Speaker 1: Have you ever heard anybody say this. You know, I
Speaker 1: love Jesus, I just don't like the church. I love Jesus,
Speaker 1: I just can't stand the church. Then let me tell
Speaker 1: you something. You're not a disciple because with all of
Speaker 1: its imperfections, all of its faults, all of its faux
Speaker 1: paus and failures, because it's made up of normal, ordinary,
Speaker 1: imperfect people, Jesus says, the church matters. Christ died for
Speaker 1: the Church. In fact, it's the only thing that's going
Speaker 1: to last on this planet. Microsoft isn't going to last.
Speaker 1: The Democratic and Republican parties aren't going to last. The
Speaker 1: United States of America isn't going to last. No empire
Speaker 1: lasts forever. There's only one thing that's going to last
Speaker 1: for eternity. That is God's family. The Church. You're in it.
Speaker 1: It's the only thing that's going to last. It's more
Speaker 1: important than everything else put together, because God created the
Speaker 1: universe because he wanted a family. And so if you
Speaker 1: don't love the church, you're not going to like heaven
Speaker 1: because that's all who's going to be there. So you
Speaker 1: better figure out how to learn to love other disciples. Now,
Speaker 1: Jesus died for the church. The Bible calls the church
Speaker 1: the bride of Christ. How about if I said to you,
Speaker 1: I like you, I just can't stand your wife, You'd
Speaker 1: be You'd be irritated, you'd be offended. You'd have a
Speaker 1: right to be. Or the Bible says, the church is
Speaker 1: the body of Christ. If I said I like you,
Speaker 1: but your body's not too hot, well, you'd be offended.
Speaker 1: When you say I don't like the Church, you're saying
Speaker 1: I don't like the body of Christ that Jesus died for. Now.
Speaker 1: This is absolutely ridiculous. People think that they can follow
Speaker 1: Christ and not love the Church. They're wrong. In fact,
Speaker 1: here's what Jesus what the Bible says. First John chapter four.
Speaker 1: Someone says I love God but hates a Christian brother
Speaker 1: or sister. That person is a liar. That's pretty clear.
Speaker 1: God says, I'm a liar if I say I love
Speaker 1: God and don't other Christians. For if we don't love
Speaker 1: people we can see, how can we love God when
Speaker 1: we have not seen? Well? Duh? He says, this is obvious,
Speaker 1: and so to be my disciple, you must love other
Speaker 1: people in the family of God. This is called fellowship.
Speaker 1: I want you to write this down. Spiritual growth happens
Speaker 1: in community. It doesn't happen on your own. It doesn't.
Speaker 1: You cannot be a disciple by yourself. You cannot be
Speaker 1: a disciple in isolation. You cannot follow Christ as an individual.
Speaker 1: Me and Jesus we got a good thing going. We
Speaker 1: don't need anybody else. We can attain maturity on your own. No,
Speaker 1: you will never grow to spiritual maturity without a church family.
Speaker 1: The Bible teaches that. In fact, notice that verse he says,
Speaker 1: if you have love for one another, circle the phrase
Speaker 1: one another. That phrase is used fifty eight times in
Speaker 1: the Bible. We are to love one another, care for
Speaker 1: one another, help one another, serve one another, encourage one another,
Speaker 1: pray for one another. We are to support one another,
Speaker 1: where to greet one another. We are to encourage one another.
Speaker 1: The Bible says, we were put on this planet to
Speaker 1: help each other out in the family of God. And
Speaker 1: you have to have a Christian church family and be
Speaker 1: in relationship with people because life is all about love. Now,
Speaker 1: you may be listening to ten radio preachers a day,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of good ones out there.
Speaker 1: Some of them are my friends actually. But if you're
Speaker 1: listening to all those guys, you're not growing. You're getting
Speaker 1: more knowledge, but you're not growing. Because life is all
Speaker 1: about love. It's all about love. It's learning to love
Speaker 1: God and learning to love your neighbors, yourself. Life is
Speaker 1: all about learning to love God. This is what makes
Speaker 1: it different. What makes having a relationship with Jesus different
Speaker 1: than religion, that every single religion. The more you isolate
Speaker 1: yourself from humanity, the more holy you're considered to be,
Speaker 1: whether it's Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, or anything else. The holiest
Speaker 1: people are those who go off into the monks and
Speaker 1: the monasteries, or the gurus who hide in the caves
Speaker 1: in the mountain, who separate themselves from sinful humanity so
Speaker 1: they can't become impure by all of us who are evil, wicked, mean,
Speaker 1: bad and nasty. And so the more holy you are,
Speaker 1: the more you separate yourself from earth and from other people.
Speaker 1: That is the exact opposite of what Jesus taught. Jesus
Speaker 1: didn't do that. Jesus was in the marketplace, Jesus went
Speaker 1: to the parties. Jesus was at the wedding, turning water
Speaker 1: to wine. In fact, Jesus went to so many parties.
Speaker 1: The legalistic religious leaders of the day said he is
Speaker 1: a quote glutton and a drunk. Today they would say, hey,
Speaker 1: Jesus is a party animal. That's what they'd say, because
Speaker 1: Jesus taught you can't learn to love unless you're around people. Now,
Speaker 1: you could go and hide in a monastery and read
Speaker 1: prayer books all day, and you could quote scripture, and
Speaker 1: you can pray, and you can study till your brain
Speaker 1: is so packed with theology, but you're not spiritually mature.
Speaker 1: Because Jesus said, it's all about love, loving God and
Speaker 1: loving your neighbor, and you can't do that unless you
Speaker 1: get around some unlovely people. I don't look at him
Speaker 1: right now, but God says, I measure maturity by how
Speaker 1: much you love, not by knowledge, but how much you love.
Speaker 1: And this is called radical fellowship. And Jesus expects us
Speaker 1: to have a very radical kind of love, more than
Speaker 1: the world. In fact, look at the next verse one
Speaker 1: John three point sixteen. This is how we know what
Speaker 1: love is, what real love is. Jesus Christ laid down
Speaker 1: his life for us, and we ought to lay down
Speaker 1: our lives for the brothers. Talking about brothers and sisters
Speaker 1: in the family of God, other Christians. Jesus laid down
Speaker 1: his life for us, and God says, I measure your
Speaker 1: love by how much you're willing to sacrifice for other Christians,
Speaker 1: for other believers, for other people in the family. This
Speaker 1: is radical fellowship. The word in Greek is the word
Speaker 1: koynania fellowship, and fellowship is being as committed to each
Speaker 1: other as we are to Jesus Christ. That's what it
Speaker 1: means to be a disciple. Not that, Oh I love
Speaker 1: God and I couldn't care less about the church. No.
Speaker 1: God says, if you love me, you love my family.
Speaker 1: I tell you that. I say, you can't love me
Speaker 1: and not love my family because my family represents me,
Speaker 1: and we only grow in community being as committed to
Speaker 1: each other as we are to Jesus. This is why
Speaker 1: being in a small group is absolutely essential to your
Speaker 1: spiritual growth. Number four, Jesus says, if I want to
Speaker 1: be a disciple, I must always do what Jesus tells me.
Speaker 1: That's the mark of a disciple. I must always do
Speaker 1: what Jesus tells me. It may not make sense, it
Speaker 1: may not be popular, it may cost me something, but
Speaker 1: it's always the right thing because God's not going to
Speaker 1: steal you in the wrong direction. God tells you to
Speaker 1: do something, it's always the right thing to do. And
Speaker 1: he's saying that one of the marks of discipleship is
Speaker 1: I must obey him continually. I must always do what
Speaker 1: he tells me to do. John chapter eight. Let's read
Speaker 1: this verse aloud together. Okay, if you continue to obey
Speaker 1: my teaching, you are truly my disciples, then you will
Speaker 1: know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Speaker 1: Now everybody in America knows this phrase, the truth will
Speaker 1: set you free. Most Americans don't know the first part
Speaker 1: of the verse. He says, if you continue to obey
Speaker 1: my teaching, then you're truly my disciple. And I notice he's
Speaker 1: saying here three or four things about spiritual growth that
Speaker 1: are very important. You might write these down. The first
Speaker 1: thing I want you to notice is spiritual growth is
Speaker 1: an ongoing process. It is an ongoing process. It's going
Speaker 1: to take the rest of your life. And that's why
Speaker 1: you got your whole life to grow up spiritually. But
Speaker 1: you're never going to stop learning, he says. If you
Speaker 1: continue circle the word continue. He says, it's a process,
Speaker 1: it's ongoing. Spiritual growth is not well, I go to
Speaker 1: class and then now I'm spiritually mature. No, it's a process,
Speaker 1: it's a development, it's incremental, it's gradual, and it's going
Speaker 1: to take the rest of your life. The rest of
Speaker 1: your life if we go through a step by step
Speaker 1: process and it's one step at a time. You know.
Speaker 1: I learned this growing up. My dad was a pastor,
Speaker 1: and so I knew my dad. He was a great teacher.
Speaker 1: But I noticed that people could go to church for
Speaker 1: twenty years or thirty years, of forty years and still
Speaker 1: be spiritually immature. And I thought, how can that be?
Speaker 1: I mean, they're hearing all this good teaching, and yet
Speaker 1: they're not growing up. They're still cranky, they're still self centered,
Speaker 1: there's still gossips, they're still resentful and bitter, and they
Speaker 1: worry and they feel guilty and they're insecure, and they
Speaker 1: still got all their hang ups and they don't seem
Speaker 1: to be growing up and spiritually maturing. Why is that?
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because we forget what we learn.
Speaker 1: Studies have shown over and over the first one was
Speaker 1: the US Air Force that discovered is we forget ninety
Speaker 1: to ninety five percent of everything we hear within seventy
Speaker 1: two hours, and if you had heard me teach for
Speaker 1: thirty years at saddleback, you have forgotten ninety five percent
Speaker 1: of it. It takes more than sermons to grow. Sermons
Speaker 1: are not enough to grow because we forget, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, is why we pass out these little things.
Speaker 1: Because the shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.
Speaker 1: And if you take notes, you're at least gonna have
Speaker 1: something you can go home and you can review it again.
Speaker 1: You see, if you don't take notes, you don't remember
Speaker 1: what I taught on last week. Shoot, I don't remember
Speaker 1: what I taught on last week, and I taught it
Speaker 1: six times. You had to listen to it once, okay,
Speaker 1: and I've already forgotten what I taught on. So it's
Speaker 1: not like it's not normal. If you don't take notes,
Speaker 1: if you don't care enough to learn what God wants
Speaker 1: you to learn to write it down, then you're not
Speaker 1: going to grow. And at the end of this year,
Speaker 1: of all of teaching you'll hear at Saddleback, you'll only
Speaker 1: remember maybe five percent of it. And that's why we
Speaker 1: don't grow up. So we have to continue. We have
Speaker 1: to have ways of remembering it now. The Bible teaches
Speaker 1: that it is an ongoing process spiritual growth. Second thing, Notice,
Speaker 1: it's measured by obedience. He says, if you continue to
Speaker 1: obey my teaching, then your my disciple. It's not based
Speaker 1: on how much you know, It's on how much you practice,
Speaker 1: how much you obey. There are a lot of people
Speaker 1: who know the Bible, but they don't live it. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you can meet people who are veritable storehouses of Bible knowledge,
Speaker 1: and they can quote Bible verses and they're the most cranky, cantankers,
Speaker 1: arguing people, judgmental of every other Christian. Because the Bible
Speaker 1: says knowledge puffs up love builds up. The more knowledge
Speaker 1: you have, the more arrogant you tend to become if
Speaker 1: you don't have love to match it and keep it
Speaker 1: in a humble attitude. Knowledge without love leads to arrogance.
Speaker 1: So God says, I don't measure your growth by how
Speaker 1: much you know. I measure your growth by how much
Speaker 1: you love, how much you love others, how much you
Speaker 1: love me. And he says, you've got to have it's
Speaker 1: how much you obey. In fact, would you write this
Speaker 1: sentence down? I only believe the part of the Bible
Speaker 1: I do. I only believe the part of the Bible
Speaker 1: I actually practice. Now you may say you believe it,
Speaker 1: but if you don't do it, you don't really believe it.
Speaker 1: Do you believe that you should forgive the people who
Speaker 1: hurt you? Yes? Do you do it? No? Then I
Speaker 1: don't believe it. Do you believe that you should always
Speaker 1: return good for evil? Yes? Do you do it? No?
Speaker 1: Then you don't believe it. Do you believe you should tithe? Yes?
Speaker 1: Do you do it? No? Then you don't believe it.
Speaker 1: You believe you should share your faith with other people? Yes?
Speaker 1: Do you do it?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Then you don't believe it. You only believe the part
Speaker 1: that you actually do.
Speaker 2: Do you want to be happier, healthier, and more resistant
Speaker 2: to stress, then you need to develop an attitude of gratitude.
Speaker 2: In fact, the Bible says we're to rejoice, always, pray continually,
Speaker 2: and give thanks in all circumstances. But it can be
Speaker 2: difficult to feel grateful. So to help you, Pastor Rick
Speaker 2: hand selected fifty two verses to bolster your sense of
Speaker 2: gratitude and increase your happiness. This set of beautifully designed
Speaker 2: cards will help you memorize scripture so you can recall
Speaker 2: God's word when you need it most.
Speaker 1: You can also use them to minister to others. Give
Speaker 1: one to a.
Speaker 2: Friend and write a personalized note of encouragement on the back.
Speaker 2: If a scripture really speaks to you, frame it, put
Speaker 2: them in places where you can read them during the
Speaker 2: day for encouragement. And today, when you give a gift
Speaker 2: to help daily hope, take the hope of Jesus to
Speaker 2: a world in need, will send you the gratitude scripture
Speaker 2: card set to say thanks.
Speaker 1: Now, spiritual growth is an ongoing process. It's measured by obedience.
Speaker 1: It's based on God's word. That's the third thing this
Speaker 1: verse teaches. If you continue to obey my teaching. Now,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of books out there you can
Speaker 1: read that are good, and they may be positive, motivational.
Speaker 1: They maybe, you know, teach you management skills. But it's
Speaker 1: not human ideas. It's going to help you grow spiritually.
Speaker 1: It's not philosophy or man's philosophy or pop psychology that's
Speaker 1: going to teach you to grow spiritually. It is the truth.
Speaker 1: We must feed on the truth. It's soul food. It's
Speaker 1: the truth. Now, the fourth thing that verse teaches is
Speaker 1: that it sets me free, that spiritual growth sets me free.
Speaker 1: The truth will set me free. But what does that
Speaker 1: mean set me free? The more you grow spiritually, the
Speaker 1: freer you're going to be in life. You're going to
Speaker 1: be set free from the expectations of others. You're going
Speaker 1: to be set free from past memories that bother you. You're
Speaker 1: set free from guilt. You're set free from resentment. You're
Speaker 1: set free from bad habits. You're set free from shame.
Speaker 1: You're set free from the pressures and stresses that other
Speaker 1: people try to put on you. Because the more you
Speaker 1: mature spiritually, the freer you are. The more you grow spiritually,
Speaker 1: you don't become more religious fanatic, you become more natural.
Speaker 1: The glory of God is a human being fully alive.
Speaker 1: And the people who are most fully alive in life
Speaker 1: are those who love Jesus the most, love other people
Speaker 1: the most, and are growing in the Word of God.
Speaker 1: The more mature you come, you're free from fear. You're
Speaker 1: free from anxiety, You're free from insecurity. The truth sets
Speaker 1: you free. Now it doesn't happen overnight. Look at this
Speaker 1: verse on the screen. Our lives are gradually becoming brighter.
Speaker 1: Notice it's gradually. It's a process, step by step more
Speaker 1: and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we
Speaker 1: become more like him. That's called radical discipleship, becoming like Jesus.
Speaker 1: And that's the third goal of life. To love God,
Speaker 1: to love other people, to become like Jesus. That's the
Speaker 1: third goal, the third purpose of life. Now, how do
Speaker 1: you do that? How do I grow gradually? Well, look
Speaker 1: at the next verse. Here's what Jesus says. If you
Speaker 1: continue to live in me circle the word continue. It's
Speaker 1: an ongoing process. If you continue to live in me,
Speaker 1: and what I say lives in you continues in you,
Speaker 1: then you can ask anything you want and it'll be yours.
Speaker 1: That's quite a promise. In prayer said, if you're living
Speaker 1: in me and my words living in you, you can
Speaker 1: ask for whatever you want. It'll be yours. You give
Speaker 1: glory to my Father when you produce a lot of fruit,
Speaker 1: and therefore show that you're my disciples. Now, he says,
Speaker 1: you got to continue. It's a process, it's a strategy,
Speaker 1: it's a journey. If you're going to continue to grow
Speaker 1: the rest of your life, and that's what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to help you do. You're going to need a couple
Speaker 1: of things. First, you need a plan. You need a
Speaker 1: track to run on. You need a pathway. You need
Speaker 1: some guidelines, You need a trail, You need a process.
Speaker 1: Jesus had a plan for helping his disciples grow from
Speaker 1: immaturity to spiritual maturity. And he starts off where they were,
Speaker 1: not where they ought to be. He starts off where
Speaker 1: they are. He loves them, and he takes them through
Speaker 1: each step to grow. Now, when they're growing, he loves
Speaker 1: them at every stage. Listen to this. Jesus loves you.
Speaker 1: God loves you at every stage of your maturity. He's
Speaker 1: not waiting for you to become mature before he starts
Speaker 1: loving you. He loves you where you are right now.
Speaker 1: When my kids were little, Amy, Josh Matthew, they'd bring
Speaker 1: me pictures when they're three, four years old, and I'd
Speaker 1: look at that picture and that say, Amy, that picture
Speaker 1: is perfect. Now what am I saying that she's better
Speaker 1: than Picasso? No, that it's mature. No, I'm saying that's
Speaker 1: perfect for that stage of her development. And I'm not
Speaker 1: waiting for her to become a great painter before I
Speaker 1: start loving her. I love her at every stage of
Speaker 1: her growth with my children. And that's the way God
Speaker 1: loves you. He's not waiting for you to get mature
Speaker 1: before he loves you. He loves you unconditionally right now.
Speaker 1: But he does want you to grow, and you need
Speaker 1: a pathway. Jesus had a plan, and that pathway was
Speaker 1: teaching his disciples first to know him and then to
Speaker 1: love him, and then to grow in him, and then
Speaker 1: to serve him and then to share him. Now, what
Speaker 1: I just shared with you, that one sentence is the
Speaker 1: whole philosophy behind Saddleback Church. Everything in this church helps
Speaker 1: people move through those five stages, those five purposes. First
Speaker 1: to know Christ. Then we want you to want you
Speaker 1: to know him. Then you can love him because you
Speaker 1: can't love him till you know him. And then you
Speaker 1: learn to love his family, and then you start growing
Speaker 1: in Christ. And then you start serving Christ, and then
Speaker 1: you start sharing Christ. It's like a baby. A baby
Speaker 1: has to learn to breathe, then it learns to eat,
Speaker 1: then it learns to walk, and then it learns to talk.
Speaker 1: We all grow at different stages and greats, but every
Speaker 1: one of us went through those exact same physical stages,
Speaker 1: and there are spiritual stages in spiritual growth too. And
Speaker 1: it's why we have a spiritual mature church because we're
Speaker 1: intentional about it. We've fought it through. And where did
Speaker 1: we learn it. We learned it from Jesus and we
Speaker 1: just copied his plans gradual, systematic, sequential. Now, to help
Speaker 1: you visualize this, we use a baseball diamond. If you've
Speaker 1: been in class one oh one, you remember the baseball diamond.
Speaker 1: And each base represents a different stage of growth. First
Speaker 1: base knowing Christ and love in Christ, being committed to
Speaker 1: Him and his family. Second base, growing in Christ, third
Speaker 1: base serving Christ. Home plate sharing Christ. And we say
Speaker 1: we want you to cover all the bases. We want
Speaker 1: you to be a Grand Slam disciple. You don't get
Speaker 1: credit for runners left on base. Some of you went
Speaker 1: to class one oh one. You got stuck at first base.
Speaker 1: You need to go to class two oh one second
Speaker 1: base and learn the habits for spiritual growth. Then some
Speaker 1: of you got stuck at second base. You need to
Speaker 1: go to third base and learn how to discover your
Speaker 1: shape for serving God. Once you finish third base, you
Speaker 1: need to go on to home plate and learn how
Speaker 1: to live out your life mission in the world, and
Speaker 1: that's what God wants us to do. By the way,
Speaker 1: those classes were offering him today. Class one oh one
Speaker 1: to four oh one are being offered this afternoon. Now
Speaker 1: that's really funny because as we've taught the Saddlebacks purpose
Speaker 1: driven system all around the world, four hundred thousand pastors
Speaker 1: have been trained in this. It's all around the world.
Speaker 1: It's funny because they don't play baseball in a lot
Speaker 1: of countries, so they have to have different diagrams. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, in Brazil, they don't use a baseball diamond
Speaker 1: to represent spiritual growth. They use a soccer field and
Speaker 1: you go down the field to the ten yard line,
Speaker 1: the twenty yard line or the fifty to forty thirty
Speaker 1: t and then you score and you hit a goal
Speaker 1: when you've gone around all of the basis. In Russia
Speaker 1: they use a ladder step one and step two and
Speaker 1: step three. Knowing Christ, loving Christ, sharing Christ, you know,
Speaker 1: up the steps. In Australia they don't play baseball, but
Speaker 1: they play cricket. And I don't know if you know this,
Speaker 1: but they use a diamond there too, but you run
Speaker 1: it the opposite way. You run it clockwise, which makes sense.
Speaker 1: They do it backwards because they're down under, you know,
Speaker 1: so it's it's reversed in what we do in the
Speaker 1: northern hemphosphere. And so they use a cricket to represent
Speaker 1: the purposes. In China, where there's a lot of religious
Speaker 1: persecution from the Communist Party, the Chinese Church owes the
Speaker 1: Chinese flag because there's five stars on it to represent
Speaker 1: the five purposes of God for our lives. So some
Speaker 1: Communist leader comes in says, oh, I see, you're very patriotic. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: what they're doing is they saying that's the symbol for
Speaker 1: the five purposes of the five stars. Now, this idea
Speaker 1: that I'm sharing with you, helping people grow systematically is
Speaker 1: not new. For two thousand years, churches have been doing this.
Speaker 1: It's called a catechism. Anybody heard of that one? You
Speaker 1: know what a catechism is, it's then catechism, And just
Speaker 1: in Catholic Church, all churches have used catechisms. You learn this,
Speaker 1: then you learn this, then you learn this, then you
Speaker 1: learn this, and for two thousand years people have been
Speaker 1: going through a growing process. You need a pathway to grow,
Speaker 1: but there's something else you need, and this is really
Speaker 1: important if you're going to continue growing the rest of
Speaker 1: your life. If you don't get anything else, I say,
Speaker 1: I want you to get this. If you want to grow,
Speaker 1: you must develop good habits. Would you write that down?
Speaker 1: Spiritual growth is a matter of good habits. Every area
Speaker 1: of your life is determined, controlled by the habits, the
Speaker 1: difference between successful and unsuccessful people. Successful people have habits
Speaker 1: that unsuccessful people are afraid to develop, are too lazy
Speaker 1: to develop. And in the Christian life, you are the
Speaker 1: sum total of your habits. You see, Character is a
Speaker 1: matter of habit. It's something that you do habitually. For instance,
Speaker 1: you can't say you have the character quality of honesty
Speaker 1: unless it's your habit to always tell the truth. If
Speaker 1: you tell the truth seventy percent of the time, you're
Speaker 1: not honest. It's not a habit. It's not a character.
Speaker 1: You got to be honest. It has to be a
Speaker 1: habit in your life. If I say to my wife, honey,
Speaker 1: I have the character quality of faithfulness to you, and
Speaker 1: I will be faithful to you twenty eight days a month,
Speaker 1: well that doesn't work. Partial faithfulness is unfaithfulness, right? Does
Speaker 1: that make sense? You're not being faithful at all if
Speaker 1: you're faithful ninety percent of the time. No, I'm not
Speaker 1: faithful to my wife unless I am one hundred percent
Speaker 1: faithful to her all the time. Now that's true in
Speaker 1: every area. It's developing good habits. We have a class
Speaker 1: called Class two one where we teach the basic habits
Speaker 1: of the Christian life. Now, throughout the centuries, for two
Speaker 1: thousand years of the church, Christians have used these habits.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're called spiritual disciplines. Sometimes they're called devotional practices.
Speaker 1: I don't care what you call them. We call them
Speaker 1: habits At saddleback. It's stuff that you learn, like how
Speaker 1: to have a daily time with God, a quiet time.
Speaker 1: How to pray that's a habit. How to read the Bible,
Speaker 1: that's a habit. How to be in a small group fellowship,
Speaker 1: that's a habit. How to tithe your money that's a habit.
Speaker 1: Habit of solitude, silence, being quiet before God, the habit
Speaker 1: of fasting, the habit of journaling. There are hundreds of
Speaker 1: good habits. Some are more important than others, but they
Speaker 1: are the building blocks for growing the spiritual maturity. And
Speaker 1: notice the results of spiritual maturity. It says that when
Speaker 1: you have these habits and when you grow and you
Speaker 1: do what Jesus tells you to do, it says you
Speaker 1: will produce fruit.
Speaker 2: Do you want to be happier, healthier, and more resistant
Speaker 2: to stress, then you need to develop an attitude of gratitude.
Speaker 2: In fact, the Bible says we're to rejoice, always, pray continually,
Speaker 2: and give thanks in all circumstances. But it can be
Speaker 2: difficult to feel grateful. So to help you, Pastor Rick
Speaker 2: hand selected fifty two verses to bolster your sense of
Speaker 2: gratitude and increase your happiness. This set of beautifully designed
Speaker 2: cards will help you memorize scripture so you can recall
Speaker 2: God's word when you need it most.
Speaker 1: You can also use them to minister to others. Give
Speaker 1: one to.
Speaker 2: A friend and write a personalized note of encouragement on
Speaker 2: the back. If a scripture really speaks to you, frame it,
Speaker 2: put them in places where you can read them during
Speaker 2: the day for encouragement. And today, when you give a
Speaker 2: gift to help daily hope, take the hope of Jesus
Speaker 2: to a world in need, will send you the Gratitude
Speaker 2: Scripture card set to say thanks