male announcer: The following program
is paid for by the ministry partners
of the Hour of Power and viewers like you.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪ Joyful, joyful, we adore you ♪
♪ God of glory, Lord of love ♪
♪ Hearts unfold like flow'rs before you ♪
♪ op'ning to the sun above ♪
♪ Melt the clouds of sin and sadness ♪
♪ drive the dark of doubt away ♪
♪ Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day ♪
♪ Amen, Amen ♪
♪ Amen! ♪♪
Bobby Schuller: This is the day the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Good morning.
Hannah Schuller: And welcome, church family.
It is such a joy to have you here with us today.
We love you. Thank you for being here.
You know, if you're anything like me, it is so easy to let
worry creep into my prayers, especially if you're praying for
somebody you love so much or a friend that's really
heartbroken, but I love this quote by Dallas Willard that
says that prayer is not the same thing as worrying.
Prayer is a time to cast all our cares upon him,
for he cares for us.
I love that.
Would you turn around and shake the hand of the person next
to you and say, "God loves you and so do I"?
Bobby: Well, hey, we're so glad you're with us today or
joining us on television, wherever you are, but we're just
so glad you came to this place and you know, today we're
talking about worry and learning what it means to just take
everything we're worried about and on this Sabbath day of rest,
just lay it before the Lord.
So, man, if you brought in things you're stressed about
work tomorrow, or about stuff you gotta get done,
or something going on in your personal life,
or health problems, how about today we just agree
to take a break and let go of those things
and enjoy the company of friends, family,
and the presence of the Lord in his house, amen?
Let's pray together.
Father, we are thank you that we can trust our problems to you,
that you actually do care about them as much as we do,
that you care about us more than we do.
And we can trust our lives, our souls, our minds, our health,
our finances, our relationships, our family, all these things,
we can trust them to you and abandon outcomes to you.
Whatever you have in mind for us is awesome,
and we're just gonna believe that, and we thank you.
It's in Jesus's name we pray, amen.
Hannah: Amen.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪ Last night I lay a-sleeping ♪
♪ There came a dream so fair ♪
♪ I stood in old Jerusalem Beside the temple there ♪
♪ I heard the children singing ♪
♪ And ever as they sang ♪
♪ I thought the voice of angels ♪
♪ From heaven in answer rang ♪
♪ I thought the voice of angels ♪
♪ From heaven in answer rang ♪
♪ Jerusalem! Jerusalem! ♪
♪ Lift up your gates and sing ♪
♪ Hosanna in the highest! ♪
♪ Hosanna to your King! ♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
♪ And once again the scene was changed ♪
♪ New earth there seemed to be ♪
♪ I saw the Holy City Beside the tideless sea ♪
♪ The light of God was on its streets ♪
♪ The gates were open wide ♪
♪ And all who would might enter ♪
♪ And no one was denied ♪
♪ No need of moon or stars by night ♪
♪ Or sun to shine by day ♪
♪ It was the new Jerusalem ♪
♪ That would not pass away ♪
♪ It was the new Jerusalem ♪
♪ That would not pass away ♪
♪ Jerusalem! Jerusalem! ♪
♪ Sing for the night is o'er! ♪
♪ Hosanna in the highest! ♪
♪ Hosanna for evermore! ♪
♪ Hosanna in the highest! ♪
♪ Hosanna ♪
♪ Hosanna ♪♪
[congregation applauding]
Hannah: In preparation for Bobby's message,
the words of our Lord found in Philippians 4:4 through 9,
"Rejoice in the Lord always.
I will say it again: Rejoice!
Let your gentleness be evident to all.
The Lord is near.
Do not be anxious about anything,
but in every situation, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true,
whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--
if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--
think about such things.
Whatever you have learned, or seen in me--
put into practice.
And the God of peace will be with you."
Church family, we are training ourselves to let go of worry.
We are doing our best while abandoning all outcomes
to our great God, amen.
♪♪♪
♪ When peace like a river attendeth my way ♪
♪ When sorrows like sea billows roll ♪
♪ Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say ♪
♪ It is well, it is well, with my soul ♪
♪ It is well ♪
♪ With my soul ♪
♪ It is well, it is well with my soul ♪
♪ My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought ♪
♪ My sin, not in part but the whole ♪
♪ Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more ♪
♪ Praise the Lord ♪
♪ Praise the Lord O my soul ♪
♪ It is well ♪
♪ With my soul ♪
♪ It is well, it is well with my soul ♪
♪ And Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight ♪
♪ The clouds be rolled back as a scroll ♪
♪ The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend ♪
♪ Even so, it is well with my soul ♪
♪ It is well ♪
♪ With my soul ♪
♪ It is well, it is well with my soul ♪
♪ It is well ♪♪
[congregation applauding]
Bobby: Well, what a joy it is today to have
Mike Foster in the house.
Mike is a pastor and host of the podcast, Fun Therapy.
He's an author and he has a most recent book called,
"Five Dates," which he co-wrote with his wife Jennifer,
and it's a helpful guide for couples who want to reconnect
with their spouse through a simple and biblical process.
Would you welcome with me Mike Foster?
Hi Mike.
Mike Foster: Hey.
Bobby: So, it's actually kind of a cool day for you
to be here with your wife Jennifer somewhere
and 'cause today is actually your anniversary.
Mike: It is.
We've been married 23 years today.
It's a big celebration.
Bobby: That's cool, congratulations.
That's awesome.
So, I have the books here and people are loving, you know,
these books on marriage.
And of course, you guys have the proof is in the pudding,
you know, 23 years of marriage.
You have something to say about it and of course,
pastors don't really struggle with marriage,
'cause they're perfect, right?
Mike: Right, right, right, yes.
Bobby: That's right, cool.
Well, let me just start with, what sort of motivated you
to write this book together?
Mike: Yeah, well, I once heard it said, Bobby,
that relationships are just a walk in the park,
the only problem is it's Jurassic Park.
And listen, I've been married for 23 years.
Jennifer and I have been-- we dated five
so we've been together for 28 years, and it--
Relationships are messy,
and they're complex, and they're difficult.
And so we just wanted to create a resource, a really helpful,
easy, simple resource to help couples begin to connect again.
Bobby: Yeah, and of course, in your view
it doesn't have to be Jurassic Park.
It can be a life-giving awesome experience.
There's always gonna be challenges.
You guys sat down and you began to sort of write this book
together but even in that process, some old stuff kind of
came up to the surface even when you were writing it, didn't it?
Mike: It was a fun process.
It was our first project that we've ever done together and one
of the memories that came up as we were working on this was our
biggest fight and our biggest fight actually happened at
a marriage retreat, which is kind of a crazy place
to have your biggest fight, but it was true and I think
that happens for a lot of couples.
We sort of have these expectations or we feel, start
comparing our relationship to somebody else's relationship,
or we have sort of these idealistic views of how
marriage or relationships are supposed to work.
And so for us, we just wanted to create a resource that says hey,
it is hard and sometimes fights happen at marriage retreats
and that's just the reality of the life and the world
that we live in.
But it can be good if you're intentional
and you really begin to invest in that relationship.
Bobby: That's good.
Comparison is a big piece, isn't it?
'Cause nobody puts their knockdown, drag-out fights
on like their Instagram stories, for example.
Mike: We do, we actually write about our knockdown,
drag-out fights but that's the reality that we see Instagram,
we see other couples and we start comparing
and that never helps a relationship.
Bobby: Yeah, so very often, I mean, I find that in marriages
and in couples, most couples, though they'll have
the time-to-time big fight, usually what I find is more
these sort of stonewalling or coldness or sometimes
it's more like, "We're friends,
but we don't have this intimacy.
We're not like best friends like we used to be.
We don't genuinely want to--"
So, that's happening, too, right?
I mean, that's kind of a bigger thing where, you know,
you can turn that around, right?
Mike: Yeah, well, it's what we call the slow drift where
couples, they're in love at the beginning and everything's
great at the beginning, and then they stop investing
in the relationship.
They stop connecting and so they slowly drift apart.
And one of the reasons that motivated Jennifer and I to
write this was we had several friends in our friend circle
that after 20-plus years of marriage drifted apart
over those 20 years and ended up with a divorce
or just really struggling.
And so we thought, how can we stop the drift?
And it comes through these intentional times of dating.
Bobby: It's so hard, isn't it, when friends get divorced
and you feel like you have to pick a side or like and there's
so much shame with that, especially in the church
and there shouldn't be.
God can save your marriage and God loves everybody.
But what do you think is the single biggest obstacle
that stands in the way of a great marriage?
Mike: Well, I think it's something that all of us face,
whether we're married, dating, engaged,
just not in a relationship, it's just the busyness of life.
And I think the realities of being over-connected, over--
you know, kids and soccer practice and just so many
things going on in our busy lives that we actually forget
about the person that we care about the most.
And so, really, this whole project is about slowing couples
down and saying, "Let's get back to the basics and really begin
to make time for each other."
Bobby: That's great.
I love how practical it is because you have this sort
of his and hers, so these are kind of like workbooks.
You got the one for dudes and the one for, I don't know,
it's for him and her.
Mike: Yeah, and the guys basically just
has pictures in it.
We kept it really simple for them so.
Bobby: That's good. Mike: No reading.
Bobby: Cool. That's funny.
Well, good, they're still laughing.
One of the things I love.
One of the things I love so much is that it's a different
approach for male and female because we all have different
needs and different ways we need to approach a marriage,
and you even made it color coded, again, for the men.
But so, what's a word of encouragement you can give
to someone today that's like, "You know, I don't know, pastor,
if I can turn my marriage around."
What's some encouragement you can give to a couple?
Mike: Well, that's the thing, one of the enemy of our marriage
just wants to say that it's hopeless, just give up.
There's no sense even trying to improve the situation.
And so wherever you're at in your relationship,
beginning to take small incremental steps towards help,
making small decisions say, "I want to keep fighting
for what we have and keep investing in what we have."
I just really believe that God will pay that off and that it's
important not to lose hope and not to give up.
Bobby: All right, Mike Foster, your wife Jennifer,
thank you so much for these books.
It's called "Five Dates." Check it out.
You'll really be glad you did. Thanks so much.
Mike: Thanks Bobby. Bobby: God bless you.
Bobby: Hannah and I are so happy you've joined us
in worship today.
We hope that you have found incredible hope and inspiration
in this program.
We're in a message series based on my new book,
"You Are Beloved: Living in the Freedom of God's Grace,
Mercy, and Love."
Based on the creed of the beloved,
this book is my desire to share how my life
was radically changed when I began reciting
this creed on a daily basis.
Hannah: Every week, we say this creed: "I'm not what I do.
I'm not what I have.
I'm not what people say about me.
I am the beloved of God. It's who I am.
No one can take it from me. I don't have to worry.
I don't have to hurry.
I can trust my friend Jesus and share his love with the world."
By resting in God's boundless and unconditional love,
you too can fully experience the blessings God intends for us.
When we embrace our position as beloved children of God
we'll experience our true identity,
allowing us to be courageous, to take risks,
and to follow God's call on our lives.
Bobby: That's right.
You know, practicing this creed was like changing the dial
on my life by one degree.
At first, I didn't really notice any change, but over time,
by training and aligning my mind with the Word of God through
praying this creed, I found a deep sense of rootedness.
Tap into the godly energy, joy, love, and power found in the
kingdom of God and experience the creed of the beloved
in your life.
announcer: Call, write, or go online today
and request Pastor Bobby's brand-new book,
"You Are Beloved: Living in the Freedom
of God's Grace, Mercy, and Love."
Based on the creed of the beloved,
which we recite every week at Shepherd's Grove
and on "Hour of Power," Pastor Bobby shares
how this creed changed him personally,
giving him renewed vision, joy, and energy,
and he thinks it can do the same for you too.
As you begin to accept and live in your identity
as God's beloved, you will have the freedom to take risks,
connect deeply with others, and let go of your shame.
You will do powerful things for God, and as you partner
with our ministry, you'll be allowing others
to know that they are truly beloved as well.
Your generous gift of $100 will include three
"You Are Beloved" books.
We pray that you give one to a friend, family member,
or co-worker sharing the secret to resting in God's boundless
and unconditional love with them.
In addition, Bobby and Hannah are excited to announce
that a group of "Hour of Power" friends have created
a matching challenge.
Whatever gift you give today will be matched dollar
for dollar to go twice as far to share the life-affirming truth
of God's love with people in need.
Call, write, or go online today.
Thank you for watching "Hour of Power"
and for your ongoing generous support
to help keep this program on the air.
Now, let's return to the service.
♪♪♪
♪ How lovely are Thy dwellings ♪
♪ O Lord of Hosts ♪
♪ O Lord of Hosts ♪
♪ Thy dwellings, O Lord of Hosts ♪
♪ How lovely are thy dwellings ♪
♪ O Lord of Hosts ♪
♪ How lovely are thy dwellings ♪
♪ O Lord of Hosts ♪
♪ My soul desireth and longeth ♪
♪ desireth and longeth ♪
♪ desireth and longeth ♪
♪ for the courts of thy Lord ♪
♪ My soul and body sing with joy ♪
♪ unto the living God ♪
♪ My soul and body sing with joy ♪
♪ unto the living God ♪
♪ How lovely are thy dwellings ♪
♪ O Lord of hosts ♪
♪ Thy dwellings ♪
♪ O Lord of Hosts ♪
♪ Blessed are they ♪
♪ O blessed are they ♪
♪ who in thy house are dwelling ♪
♪ We praise thy name evermore ♪
♪ We praise thy name evermore ♪
♪ We praise thy name evermore ♪
♪ We praise thy name evermore ♪
♪ We praise thy name evermore ♪
♪ We praise thy name evermore ♪
♪ We praise thy name evermore ♪
♪ We praise thee ♪
♪ We praise thee ♪
♪ We praise thee ♪
♪ We praise thee ♪
♪ We praise thee forevermore ♪
♪ How lovely, how lovely ♪
♪ how lovely, how lovely ♪
♪ how lovely, how lovely ♪
♪ how lovely are thy dwellings ♪♪
♪ how lovely are thy dwellings ♪♪
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
[congregation applauding]
Bobby: Thank you, choir.
Thank you for being here today.
We're so glad you're with us this morning here
at Shepherd's Grove and Irvine Presbyterian Church.
Would you stand with me as we say this creed together?
Hold your hands out like this as a sign of receiving.
Let's say this together, "I'm not what I do.
I'm not what I have.
I'm not what people say about me.
I am the beloved of God. It's who I am.
No one can take it from me. I don't have to worry.
I don't have to hurry.
I can trust my friend Jesus and share his love with the world."
Thanks you can be seated.
Well, we are in the middle of a series on this creed,
which is also the book that I've written.
I've been working on this book for, if you count from when
I wrote the creed, gosh, five, six years
to culminate into this book coming out.
And I'm so glad that we're able to work through it together
because it's a vision for, in our case, two churches
coming together and for those who are watching
on "Hour of Power" to remember that we're behind this common
vision that we are a church that preaches grace.
The world doesn't understand the term "grace" in the way that
Christians preach it because the truth behind grace is this idea
that God loves us just as we are and not as we should be,
that he just pours out his favor and his blessing
in our life, not because of what we do,
but because of what Christ did for us,
that we've been totally redeemed through the cross and
resurrection and then when God looks at you, he only looks at
you with eyes of love 'cause you're the apple of his eye,
that he totally adores you and that's very good news.
And so that as a number of circumstances and results
when we take faith in that truth.
And one of those truths is that we behave better, you know,
that we do better to our neighbor,
that we're more relaxed, that we're more joyful.
Ironically, when we stop worrying about what we do,
what we have and what people say about us,
we succeed more in our families, our relationships,
and so that's what so much of this creed
and my book is about.
And actually, if you have my book, it would mean
the world to me if you put a rating on Amazon.
I don't have many ratings yet and that would really help.
And if you post it on Instagram or Twitter, I'll retweet
or repost it and I'll say a little prayer for you.
God likes your prayers just as much as he likes mine now so.
Okay, so today we're gonna talk about in the creed, probably the
thing that destroys our joy more than anything and that this word
"worry," worrying, worrying about everything.
If you're like me at all, it's so easy to dwell on what might
happen in your business, in your job, when things change,
worrying about North Korea, worrying about the economy,
worrying about politics, worrying about this church,
worrying about your kids.
I know you don't worry about your kids.
I worry about my kids.
Somebody, I think it was Evelyn said, it's a lifelong sentence.
And so there's all these things, you know, that we worry about,
that we think about that we dwell on
that keep us up at night.
And the thing I want to talk about today is to convince you
that being a worrisome person is not the same as being
a responsible person, that worrying about what might happen
doesn't make you smarter, doesn't make you successful,
it certainly takes away your energy, your joy,
your clarity of vision, makes you dumber,
although you're very smart, okay?
I'm just saying.
It saps your battery of the energy you need to do
what God has called you to do.
It reminds me a lot of this story years ago,
I needed a computer for a really important task.
It was to play a video game called "World Of Warcraft"
and that right there was a huge mistake.
Anybody who was gonna buy my book has now decided not to,
but I wanted to play video games on this computer.
And so I had my friend put together this really fast
awesome computer and this is like 15 years ago,
but still, he gave me this computer,
and as he handed it to me, it was like he was handing me
the holy grail and he literally like this
said to me, goes, "This is a gaming machine."
I was like, awesome. And I took it and it was.
It was fast. The battery lasted forever.
It was just an amazing experience using this bit
of technology for a few months and then all of a sudden,
it started to slow down.
And it was, you know, the battery was running out and the
fan, you could hear the fan turn on all of a sudden early on.
And you know, by noon or 1, I had to charge it again
whereas before I could go several days
and I was like, what is going on?
So, I brought the computer back to my friend.
He opened it up and because he's a nerd, he started laughing.
He's like, "Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho!
What have you been doing on this thing?"
"I don't know, using it."
And he started looking he called one of his friends, "Hey, John,
check this out, check this out.'
He comes over and he goes, "Look at how many programs
you have running.
You've got like hundreds of programs
all running at the same time.
You never turned them off."
"You never told me to."
And basically what was happening on my computer
was all of these-- all of these programs were
running behind, you know, under the surface.
They weren't open, you couldn't see them on the computer
but they were all running all at the same time, all going on.
And so the processor had to manage all of these programs
going on on my computer, it was totally making it slower
and totally zapping the battery.
And my argument today is that that's what's happening
in your life when you worry.
It's like having all these programs on
unconsciously in your mind.
You wonder, "Why don't I have any energy?
Why do I constantly feel like I need a nap?
Why don't I have any vision anymore?
Why do I finish the day totally feeling like I'm lacking?"
And sometimes the cause is I'm gonna talk about it,
this word merimnao, the biblical word for stress.
It means to be pulled in a million directions, that you've
got too many things going on under the surface that are
taking your mental and even physical energy.
And so if we can learn to recognize that all those things
we're worried about, most of them we're not responsible for,
we can give those things to God.
We can work hard, be responsible, apply ourselves,
but in the end, as Dallas Willard said,
abandon those outcomes to the Lord and trust what whatever
he has in mind is the best thing.
You know God really does love you, right?
God really is interested in your prayers and your thoughts,
and he really is involved in what you're doing
and you don't have to worry.
Worry is the opposite of faith.
Worry says that God is either not strong enough
or not willing to care about the thing I care about.
Worry says, "I need to handle this
'cause God can't or God won't."
Look, friends, you can give it to the Lord.
He's able, he's not even just willing, but he wants to.
He's going to, he's going to help us so we can
just trust it to the Lord.
We can trust it to him and the way that we do that is not by
just blocking things out but by training, by training our mind
to see certain things, training our mind to think certain
things, and especially training our mind to be present
in the beauty of today, in the here and now.
You know, ultimately that's what most of us want
is a tranquil mind, a serene mind.
Most of us want to be relaxed.
Most people--being a pastor I'm in tune with a lot of pain
and a lot of stories and you find how much of a pain money
is for people, the lack of money, in particular.
And most people when they fantasize about money what
they're really fantasizing about is this phrase that's so common,
"financial freedom," and what they mean
by financial freedom is, "I can relax.
I can do what I want to do."
When people fantasize, they're almost always fantasizing,
not necessarily about a bank account, but about an existence.
Ultimately what they want is the feeling of not having
to worry anymore, "Be able to enjoy my life."
And I want to tell you, friend, you don't need a single dollar
to live a tranquil, joyful, amazing life.
You can relax today.
Think about it, think about how often we fantasize about being
relaxed about being serene.
I was talking to Hannah about this before.
Whenever I'm like really stressed or involved in some
project and it's kind of going on too long, I told her,
you know, I know you're gonna be surprised by this,
but I fantasize about something tropical, you know?
I picture, you know white sandy beaches, palm trees,
sometimes I think of Mexico, maybe I'm like laying
on a dock in Cabo or something,
and I'm next to a little fishing boat
and I can go fishing if I want to but I don't have to.
I said, "And ultimately what I'm fantasizing about
is a state of mind, you know?
I'm getting tan and I'm relaxed.
I asked Hannah, "What was your fantasy?
Like, do you ever do this?"
She goes, "Oh, all the time," but hers is about like something
like Ireland or England or the Dover Cliffs,
or something like that.
She pictures herself sort of being like Elizabeth Bennett in
"Pride and Prejudice" and the music is playing and her,
you know, she's just not a worry in the world,
just relaxed, everything's good.
It's all good.
I remember, this is a funny story.
I remember once when Hannah was in finals, she saw her dog,
Mozart, who's the world's laziest dog.
It's just always sleeping and she remembers looking at Mozart
going, "Oh, I wish I was Mozart right now and I could just
lay there and not worry about anything."
So, in the end, many of us,
you know, this is what we're doing,
we're fantasizing about a state of being,
fantasizing about being relaxed, about not having
a worry in the world.
Very often when we fantasize about these things, we do
fantasize about a vacation, but how often be do we go on
vacation thinking it's gonna be this relaxed experience and we
come home fighting, angry, stressed out, and out of money?
Maybe it's just me.
I remember once I saved up to go to Hawaii, we saved up
for a couple of years, I was so stressed out and excited
because I was finally gonna be able to relax.
So, we got to Hawaii, you know, and we get off the plane and
like the first thing we do is this big ugly bus takes us to
where we're gonna rent our car, and I find out it's gonna be
twice as much as it said because of all, you know, the fees,
and the taxes, and the this, and the that.
I'm like, now I'm like fighting with this young girl at a window
just like trying to do her job, and I'm all upset.
And then we have to stand there, you know, like in this city in
Honolulu and there's smog everywhere,
and I'm just trying to get my car so we can relax.
And finally we gotta like go buy the groceries and now we're at
the grocery store and the sun's going down, and I'm frustrated
because I've already lost a whole day which as, you know,
is very expensive and that's a whole day of not relaxing.
And the days go by I'm thinking, when am I gonna relax?
And then as the vacation started to wind down I'm like,
oh no, it's almost over and I haven't relaxed yet.
And so I get stressed about that.
Look, the truth is that anxiety, worry, and hear this friends,
worry is something you carry in your body.
It starts in your mind but it ends up in your blood.
If you're worried when you leave for vacation,
you'll be worried on vacation.
Everywhere your body goes, your stress will go, okay?
So that's why at the heart of it is we have to learn to train
first of our minds, and then our minds will change our body
and it takes time so don't beat yourself up about it.
But in the end, we have to look at our lives if we're worried
and just make a decision, "I refuse to live this way."
You have to just look in the mirror and say, "Being worried,
anxious, stressed out every day, that's not the life I want,
that's not the life God's called me to have.
It's not me being responsible.
I refuse to live this way, and I will take whatever steps
I need to live in a serene mind, to live a trusting life
of faith to the Lord and stop worrying
about everything that might happen.
I've got today and that's a gift," amen?
So, the way we do that is we just let it go to God.
You still work hard. You still apply yourself.
You still dream but in the end, God has no lack of anything,
no lack of money, no lack of time, no lack of health,
no lack of love, and God loves you
as much as he loves Jesus.
The Father loves you as much as the Son.
If he didn't, he wouldn't have sent his Son to die for you.
And you were worth dying for, did you know that?
Because there's nothing that God does
that isn't worth doing, amen.
God loves you, he truly does.
He loves you so much and he wants you to enjoy your life
but we enjoy it the right way, but, you know,
he wants you to enjoy it.
So, how do we do that?
Well, Paul gives us the formula.
First of all, we get to Paul, you know,
on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says this amazing
thing, he says, "If your eyes are good,
your whole body--"
You hear it there, body, right?
It's in the body.
"If your eyes are good,
your whole body will be full of light,
but if your eyes are bad, your whole body
will be full of darkness."
And then he says, "If the light that's within you is darkness,
how great is that darkness?"
In other words, we need to train our eyes to see what is light
and to focus on that so that our body will be full of life.
Life is very much like this church building.
You look at this building and there are beautiful things
in this building like the lights, my wife,
you know, the--
[congregation laughing]
Bonus points. Bonus points.
No, there's light, there's the stage,
there's all sorts of great things.
And then there's dark things, right?
There's shadows.
There's maybe a couple of spots on the carpet.
There's maybe some of these lights are missing light bulbs.
And so when you come into God's house, you sort of have
a decision, are you gonna listen to the music
or will you be distracted by the missing light bulbs?
Maybe it's a little bit of both.
But so much of the experience of life, it's not denial.
Nobody's gonna accuse you of denying that the ceiling is
missing light bulbs when you listen to the choral anthem
and your spirit is lifted, right?
It's what you're focusing on.
When you focus on the great things in life, it helps you to
sort of let go about of the missing tiles, as we say, or
some of the missing things in your life that wish were there.
And so so much of life is training our eyes truly to see
what is good and to dwell on those things,
and that's indeed where Paul tells the church in Philippi.
So, Paul is writing to the Phiippian church,
and by the way, the Book of Philippians is called
the book of joy, isn't that great?
You want more joy in your life? Read Philippians.
And then this sort of closing remarks he say it's wonderful.
It's just like a mini-sermon.
And he says, "Rejoice in the Lord always."
You're like, "Paul, I'm going through a lot right now.
I'm not gonna rejoice."
And then guess what. Paul just says it again.
"I will say it again: Rejoice!
Let your gentleness be evident to all.
The Lord is near.
Do not be anxious about anything."
There it is, that word "anxious" is merimnao.
It's the word "anxiety."
It's what we use to talk about this under the surface,
nagging fear that something's gonna go wrong,
I don't know what it is.
And if I'm not worrying about something, I'm worried
that I'm not worried about something, you know?
Like I gotta find something to worry about.
And that word is merimnao.
It means you're being pulled in a million directions
and even pulled apart.
Actually, the Latin word for anxious it's akin
to being suffocated.
It's like you can't breathe, like there's just a thing
like going around your throat.
I know you've never felt that way when you're worried,
but Paul says, "Don't worry about anything.
Don't be anxious about anything. Let it go.
But in every situation, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving--"
Right, so you do it in a joyful, lofty way,
"present your requests before God--to God," sorry.
And the peace of God, everybody say, "The peace of God."
Anybody need peace of God today?
Yes, Lord, we all do.
"Which transcends all understanding."
That means people who watch your life.
They don't understand how you have so much peace
in the midst of the storm like Jesus, when he was napping.
"Will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
So, your will, that's your heart,
and what you think about, that's your mind.
Friends, what you think about is everything.
Your life is the result of your thinking.
Many people hate their circumstances, but they nurture
and love the thoughts that lead to those circumstances.
Any thought that you have cannot stay hidden or secret.
All of your thoughts, if you dwell on them,
will become obvious in your life,
because every secret life crystallizes into habit,
which then materializes in circumstance in your life.
Even when we go through tragedy that indeed had nothing do with
our behavior or thoughts, the way you think and tragedy
will ultimately become the result of how
that tragedy affects your life.
So, we have to understand that the battle is in the mind.
What you think about, what you dwell on will always,
always, always become your circumstance.
So, we have to tend to our mind. It's like a garden.
If you let a garden run wild and you stop caring for it,
it's gonna go everywhere.
If you stop paying attention to your mind,
it's gonna go everywhere.
Being negative is easy, worrying is easy, that's the default.
That's most people, most people worry, most people are negative.
Being hopeful requires work.
Trusting the Lord requires training and discipline
and it is so worth it, amen?
So, train your mind to trust the Lord and abandon the outcomes
to him and watch how much joy you're gonna have in your life.
You'll be glad you did. And so what do we do?
So, Paul tells us, he says, "Finally, brothers and sisters,
whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely," that's beauty, right,
whatever is beautiful, "whatever is admirable--
if anything is excellent or praiseworthy,"
there it is, "think about such things."
Look, guys, if you think about what is right,
you will live a righteous life.
If you think about what is pure, you'll have a pure life.
If you think about what is beautiful,
you'll have a beautiful life.
If you dwell on what is noble, you'll have a noble life.
What you dwell on, what you think about,
what you focus on, always becomes your reality.
If you're always worried, you're always gonna have
an anxious body.
If you're always worried, you're always gonna have an anxious
body so we need to train our bodies by training our minds
and that'll change everything.
In other words, the short version of this is practice.
Practice discipline.
Make sure you craft your mind the way that a gardener
cares for a garden.
I heard it once say by a psychologist something like,
"Depression is dwelling on the past,
anxiety is dwelling on the future."
So that if we can be present, we diminish both depression
and anxiety by letting go of what used to be by focusing
on the horrible things that happened to us or even comparing
our present life to how good our life used to be.
If we'll let go of those, we'll see depression go down.
And if you're able to let go of thinking about tomorrow,
many of you have to go back to work today.
Some of you during my sermon, during the boring parts,
were thinking about all the errands you gotta run,
all the things you gotta do later today.
You're thinking about whether or not you got that email, or
something that somebody said about you, or something that
happened at work on Friday, or thinking about somebody
you have to confront.
We let go of those things. Be here at God's house.
Be present with the person that's with you.
There's a lot of people in this place that love you
and are so glad you're here.
Be present with them. Don't be anywhere else.
So, let go of worry, just let go of it and trust it to the Lord.
I already know what like 30% of you are thinking
but you won't say and it's this, so I made a slide.
"But Bobby, if I stop worrying, everything will fall apart."
See, that's the myth.
The myth is that worry makes us responsible, but it doesn't.
Worry makes us dumb.
You're not dumb. I'm just saying.
Worry makes us do things that we regret.
Worry makes us decisions that don't benefit us.
Worry clouds our mind.
It shapes reality into truly a deception.
We're deceiving ourselves.
And so you can, and you should, be both responsible and relaxed.
Imagine that.
You can do your accounting relaxed.
You can run your errands relaxed.
You can plan and prepare in a relaxed way.
You don't need to carry anxiety in your body.
You don't need to worry about things.
You can plan, and prepare, and work really hard relaxed.
Isn't that amazing?
With a tranquil mind and a tranquil heart and watch
as you do that, you become more productive, smarter,
and more life giving to your kids, and your family,
and your friends.
That's a good thing. Okay, so here's how you do it.
You just let it go to the Lord. You let it go to the Lord.
Does somebody have a copy of my book?
This is--I did not plan this.
There's a story, here just toss, throw it to me.
Can you throw it?
Oh, thank you.
Okay so, there's a story about Henri Nouwen and Henri Nouwen
was an amazing guy, but he was also absentminded.
You know, he was a professor at Harvard but he was like the
absentminded professor, you know like--and one of the great
stories is like he just kind of went with the wind wherever
things would take him.
And in this story, he goes to a flying--the flying trapeze
swingers at the circus and while he's there, he just becomes
enamored with what's happening, so he tries to go every single
day and he becomes friends with the circus folks.
And they're like, "We love you so much.
We need a priest to go on tour with us,
would you come with us?"
And so he says, "Of course."
So, he begins to travel Germany with this--
even though he's Dutch.
With his group.
And he starts to talk to Rodlai, the guy.
He's the main flyer, the guy that does
all the flips through the air.
And he talks to Rodlai about what the job of a flyer does.
And he says this, he says, "One day I was sitting with Rodlai
the leader of the troop in his caravan talking about flying.
He said, "As a flyer, I must have complete trust
in my catcher.
The public might think that I am the great star of the trapeze,
but the real star is Joe, my catcher.
He has to be there for me with split second precision
and grab me out of the air as I come at him in the long jump.
How does it work? I asked.
The secret, Rodlai said, is that the flyer does nothing
and the catcher does everything."
Hear me, guys.
"When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms
and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me
safely over the apron behind the catch bar.
You do nothing? I said in surprise.
Nothing, Rodlai said.
The worst thing the flyer can do is try to catch the catcher.
I'm not supposed to catch Joe. It's Joe's task to catch me.
If I grab Joe's wrists, I might break them or he might break
mine and that would be the end for both of us.
A flyer must fly and a catcher must catch,
and the flyer must trust with outstretched arms
that his catcher will be there for him."
Isn't that good?
Friends, that's the life of beloved, trusting that God the
catcher loves you enough that he's not gonna let you fall.
And all these things, your health, big things, children,
things that in the world's eyes you should worry about,
you pray, you do your best, your apply yourself
but you let them go to the Lord, amen?
Three things you can do to be less worried today,
three things in three minutes, are you ready?
Number one, eat the frog.
Delicious.
Mark Twain said that if you eat a live frog in the morning,
first thing in the morning, everything else in the day
doesn't seem so bad.
[congregation applauding]
He says if you have two frogs, eat the bigger one first.
So, this is the idea, the idea is that if you have something
that's bugging you, get it now, get it done,
get it out of the way.
Don't let it be draining your battery.
When I was in high school, I always--
Remember whenever they'd have a project
and everybody would sign up last?
I'm like, sign me up first.
Two reasons, number one, teachers will never
give worse than a C to the guy that signed up first
and Cs make degrees, all right?
Number two, it was so great to just have it done and then like
every time someone did their project and looked all nervous,
and worried, and they stayed up all night before, you're done,
you're just done.
It's like getting in a hot tub, somehow it made me feel relaxed,
it was amazing.
The only time Jesus hurried was when we hurried to the cross.
So, if you have things in your life, a frog,
eat it now, don't wait.
Number two, live with integrity.
You can't be relaxed and be secretive and sneaky.
Integrity is not about being perfect,
integrity's about being honest.
People make mistakes.
People fall down and so integrity means
when that happens you're honest an open about it.
You suffer the consequences and you do your best
to reconcile with your neighbor.
That's why in the Bible it says,
"The wicked shall not enter the Lord's rest."
That's true, it's wisdom.
Wickedness means you'll never relax,
you'll never have serenity, you'll never have peace of mind.
Only way to reclaim it, if that's you, is integrity.
And finally, abandon the outcomes to the Lord.
Don't abandon your dreams. Don't abandon your goals.
Don't abandon your hopes and all of your work
but as you're working, trust that on that path,
no matter what happens, as hard as you work,
you can trust that the Lord will work through it, amen?
Lord, we trust you, we love you, and we thank you.
In Jesus's name, amen.
Bobby: Hannah and I are so happy you've joined us
in worship today.
We hope that you have found incredible hope and inspiration
in this program.
We're in a message series based on my new book,
"You Are Beloved: Living in the Freedom of God's Grace,
Mercy, and Love."
Based on the creed of the beloved,
this book is my desire to share how my life
was radically changed when I began reciting
this creed on a daily basis.
Hannah: Every week, we say this creed: "I'm not what I do.
I'm not what I have.
I'm not what people say about me.
I am the beloved of God. It's who I am.
No one can take it from me. I don't have to worry.
I don't have to hurry.
I can trust my friend Jesus and share his love with the world."
By resting in God's boundless and unconditional love,
you too can fully experience the blessings God intends for us.
When we embrace our position as beloved children of God
we'll experience our true identity,
allowing us to be courageous, to take risks,
and to follow God's call on our lives.
Bobby: That's right.
You know, practicing this creed was like changing the dial
on my life by one degree.
At first, I didn't really notice any change, but over time,
by training and aligning my mind with the Word of God through
praying this creed, I found a deep sense of rootedness.
Tap into the godly energy, joy, love, and power found in the
kingdom of God and experience the creed of the beloved
in your life.
announcer: Call, write, or go online today
and request Pastor Bobby's brand-new book,
"You Are Beloved: Living in the Freedom
of God's Grace, Mercy, and Love."
Based on the creed of the beloved,
which we recite every week at Shepherd's Grove
and on "Hour of Power," Pastor Bobby shares
how this creed changed him personally,
giving him renewed vision, joy, and energy,
and he thinks it can do the same for you too.
As you begin to accept and live in your identity
as God's beloved, you will have the freedom to take risks,
connect deeply with others, and let go of your shame.
You will do powerful things for God, and as you partner
with our ministry, you'll be allowing others
to know that they are truly beloved as well.
Your generous gift of $100 will include three
"You Are Beloved" books.
We pray that you give one to a friend, family member,
or co-worker sharing the secret to resting in God's boundless
and unconditional love with them.
In addition, Bobby and Hannah are excited to announce
that a group of "Hour of Power" friends have created
a matching challenge.
Whatever gift you give today will be matched dollar
for dollar to go twice as far to share the life-affirming truth
of God's love with people in need.
Call, write, or go online today.
Thank you for watching "Hour of Power"
and for your ongoing generous support
to help keep this program on the air.
Thank you and remember always God loves you and so do we.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
CC BY ABERDEEN CAPTIONING 1-800-688-6621 WWW.ABERCAP.COM
announcer: The preceding program was paid for
by the ministry partners of the Hour of Power
and viewers like you and is accredited
by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
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