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. In 1 John 1, we say that if we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not practice the truth. 1 John 3, by this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious, anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brethren. Ezekiel 33, and behold, you are to them like a love song by one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear your words, but they do not practice them. And the last one I found interesting, because it's David speaking about those who worship idols, and he said, those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them. So, what we practice is what we become, and who we become. So, we get that out of the way. We're not here to practice sin. I'm encouraging you and myself to not practice sin. What I'm encouraging all of us to do is to practice righteousness. The same phrase I used a moment ago, practice makes perfect, especially if it's righteousness. Practice makes permanent. What you practice becomes who you are. Now, I said before that God may not save us if we practice sin, but the chances of us being saved by God, by us practicing righteousness, and growing in righteousness, and starting to get good at righteous living, and loving righteous living, and accepting righteous living, and wanting to make righteous living permanent in our life, that's what God is looking for. You know, the more we give ourselves over to the things that are good, and right, and true, and beautiful, and lovely, the more they really take root in us, and they shape us. And again, as I said, we become them by doing them. So, a few verses to speak to that. Psalm 106, how blessed are those who maintain justice, who practice righteousness at all times. In Ezekiel again, Ezekiel 45, this is what the Lord God says, enough you princes of Israel, get rid of violence and destruction, and practice justice and righteousness. Revoke your evictions of my people declares the Lord. Zechariah says, this is what the Lord of armies has said, dispense true justice, and practice kindness and compassion, each to his brother. And finally, Revelation 22, let the one who does wrong still do wrong, and the one who is filthy still be filthy. And let the one who is righteous still practice righteousness, and the one who is holy still keep himself holy. This is what we are called to, brothers and sisters. We are called to practice righteousness, to be holy, to make it a part of who we are, of how we are characterized, to please God with this practice of righteousness. How do I know if God is pleased with my life? How do I know? You know, the question to look in the mirror is, am I pursuing righteousness and growing daily in it? You know, I can ask, I can look in the mirror and say, am I righteous? The answer, hopefully humbly, is always going to be no, I'm not righteous, I'm a sinner. But if I ask myself, am I pursuing righteousness and growing daily in it, that will help us push out that first question. It's sort of like the analogy or whatever the life's about the journey, you know, it's about the process. You know, it's the practice, the pursuits, the purpose that defines who we are. You know, if we're practicing sin, we're being perfected to fleshly lust and desires and the pride of life. But if we practice righteousness, we're perfected the grace of God. In reality, it sounds like an easy choice. It sounds like an easy choice to make. A verse that I have to go along with this is Colossians 1. For this reason, we also, since the day we heard about it, have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. I want to please God. I want to practice righteousness. I want to practice perfectly. That's my goal. That's what I'm working for. And I want to be continual and consistent about it. You know, I told Steve I didn't think I'd have a running story, but I'll tell you just not a story. But you know, back when I started running 25 years ago, I was very regimented. There's a gentleman, I think he won Boston years ago, Hal Higdon. I mean, Hal, I don't know if he's still alive, but he was in his seventies at least when I started paying attention to his training program. And it was, here's what you do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and on the weekend, very regimented. Now 25 years, I sort of say, eh, not so much. I'm just going to run for a while. And it shows. It shows in my running. Well, that in 25 years of age on my body doesn't help either. But it's about the pursuit. It's about the consistency, just being out there doing it. And so I think importance of consistent practice has to be considered. And in Hebrews, it says, but solid food is for the mature who, because of practice, have their senses trained to distinguish between good and evil. So we've got practice and we've got senses being trained. Good and evil are going to be there all the time. And if we're not consistent about our training, we won't be able to recognize and differentiate between the two. In Philippians 4, it says, finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, and if anything worthy of praise, think about these things. As for the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. I like this verse. I put it under the consistency theme because you're thinking about them and you're practicing them. It's happening all the time. It's happening all the time. This practice is becoming ingrained in my habits, my spiritual growth, the importance of this consistent practice. You know, I

have one shout out for Jim Sullivan tonight. Somebody, I think Jason maybe last Sunday said, Jim's favorite verse is right after this. In Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So Jim, that's my shirt tonight. Team 4.13. Now here, I don't know if you can see this, but from the back, if you can see that, there's the verse on the back of my shirt. I love wearing this shirt when I run marathons because I will always, Jim will have to get you one maybe. Okay, so I like lists. I like lists, so I try and come up with some concrete examples that I can so I made this list up. Good habits in the Bible for us to practice. You know, consistency, we're going to look at these, each one in a little more detail, but consistency and dedication and prayer, taking time to rest even when life is hectic, praising God regardless of the circumstances, giving and compassion, sharing consistently, making right choices time after time, and serving others. So on a scale of zero to ten, some of these, I'd say I'm at five to six level, a few of them maybe eight or nine level. I don't think I'm at ten on any of these, but you know, I think I do okay on most of these, but okay isn't what I'm shooting for. I'm shooting for a perfect ten, and I'm going to keep trying to shoot for that on all of these. But as we look at these habits that we should be cultivating ourselves and practicing, I just wanted to dig a little deeper, dive a little deeper in each one. First off, and this is where we're going back to what we talked about earlier, this is Daniel. You know, when we look at consistency and dedication and prayer, you think about Daniel. You know, he was threatened with a one-way trip to the lion's den, and he still prayed as he normally would. You know, so praying consistently, praying even under this is where Daniel was in his life, a wonderful example to us for consistency and dedication and prayer and courageous to pray. You know, if you're like me, which hopefully you're not, but if you're like me, many times you're in a public place or you're with a co-worker or somebody and you sit down for a meal and maybe it feels a little uncomfortable to pray, but you just, you do it, you do it. And, you know, I've never had anybody come back to me and say, why in the world did you do that? You know, it's, you just do it, it's the right thing to do, being consistent. You know, somebody said to me recently, and this isn't a pat on my back, but it's just, well, you're consistent in the way, in what you say and how you live. And they're, I'd say they don't know me that well because I'm not as consistent as they would lead me to believe. But it was a nice thing, hopefully that some of the outward appearances rubbing off and giving me opportunity to preach to somebody. But, so there's Daniel, I'm not going to dig deeply into David because there's so many Psalms that go along with David that just, you know, continually throughout scripture, throughout the Psalms especially, it talks about his consistency, his dedication to just over and over again. You know, here, verse 17, verse 17 and 55, evening and morning and at noon, you know, I will complain and moan and he will hear my voice. So David was consistently in dedicating himself to prayer and talking to God. The next one is taking time to rest. You know, I don't do a good job at this. I seem to always be moving. I don't know why, maybe because we live on a farm and there's a lot to do. But it's just, it's important, I think, to rest. And I have to remind myself of this. I look at Jesus and his approach to rest. It says in Luke 5, but Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. You know, this goes back to that consistency and dedication in prayer. But, you know, Jesus, here's Jesus with the weight of the world on his shoulders. And he's going to be and he still made time for himself to go off and speak with his father and to spend time to rest. Think about this in Mark 4, a fierce gale, wind developed, the waves are breaking over. I'm not going to read all this. Jesus was asleep in the stern. Teacher, you don't care we're perishing. And he just got up, rebuked the wind, said, hush, be still. And then he said, why are you afraid? Don't you have faith? You know, Jesus knew that it was all okay. It was all okay. There was a storm swirling around him, but he knew that his father, the God, had things under control in spite of how things looked on the surface. He knew it was important to rest and not to worry. I think a good lesson for us, a good example. Next is praising God regardless of the circumstances. Go back to Psalm 118, and again, we could go through a lot of different Psalms, but I just chose one. This is the day which the Lord has made. Let's rejoice and be glad in it. You know, good or bad, whatever is happening, let's rejoice. Praise God all day, every day, regardless of what's happening in my life. There was a, I won't go into this long story, a book that I just started reading the other night about a guy who grew up in North Carolina in the mountains, and he had a teacher in grade school, and no matter what happened, she laughed. You know, good or bad, kid throwing up in the hallway, no matter what happened, she laughed. She just made lemonade out of lemons. She was rejoicing. You know, I think that's a lesson for us, no matter what the circumstances, is to cultivate this habit of praising God no matter what. In James 1, it says, We will, we do encounter various trials, every one of us. It's just not all sunshine every day, so what are we going to do about it? It's that 1st Thessalonians, it says, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, ceasing that goes back to number one, in everything give thanks, not just in the good give thanks, for this is the will of God for you Jesus. There's a song that Dana and I listen to frequently by a gentleman called the Kiffness, I don't know if you've ever heard of him, but his song is,

thank you for joy, thank you for rain, thank you for, I can't, it's totally gone out of my mind now because I don't have it written down, thank you for joy, thank you for rain, thank you for something, thank you for pain, and Dana was teaching a Bible school class to the kids one time and they said, why do we thank God for pain? Well, you praise God at all times, you praise God at all times, so giving in compassion, you know, this example in Ruth from Boaz, Boaz said to Ruth, listen carefully my daughter, don't go in and glean in another field, furthermore don't go on from this one but join my young women here, keep your eyes on the field which they reap and go after them, indeed I have ordered the servants not to touch you, when she got up to glean, oh wait no, when you're thirsty go to the water jars and drink from what the servants draw, when she got up to glean Boaz commanded his servants say, let her glean even among the sheaves and do not insult her, also you are to purposely slip out of out for her some grain the bundles and leave it so that she may glean and do not rebuke her, Boaz didn't have to do that, he didn't have to do it but I think this was his character, it was his character, he saw someone in need, he said I'm going to give and I'm going to be compassionate, you know,

I think to myself often, can I be more generous to those in need? You know, how can I not just give but to do something to make life easier for someone, you know, maybe drop some food off on a person's doorstep or whatever, when my boys were little Dana and I would take them and we'd get a bag full of groceries at Christmas time and we would just, we'd call the school here in the little tiny town we live in and we'd say who really needs some help right now and they would give us the name of the family and we'd get the address and we'd go up and the boys were I think big enough at that point, they could carry the bag of groceries and we'd go set it on the sort of a ding-dong ditch, we would just go put it on the doorstep and knock on the door, ring the doorbell and run and it was a bag full of groceries and it just said friends of Jesus, you know, they didn't know who we were, we didn't really know who they were, we just knew that they were in need, we stopped doing that, maybe we need to start doing it again, Dana and I need to start doing it again but anyway just something to think about, another verse in Deuteronomy, if there's a poor person among you, one of your brothers in any of your towns in your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or close your hand from your poor brother but you shall fully open your hand to him and generously lend him enough for his need and whatever he lacks. Just look around, there's always need, always need, no matter what. You know, I know John Belello was talking about one night about McDonald's gift cards or subway gift cards, I can't remember what which but we've had, Dana and I have had some McDonald's gift cards in the car, in her car and in my truck for a long time and just yesterday I was in town driving down, there's a guy, it was cold out here when she was in the single digits and he's outside so you know, you just hand him a McDonald's gift card and usually when we do that, people don't say much, this guy yesterday he's like, oh thank you so very much, I mean he was, we're in the middle of two lanes of traffic and I'm trying to move on but you know, just what can we do, what little things can we do, giving and compassion. Sharing consistently sort of goes along the same idea but just to take a little twist to it, in Acts 4, in the congregation of those who believe were of one heart and soul and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own but all things were common property to them. You know, as we look around in the brotherhood, what can we do to share with one another, you know, and maybe it's simple, as simple as just sharing your time, as listening to someone, listening to someone and giving them your attention, maybe that's all it takes some time but maybe sometimes there's more. Another verse in Hebrews 13, do not neglect doing good and sharing for with such sacrifices God is pleased. And then in 1st John 3, we know love by this, this was, we actually ran a Bible education center in Champaign-Urbana for 10 years and this was one of our theme verses, we know love by this that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren but whoever has worldly goods and sees his brethren in need and closes their heart, closes his heart against him, how does the love of God remain in him? Little children, let's not love with word or with tongue but in deed and truth. I just, I love that verse, it's one of my favorite verses, love in deed and truth. I think I've got a couple more of these, making right choices time after time. Think about just making good choices every time, every time. So I'm not going to ask for a show of hands or for a response but who do you think of when I say who seems to have made good choices every time? I'm going to put out Joseph, I'm going to put my vote for Joseph. I think about Joseph and I say one of my favorite Bible characters, I just, I love Joseph because he made good choices, he made right choices. You know, the story of Potiphar, you know, where would any of us be in that situation? Hopefully making the exact same choice to walk away when we're tempted by evil, when we're tempted from sin. But even with Joseph and his brothers, you know, what they did to him was, you know, just, you can't put your head around what they did. But he was betrayed by his brothers, he was sold into slavery. All the setbacks and the struggles that he experienced, Joseph could have easily chosen and made a choice to be bitter and to be vengeful. But he was patient, he was forgiving, and he honored God. He honored God. So I want to be like Joseph. The last one in my list is serving others. You know, a lot of these sort of, there's gray area between each one, the line sort of blurry. But, you know, I think this is one of the most important principles in our spiritual life. You know, we're told to love one another, to care for one another, to pray for one another, to encourage one another, help one another, counsel one another, to support one another. Repeatedly told this about this serving others, how important it is. Because in serving others, we're serving God. And, you know, we just, we need to do it. 1 Peter 4, as each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the multifaceted grace of God. Whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking actual words of God. Whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies. So that in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. Okay, there's another why. Why do we do it? To bring God the glory. To whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. What a beautiful verse that is about serving. In Galatians 5, for you were called to freedom, brethren, only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. So those are my list of seven items that I'm going to go back and check on and say, how am I doing? I'm going to rate myself 0 to 10 and hopefully I can see some improvement in my own mind, at least. And, you know, and actually maybe that's what we need to do. Maybe we need to have that accountability partner and say, hey Steve, how do you think I'm doing in these? You know, or hey Jim, or hey Rich, what do you think? How am I doing? Hey Richard, you know, am I doing better in serving others? Am I doing better in whatever? Just check in. Touch base. So how do we do that? I think there's three simple points. Three simple points I want to make. How to practice? You get started. You get started and pray about it. Oh, I hate to do it, Steve, and I'm sorry. I'm going to bring up running one more time. And I think I brought this up last time. April 1st, 2000. I went out for a run, just out southwest of town. Had no idea how far I was running. Thought I was going to die. Checked out the mileage later. It's three miles, you know, and now I run a marathon. It's like three miles. You're just sort of starting to get into a habit. But I just said that day, I remember saying, well, I just need to go out and do it. I just need to start. And why not do that with our spiritual practices? With our say, you know, I'm going to be more generous today and just go do it. Look for opportunities to just do it. We already talked about the consistency and the importance of consistency. Doing it, you know, when I started running, I ran three miles, I ran three miles, I ran four miles, and four, and then five, and six, and then, you know, you just slowly work up. But it was a consistent thing. That's where I'm lacking now in my running. I'm not doing as consistently as I need to. But our spiritual habits, you know, if we want to grow in grace, or grow in mercy, grow in compassion, grow in generosity, grow in serving others, we've got to be consistent about it. And then keep going. Keep going. You know, I told you, told you during the during the marathon when I, at Chicago, I ran a few weeks ago, I got up towards mile 18. And I told myself out loud, there's 53,000 runners, so talking to yourself isn't a big deal because there's a lot of people around. But I literally am saying, don't stop and walk, don't stop and walk. And what did I do? I stopped and walked. And I like to sign somebody's hat during the marathon, because I thought of it at this very moment. When I was at mile 18, it said, shut up, brain. It's like, yeah, that's what needs to happen. I just need to tell my brain to shut up and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. But we want to make our practice a habit, not just when we feel like it. You know, most of you probably know the story of Corrie Tenboom in concentration camps in World War II. But Corrie Tenboom had a quote. She said, don't pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it. You know, I just, again, she's one of my heroes when I look at her positive outlook and her spirit and her attitude. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it. Just don't do it when you feel like it. Because there are days I get up right now and I just don't feel like running. I don't feel like doing my Bible readings. I don't feel like working on Bible class. And I say, I just need to do it. And everybody knows once you've done it, you say, oh, that was good. That was a good thing. So I have this thought, um, as we conclude. I just, I just want to read this to you. Our patterns and behavior will set into motion the direction of our lives. The way we pray and prioritize our spiritual life, the way we speak, the way we love, the way we respond to conflict, all have been consciously or unconsciously practiced over the years and have become a permanent part of our life. So I just, I think there's a lot of meat in those one, two, three sentences, two sentences. You know, so often we're practicing, we find ourselves practicing what the world tells us is important, you know, and what we're daily bombarded with commercials, music, news, self-help books, fad diets, products, you know, ideas that just provide a whole

treasure of empty promises. You know, we're told we're going to be happy. We're told we're going to be rich. We're going to be successful. If we just purchase a certain product or we take this energy supplement or we read a certain book or we subscribe to a certain financial plan, or we try the next exciting special offer, you know, that's what the world tells us every single day. So our life really then becomes a continuous search for the next thing that's going to fulfill us. The next thing that's going to bring us happiness. What are we practicing and what are we making permanent? Is it a cycle of hope or is it a cycle of false hopes? The closing verse is also the opening verse. Now for this very reason also apply all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence and in your moral excellence knowledge, in your knowledge self-control, in your self-control perseverance, and in your perseverance godliness, and in your godliness brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness love. If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they do not make you useless nor unproductive in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the one who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, therefore brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choice of you and me and us. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. In this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. So it's getting late, time to get to practice.