The Power To Change // Holy Habits // Jane Tullis
Good morning everyone, a real pleasure to be sharing the word with you today.It’s the start of daylight savings, so we will pretend not to notice when folk scurry in in an hour’s time – after all, there’s no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus…but perhaps just a dash of judgment as we check our watches…
As you know, we are in the middle of a series called The Power to Change.
SLIDE 1
In the first week, Pastor Sean spoke about when you’re sick of being stuck doing what you don’t want to do and not doing what you do want.
Last week we heard from Ben Frommel – if you didn’t go home from last week chanting Who Before Do and Jesus ID, then you need to listen to the message again on how to stop the negative self-talk. Our picture of ourselves directly impacts our ability to be able to change: I’ve always been like this, it’s who I am. Those types of negative thoughts will keep us exactly where we are.
Ben’s message was also hilarious and I had a panic and said to Chris “I’ll need to rewrite mine”. As you know, I normally love to introduce humour in my messages, but this one is quite serious – more deep and meaningful…perhaps something you could strive for next time, Ben 😊.
This week’s topic in the series is Holy Habits. But before you bang on about ‘oh no, Jane’s going to tell us to read the Bible and pray yet again.’ I am going to take a different aspect to begin with…and then yes, I will tell you to read your Bible and pray 😊.
My sermon is in two parts this morning: the second part will look at a Biblicalexample of a holy habit that saved a life and how easy it really is to start to form new habits. But in the first part, I want to begin by looking at WHY we would even want to form holy habits; why would we invest energy into it at all. After all, if we believe in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, then we’re off to heaven. Job done, right?
Well, yes and no. Yes, we have eternal life…but first we have to negotiate this life and the daily battles in this life are very real. We also know that each one of us has a purpose in God from Ephesians 2:10:
SLIDE 2
Ephesians 2:10 (NIV):
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Having some good holy and wholesome habits that speak strength into our body, soul and spirit are very sensible and practical for our survival. People who don’t yet know God also realise this and put things in place to strengthen themselves. For example, going to the gym or walking to strengthen their bodies, having hobbies such as gardening to relax their minds. Healthy habits are good for us whether we’re Christians or not.
But it’s not just healthy habits we’re talking about this morning, it’s Holy Habits. Why should we want to consider putting Holy Habits in place on top of other things? Do we do it just to bat away the issues of life? That’s actually not really enough inspiration for me, and quite frankly I’m often too tired to even think in that way. I need some motivation and, for me, I want to do it because of the picture I have of the God I worship.
Some of us see God the Father as an angry God, seeking to point out our faults and punish us at every opportunity. Some of us see God as aloof and not interested in our daily struggles – someone who created us and seemingly just walked away and left us to it. I’m not sure that I’d want to be bothered putting holy habits in place to help me get closer to either one of those images of God.
But, if I understand that God the Father laid everything down for me to the point of sacrificing his one and only son, Jesus, as it says in John; and that he longs to bless me with all the blessings in the spiritual realm as it says in Ephesians; and if he has a purpose and a destiny for me as it says in Jeremiah, a plan to prosper me and not to harm me; that he sings over me as it says in Zephaniah, then this is a God I want to get to know more intimately. This is a God who is personal, who is loving and kind, who is patient with me even in my failings and who is tender in guiding me. This is a person I want to take time to establish holy habits for in order that I can get to know him better and so I can grow to be more like him.
In our ladies’ Bible study group, we have just finished studying Psalm 23.
SLIDE 3
Psalm 23:1-3 (NKJV):
The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
3 He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
This is a beautifully intimate picture of God seeking only the best for us. But it’s the word used in verse 3 that I want to focus on for a little – He restores my soul.
Now different translations of the Bible use slightly different words here for restore. The NIV has ‘refreshes’, the New Living Translation says ‘renews’, theLiving Bible says ‘new strength’. You see our English words individually are often inadequate to translate the original Hebrew.
SLIDE 4
The Hebrew word for restore is Tikkun which means ‘to turn back, to return.’ The idea is for something or someone to go back to the condition where it previously was meant to be.
The various Biblical translations provide a good demonstration of how using different words actually can change the nuances of our understanding. To me, refresh can simply mean to give me enough pep to go on from this position like a splash of water on my face; but restore for me conjures up the picture oftaking time and something being transformed back to its former and intended glory.
(5m 30sec in)
I’d like to introduce my neighbour, Ray, who is going to help me with a visual aid this morning. Ray is a wood craftsman in his retirement and I have seen some of his pieces and they take your breath away in their beauty and perfection. Ray is just going to sit quietly by my side here, restoring a piece of wood, just as God might go about restoring us. While I keep talking, you might find yourself distracted and just watching what Ray is doing and I want you to feel totally free to do that; it’s a one-time only offer.
Because I seriously don’t mind if you don’t hear another word of my message. If you watch Ray and get a fresh revelation of the tenderness of God, of how precious you are when you place yourself in his hands, of how careful and intentional he is in restoring you, then I know you will be inspired to form holy habits in order to draw close to this God regardless of any words I might have.
When we trust God to restore our soul, first the dirt and grime is cleared away from the surface; the things we have dabbled in, the words we have allowed to settle in our hearts and minds, the hurts we have endured or committed, the rubbish that we have allowed to cover over who God says we are.
The restorer then gently and lovingly sands back the old paint and imperfect bits; but very carefully without damaging the original natural wood underneath. Then, finally, a lovely wax will be softly rubbed in which gives protection but also allows the natural state of the wood underneath to still shine through – the unique grain of each piece of wood. It is restored to how it was originally created to be.
For some of you here this morning, you have believed the lie from the enemy that there’s no going back for you. Too much has happened, too many mistakes, too many abuses committed against you, too many harsh words that you have believed about yourself, for you to ever feel that fresh sense of restoration ever again.
Just watch Ray, then, and let the Holy Spirit show you how very special you are to God…just you, in his hands this morning.
You see, understanding who you are making holy habits for is essential to triggering your desire to do so. It’s important that I stress I am not speaking about legalism this morning. I am not speaking of the sort of habits, even very good habits, that you might now perform from a sense of a lucky rabbit’s foot – if I don’t do this, something bad will happen. Even Christian disciplines such as fasting or even reading the Bible can become a noose around our neck if our motivation starts to become ritualistic or legalistic. Remembering the who we are doing it for removes that sense of being performance-based.
In the first week of this series, we learned that real and lasting change isn’t behaviour modification; it’s spiritual transformation. In language for the younger generation: Just sleeping at MacDonalds doesn’t make you a hamburger! We learned that we do what we do because of what we think about ourself. If we think we’re unworthy of any of God’s affection towards us, then we are not going to be motivated in any way to introduce new holy habits – what’s the point if we don’t think the end result can or will change anything.
But if after last week, we have stopped the negative self-talk and embraced how God sees us, if we have mastered the Who Before Do and our Jesus ID, then we can proceed to identify the holy habits we want to put in place and how we might take steps towards achieving those…in order to what? In order to draw closer to this God who wants such an intimate and personal relationship with us. And, in order to allow him to gently restore us closer and closer into His image which Genesis tells us is what we were originally created to be.
SLIDE 5
Genesis 1:27 (NIV):
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
(10 mins in, 5 since Ray started)
So, what exactly is a holy habit?
SLIDE 6
According to the dictionary, habit means: a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up. Any regularly repeated behaviour that requires little or no thought and is learned rather than innate.
I particularly like the statement that it requires little or no thought. Obviously and unfortunately this works for bad habits too. One of my friends was a gambler and if he was stressed or triggered in some way, he would often find himself parked outside the casino with no recollection of how he got there or having even made a conscious decision to go there…now that’s a habit.
But what is this word Holy in front of Habit? The dictionary defines it as:
sacred or set apart; dedicated to the service or worship of a deity
So now this helps us adjust our attitude to any good habit we put in place. If we start with “God, I dedicate this habit to you for your glory, may I draw closer to you through it…” it gives us a much deeper motivation than any old New Year’s resolution.
Can anything be a Holy Habit or does it just have to be all about reading the Bible and praying? Well, yes if it contributes to positioning yourself better to know God and grow in His image, then any positive thing can become a holy habit. If you enjoy exercising first thing in the morning, for example, then if you do it because you just want to lose weight that’s one thing (and not a bad thing, but a self-serving thing really). But if you want to do it because you know it clears your mind and you can pray while you run, or it stimulates you so that when you get home you’re energised to read the Bible, then that’s a holy habitwith great motivation.
Let’s look at a holy habit from the Bible that was so ingrained in the person that they didn’t even think about the consequences of their actions – and the consequences were dire.
While you’re looking up Daniel 6:10 (NIV), the background is that Daniel was one of many young men stolen from his people when Jerusalem was capturedby Babylon, and he was trained up in the ways of the palace of the King of Babylon. Three kings later, Daniel had been appointed one of three administrators over the whole kingdom. King Darius was so pleased with how Daniel had distinguished himself, that he planned to make him the sole person in charge under the king. And this upset the other leaders greatly and so theylooked for ways to trap Daniel in the conduct of his affairs.
SLIDE 7
But verse 4 of chapter 6 says: At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.
So, in verse 5 we read:
Finally these men said, “We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God.”
And this is a word for someone here this morning. Don’t trust in your human abilities in your work or your study or your family-raising. Because when the enemy finds you are doing a good job, he will attack your faith to undermine you. What holy habits do you have in place for strengthening your faith for the attack, not IF it comes but WHEN?
The leaders get the king to agree to issue an edict that if anyone prays to any god or human during the next 30 days, except to pray to the king, they shall be thrown into the lions’ den.
SLIDE 8
We read Daniel’s response in verse 10:
Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
It’s that last part of the verse ‘just as he had done before’ that shows us this was a Holy Habit, an instinctive practice that Daniel didn’t even need to think about.
What it DOESN’T say is that Daniel went home, panicked, did all the legal research on how to get around a royal edict looking for loopholes, texted all his friends to complain about how unfair it all was (see, Ben, us oldies can use words like ‘texted’). It also doesn’t say that he even contemplated whether he should just not pray for 30 days (after all, it’s not that long a period, is it? He could resume next month) He didn’t even give any thought to maybe hiding under his bed to pray, or in the wardrobe. He had options.
In fact, what the verse demonstrates is a holy habit so ingrained that he did it out of muscle memory even while he was faced with the terrible dilemma. He simply went home and did what he was always in the habit of doing. Are you sure, Jane? Oh yes, because it’s even in that verse what he prayed. It was not “Oh, God, save me. Stop this horrible decree, get rid of the king”, it says he prayed giving thanks to his God. This was a habit so natural to Daniel that he never considered doing anything else.
You see our holy habits need to become so natural to us that we don’t even need to think or query our need to do them. When our habits are holy, they become part of our protection and strength and transformation in the midst of all life has to throw at us.
(15min 30 sec in, 10 min since Ray started)
So what are some tips for forming holy habits?
SLIDE 9
1. Cue yourself in.
What I mean by this is the habit itself is not your starting point and because of this so many of us fail to establish a new habit. We should start with placing cues around us that trigger the habit. For example, if you want to create a habit of reading the Bible first thing in the morning, then your cue needs to be putting your Bible in a prominent position the night before, not leaving it tucked in your bedside drawer or on the dusty bookshelf. Then, when you have your coco pops ready in the morning (are coco pops the best invention ever or what!), you see the Bible sitting on the table and think ‘oh, yes, I’ll just read a verse or two while I munch’ and you’re on your way to forming a habit.
Daniel had a cue. It said in verse 10 that he prayed three times a day. What do we do three times a day? Well, usually we eat three times a day; so it’s quite possible Daniel’s cue was breakfast, lunch and dinner. How simple.
Whatever the habit you want to form, what cue will you use to trigger that habit? Start with the cue and it will ease you into the habit.
SLIDE 10
2. Understate and overachieve.
What Daniel did was simply pray and give thanks to God. Every day, he simply found something to thank God for. Surely we can do that too?
SLIDE 11
1 Chronicles 16:34:
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
We don’t have to have sophisticated words. A great Holy Habit to start with is to simply give thanks for one thing; thank you for my family, thank you for my job, thank you for my coco pops. You will be surprised how natural it will become in a short period of time.
If you want your Holy Habit to be to start journalling, the cue is to buy yourself a book set apart solely for that purpose (not where you write your shopping list or even take sermon notes) and then to place it somewhere you can’t miss seeing it. Then understate by setting yourself two lines to write each day, not two pages! And them simply watch as over time two lines becomes five and five becomes half a page until finally you’re telling yourself “I’d better stop there for the day even though I have so much more to write.”
Set yourself an achievable target. Don’t go saying I will read 10 chapters of the Bible every morning because the first day you fail at that will derail you completely with a sense of disappointment. Start with one verse. Out of doing that on a regular basis, a desire to read more will grow naturally.
Only start one new habit at a time. Craig Groeschel who wrote the book this series is based on says he starts one new habit a year. He consciously picks only one thing and plans a strategy with cues so that he can achieve it.
SLIDE 12
( 21 mins, 15mins 30 secs since Ray started, 5mins 30 secs remaining for Ray, wax needs to start)
3. Bury it deep.
This might sound odd – don’t we want our habits to be at the front of our thoughts? No, we want them buried so deep that they become an instinctive reaction – no thought required.
Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to reorganise itself by forming new neural pathways throughout life and in response to experiences. The scientists tell us that it takes approximately two to three months to form a new neuro pathway. Now these pathways are not what we call memory. Imagine our memory is like a filing cabinet with millions of pieces of information tucked away. When we are confronted with something, we need to think have I seen this before, what do I remember about it, what action did I take, was it successful?
We can often make those memory connections in a fraction of a second. But, those of us here at my end of the age scale will know that it takes a lot longer now to recall things from those filing cabinets and sometimes it’s like the drawer is wedged shut.
But I’m not talking about this type of memory when I speak about neuro pathways. These are the things that are triggered automatically without need for our conscious thought, and that’s the level of Holy Habit I am speaking about. Daniel didn’t say ‘what can I do, I know, I’ll go home and pray’. Nope, he simply got up, went home and prayed - a deeply subconscious reaction. And he prayed thankfulness.
SLIDE 13
We do know from verse 11:
Then these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help.
So his prayer turned to asking for help…but only after he responded automatically to the situation from his neuro pathway of thankfulness…and his ingrained holy habit got him tossed in a lion’s den. Sometimes there are consequences for our habits, are you prepared for that? It might cost your job, your friend, your life even to be so easily recognised for your holy habits.
Some of the girls from our ladies’ Bible study have taken the 66-day challengeto instill one Bible verse in their mind; 66 days being what is considered by neuro-scientists to be the average time taken to form a new neuro pathway in the brain.
For example, in my health circumstances, I can and have quoted to you before Psalm 118:17:
I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.
Now I know that verse now, but each time I have to go ‘Ok, what was the verse?’ and I pull it back from my memory. And sometimes I slightly misquote it and might say ‘declare the wonders of the Lord’ instead of the works of the Lord, but I have it pretty much right.
But when we create a new neuro pathway, I don’t have to think about it; it springs to my mind before conscious thought even takes place because there’s a pathway been established that says when my health is challenged, if I get a negative report from my doctor, or if someone has that ‘she’s a goner’ look in their eyes, this is my go-to in God’s word, and that verse will be out of my mouth, declaring God’s victory before I even have time to think. So I’m doing the 66-day challenge to create that neuro pathway for that verse because that’s how natural and automatic I want it to become.
And that’s what we’re talking about when we say Holy Habits. We’re talking about changing our neuro pathways, over time of course, so that Godly things become an automatic response. We get up in the morning and we reach for our Bible, or we say thank you to God before we even get out of bed or before we eat our food, or we reach for our journal as soon as we’ve had dinner, or, or or… and it’s automatic!
This is not weird stuff, this is in fact what all of us already do every day. When I get up, I don’t get dressed for the day and THEN have a shower. Without any conscious thought I have a shower first thing and then get dressed for the day – I have never made a mistake and got that round the wrong way in my 62 years on this earth. It’s a neuro pathway for me, it’s automatic. It’s so automatic that sometimes in the shower I have to stop and think did I just wash my hair (and look, I have hair again now on my latest chemo regime – woot, woot!), because I can be thinking about the day ahead and my neuro pathway just gets on with the showering. You must already have a stack of things in place in your brain like that. All I’m encouraging you to do today is to think about establishing one more neuro pathway along the lines of any holy habit you want to form.
SLIDE 14
4. Hope is not habit.
If we’re hoping to change, that’s fabulous. But hope won’t change your life. Hope will get you started as your initial inspiration, but habits will keep you going. We need to choose to do something: God can’t steer a parked car.
It doesn’t matter how small a thing you want to become a habit, you need to take a step, put a cue in place to stimulate you to take action and then God will take that tiniest of things and water it and grow it. It’s our willing heart he sees and he says yes!
SLIDE 15
Zechariah 4:10a (NLT):
Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.
1 Timothy 4:8 (NLT):
Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.
(25 mins, 20 mins 30 secs since Ray started, 1 min to go for Ray)
There is one last aspect to consider, and that is the breaking of bad habits. All of us have developed some bad habits over the years, many of which we have allowed (through repetition) to establish a neuro pathway so that we no longer even are really conscious of it; just like my friend with the gambling habit. Bad habits are actually harder to break than it is to establish a new habit. Why?
New holy habits are difficult to start because the pain comes first before the reward, it’s a bit of a chore to get started – the payoff is in the future when we begin to reap the benefits.
Bad habits are hard to break for the opposite reason – we get a reward now and the pain is in the future as we break it off. Let’s not kid ourselves, for the most part we have allowed bad habits to form because we enjoy them; we get a dopamine rush when we take part in them. We need to consciously decide to put the same sort of cue in place to stop us indulging in that bad habit as I mentioned for starting a good habit. For example, if it’s too much social media, put your device out of sight in another room after 7:30 at night. I know for the city service I may as well be saying chop off your right arm and feed it to the dog, but even us oldies have trouble in this area and something needs to change. Maybe you start by nighttime restrictions on message alerts (and yes, Ben, I would have to ask you for help in how to do that…whatever.) Do something!
Now I just want to come full circle and remind us again of our motivation for even considering establishing holy habits: to be in a personal relationship with God and, over time, to become more like him.
SLIDE 16
Ephesians 4:22-24 (NIV):
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
(26 mins 15 secs in, only 1 minute extra from Ray starting to wax)
For those of you who have been watching Ray, I hope you have recognised the tenderness with which he has gone about the restoration. Even when bits have required sanding back, it has been done with gentleness and a gentle breath across the surface to remove the fine sawdust. And that’s how personal a relationship God wants with you.
Perhaps you’re here today and you’ve always had a belief in God’s existence, but you’ve never experienced a true relationship with him where you know you can trust him to be right alongside you and to restore you, then in a moment we are all going to pray a prayer out loud which will be on the screen. That prayer will simply give you the opportunity to say yes, God, I want a personal relationship with you. We know that the only way to relationship with God the Father is through accepting what Jesus his son did for us in laying himself down to die on the cross and then rising from the dead. And that’s what this prayer acknowledges.
If you’re watching online, the words will be on the screen for you and I encourage you to pray out loud right there in your loungeroom along with us all.
SLIDE 17 Salvation Prayer slide
Prayer:
Dear Lord Jesus, I am sorry that I have excluded You from my life.
I ask for your forgiveness.
I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead.
I turn from my sins and invite you to come into my heart and life.
Today Jesus, I have decided to follow you as my Lord and Saviour. AMEN!
If you are watching ONLINE and you prayed that prayer today, by texting YES and your name to the number on the screen, one of our team would love to help you with the next step in developing your relationship with Jesus.
For those in our AUDITORIUM, if you prayed that prayer today, while every eye is still closed and heads bowed, would you raise your hand high enough for me to see as an act of affirming your decision.
If you weren’t ready to make that decision today, that’s totally okay. Can I ask you to just keep coming back or keep watching online, but don’t give up on searching for God as He longs to be in relationship with you.
As always now, we have a ministry team who will be at the front here to support you in prayer. If you have any need at all, or want to share a fabulous praise point, or want to make a declaration that you intend to establish one new holy habit, as we continue to worship God, why don’t you come forward and allow the team the privilege of praying alongside you.
