Because I Said I Would

[00:00:01] So I want to ask the Lord to come into the room. So I'm going to start us with a prayer. If you want to bow your heads, close your eyes. [00:00:12] Dear Father, we are so grateful to be here tonight. Lord, we're grateful to come before you. [00:00:23] Lord, I ask that you would reveal yourself. [00:00:27] I ask that we could feel the presence of your Holy Spirit, that something may be shifted in our mind tonight. I love you. I trust in you. Thank you. It's in youn good Son's name I pray. Amen. [00:00:44] So about 15 months ago, my husband and I welcomed the most perfect, beautiful, amazing baby girl into the world. I think we have a picture. There she is. [00:00:57] Selah is. Yeah, she deserves a clap. I agree. [00:01:02] I agree. She's the coolest baby I think I've ever met. I'm sorry if there's other babies in the room, you can close your ears, but I just think she's the best. I think that she's fun and cool and smart and confident and opinionated a little bit. [00:01:24] I really like her a lot. [00:01:27] And after I gave birth, I was in the postpartum phase and I started feeling really antsy to get back to myself. [00:01:38] I had made some goals while I was pregnant that I was really excited to start, and I just couldn't wait to be able to make decisions for me again. I was excited to sleep on my stomach again and to eat sushi and to be able to go in hot tubs and try a cold plunge for the first time. [00:02:00] I didn't love being pregnant, and so I was excited to have my body back for me. [00:02:06] And for some reason, I. I really don't know why. This wasn't something that I wanted, but I really wanted to start running when I was pregnant. And, you know, the doctor tells you that you can't really do anything while you're pregnant that you didn't do before you were pregnant. And I definitely didn't run before, so I couldn't do it until I was cleared after I gave birth. And so it was something that I had done, like in middle school track, like seventh grade track. And I hated it. [00:02:48] I dreaded the practices I would hide so I didn't have to run the two miles every day. I just. I like when I see a track. I still kind of get triggered. My sister feels the same way. We just don't like it. And so for some reason, I had this urge to run. I'm not sure why. [00:03:07] And I would tell myself every day, why don't you go for a run? You Said you wanted to let today be the day, go for a run. I would set alarms with the expectation of waking up and putting on my shoes and going outside and going for a run today. [00:03:29] And fast forward about a year, and I hadn't taken one single step in my plan to run. [00:03:39] I hadn't even put my shoes on one time. [00:03:43] And I didn't even attempt to follow through with my word. [00:03:51] And then my sister told me that she was going to sign up for a turkey trot. This was this past Thanksgiving. And I said, dude, I've been wanting to run and I want to do it with you. And so we signed up and I held myself accountable. So I had to put down the money to sign up. So I was like, okay, you paid for it, so now you have to do it. And I finally woke up and I put my shoes on and I went for the stupid run. [00:04:20] But the problem was that I didn't have any running shoes. I really don't have that many tennis shoes. I have street shoes. [00:04:30] The only pair of tennis shoes I had was a pair of Nike Air Max, which you shouldn't even be working out in these, let alone running. [00:04:40] If you're a runner or if you've run before, I'm sure you know that the difference shoes can make. And so the next day I just. I had the worst shin splints. Like, I could barely even, like, touch my leg, it hurt so bad. And it was. [00:04:58] Every step was the worst step I had ever taken. Like, my feet hurt, Everything was the worst. But I told myself that I was going to run every day. And so I went to the store and I bought new shoes. [00:05:13] And later that day I went for another run and it was even worse than the first day. And my shin splints were splinting up to my shoulders and I was tired within like 30 seconds. [00:05:28] But I said I would do it and I didn't stop. And I ran the mile. And then the next day I woke up and I ran. And then the next day I woke up and I ran. And. And every day I was strengthening muscles that I hadn't used in 15 years. [00:05:48] And then I started to add a mile and I started to run further. And on Thanksgiving morning, you could toss a picture up. Taylor, Anthony and myself ran the four mile turkey trot in Medina. And it was great. Yeah, it was great. [00:06:03] Our goal was to not walk, and we didn't, which was great. [00:06:10] I for sure thought I was going to walk, but I didn't. And Anthony was a much better runner than Us. And he would sprint ahead of us and then come jogging back and run with us for a little bit. He probably ran, like five and a half miles just because he had to come back to us so many times. [00:06:29] But the only difference between last year, me telling myself every day, you know, setting the alarms, the whole situation, just like, not doing it, and then this year, finally being able to do it, was that really, I just. I made a decision about the kind of person that I wanted to be. [00:06:53] And it was a lot bigger than the running thing. [00:06:57] I just. I made a decision that I would be the kind of person that does what she said she would do. [00:07:08] Tonight's message is titled Because I said I Would. [00:07:14] Integrity is a character trait that I have always respected the most in people I value so much. Sturdy, solid, honest, trustworthy people. [00:07:29] People who do what they said they were going to do. [00:07:33] People who don't do what they said they wouldn't do. [00:07:38] And every year, my family and I, we choose a word for the year. [00:07:43] It's a word that we want to cultivate deeper into our character. It's a word that we. [00:07:50] They want to focus on for one year, and hopefully by the end of the year, we'll be better in it. [00:08:00] And this year, I decided that I wanted to choose the word integrity. [00:08:08] I feel like it's something that I haven't always been the best in. It's something that I think that for most of my life, I was pretty good at doing what I said I would do for other people. Like, not the best, but I wasn't bad at it. But I think that the thing I struggled with the most was doing what I said I would do for me. [00:08:34] I feel like I couldn't trust myself. [00:08:38] I feel like if I said I was going to do something just in my own head where. Sorry. [00:08:44] In my own head where nobody, nobody else even knew I made that promise. I kind of knew in the back of my head, you're probably not going to do it. [00:08:55] And because it's something that I valued so much on other people, I wanted to be that person. [00:09:00] I want to be the kind of woman that does what she said she would do, even if it's just to myself. [00:09:07] I want to be reliable and accountable and trustworthy. [00:09:13] And I think that in order to have integrity, you have to have discipline, you have to have habits, and you have to. I think that it's kind of married to discipline. It doesn't come overnight. [00:09:36] Discipline helps us uphold our integrity. [00:09:42] I think that if integrity is, like, the goal, it's the house that we're trying to build. That discipline is the foundation, discipline are the bricks. Discipline is what's used to build the character. [00:09:58] And this week, I was listening to a sermon by a pastor named Robert Madhu, and he asked this question. I want to ask it to you. [00:10:11] He said, will your current level of discipline sustain the kind of leader that you want to be? [00:10:20] Will your current level of discipline, your habits, the things that you do every day, your routine, is that going to sustain the kind of leader you want to be, the kind of dad you want to be, the kind of mom you want to be, the kind of friend or student or athlete or brother or sister? Whatever it is that you're working towards, whatever it is you're leading in your life, does your current level of discipline sustain that person? [00:10:55] This brings me to my text for tonight. It's Hebrews 12, starting at verse number one, if you want to toss it on the screen. It says, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up, and let us run with, with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith because of the joy awaiting him. He endured the cross, disregarding its shame. [00:11:38] Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne. [00:11:45] This is one of my favorite scriptures in the whole Bible. I could spend the rest of this night on this first paragraph. If those were the only words that I spoke tonight, it would be a better sermon than I could ever write. And the author of Hebrews is actually responding to his words from chapter 11, the chapter before it, when he's laying out all of these great examples of faith, all of these men and women who came before us, the figures who didn't get to see all of them, didn't get to see the promises that God had fulfilled in their lifetime. But still they endured. Still they kept the faith. [00:12:28] People like Noah, people like Abraham, people like Sarah and Isaac. It's the hall of fame of the men and women who came before us. We are part of a long tradition of those who trusted in God. [00:12:47] But tonight I want to spend time on the next section, starting at verse three. [00:12:55] It says, think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people. [00:13:01] Then you won't become weary and give up. [00:13:05] After all, you have not yet given your lives and your struggle against sin. And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children. He said, my child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline and don't give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those that he loves and he punishes each one that he accepts as his child. As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and not really his children at all. Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn't we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits and live forever? For our earthly Father disciplined us for a few years, doing the best that they knew how. But God's discipline is always good for us so that we might share in his holiness. [00:14:06] I love this part. It says, no discipline is enjoyable while it's happening. It's painful. [00:14:15] You could go to the next slide, but afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. [00:14:27] So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weakened knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall, but become strong. [00:14:40] Just in this. In this one paragraph, the word discipline is used 10 times. [00:14:48] I mentioned to you earlier the pastor named Robert Madhu. He preaches at a church called Social Dallas. And I really like him. I listen to his sermons every week, and he gave a beautiful interpretation on Hebrews 12. [00:15:03] And in the sermon he argued that discipline is the foundation to becoming the you that you long to be. [00:15:15] He said that everyday decisions affect our next decisions. [00:15:19] I want to explain that a little bit so we'll go back to the running situation. [00:15:28] When I started the discipline of running, I started doing it every day, creating a habit out of it. I started wanting to eat better. And when I started eating better, I started having more energy. And when I had more energy, I started waking up earlier, before my family woke up, which made me have really, really quality quiet time, quiet, intimate time in the presence of the Lord. [00:15:57] I started reading longer in my Bible in the mornings, and I started studying better and understanding more clearly. You see, one area of discipline becomes decisions that are better and better and better every step of the way. [00:16:14] But I also believe that the opposite is true. That if I decide to sleep in one day, then my God time gets cut in half. And if my God time gets cut in half, I feel half full all day, which makes me feel Short fused with my husband, which makes me feel guilty, which makes me feel less confident, which makes me break my promise of working out, which makes me break my promise of being patient or my promise to go to bed earlier. You see, it's all a domino effect. [00:16:49] And I think that we have to learn that discipline is falling in love with the private wins. [00:17:00] The wins that nobody else is ever going to see. [00:17:05] The moments where you pay your debt off little by little, paycheck by, by paychecks slowly chipping away. [00:17:14] The moments where you stay up late after your babies are in bed and you get out the workout mat and you work out even though it's the last thing you want to do. [00:17:27] The moments where you get off work late and you still have to study and so you spend the rest of the night studying. [00:17:36] The moments where you hold your kids hands, you pray over them and you teach them what a life of faith looks like every single night. [00:17:51] The moments when in the morning before the sun rises, the house is still asleep. [00:18:00] When you get on your hands and knees and you just plead with God. [00:18:07] It's the moments that no one's ever going to see. [00:18:12] But discipline is when you slowly win the victory over self. [00:18:18] It's when you slowly win the victory over excuse. [00:18:23] Abraham Lincoln said that discipline I love this is choosing between what you want now and what you want most. [00:18:34] I want to look at verse seven. [00:18:38] It says as you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. [00:18:47] Who ever heard of a child who was never disciplined by its father? [00:18:52] You see, the author of Hebrews isn't talking about self discipline, he's talking about divine discipline. [00:19:03] And I think that sometimes we want God our savior, God our comforter, God our protector, God our provider, which are beautiful wonderful things that He. He's all of those things. [00:19:20] But, but I don't think we always want God our perfect corrective father. [00:19:29] We don't always want him to tell us how to live. [00:19:32] We don't always want him to tell us how to use our money or ask us to forgive the person who betrayed us. [00:19:44] We don't always want him to convict our hearts to stop looking at the things that we've gotten so comfortable looking at. [00:19:52] We don't want him to ask us to apologize first. We don't want him to ask us to be the hero in our marriage. We don't always want divine discipline. [00:20:05] The author of Hebrews is, he's quoting the book of Proverbs where it says in chapter three, verse 12, for the Lord disciplines The one he loves. [00:20:19] We have to change our mindset from discipline as punishment to discipline as love. [00:20:30] I think that we have two definitions or at least two connotations in our mind when we hear the word discipline. [00:20:38] When we think of self discipline, it's pretty positive. We think of strength and we think of character, and we think of integrity and endurance. It's this positive connotation to the word. But when we think of the discipline of a parent, I think sometimes we think of weakness, and we think of the times where we felt embarrassed, and we think of the times where we were grounded or we had to ground our parents, or if we came from abusive homes, we. We think of toxic discipline that came at the hands of an angry parent, unfair discipline. [00:21:19] But that's not the kind of discipline that the author of Hebrews is talking about. [00:21:24] A good father disciplines. [00:21:28] The other day, I was cooking dinner, and my sweet baby girl, she was in the living room and I was at the stove, and she came running up to me screaming with delight. And she was raising her hands and she was saying, up. [00:21:44] And it's my new favorite thing that she does. She learned up. But she says it like three or four times in a row. She's like, up, up, up. [00:21:54] So I picked her up and she started pointing and reaching for the hot pan on the stove. [00:22:01] And if I were to be like, yeah, baby, you want it? You asked for it. Yeah, you can have anything that you want here. You can have it. Like, that wouldn't be a good parenting move by me. We can all agree that in that situation we would say no. [00:22:18] But I think that sometimes we ask God for that hot pan and we beg and we plead and we for the thing that he knows is gonna hurt us, and he says, no, no, you can't have that. No, you cannot go there. No, you can't date him. No, you can't date her. [00:22:43] I'm gonna say no. [00:22:47] I'm not gonna answer this prayer. [00:22:51] And I think we question God, why aren't you answering this? [00:22:55] Why are you saying no to this? I'm not even asking you this out of selfishness like this. I feel like this prayer, it makes sense. I truly think that this is what would be best for me, best for my family, best for my future. Why aren't you answering this? [00:23:12] And he's saying, because I love you. [00:23:16] I love you enough to let you go through this. [00:23:21] And I want to be really clear. If you're sitting here tonight and you're going through the gut wrenching pain of grief or loss or if you got a diagnosis or if someone you love is in pain, that's not him disciplining you. That's not what we're talking about. [00:23:42] God hates the evil and suffering in this world. [00:23:46] We see an image of Jesus when he's standing at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, who had just passed. [00:23:58] And he doesn't stand there and say, all things work together for my good. He doesn't say, you know, God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. No. What does he do? [00:24:09] He wept. [00:24:13] God doesn't discipline through retribution or payback. [00:24:19] It's the kind of discipline that leads to growth. [00:24:24] He's training us to be the kind of people that can endure the brutal realities of life. [00:24:32] In his book, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey teaches that responsibility. Can you throw that word on the screen? Responsibility. [00:24:43] Can you go to the next slide? Is actually our ability to respond. [00:24:49] Responsibility really is our ability to respond. [00:24:56] And so when we take responsibility of our life, we're changing the way we're changing our ability to respond, especially to the pains of life. [00:25:11] And a good trainer, a good trainer knows that the right amount of pain you need to endure, to suffer through, so that the next time pain comes, you can endure. [00:25:29] We ever worked out after a long time of not working out, and the next day you can't walk. [00:25:37] The next day, stairs are impossible, sitting down is impossible. You feel like your legs are going to give out all day. [00:25:47] But don't we know that for when I am weak, then I am made strong. [00:25:57] If you're lifting weight. [00:26:01] I don't lift weight. I can't. But hypothetically, if you're lifting weight, each rep gets harder. [00:26:11] Each rep feels like it's getting heavier, like your muscles are actually going to give out. [00:26:21] Some trainers say, I want you to go to failure until you literally can't do one more, because for when we are weak, then we are made strong. [00:26:37] And when you work out again and again and again and again, slowly, you're not sore in that kind of way anymore. [00:26:46] Slowly. [00:26:49] That first day when it felt like you could barely move, you could barely walk, turns. [00:26:57] And the next day you're sore, but you can get up, you can walk, you can show up. [00:27:06] And our perfect father is a perfect trainer. [00:27:11] He knows the right amount of suffering that we can take, so the next time we can endure, he knows the right things that we need to walk through. So our muscle grows, so the next time it happens, we're stronger. [00:27:28] He knows the way to train us so that we have a Better ability to respond so that the next time that we ache, we can worship through it. So the next time we experience pain, we aren't so sore that we can't lift our hands to him. [00:27:43] So the next time we go through heartbreak, we aren't taken out. [00:27:47] We aren't so sore that we can't get up in the morning. We aren't so sore that we can't go to work. We aren't in so much pain that we can't show up for our family. We have the strength, we have the muscle that we need to keep our balance in the pain. [00:28:02] To still be the mom or dad that we need to be, to still be the spouse that we need to be. To still be the men and women who. Who can get up and walk, who can not grow weary, who can run and not faint. Because we're trained by the Divine Corrective Father. [00:28:25] This discipline gives us some skin in the game. [00:28:29] When our discipline grows, our integrity grows, and we become the type of person that's more generous because we said we would be. [00:28:37] We apologize because we said we would. [00:28:40] We get in his word because we said we would. [00:28:44] We're patient because we said we would. We sacrifice because we said we would. You see, we get to partner with God in this. We get to grow in our ability to respond. [00:28:59] One of my favorite Christian thinkers is the late Timothy Keller. And he said that when we enlarge our theory of life, it will increase our threshold for suffering. [00:29:13] What are you living for? [00:29:17] What is the meaning of your life? [00:29:23] If you're living for happiness, or if you're living for comfort, or if you're living to avoid pain, when suffering comes, you're going to be shattered. [00:29:38] If suffering comes and you shut down, maybe it's because you had a theory of life that wasn't adequate. [00:29:47] We need to enlarge our theory of life, allow ourselves to be trained by the divine Teacher. [00:29:58] Keller also taught a beautiful metaphor that I want to share in sailing. [00:30:04] When a storm comes, if you hold tight to the wheel and you stay pointed in the direction of your destination, it can actually get you to where you want to go quicker than if the storm never came. [00:30:26] But if out of fear and anxiety, you let go and you let the boat go wherever it wants to go, you're going to be set way off course. [00:30:39] So when the storm comes, when the storms of life come, if we take a new grip, look at verse 12. Take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weakened knees. [00:30:59] God is gonna use the storm potentially to push you to your destination way quicker than you ever would have gotten there without it. [00:31:11] So don't give up, don't let go, don't allow the ship to go wherever it wants to go because you're going to be set way off course. [00:31:22] When we learn to worship through the tears, when we learn to trust God through the confusion. [00:31:31] Because don't we know that weeping endures for a night? But what great joy comes in the morning after the affliction is over, when the storm's over? I have the muscles, I have the endurance, I have the strength that I didn't have before. [00:31:51] I want to go back up to verse three. It says, think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people. Then you won't become weary and give up. [00:32:04] When we go through the pain of life, sometimes we can let our souls get discouraged. [00:32:12] When we go through a two year bout of depression, we can have the temptation to give up, stop trying to settle. [00:32:26] We just say, this is just who I am. This is my personality. [00:32:31] Or maybe for you, you've experienced months and years of a marriage that just isn't what you hoped for. [00:32:41] The romance has faded to roommates. [00:32:45] You hear more criticism than you do encouragement. [00:32:51] You went from talking about your dreams of the future to the dinner table, being silent. Maybe for you you're experiencing the pain of an empty nest or the pain of the end of a career. Or maybe you're in a season where your kids are struggling and you just can't see any hope and you feel like giving up. What does the author of Hebrews say? [00:33:15] Consider him who endured such hostility. [00:33:19] When you feel like giving up, consider Christ. [00:33:25] Think about his ability to respond while he was enduring such hostility. [00:33:33] Hostility that we can't even imagine, pain that we can't even comprehend. Wounds that no human body should ever have to feel. What was his response? [00:33:47] Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. [00:33:54] His ability to respond is so far above filled with so much humility, such love, integrity that I can't even comprehend why. [00:34:12] Why does he respond this way? [00:34:15] Verse 2 says, for the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross. [00:34:23] What was the joy? [00:34:27] What was the joy that lay before him? [00:34:30] What was the joy that caused such beautiful character to shine? [00:34:35] What was the joy that he thought of with each insult? [00:34:40] What was the joy that he thought of with each blow, with each brutal abuse? [00:34:47] That joy was you. [00:34:51] He thought of your face, your life. [00:34:57] He thought of you. [00:34:59] He suffered for you. He took the punishment for you. He took the shame and the payment for you and for Me. [00:35:08] So what's our response? [00:35:10] What's our response to that kind of love? [00:35:14] Do not give up. [00:35:18] Do not give up. Endure. [00:35:24] Do what you said you were going to do. [00:35:27] Be trained by his divine discipline. Strengthen your tired hands. Stand up with your weakened knees. [00:35:36] I got this image in my head as I was driving here this afternoon, and I was thinking about all the times that I've gotten on my knees in prayer, when my knees felt so weak, when I felt like all I could do was just get down and plead. [00:36:01] And then I thought of all the times he lifted me from that position. [00:36:06] I thought of all the times he lifted me, that each time we get down, each time that we go to our knees, he's lifting us, he's strengthening us. [00:36:18] And if we do this right, people are going to see something beautiful about Christ. [00:36:27] If we can learn to do this right, if we can learn and grow our ability to respond, people are gonna see his way, people are gonna see his hope. People are gonna see his light. [00:36:43] And people around us, they're gonna ask, how'd you come out of that? [00:36:49] How did you get in his word every single day? [00:36:52] How did you worship after that happened? [00:36:57] I saw a video this week of a family who lost their home and the devastating wildfires that are happening in California right now. [00:37:11] And as they stood in the rubble and the ashes of what was once their home, where just three weeks ago their kids came running down the stairs on Christmas morning. [00:37:27] The house where they laughed together. [00:37:31] The home where they brought their babies home to the home where they held each other and wept over the pain of life. [00:37:42] The home where they taught their kids how to pray. Their home. [00:37:48] They stood in the ash and they held hands. [00:37:53] And as a family, they sang to Jesus. [00:37:57] They worshiped. [00:38:00] Now, this doesn't happen by accident. [00:38:03] This is not a fluke. [00:38:06] I can guarantee you that this wasn't the first time that they sang through the pain. [00:38:12] I can guarantee you that this isn't the first time that they worship through the tears. This isn't the first time that they raised their hands when all was lost. This is the fruit of a life lived in divine discipline. [00:38:27] They already had those muscles. [00:38:30] They knew what to do. [00:38:33] They'd done it before. [00:38:36] They had divine training. [00:38:40] Allow yourself to be trained by this moment, by these moments. [00:38:45] I've given you a lot of examples tonight, tonight of what you may be going through, but the truth is, I don't know exactly what you're going through. I don't know exactly what valley you're walking through right now, but Your trainer, he knows. [00:39:02] He knows exactly what you're walking through. And he's asking you to abide, to remain, to strengthen. [00:39:13] Use this as an experience for opportunity to grow, to grow your integrity, to grow your discipline. [00:39:22] Because the moments in my life where I've grown the most, I haven't been in. In the comfortable. [00:39:32] And I'm sure you know that. I'm sure you can relate. They've been in the moments where I was on my knees pleading with God, lifting my hands through the tears, strengthening my muscles each time he lifted, strengthening my faith each time he showed up when no one else would, strengthening my hope in the pain and in the suffering. [00:39:59] So this week, I challenge you to start practicing this. [00:40:05] Choose one thing, one thing that you're gonna stick to for seven days and keep your word. Do it every day because you said you were gonna do it. [00:40:18] Grow in your discipline, grow in your integrity. And I challenge you to pick something that's kind of stretching, something that might go against innately what you're good at. [00:40:33] I'll share with you the thing that I chose. [00:40:37] I am a firstborn daughter, and by nature, I struggle a little bit with control and perfectionism. [00:40:48] And I have really high expectations for myself, which creates really high expectations for the people around me. [00:40:58] And the place where that shows up most is in my marriage. [00:41:02] And I tend to criticize more than I encourage. [00:41:09] So this week, I made a commitment to myself that the only words I will speak to my husband will be words of encouragement. [00:41:21] No critical word is allowed to leave my mouth. [00:41:26] And this takes intentionality. It takes pre deciding every single day. It takes slowing down in conversations and thinking about what I'm saying. [00:41:38] It takes growing in my ability to respond. [00:41:42] So I challenge you to pick yours. [00:41:45] Something that stretches you, something that will truly grow you in your ability to respond to the people around you and the things around you. [00:41:55] Let's pray. [00:41:57] Dear God, thank you for this night. [00:42:02] Our perfect, corrective Father. [00:42:09] Lord, I pray that your name is glorified in this room tonight. [00:42:17] Lord, I pray that you would break strongholds tonight. I pray the areas where we are struggling in discipline, we're struggling in our habits, we're struggling to get it right. Lord, I pray that tonight you would change that. [00:42:35] I pray that you would shift that. [00:42:39] Lord, I pray that you would do what only you can do. [00:42:44] We love you, we thank you, we praise you and we trust you. It's in your good son's name I pray. Amen.