Fortitude - Rick Scherr

Leadership February 9, 2024
Fortitude - Rick Scherr

This talk focuses on fortitude and the importance of endurance and discipline in our faith. Rick Scherr uses various Bible verses to highlight the value of suffering and the power of God's Word. He provides practical steps to develop fortitude, such as using reminders, praying, surrounding ourselves with reminders of our faith, building physical habits, starting with small manageable habits, and keeping the long-term view in mind. He emphasizes the need to be intentional in cultivating good habits and character, ultimately leading to a fulfilling and joyful destiny in Christ.

Transcript

I Want you guys to kind of close your eyes, and I want you to just listen to what God is saying, okay? There's a theme that's running through all of them that we're to hit on, okay? And I know some of them are long, but you can't get enough of God's word. So, whoever, let's start kind of over there. So, Jericho, you got yours in front of you?

Yeah. Jerry can start. And this, try to move this way. Does that make sense? So you guys who have verses over there, just go after, and then we'll kind of move this way to folks who have them down here.

Okay? If you don't have a verse card, the goal is I want you to listen. So maybe close your eyes. I want you to prayerfully engage with the word that's being read aloud. Does that make sense?

So try to, whatever you do to do that well. So, Jared, go ahead and kick us off. Romans five. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 1212. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Hebrews twelve, one through eleven. Therefore, we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely.

And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross despite the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so you may not grow weary or faint hearted in your struggle against sin. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we have respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live? They disciplined us for a short time and it seemed best to them. They disciplined us for our good. Share his holiness.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant the later it yields peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have changed by it. Hebrews 511 through 14 about this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oral things of God. Eating milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk, is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. The solid food is for the mature, for those who have those powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Ephesians 610 19 through 19 finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand, stand firm. Then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given to me, so that I will make known the mystery of the gospel. Hebrews 1036.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised first. Peter five, six through eight. Humble yourselves, therefore under God's mighty hands, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be alert and of sober mind.

Your enemy the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour one. Peter four seven. The end of all things is at hand. Therefore be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers. One Corinthians 924 through 27 do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize.

Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training it to get a crown, but that will not last. But we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like someone running aimlessly. I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.

No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Two Timothy 316 through 17 all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

One Timothy four seven through 16 have nothing to do with godless myths and old wivestone. Rather, train yourselves to be godly, for physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. This is a trustworthy thing that deserves full acceptance. That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the savior of all people, and especially of all those who believe, command, and teach these things. Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but send an example for the believers in speech and conduct and love, in faith and impurity until I come.

Devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to preaching and teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you. Be diligent in these matters. Give yourself holy to them so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely.

Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. Second Thessalonians 313 as for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.

Romans 15 four for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. James one two through four consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Okay, so that was a lot of scripture, and here are many words that came from that scripture.

Endurance. Stand firm, steadfast. Perseverance constant. Hold fast. Endure.

Be skilled. Training, self control. Keep on, persist. Do not grow weary. Beat my body.

Train yourself. Devote yourself. Be diligent. That was just this scripture that we are looking at that. There is a consistent theme, especially in the New Testament, where God says, stick with it.

Don't give up. Consistent. This is just think. Just look at all those words that came from just the scripture that we were looking at.

You know, I have said this before, and one of the words that I use often when I teach, there's kind of a line of things that I think create the destiny of who you are, meaning, like, your whole life, your whole destiny. And there's these progressions that I have taught before, and it goes fortitude, which I'll talk about in a second. Habits, character, and then your destiny.

We have great pictures of our destiny. We think high enough of ourselves and hope enough for ourselves that we think, I want to be like this. And you imagine who you will become down the road, and you see a great destiny for yourself. That is the easy part. It starts with fortitude that builds habits.

And when you build habits into your life, that becomes your character. Don't tell me you are a man of the word. If you don't have a habit of being in the word, don't say, I am a man of prayer. If you don't have a habit of praying. That is not your character.

Right. Your character is the culmination of your habits. I want you to think about all the habits you have in your life, good and bad. The culmination of who you are. Your character is the fullness and full combination of your habits.

That's your character. So God knows this. God sees this, and this is why this is here, where he's like, endure, persevere, be constant, hold fast, because he knows that fortitude is the beginning of the road. Fortitude, sticking with it when it's hard, persevering, being self controlled, keeping on, not growing weary, on and on. These are all words that describe fortitude.

My favorite word that is not a real word is stick wittedness. Do you have stick wittedness? Right. Can you use and be someone who has stick with itness so that you are able to build habits? The habits are huge.

They define and they're so hard when you have them, to change them. Right. Your thought habits. This is a true scientific thing, that when you have thoughts, they start in one part of your brain and they move through. So I can't remember.

I did take neuropsychology, and I can't remember any of the words, but I did learn this. And if you want to look it up, it's true. Something starts here in your brain, and the thought, and it goes here to this place. And when it moves through your brain, it creates a groove that makes that thought easier to think every time you think it. So it becomes hard to not keep thinking the same thoughts that you've thought in the past, because there is, like, a groove there.

It's like in the olden, back in the 18 hundreds, when they did had wagons that went everywhere. I don't know if this is so you can imagine this. Wagons, there's no roads. They're going everywhere. Well, what would happen is wagon wheels would create grooves, and it became a super big issue how a wagon could turn off of a road because the wagon wheels were in the groove, and if the wagon was too heavy, it was like, we're stuck in the grooves that have been so often gone forward that we can't get out.

This is habits in your life. Good ones, there can be good grooves in the road. Bad ones, there can be bad habits. Bad grooves in the road. Hard to get them out, hard to change them.

It takes fortitude. It takes perseverance. It takes not growing weary. It takes stick with itness to get the habits that you want formed in your life. God could not be more over and over again, reminding us of this and what I'm talking about tonight like this.

So if you think about.

When I think about what matters, when you think about this weekend, and I was thinking about Patrice's talk, focusing on the father, the importance of thinking of and thinking on the Father, that was her saying, build a habit of focusing on the Father in your mind, right, and saying to Jesus, his habit was so constant, his groove was so set, there was only one way that he was thinking of the Father, right? It was there. And so, for us, the relevance of this is astronomical. This is the problem. It's kind of crazy.

As much as God is doing and as many people are in this room right now and as many thousands of students that are touched in ways by all of our lives, if we are not people of Christ, Father focused with our minds and hearts, habitually set on Jesus, it won't matter. In one corinthians three, it talks about the fruit, right? And whether it'll get burned up in the end or whether it won't. The fruit that gets burned up in the end of it is produced by you and your work. The fruit that lasts is the fruit that God produces, and God produces fruit.

When we have a habit in our lives of being so focused on Jesus, so thinking of him, so repeating to ourselves the truths of scripture that these become who we are. And God produces the fruit and that's the fruit that lasts.

I don't care. Right? We can't care. God basically is saying, don't care how many thousands of people you touch. It literally comes down to all of you sitting right here and how the habits you're able to build into your life of meditating and thinking and sitting on the truths and in the spirit and walking with Jesus.

That that's it. It doesn't matter if not a single person is touched by our lives. That's not the important thing. The important thing is not that this is how important this is. This is why God over and over in many, many verses is like, endure, hold fast, don't give up, keep on, be diligent, because he knows this habit stuff, how big of a deal it is.

And when I'm talking about habits, I'm talking, yes, of physical habits, but I'm also talking about your mental habits. And I use the illustration of the groove and your thoughts as help because that's the huge part, right? Someone who is, it's not just about memorizing the word. It's about meditating on the word. It's a thought, right?

It's not just about walking in the spirit and trying to pray big things and put on some big holy spirit power show. It's about walking with Jesus so that you're constantly thinking, jesus, what would you have me be or do here? And that's your thoughts. And that does not change if you don't have a habit of thinking that way. That's built from habits of getting God's word into your life, of sitting with Jesus.

It's so crazy if you think about the irony of we work with young people, all these students, they're so young, and it's like one of the first things you try to help them with, right, is like, try to, I just became a Christian. What do I do now? Well, try to have quiet times. What's a quiet time? Oh, well, this is what you sit with Jesus and you try to listen to what he has to say, and you try to listen to his word, and then you try to take that with you through the day.

Whatever the words are, he's telling you, whatever the things are, you try to think about it, right? Meditate on it all day like you're trying to teach young people, all of you, right? Except I know there's new leaders in here who haven't maybe done this, maybe you've done this with students when you were a senior and you were helping them this is very. How 101 is this? The very first campaigners I ever went to after I came back from camp met the Lord, and the very first campaigners I ever went to, they handed me a sheet of paper that I still have in a drawer over there, and it literally was how to have a quiet time, like sitting with Jesus.

It's amazing to me how big of a deal though it is for us, you here now, and what it means for you moving forward as a is it couldn't be more clear, like, you're not going to make it with Jesus if you don't have the like. If you think of a tree, and I've seen this before, and you're in the woods and the tree has one of those vines on it that's kind of like. I don't know what those vines are. They're maybe about this big around. They're brown, right.

And they got a vine on it. Right. And if you've ever seen this, when the vine's been on there for a while and the tree has grown over many years, what happens? The tree starts to do what? Grow round the vine.

Guys, ever seen that? And it becomes almost, in some senses, it becomes such a part of the tree that, can you imagine trying to get that vine off that tree would be so hard. And so I'm begging you guys at your age now, please take what I'm telling you and be serious about it, because 25 years from now, your tree will have grown around that vine and getting that habit changed will be really hard. Get what I'm saying? This is big.

Now, we are all young and at an age, right where we can begin to build the right habits, the right way of thinking. God's word saturated in our lives. Prayer, a part of our lives daily, all day long, walking in the spirit, meditating on him throughout the day. I say all those things, and I want to keep reminding you that does not become who you are without standing firm, being steadfast, being constant, holding fast, being skilled, training yourself, keeping on, persisting. It does not happen without that.

It doesn't happen without fortitude.

So I have six things to help us with fortitude, six ways that I think will begin the process, and many of them even have to do with just sitting with Jesus. But, you know, it's funny. I can't state enough the importance of what we're talking about for your life, not for the ministry that we're doing. You got to see, I thought about, as I was thinking and praying about what to talk about tonight. I was like, oh, well, I haven't talked about summer camp cell yet.

And it was on my desk, and I'm looking at it, and I'm like, you know, what?

Does this really matter? Right? I have this whole lesson that I done. I don't do it annually really anymore, but it's like camp cell, the acronym, guess. Remember that one?

Older leaders. Like, it's got all the contact work, attitude, momentum builders, prayer. Like it's my little thing that just doesn't matter, not when we're talking about tonight. This matters. It matters for the fruit that will happen through this ministry.

It matters for you, for your whole life. I would say with great confidence, this matters for the day that you stand before Jesus 60 years from now. This matters what we're talking about. So please think inwardly and try to begin to say, how can I move in good directions with these things? Having fortitude and building habits and character and destiny, they just flow out of that stuff.

Number one, what you want to do is, the more the better. But I'm going to explain what I mean. But use mirrors. Use mirrors. So, this has been going on ever since I was young, and I'm confident that it still goes on today because I have walked into planet fitness before, and have you ever walked into a gym like that and been like, why are there so many mirrors?

They're everywhere. Right. And it's because. Right.

Looking out of the mirror, looking good. All right. Yeah. And then it's like, just to help, planet fitness has got 17 mirrors. And you're, like, looking on that angle, too.

Yeah. Okay. About this angle. Right? Whatever.

Right. Bodybuilders who are working hard to create a physique. Someone's in the gym working hard to create a physique, and they're using mirrors, as many as they can, to evaluate and to see how am I doing? How am I doing? We have got to be people who you need to find mirrors.

I'll just list a bunch of examples as opposed to us taking time to brainstorm to be too long. Any apps that you have that have anything that says complete, done, did it. A verse. Memorizing a verse. Right.

There are many apps that have verse memory. Any other apps? There are devotional apps. There are pray through the bible apps. I have no idea because I have none of them, nor do I use any of them, but I hear all about them.

There is some app where people are praying through the Bible together. I hear. Yes, something like that. My wife's a part of some group. Right.

They're praying through the Bible okay, so you have stuff on your phone.

How many books have you read? Have a goal.

Teaching and talking to others. Teaching is a mirror. The more you teach, the more you are forced into the word. I mean, I did a lesson maybe a year ago where I emphasized the great value of teaching and how I encourage you guys. Don't ever give it up, no matter where you are.

If you're not in this ministry 20 years from now, you need to find a way to teach because it changes you. It makes you get into the God's word. How about accountability partners? If you don't have one, you need one. That is a mirror sitting across from you every time you meet with them.

And that person's goal is to look back at you and say, this is what I see. This is what I don't see.

Tracking things like your verses, tracking your quiet times, tracking. I used to track my discussions with students. I had a column for. I know a student's name. I met the student, actually met them, like at a game.

Just met them. Then I had a column for. I had a conversation with them, lengthy conversation. Then I had a column for. I've had many conversations.

I mean, I kept going until that person met Jesus. Tracking things is a way of. It's a mirror, right? Because if you're tracking something or you're tracking the verses you're memorizing, and there's one verse after two months, that's a mirror looking back at you saying, yeah, I probably should work on that, right? Prayer journals, journaling, anything like that.

But if you have a journal, a prayer type journal, and you write in it every day, that's going to be something. That's a mirror, because you can look back and you can see it. It's kind of like tracking. But you're tracking prayers, right? That's another thing.

A prayer list. And you're praying for things and then going back and writing in answers for those prayers.

Certainly there are other things.

If you are a leader, you've got your team. If you are in a Bible study, you have your Bible study leader, and you have people in your Bible study asking you about your time with Jesus. The important thing is to remember these mirrors. You want to be around as many mirrors as you can. Does that make sense?

The idea is the same as the bodybuilder you want to see because the mirrors will always reflect back to you how it's going. Bibuilders use it, right. I go into the gym and I try to avoid the mirrors, right? Why am I trying to avoid the mirrors. I want to see how bad it's going.

Okay? Do you get what I'm saying? So if you have very few mirrors, it's likely that you're trying to avoid what you don't want to see. It's the same as me going to the gym. You're like, I really don't want to see how bad my spiritual engagement is going.

Number two.

Pray for fortitude. Pray for stick wittedness. Pray, make it a part of your prayer life that you pray for yourself this way, with clarity. Asking the Lord for this.

I had a friend in high school who. I was a Christian. He was not. We were discussing things, and he was telling me about all his. I don't know.

I don't know about this God thing. He's like, I just can't get over when I hear christians pray for themselves. Seems really selfish. I was, like, not sure how to answer that question. I was just a high school person.

I was like, because it is kind of selfish, but it is what Paul did. Paul even asked people, pray for me. Please pray for me. Do you ask people to pray for your fortitude? Do you pray for your fortitude?

Do I have to talk again about how big of a deal this is? What's more important, to pray that Jimmy meets the Lord or to pray that you would have fortitude?

Where does fruit come from? What's going to change Jimmy's life the most? You being changed? So the priority is praying for yourself, praying for fortitude for yourself. Praying for stick wittedness for yourself.

Beg the Lord to say, lord, give me strength. That I never knew that I could have. The number of people that have said to me, I am just not good with memorizing verses.

They don't say, I'm not smart, but they just do the like. I'm just not a book person. I don't read books. Everybody's got, well, the answer to that is not to not do it. The answer is to pray that God would change you.

He is plenty big enough to do that. And there is no, I'm just not going to have fortitude because I'm not good at memorizing scripture. I'm just not going to be a man of prayer because I'm too fidgety and I can't focus for more than 10 minutes at a time. So I'm just not going to be a person of prayer. That's where this comes in.

Right?

Number three.

Surround yourself with reminders. Surround yourself with reminders. That could be media things. Social media things. It's the music that you listen to.

There are times in my life I really like music. Surprise. I have x satellite radio just so I can listen to music uninterrupted whenever I want.

So I confess I like it a lot. And sometimes I'm like, worship music? I'm just going to go something funner, get some bee gees on there and do it again. So.

But there are times that, and more than even more should, there are times where fortitude kicks in and I'm like, as much as I want to listen to Barry Gibbs and his high voice, right, I'm going for some worship music, and it never returns. Void. I don't know about you guys, but if I listen to worship music and I think about the words that I'm saying and I let the spirit and I let God's word and the truths that I have in my head come to life because of the words that I'm singing and thinking about, it never returns void. This is why God says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Right?

Singing that verse in Colossians goes right into this. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs like these things are connected. So I say this to say, these are reminders, though I have sayings everywhere I can put them, right? My commitment as a Christian.

Look at this. I have a few copies. Not enough for you guys. That's funny. I knew I had some, right.

My commitment as a Christian. This is just a saying. It's like it was found tacked on a wall of a hut in Africa from a man who was martyred for his faith, right? And it's like I'm a part of the fellowship of the Unashamed. I've stepped over the line.

My decision's been made. I'm a disciple. I won't look back, give up, go back, right? It's like that. I have this and I've had it next to my bed for a long, many years.

There are things on the walls I keep anywhere that I have in sight as reminders, right? Reminders of things that matter. Amy is always trying to have something on the chalkboard. She's wanting to have reminders. Jesus, how great is my redeemer, right?

Whatever. All the cursive and whatever stuff. Creative stuff. But she's not doing it for art.

She's doing that because she wants to be reminded. Right? Surround yourself with reminders on your phone, wherever you can put them. Stick them in the shower, stick them next to your bed, stick them in your school books, put them in your car, put the music on in your car anytime, right? I'm saying the more reminders, the better.

As many reminders as you can.

Number four, first timothy four eight is a scripture that we looked at or read, but that's where it says physical training is of some value. But godliness has value in all things. And it's basically God kind of comparing and saying, look, yeah, I agree there's value in physical things that you might train yourself in, but godliness is more important. So train yourself in that. And what I have found consistently is you want to build other habits, physical habits.

This is a way to help. I'm trying to give you guys. This might be beginning steps. If you want to have a good habit of prayer, a good habit of memorizing scripture, then you should probably try having a good habit of working out, or a good habit of how you eat, or a good habit of how you keep your room clean or keep your car clean. Those habits will help you.

They are connected. And the better you are able to have a life that has these habits, the more you'll be able to integrate in the godly habits. It's just a help. So my encouragement, as you're trying to think, how can I have godly habits, right? Have good, other good habits that are physical.

I mean, the Bible affirms them. I'm not saying what's not in scripture. One Timothy four eight says physical training is of some value, so build other habits. Number five, start with something that you do every day and add your time with the Lord to it so that no matter what, it becomes a daily thing, no matter how small or how big it is. Start with something that you do every day and make the thing that you do next.

So I brush my teeth, or for me, I get up in the morning and I walk into the room, so my quiet time is right away. But maybe you need to do it after you brush your teeth. Amy has to brush her teeth way more than I do.

I'm not sure why she likes to brush her teeth, which is great. Great habit, great for, great for kissing. Whoa.

Hello. At least great for me on the kiss. Again, not so great for her. All right, so, gosh, what time is it even? Am I, what, 12 minutes?

Yeah. All right, listen, if you have a habit of something you do every morning, build on that habit. Do you guys get what I'm saying? If it becomes something that you do after that, every time, it will help you to build a habit. And I am imploring you guys, find a space somewhere.

I have done it in closets. I have made a space in a closet before. Wherever you can find a place that you can create. This is where I meet Jesus. You set a meeting so habitually, you get up, you're groggy, you brush your teeth, you get yourself some coffee, because you're addicted to coffee or whatever and caffeine, and you get it, and then you're like, you go to your meeting.

You go to your meeting, and you walk into the room or get into the closet, and you sit down, right? We have a awesome chair in the room where I do that, and it's like, get there. And when I get there, it's me meeting with Jesus, and I'm encouraging you guys. I know that your schedules can be crazy or different or maybe you're a school teacher and you got to get up at way early. It's still worth it if the habit is just five or 10 minutes, I promise you.

Get yourself into that room, into the closet. Start your day with, hey, Lord. Here's five things I want to pray for myself today, and you literally take 90 seconds to pray those things.

Now, you can build on that, and maybe you start getting up a little earlier, and you can build on that. But for most of you in this room, you're probably not getting up to go to work at 06:00 a.m. And this is paramount. Build this habit into your life. Never let go of it.

Every single day. You're not off on Saturdays. Sundays are not a free day. Build it into your life that every single day after you brush your teeth and then after you get your coffee, you go sit in your meeting room with Jesus, and you got a meeting. Add a practical, like, new morning mercies, please.

New morning mercies or a devotional. No, I know the trip. Right? Yeah, yeah. Great.

Just it's a little quicker, but it's not, like, super long. So mark brings up a great idea. Add things into those devotional times that become.

Here's what I do when I meet with Jesus. Right. Right now, I have two or three things that I always do. I'll add others. But one of those things that I'll do is I have seven daily prayers.

I will always say those prayers. Another thing I do right now is I'm reading a Tim Keller daily devotional, and I'll read what he has. I'll underline, look up the scripture every single day. Another thing I'm doing is I'm reading through Luke, and I will read a little bit of Luke, those things will happen every day, habitually, when I sit down and have my meeting with Jesus. And I'll certainly possibly look or move into other things as well.

But the priority, the habit, is get in there. What I know of you all, what I know of people that I've worked with for 30 years now, young people, it's getting into the room every day and having the meeting. That's the big hurdle. Right? Again.

Do I need to go back to how important all this is to the point of where this becomes relevant? The day you stand before Jesus 60 years from now?

The last thing is keep the long term in view.

Just like someone going on a diet or the bodybuilder, if you look at the person working out after a week, you probably won't see a thing. You work as the person after a month, you might not see much, a little bit. But what keeps that person going? What is the thing that helps invigorate them with fortitude? The thing that keeps them going is the long term picture, right?

They're like, they got a picture of Arnold Schwartz. No, that's a bad. You guys know who that is? Okay. You got a picture of a bodybuilder on his wall, right?

And he's like, wakes up in the morning, he looks at him, he's like, I'm gonna be like you, Arnie, going to the gym. And I go to the gym and I'm like, looking in the mirror, right? And when I'm looking in the mirror and he looks like this, when he's looking in the mirror, he's thinking, but I'm going to look like that. That's coming. You guys get it, right?

If you don't have the long term in view, the short term fortitude will be. You won't be able to do it. You've got to keep in mind where you're going and what this means.

I got some grooves in my mind that are tough and taking my thoughts in the wrong direction, and it's going to take a lot of fortitude, but it's going to be worth it. The joy that comes from the end, the destiny, the joy that's here. We could talk all over about destiny and what that means and who you are and all that comes from it. And if I were to give one synopsis of it, it would be joy. That's where you're headed.

Joy in this life and joy in the next, so much so that you will cry, you're so happy. That's where you're headed. But it's going to take fortitude, and you got to keep that in mind, keep the long term in mind. I want to make sure that I say one thing that's super important, and that's that's we live under grace, not under the law. That's.

So there is one of my favorite books of all time I would encourage you to read, is a book by Richard Foster called the celebration of disciplines. It is a classic book. We even read it in leadership once, maybe long time ago. Yeah. Raise your hand if you've read the book.

Celebration discipline. Okay. Some of the older folks, great book. Celebration of disciplines. So you can imagine what it's about.

But he is very clear from beginning to end that the disciplines themselves do not change you, but they do put you in a position that God can change you. Do you see the relevance of it? If you're not engaged, if you're not sticking with it, if there's no fortitude, you're never in the place where God can change you. So it's not the law, it's not the discipline that changes you. It's not like I'm going to make myself a man of the word, memorize every verse.

Well, God is not going to change you, and that's going to be nothing if God doesn't change you as a result of that fortitude, it's his thing. And I say that to make sure you guys understand. So it's all under grace now. So if you miss a week, if you miss three days, we live under grace. God is inviting you back in every day.

So if you set goals, if you start thinking how using more mirrors and you're like, I'm trying to build a habit, I can promise you you will fail. Otherwise, it wouldn't take any fortitude, it wouldn't take any stick wittedness. If it was that easy for all of us to build the habits. The only way that you build great habits is understanding that you live under grace and that God invites you back in the second that you failed and says, I don't care that you missed a quiet time. I don't care that you missed quiet times for two weeks.

I'm right here. Let's go.

The only way you fail is by not trying again. And again is the operative word, because that will be the thing it will be in again. That's the only way you fail.

It's just too hard for me. I just can't do this. I just give up. Right. That is just not understanding that you live under grace.

That's you looking back and being like, well, I tried to do it. I tried to be disciplined and do it the law. And I failed. And God's up there going, that's why I made the law, because I knew you'd fail. Right?

It's in Romans, he's like, of course you're failed.

So you don't take that. And God's saying, you live under grace. Now jump back in. Today, right now, we live under grace. So operate as you try to engage with the Lord in a way that keeps grace in front of you and keeps the joy in view.

Operate all this under grace with joy in view, because that's where you're headed. Joy. Let me pray. Jesus, thank you for grace. Gosh, Lord, thank you that despite our weaknesses and consistent failures and terrible thought habits and terrible physical habits and all kinds of things, Lord, and all of our weaknesses, you've covered it all over.

We don't live under that law anymore. And you invite us in every day.

You are waiting in the meeting room every morning for us, whether we're there or not. Thank you, Jesus, for such amazing grace. Lord, help us to be courageous. Give us fortitude, give us stick with itness, Lord. Build in every person in this room great courage in their personal lives.

Great fortitude. Thank you, Lord, for your great love for us. Makes all this possible. In Jesus name, amen.