A Character Connection

Well, good morning to each one. It's an honor to be gathered together with you. I want to thank you for your prayers on my behalf and interceding and asking God to help me fulfill my responsibility to stand before you and help us better understand who He is, who we are, and what He asks of us as His children.

Approximately nine months ago, I preached a sermon here at the end of December of last year, and I titled that sermon "A Case for Character." And I began that sermon by asking you three questions. And as you reflected on the previous year of 2024, three questions were this. I ask you, "What did you experience?" I also ask you to look back and reflect on, "What did you accomplish?" And the third and most important question I ask you was, "Who did you become?"

The third question, like I said, is the most important. It is a question of growth and maturity and whether or not that has occurred.

It's a question of character. We talked a little bit about character. Character is the values and virtues at the very core of who you are that govern what you do and why you do it. I like to think about it as an operating system. In this age of technology, we have cell phones and computers, and they all have this operating system. That's how they work. The Bible often refers to this as our heart. It's this thing that everything comes out of. And I think that's what Jesus was talking about in our Sunday school when He was talking about being defiled. It's what is inside that matters.

We've looked at Genesis 1 where God created man. And when He created man, He created him in His likeness. We were created to resemble God. And then there was the fall of man, which was the corruption of the operating system. That's when sin entered the picture and destroyed some of that resemblance of God.

We also looked a little bit at God's plan of redemption, the act of salvaging mankind and His creation to restore His likeness back, His character, His operating system back into man.

Man could once again resemble God. And it was a smashing success. We have record of that in Acts when His disciples, these people that were following Him, they were first called Christians at Antioch. And Christians means little anointed ones.

They resembled God. They resembled Jesus. So what is the character of God? We recently studied the Sermon on the Mount, and I think that is a great section to study to understand the character of God, His humility, His meekness, His mercy, His being pure, being peacemakers. These are all characteristics of God. We also looked at in Galatians 5 where it talks about the contrast of character or, I guess, of operating systems. Talks about if we're ruled by our flesh, the result is envy, anger, selfishness, and hatred. And then He contrasts that with the fruit of the Spirit of God, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

And I'm going to assume that all of you, like me, when I read that list as a professing Christian, as someone that professes to resemble God, I want this. I want that list. I want that to be at the very core of who I am.

I ended by asking a couple of questions about, "How do we get there? How do we get this character of Christ at the very center of who we are? How do we get this that this becomes our MO, our operating system?

What part does God have to play in it? And what is our part? Is this character of Christ, is this something that is a result of conversion?

Is it bestowed upon us, or is it developed?" I'm going to suggest, or I should say, my belief is that this character of Christ, being at the very core of who we are, is something that is developed. And I'm going to explain a little bit how I think about this a little bit. I'm going to start by telling a little bit of a story. Back when I was young in my upper teens, and we had with our computers, we would every so often I don't know if we didn't have good virus software or what, but we would get viruses on our computers. And I remember one specifically that I think it was my computer or it was either mine or my father's.

We got this virus, and it was pretty sophisticated because not only did it lock down our computer, but it prevented you from downloading or running any software to remove the virus. And so you were stuck. You couldn't do anything. And I remember I had to pull the hard drive out of my computer, and I got this cord, this connection device that I plugged into the hard drive, and then I plugged it into an unaffected computer. And then I was able to scan the hard drive through this other computer, and it located the virus, and I was able to remove the virus from the computer, and then my hard drive worked again. And there's something really satisfying about that.

Like, "Ugh, gotcha."

That is how we are. We have been infected with this virus, this sin that has taken over and becomes our operating system. But God's plan of redemption is what and the conversion is the removal of the virus that we are unable to do on our own.

I like to think of repentance or conversion as a reboot. It's the change of direction. It's the removal of the virus. To original design. In Acts 3:19, it says, "Repent, therefore, that you may be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."

And I think most of us could remember that moment of conversion when we said yes to God and we asked Him to forgive us of our sins. There was a lightness that was a result of that and a cleanness. And it's like it's a blank slate, and you're back to normal, a normal that you never really knew before. And that's what I believe conversion is, is that removal of the virus.

Salvation, on the other hand, is the act of rebuilding. It is the act of reinstalling God's operating system. And this is not an event, but rather it is a way of life. Philippians 1:6 says, "Being confident of this very thing, that he who begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ."

This salvaging part is the process of growing and maturing more and more into the likeness and the resemblance of God.

So how do we get there? Once again, I think this is something we all desire, something I desire. But sometimes it's like, "How do we make this tangible? How do we go through this process of growth and maturity and this implanting of God's operating system in our life?" I want to suggest today that it's all about relationship. In Matthew 22, Jesus said, "The greatest commandment is to first love God." And He said, "The second is to love your brother." And He says, "Everything hangs on this, on these two things."

I believe that our relationship with God and our relationship with our brother is the workshop where the character or Christ-likeness is built. So this morning, I want to look at our relationship with God or a relationship with God.

And I don't have a lot to share that is going to be earth-shattering or new, but this has been very, very good for me in a way that it's a little bit of a checkup. It's a little bit of evaluating where I'm at in this process of growth and maturity.

So the title of my message this morning is "The Character Connection." Yesterday, someone stopped in at my house, and I switched providers for my internet service. I was with a particular company. I was paying X amount per month, and their bill fluctuated a lot, and I just put up with it, somewhat annoyed. And then this competitor recently ran fiber past my house on the opposite end. They ran this fiber line. And ever since then, they've been bugging me. They call me and say, "Are you sure you don't want faster internet?" And I was like, "Nah, I don't really need it. It's fine. I don't stream a lot. I'm not gaming. It's okay. I can send emails and load basic web pages."

And so I've been able to successfully convince them that I don't need their service. But recently, they called me again, and they said, "How much are you paying a month?" And they actually lowered their price was almost it's actually a little bit cheaper than what I was paying. And they said, "We can make your speed so much faster." And I'm like, "Okay. I mean, money talks, right? So I'll switch if I can save a little bit of money." So yesterday, I got fiber. And he hooked it up, and then I wanted to test it. And so first, I connected to my old provider, and I ran my speed test. And it said you had 51 megabytes of download and 31 of upload.

And I'm like, "Oh, it sounds all right. And it sounds decent." And anyway, so then I switched over to my fiber connection, and I ran it, and it had 563 megabytes of upload and 300-something of download or opposite way around, download and upload. And I was like, "Wow, that's a major, major upgrade." But I was thinking about that test of my connection. That's what I was testing, my connection with the server, which according to the test, it's located in Washington, DC.

And this morning, I want to help us all to run a little bit of a test to test our connection with God. I'm going to ask you a number of questions again to try to facilitate that.

I want you to answer these questions from your experience, experientially, not intellectually, if you're able to. I'm going to go with two there's two questions that have been bouncing around in my head, and they're somewhat a little bit unsettling at times, but it's also been very telling to me or for me.

First question I want you to think about is, what does it mean to you to have a relationship with God? If someone were to ask you, "Why do you do what you do?" and they say, "Well, it's because I love God. I have this relationship with God." And they're like, "Well, what does that mean?"

Just briefly, think about how would you articulate a relationship with God to someone else?

The other question I want you to think about, we live in an age of ratings and reviews. The youth were over at our house on Thursday night when we were talking about ratings on Google or Google ratings or ratings on Amazon and how some of them annoy me and how we rely on them and things like that. So it's something we're very used to. It's such an important part of marketing anymore is to have positive reviews.

I want you to think about it. If you're anonymously leaving a review on your experience with the Christian life and your walk with God, from your experience, not from your intellect, not from what you think it should be, what would you rate it as? 1 being disappointing, or 10 being very fulfilling.

I want you to think about that a little bit.

The other question that I want you to think about is this relationship with God, this connection with God, this Christian life, from your experience, is it worth dying for?

I'm not going to ask you whether or not you are satisfied with your answer, with your rating, or if it's worth dying for for you.

If you're not, it's not God's fault.

God's promises and what He offers and what He has promised never changes. If we are experiencing something different, it is always operator error. It's on our side.

I want you to turn in your Bibles to John chapter 15.

This is Jesus. In chapter 14, He is explaining to His disciples how He is going to gift them with the Holy Spirit, how the Holy Spirit is going to come. He's going to be this helper. He also talks about the indwelling of the Father and the Son.

And He is helping His disciples. He's starting to shift their perspective from a law-based relationship or from a law-based I can't think of a good term, for lack of a better term, religion, to a relationship-based and connection with Him, a personal connection with Him.

And He uses this illustration here in chapter 15. He starts talking about a vine. He uses a grapevine. And I'm not a farmer, and I don't grow grapes. And so this doesn't well, I understand what He's trying to explain here. I don't know it in a lot of detail. I can't explain to you the ins and outs of having a vineyard. But this was something that the disciples were very familiar with. If you read throughout the scripture, the vine, grapes, the vineyard, it is throughout the Bible. This is something that was very much a part of their life.

And I don't know if you've ever driven past a vineyard, especially in either the fall or in the spring. Before it, there's a lot of growth. You can see the vineyard, and you can see the vines. You'll see the trunk coming up out of the ground. It's thick. And then they typically have splits, and there's this main branch. And that's all there is. There's nothing else because it's been pruned back. And then if you would drive past later or see it later, as spring and summer goes on, you'll see the growth. There's these sprouts or shoots that come out of that main vine, and they begin to grow. And that is where the fruit is developed.

And Jesus, in His discussion with the disciples here, He's saying, "I'm the vine. I'm the source." And He's talking about them, and you're the branches. You're connecting into Me.

I'm an electrician, so I understand electric a lot more than I understand growing grapes. And you cannot electricity does not work without connection. That's what I do. I connect the source of power with the device. And it is very, very important how you connect, how everything is connected. I could wire a house or a business, and I could do it perfectly. I could have lights. I could have receptacles. I could have equipment. But unless I connect my project or what I've built with the grid, it is completely useless. There is no function. There's no transfer of power. Nothing is being generated. It's completely useless. And all the grid is, is this distribution system of power.

You have a source of generation, whether it's a power plant. That can be nuclear. It can be coal. It can be renewable energy. It could be windmills or solar panels. But something is generating this power, but it requires a connection for that power to be transferred to the home or wherever the power is needed.

This connection is very, very important. Here in chapter 15, Jesus talks about He uses the word abide. And I'm going to use the word connection today because it fits my understanding better, and I think it's very, very applicable.

I'm going to read verses 1 through 8. This is Jesus speaking to His disciple. He says, "I am the vine, and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, He prunes that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit. For without Me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered.

And they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you will have what you ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this is My Father glorified that you bear much fruit so that you will be My disciples."

Jesus is stressing the importance of being connected, of abiding in Him. And He said, "It is impossible to produce fruit, to have growth, to have life without this connection with Him. Just like it is impossible for Me to turn the lights on unless I am connected to the grid, which is connected to the source, the power of the power generation, it is impossible to have fruit or to develop this character outside of a personal relationship and connection with God."

He also said this production of fruit, this growth, it is required. It is something that this is not optional to be plugged into God, to be connected with Him. It has to be growth. And He says, "I will prune to stimulate that growth." And He said, "If there is not growth, if you don't bear fruit, you will be cut off and be thrown away."

So the connection, you have to be connected for growth. And as a result of that connection, there needs to be growth in our life. So how do we connect? How do we abide in this vine in Christ? How do we practically do this?

And so I'm going to give just a couple of observations that I've been thinking a lot about in my relationship with God, what needs to be true for this to happen, for growth and for fruit to be part of my life.

I want to start by talking to speaking about the importance of time. There is no substitute for time.

And Jesus led by example in this when He was here on the earth. We just recently looked at in the past chapter how Jesus took time away to spend time with His heavenly Father. And He did that over and over again throughout the New Testament, throughout the Gospels.

Time equals influence. We all know the saying that they say, "You're the sum of your five closest friends." Or they also will say that you say, "Show me your friends, and I will show you your future." And that is because the people that we are the closest to are the people we spend the most time with. And time is influence. So the things that we spend the most time with have the greatest impact in determining who we become.

If we want to be like God, if we want to be connected, to be plugged into this vine, if we want this growth in His character in our lives, there is no substitute for time with God. If you want to be like God, you have to spend time with God.

I don't know about you. I'm assuming that you're somewhat similar to me. And this is something I am continually working with, is carving out time with God. I think about my here I am. I'm in my upper 30s, rushing towards 40. And I'm a father of four children, soon to be five. I have responsibilities as a deacon here in church. And then I look at my time with God, and I'm like, "What am I doing?

Why is it so hard for me to connect with God? And how do I think I'm going to fulfill my responsibilities without that connection?"

So I want to look at a couple of ways to spend time with God. How do we connect with God? How do we abide and be connected to this source of power?

I want to think a little bit about connecting through His word. Jesus says later on here, if I can point it out, He talks about, "And my words if you abide in Me, and my words abide in you."

Your relationship with God's word will never or I should say, your relationship with God will never surpass your relationship with His word. And it is the importance of if we want to be connected with God, if we want to have His character implanted in us, it is extremely important for each one of us to have a personal, consistent relationship and interaction with His word.

There are many different ways to doing it. Obviously, we all know about having our personal devotions. It's this daily, consistent time in the word. There's also another way, this whole as far as implanting, memorization is a way that we can dwell, have His word dwell in us.

Memorization is not something I do a lot of. And in our day, we have the Bible printed. We have access to it. And memorization is not as important to us as if you did not know how to read or you did not have access to it. Memorization is how you would interact with the word. That's how you would remember. That's how it would be in your life. And I think it's really, really important for us not to forget and to let that practice go of memorization. When I was a child, my parents would say, "Hey, you need to memorize this." You always memorize Psalm 23, right? I think we could all say that. And my parents also made me memorize the first two books of James.

And I still think about that, and I can still say most of it. Chapter two gets a little shaky. But that's the implanting. That word is in my heart, and I can bring it up to mind into any situation at any time. I don't have to open my Bible. It's right there. And so I just want to encourage us to make that a practice of memorization of His word.

I want to also encourage you to, in your daily reading, to think about it. Sometimes it's very easy for it to become purely just a checklist. It's like, "Got my chapter. Got my chapters." And it becomes just this short thing that we do. And I think it's really important for us to have the proper perspective of what the purpose of reading the word is.

And it is not just a way to gather knowledge or facts, but rather it is a way to get to know God. Knowledge is basically having facts or informations acquired through experience or through education. It's a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. Knowing, on the other hand, is having developed a relationship with someone through meeting or spending time with them, is to be familiar with or friendly with. And that is why God has given us this. It is our manual to get to know who God is.

Ask God to teach you something about Him and approach your Bible reading with the intention of learning about God.

The other avenue we have of connection is through prayer. Prayer is another thing that can become rather mundane and somewhat of a checklist as well. And I want you to think about prayer in relation to a conversation versus a request. Sometimes I feel like my prayers are a little bit like a wish list. I come to God and say, "God, help me be healthy. Help me be wise. Help me be rich." Not rich. "Help me have enough. Help my family to be healthy. Bless my day."

And I walk away, and I feel like I've connected with God. But if you think about prayer as a conversation, it is asking God for our requests, for the things we need. But it is also at a time where God can inform us of what He wants us to do.

I believe it's very, very important for us to start your day with prayer because at the beginning of every day, it's very difficult for me sometimes because I sit down, I'm trying to pray, and I think about, "I need to be at this job at this time. I need to answer that email and order that thing. And this is what needs to be done." And I get caught up in that.

But if I think about it, God already knows. He knows exactly what is going to happen in my day. He knows the phone calls I'm going to get. He knows what is going to go right. He knows what is going to go wrong. He knows. And so it is a time of asking God, "God, prepare me for what I will face in my day."

The other thing I want to think about briefly is connecting through presence and practicing the presence of God. I don't know about you, but there's days I go by the days go by, I have my brief encounter with God in the morning, and I'm off to the races.

And I go throughout my day. I'm fixing things and figuring things out. And the phone calls and the emails, like I mentioned before. And I get to the end of my day, and sometimes I'm a little shocked at how little I've thought about God.

It's a little bothersome. I feel like if God is in control of my life, at what point how was He a part of my life?

So I want us to think about how can we practice the presence of God? How can we invite Him into our everyday interactions and responsibilities?

I heard one person suggest setting an alarm on your phone that goes off at a certain time. Maybe it's on your lunch break. Maybe it's at 10:30. And having a quick, even if it's 30 seconds, to check in with God. "God, this is what's going on.

What am I to do next?" And I think that for myself, that's something that sort of stuck with me. You know what? That's a very tangible thing that we can do, to practice the presence of God. And as we develop this and as it becomes habitual, I believe that it is very, very possible for God to be involved in every aspect of our daily life, everything that comes up. "God, what do You want me to do here?

This is what I'm doing next, God." And I remember one thing that Marvin Wadle said one time that really, really stuck with me. And he said, every time he pulls when he was doing a plant repair, if I remember what he said correctly, he said, "Every time I pull up into a customer's house, I just ask God, 'Help me be able to fix this machine.'" And those are ways that we can practice the presence of God and invite Him into our lives and keep that connection with Him.

I want to look a little bit at a couple of warnings or something I've been thinking about as well that sometimes complicates my relationship with God or, yes, gives me a false sense I should say this. It gives me a false sense of connection, of relationship.

Action for God is not a substitute for time with God.

This is something that I have thought about a lot recently. And I want to explain what I mean by this a little bit. I can go through a week, and in a week's time, I go to church on Sunday morning.

And then I'll have especially if it's a busy week, if I have several interactions. Maybe I go to a prayer meeting, and I say I'm involved in several meetings with people that are directly related to church and the Christian life and things like that.

And I can find myself I've gone through a week, and I've been very, very, very busy spiritually. There's been a lot of action. And I suddenly feel like, "Hey, yeah, I'm connected with God." But I've spent very, very little time with God.

And I think it's important for us to not substitute action for as far as some of the peripheral things for a substitute that for our personal one-on-one time with God. And I want to look briefly. I think in Revelation chapter two, when Jesus is talking to the churches, I think this is something that the church was struggling with. This is the loveless church. And what Jesus said to them was, He says, "I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. You have tested those who say they are apostles, and they are not, and have found them liars. And you have persevered and have patience and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary."

Lots of action. He said, "Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you left your first love." And I think that's what their love that they lost was their connection with God. And I just want to encourage us. We all live busy lives. We're all involved in multiple ministries and things like that, which are all good. I'm not diminishing that at all. I'm not diminishing the importance of gathering with His people and being involved in other people's lives. But it cannot be a substitute for personal time and connection with God.

Another verse that always gives me pause is in Matthew chapter 7, verse 22, where it says, "On that day, many will say to Me, 'Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in Your name and cast out demons in Your name and do many mighty works in Your name?'" And Jesus said, "I never knew You."

Let's be sure that we put in the time and the effort to know God.

I want to look at the next couple of verses here in chapter 15 in John, verses 1 through 9.

Actually, not 1 through 9. I'm sorry. Verses 9 and 10. "As the Father loved me, I also love you. Abide in My love." Let me start over again. I'm sorry. "As the Father loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love."

This is also true. It is important of having a connection with God. But just as important is to be compliant with God and His commandments. You cannot be connected in relationship with God without compliance with what He says and what He tells you to do. You cannot separate love for God from doing what He tells us to do.

Modern Christianity has somewhat ignored this. And it's more important of what you say, what you profess, than what you do. And it's accepted as okay. But it's actually very it's ludicrous. If you would take a typical or a typical marriage just take a typical marriage, for example.

Let's say I'm going to go completely hypothetical here, so we all can relate. Let's say you're married to Lucy. And if you're the Lucy's just flip it around, okay?

If someone would say, "I'm married to Lucy, and I love Lucy." But you would catch them somewhere dancing with Susie. And he would say, "I thought you loved Lucy." And he would say, "No, I do love Lucy. In fact, I'm dancing to how I love Lucy.

But I'm still dancing with Susie." He would say, "That's ludicrous. You can't do that." That is what profession without compliance or obedience is. It's ludicrous. You cannot say, "I love God," and dance with the devil.

It is important for our obedience to be an act of love. And that is why the connection point of being connected with God, in relationship with God, is important. You cannot separate connection or abiding and obedience. They are together. And any time that we any time that we break that connection, our actions are futile. They're of none effect.

If we obey God, if we are compliant with what He says because of our connection with Him, it is not something that we will do grudgingly. It is not something that we have to do, but rather becomes something that we want to do.

We talk about the lordship of Jesus Christ. And I believe that lordship is a choice. This is not something that God places upon us. But rather, lordship is something that we choose to come under. It's taking that yoke upon or taking God's yoke upon us and say, "Because of My love for you and My relationship, My connection with you, I want to do what You have me to do." Our obedience is motivated out of pleasing God. It's not just a checklist to get what we want. It is motivated because we love God.

And I believe that's why when Jesus said, "My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. Come, learn of Me." I believe that's what He's referring to. I think it's interesting in verse 14, after He says this, "If you're connected with Me, and if you do what I say," I think it's beautiful He said, "You are My friends. And I don't know about you, but I want to be a friend of God." It is that connection with Him. It is that identity of being one of God's people.

And then I want to look a little bit at the consequence of the connection and of the compliance. Here in verse 11, Jesus says, "These things have I spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full."

I don't know about you, but that's exciting. What is joy? Joy is the emotion of great delight caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying.

As I think about this, I have to think about back to the fruits of the Spirit of love, joy, and peace. And as we look across our world and as we evaluate our own experiences, this is all what we are searching for: to be loved, to be happy, which joy is somewhat different than happiness, and to be at peace. And I also want to think about it as it is living as designed.

It is resembling God because that's what we were created to be. And when we are within our created design, I believe that is the ultimate place to experience love, joy, and peace.

And I think that's worth dying for.

So as you think about where you rated your experience with God and your relationship with Him, and as you thought about, "Is it worth dying for?" It is.

But we have to take our responsibility to connect with God, to comply with what He says, and then we'll experience the consequences or the reward of those choices.

A few words of encouragement here at the end. Sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming. Like, "How do I start this? Do I need to read 17 chapters a day and pray for 20 minutes every hour? How do we do this?" Sometimes it's a little bit overwhelming. Like, "How do I start?" And I don't know where you find yourself. Maybe find yourself that you've been doing this for a year. It is habitual. It is something it hits 10 out of 10. And praise God if that's where you're at. Maybe you're somewhat new in your relationship with God, and you're not sure of where it rates. And you're working. You're learning how to do that.

Or maybe you're a little bit of a midlife spiritual crisis, and you're not sure the cares of life have pressed on you and have crowded out some of this time and this connection with God.

I want to encourage you to take small, consistent steps. Change or growth is accomplished through that of small, consistent steps done over and over and over again.

It takes practice. And so as you think about your connection and your relationship with God, choose something small and do that over and over again. And as you develop this practice and these rhythms with God, they will begin to compound. And those small steps done consistently over time become giant leaps forward.

I have to think about this. The thing that came to my mind as an example of this is back, once again, when I was a teenager. My younger brother, Adrian, was growing up, and we were extremely competitive. And I was always older than him, so I mastered him at most of our feats of strength and running and all these things. But it started to become apparent that he had some gifting that I did not have. And he developed into a very fast runner. And so I sort of gave that up. I was like, "Okay. Maybe we don't race anymore." And then he also started becoming very he also started becoming stronger. And his curve was steeper than mine.

And handwriting was on the wall that he was going to surpass me without a lot of effort and strength. And so we went on this I embarked on this journey to try to flatten his curve by or making my curve meet his. And so I had this whole thing of trying to exercise covertly so he wouldn't know that I was lifting weights because I didn't want him to start because that wouldn't work.

Anyway, eventually, I couldn't hide it. And we sort of got fired off about this. And we're like, "Suddenly, I want to get strong." And so we went to the library, and I got a book on fitness and working out. And what did I get? Well, you always go to the best, right? You're just the best, the expert on the subject. So I got a book that was I forget the name of it, but it was by Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it said, "How to Work Out Like Arnold Schwarzenegger." I mean, that was basically the book. It's what he did. And so, like I said, set the bar really high. So I picked someone that was extremely was very gifted genetically and was probably also having some gifting pharmaceutically to be the source of my information.

And I remember the workout. It was like I think Schwarzenegger in his when he was that's what he did. I think he worked out for four or five hours a day. That was his job. And so here I am trying to take on his workout. And I remember it was I started it. It was like Monday. And so I got this program, and it was a full-body workout in one day. I did every single muscle in the body. And it took forever. It took me all evening. And I was so exhausted. I was sick to my stomach, just shaking because I was doing it all. And I only did it twice because I couldn't sustain it.

There was no way. And I want you to and that's just to illustrate the importance of doing small, consistent things because, in the end, did I get anywhere close to Schwarzenegger? No, I didn't. I would have been much better off doing something small consistently over a period of time versus a massive length of working out for two times only doing it twice.

So take small, consistent steps. And by doing that consistently, you can build into a spiritual Schwarzenegger. I want you also to think that God is very patient. He is long-suffering with you. And He is more than willing to take your small steps and to give you what you need to build. If you think about parents and when a child starts to walk, as a parent, you don't say, "Okay. It's time to walk." And if they fall, you're like, "Hey, come on. Just walk." I mean, it's like, "Right now. Run. No, you're very patient. You pick them back up and say, "Yeah. Good job. Try again." God is doing the same with us. Just take those small, consistent steps.

I think it's also important not to get caught up in the feelings of your experience.

Sometimes it's easy to feel like, "I don't." It does feel like drudgery to me. It doesn't feel like this it doesn't feel alive.

And like many things, you go through several stages when you are beginning a practice. You first feel duty, the responsibility to do it. And then it has to move from duty to discipline. And that's the practice of where you do it. And as you develop that practice, as you develop that discipline, then it becomes a delight. And you start to experience the benefits of it. Then it's something that you do out of because of the experience you have with it. And I believe that all these things, all these practices of connecting with God follow that same progression. So just consistently keep making those steps. And ask God. Ask God to give you what you need.

Ask for growth. Ask for connection. And it says, "If we seek Him, and if we knock, He will answer us."

Christlikeness, having the character of Christ implanted in us that is the center of who we are and is our operating system, is only possible through connection and compliance with Him. Next time or not next time, sometime, I would like to then I would like to also look at the importance of community in developing the character of Christ. We looked this morning at the of our relationship with God, the First Commandment. And I also want to look at the importance of the Second Commandment, of the place that our brother fills and that we fill for our brother in this development of character and Christlikeness.

That is what I have to share this morning. I hope it can be a blessing to you and hope it can be a challenge to you. And I hope that if it spoke to you, choose one thing this week.

Maybe it's just, "Hey, I want to have a consistent connection with God's Word." Maybe it's, "I want to pray throughout the day," or, "I want to practice the presence of God in my everyday life." For me, my goal this coming week is to take to practice, take small steps in practicing the presence of God, to invite Him into every day of my life. And I hope that I can make some small steps in that. And I hope that if you're able to, you can as well. Is there any response to the message?