How to Stop Falling Back Into Old Habits
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Today I'm here to talk specifically in one area, and I'm going to tell you, I'm really passionate today, guys. I'm very passionate about this message I'm about to bring because it- it's something that has changed my life and I know it's changes a lot of people's lives. But before I get into that, I wanted to talk just like a little, something a little more serious for a moment.
And maybe you don't realize, but there's been this pandemic that's actually been sweeping the globe for quite a while now, particularly in the last few years, and it's spreading all over the Western world. Maybe you've had it affect you, maybe it's affected your family. And it's not the bird flu, okay?
It's not the bird flu, it's not the virus that shall not be named. But it's actually this, the baking of sourdough, guys It's the baking of sourdough. It is taking the world by storm, and it's affected my family. It has affected my family as well. Here's some facts. 158% increase online of discussions around sourdough baking.
158, that's just this year. And a 35% increase, just this year, on sales of sourdough. This is real life, guys. Okay, maybe not so serious, but I love all the people in my life that bake me sourdough. I love it. I actually really do love it, and I'm super excited that my husband has joined in on it. But the reality is, it's a process.
Yeah he loves baking sourdough now. And it's a process, guys. It's a process. I realized early on, sourdough making is not something for me 'cause I don't have the patience for that. Because there is a real art to creating sourdough, and now in my home I have these random jars of white floury, goopy, disgustingness sitting in my fridge at all times.
And the thing with sourdough is to create a sourdough, it begins with something called a starter. And a starter is, it's like a human baby, basically. You have to feed it, and you have to work out the ratios, this much flour and this much water, and it has to have the right amount of time to rest before you do the next.
There's like there's an actual timer. My husband has a timer, guys. He times when I have to feed the baby. All right. But this, basically that process of creating the starter it gives the living culture of the flour and water a chance to just ferment and tasty. Bubble away. But it is... Yeah, a- anyone in here, is there any sourdough bakers in the room?
Yes, I know there are. I've seen your Instagram stories, right? It is it's a passion project, and I love that. But the thing is, with the starter for a sou- this is going somewhere, I'm just telling you. ... With the starter for the sourdough, it needs to be staying active and alive, and the way in which that's done is by feeding it.
But you can also starve the starter. You can starve the starter, and it gets to a point where that cannot be used anymore to create the, what it needs to be able to help this to rise. And so whilst maybe today, Sourdough bread in itself is not super spiritual, although people that love to bake it, maybe you're saying, "It's a very spiritual experience."
That's fine. But we can actually learn a lot from this process, from this thing of the starter to come with the bread. And I love, Jesus used parables all the time, right? He took things that were happening in culture at the time, and he used it to help us to think a different way, and that's what my little loaf is here for today, guys.
So I'm gonna keep it there for now. But we wanna have a look today at what actually ends up happening in our lives, because we've all journeyed in the past, and over the last few weeks too, we've been looking at our old habits. And I'm not talking about the fact that you bite your nails, or you get up in the middle of the night for a sneaky little something from the fridge.
I'm not talking about those habits. We're talking about the habits that have a destructive nature, the ones that destroy relationships, the ones that actually stop us from stepping into who God made us to be and what he wants us to do for him. They're the habits that we've been looking at, not, and of course, that, the, in underneath that we've got f- fear. Fear is a habit some people have, that I have fear that controls my life. Complacency. Oh, I don't like getting out of my comfort zone. It's pretty comfy here right now. That can actually be a habit. And of course, moving into the bigger ones like addictions, where we are using those things to help us.
And we're all battling different things all the time that are holding us back. They're the giants in our lives, really, the giants that keep coming back to taunt us. And subconsciously or unconsciously over time, these old habits actually come to live within us, and they become that thing that we re- resort back to without even knowing, that default setting in our lives.
And just like a starter for a sourdough, we can actually feed that thing. And over the years, without even realizing, we have fed that habit bit by bit, maybe by not putting boundaries in place, not by thinking about what we're doing. We fed that thing, and it became a bubbling, living thing in our life.
And then we get to a point where we recognize, I don't wanna be like that anymore. I wanna get rid of that habit. And then I try and deal with that habit, but it keeps bubbling back bit by bit. Because for so long, I put all of my attention into feeding that baby, right? I stopped actively orientating myself to something and orientated myself to that habit And I'm speaking from my own personal experience here.
Okay? I'm not bringing this message today as an expert on how to live your lives squeaky clean with no bad habits. Not at all. In fact, I have lived this, I would like to say, the hard way in many parts of my life. But these learnt behaviors, we have a difficulty to break, but the great thing is over the last few weeks, we have been discovering that we can't do it fully on ourse- by ourselves.
We cannot do it on our own. But we can actually choose. We do have the ability to choose where we want to orientate our attention. We can choose what we wanna feed in our life. We actually can. I'm not saying it's easy, but we have the power to do that. And when I talk about the power to do that, it's not a power that we possess of our own.
It's something that has been given to us, and that's really what we want to look a little bit more at today. But we also have a power to starve. Just like you can starve a starter, it loses its ability to do what it's meant to do. We can actually starve the things in our lives that are the things we want to remove from our life, and actively choose, "I'm not gonna feed that thing anymore.
I'm gonna choose to not feed that thing anymore." And this is where we get this little sticky statement that I want to stick with you today. You starve it. How? How do we starve it? By consistently orientating towards something or someone else. And it's the someone I really want us to focus on today, and it has been a theme already this morning.
But when we start to do this, where we consistently re-orientate towards something or someone else, this is where we get the process of formation. So straightaway, it's not about me trying to suppress something that I'm trying to do on my own. I am heading into this feeding of the new, and I am being formed into something new.
Now, in the last couple weeks, we've been reading through the Book of Romans for this whole series, which has been really great, and I read this in my devotions a few months back. And in Romans, Paul, he was actually, he recognized that there was the group of people in Rome that he was writing to, they had become followers of Jesus.
They had been following what Jesus' disciples had shared with them. They were starting their own churches. They were moving on with that, but the reality of their life is that for so long, Rome was full of the law, so full of the law. And so even though they're trying to run towards what Jesus had said, the law kept bubbling up, and Paul recognized that in the Roman churches, and this is why he wrote these particular letters.
And so he begins to write an encouragement to them, and I love Pastor Len. Where is he? Anyway, this is my dad, by the way. Good job, Dad. Yeah. Great job, Dad. He talked about this just before. He was saying, Paul was saying guys in Rome, it is not about what you have to do anymore. It's a do versus a done.
Okay? In the old law, there was an outward thing you had to do. You had to do this to get approval from God. You do this outward thing, but now it's been done for you, and grace, and that, that grace for you is an inward reorientation. It's now something that is transforming in here. It's not about I have to go and do this, and go to the temple, and I have to do this, and do this procedure.
It's what is now happening in here. The reorientation begins within us. And so to look at this today, I want us to really study the three circles, and we're gonna pop it up on the screens here. Now, if you're watching at home, if you're a person online, or you're listening to this later, you can type in the three circles into any search engine, and you will get an image of this.
So you could do that now and be able to have a listen and have a look a little closer. But this is a really basic example that we love to use here, and it's the gospel message. And when I said I'm passionate about this message today, this is what I'm passionate about, guys, the message of the gospel of Jesus and what he did.
And so this, it's really lovely little image. Three circles. How it got its name, right? There's three circles. In the top corner though, we have, top left, God's perfect design. When he created the earth, he created it so beautiful just for humans and God to be together all the time. Oh, and we stuffed it up.
Humanity stuffed it up. We decided that we wanted to go our own way. I'm not talking about you personally. I'm not pointing fingers, all right? This is all, this is humanity on a whole. We decided we wanted to go our own way, and with that came sin and death. And then we head now into this brokenness that we have of the world, which is in this right corner.
And that brokenness of the world is where our old habits lie. This is the stuff that has been thrown in because we live in a world where we're trying to manage how do we live in this world. And in there, we also have all the things we self-medicate with, our addictions, the things that we do just to, the anger that's come down from my generational curse of anger in my family.
All those things sit in this brokenness through sin. But God had a plan. God said, "I'm not gonna let people have to sit in that brokenness of their sin without having a way out." And that's when he sent Jesus, and we have that at the bottom. The King, who we've been singing about today, and who I get to know personally.
Jesus was sent as a human to live a human life so that we can understand and see how did Jesus do things. I have to live a human life as well. How did he do things? But the main thing is he came and he died. But He rose again. And when He rose again, that is when there was a releasing of a spiritual rebirth.
A death, a burial, and resurrection, there was a spiritual rebirth. And because of that, the Holy Spirit was released, and now we get an opportunity to do that. The Holy Spirit is the way in which we begin to reorientate our lives. That is how, thou- that's how it happens. So in this part here, brokenness through sin, where I turn and I believe and I follow, and I start to look at Jesus and go, "Yeah, Jesus I believe you did that for me," in that little arch there, that is what we've been talking about through this whole series.
It's this process of going, "I'm going to choose to turn and believe and follow. I'm gonna look to Jesus, and I'm gonna choose that for my life, which then restores me into that perfect relationship with God that He always had for me." And we've been reading in John this week, and just yesterday, John chapter 3, I was reading it.
Jesus was talking to Nicodemus, and He said very clearly, this is Jesus' words, He said, "Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life." And that is exactly what Pauline talked about in her message. It's not a renovation. It's a complete rebuild. And that happened because of Jesus, that inward reorientation started to happen.
And so we live in this state where basically we're bouncing in and out of, "I recognize Jesus as king of my life, but I'm bouncing back into brokenness, and I'm trying again, and I'm..." And this process keeps happening, and it is hard for me. Is it hard for anybody else to live in that? Yes. It's hard for all of us, really hard.
But I love the fact that in this process of us jumping backwards and forwards and trying to figure it out, we have the complete love and grace and compassion of Jesus. And that's what Pastor Len was talking about before as well. And I want to read to you today from, h- I had a Christmas party the other day, Christmas in July, with my friends from high school.
We do every year, twice a year. And we do a game, and I won in the game, which everyone said obviously you were gonna get it." The New Testament for Gen Z And I thought at first, "Oh, it's gonna be a joke at my religion." It's not, it's actually really good. So I'm gonna read out of Romans chapter eight today.
It's just basically the gospel the New Testament in the way in which the cool kids say it nowadays. But I wanted to read for you, 'cause we're in chapter eight today of Romans. This is where all of the stuff's coming from. But I wanna read to you from Pastor Kev's scriptures last week. So this is Romans 8:1-4, and it says, "If you're down with Jesus Christ- And you ain't all about that flesh life, but you're following the Spirit, then you're in the clear.
No condemnation, my friends. The Spirit of life in Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. It's like breaking out of a bad cycle, you feel me?
The law was weak because of our human nature, but God sent his own Son in the form of sinful flesh to condemn sin in the flesh. Pretty wild, huh? The deal is that the righteousness of the law gets fulfilled in us when we walk in the Spirit, not in the flesh. So keep your focus on what matters
I actually thought it was great. When I read it, I was like, "I like the way they've said that. Thanks, Gen Z. I knew I loved you guys for a reason." So we start to starve the old. You feel me?
The mic or the- yeah, you're following. You start to s- you start to starve the old because you start to refocus on what matters. I love that. Keep your focus on what matters. If that's the only thing you take from today, take that. Keep your focus on what matters, on what has already been done for you.
'Cause when Jesus was sent, it wasn't just a plan for those people at that time, it was a plan for everyone for all time. I'm gonna continue in Romans 8 now. I'm gonna read from the NLT this time. Not as exciting, but- ... still good stuff, guys. We're gonna continue. Romans 8, now from verse five to six, and it says this: "Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit."
And so Paul knew this was something really important that people needed to get around, thinking about what you choose to give your attention to. And he continues on in verse six, "So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace."
It's a matter of life and death, guys. It's a directional change, an active directional change. And then we get down to verse 12 in the same book, Romans 8:12, and Paul says this, and I absolutely love this, and I've been rereading this over the last weeks to myself. "So dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation whatsoever to do what your sinful nature urges you to do."
You have no obligation whatsoever. You don't have to do that. Is it hard to not do it? Yeah, it's real hard. Do I have to? No, I don't have that obligation anymore because of what has happened for me. Continues on, "For if you keep on following it, you will perish. But if through the power of the Holy Spirit, you turn from it and its evil deeds, you will live."
It's meant to live. "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God." This is the whole message for us. And we can sit in this spot where we begin to complain, and we can say to God, "God, can you just do something for me to help me with all these things I struggle with? Please, just could you do one thing for me?"
I literally sent my Son to die for you. I've already done something for you, but I'll help you. I've already done the thing. That's done. You don't have to ask for me to do something for you, but I'll help you walk in it. That's the prayers that sh- we should be asking of God. Because when we become a child of God, we get the DNA of God in us, and we want to run towards the things of God.
We actively choose to not feed the starter of the things that hold us back, but to feed the things that we want of God. It's the battlefield of the mind. I choose to make room. I choose to say, I want the Spirit of God to rewrite my brain. This is a mind thing. This is a battlefield that continues on.
I will choose to let God's Spirit rewrite my brain and not me rewrite my brain. And then because of that, if we look back at the three circles, we have this ability to get back to God's perfect design. That's where the restoration happens, when I fully engage in that gift that God gave us. Because we don't break the old habits.
We don't break it, but we starve it out by feeding the new one and by truly seeing Jesus, truly looking to Jesus, truly thinking about Jesus. And I'm not talking about necessarily seeing Him with your eyes. I'm talking about feeling Him with your spirit, s- seeing Jesus with your soul and connecting into that through the Spirit.
That concept, it can feel really wishy-washy, right? I can feel Jesus. It's not. It's not meant to be weird. People have made it weird, I'm not gonna lie. People have made it weird, but it's not meant to be weird. It's meant to be an engaging with that. And we do that through the Word We do it through the word of God.
This is how we see Jesus. How do I see Jesus today? Through the word. This is why this has been crafted and given to us. It was put down, written down, hundreds and hundreds of years, all different parts, compiled together in one book that we now get to look at and go, "Oh, I really need some Jesus in my life today.
What did Jesus do in this situation?" And then the Spirit talks to us, and we start to go, "Wow, I've seen Jesus. I've been with Jesus today. I've been with Jesus." Then I begin to transform and change. There was a pastor many years ago. His name was Charles Spurgeon, and oh, man, his, some of his work is so beautiful to read.
And he started becoming a pastor when he was 19 years of age. You're never too young, right? Step out. 19 years of age, his following became so huge, of his message of the gospel, they had to build a church that could seat 6,000 people at a time, because so many people. This is like a young guy, and he worked in orphanages, and he trained other pastors.
And he had this quote that I found the other day, and I just loved it, and he said, "Any person desiring to," and we've got it up here, "to pursue life after a right fashion, you must look to Jesus, and you must continue looking unto Jesus. Indeed, think of him, consider him, study him, and in all things regard him as first and last to you."
So when we say, "Come and read your Bible," it's not a, like a daily tick and flick, "I've got to read my Bible today. You must doeth this, saith the Lord. Read thine book." It's not that. It's actually one of the greatest gifts that we've been left. This, with the Holy Spirit and the knowledge of Jesus, you're set for life.
You are set for life. And so when you choose daily, not because, "Oh, every day I've got to read my word," you choose daily to sit in the word, and you choose to read it. That is where my life begins to change, because I see the world through God's eyes. I th- see myself through God's eyes, and I'm reminded daily about Jesus.
And instead of those 15 minutes on social media, they become the f- best four hours of your day. You know what I'm saying? What if you chose to put that 15 minutes into this? What would your life be looking like? How would the struggle of your old habits begin to change if you made the priority to look for Jesus every day?
And this is my old Bible. I'm gonna talk a little bit about this in a second. But the way in which the Bible has been constructed, as we always say, we feel like they've put it maybe the wrong way around. The first part the old covenant, the Old Testament, is all about people and learning from their mistakes, learning from the people of Israel who did not yet have the Messiah in their life.
But did you know there's over 300 times in the Old Testament that it refers to Jesus? Over 300 in the Old Testament. He was on his way. And then in the New Testament, it's all Jesus. The entire Bible is about Jesus. The entire Bible is the story of God's plan. So that's why we can read the old, we can read the new.
We apply from the new because that was when Jesus was actually here. But we learn from the old, and we can see how that still applies to those people of that time, and we learn from that. But the word of God, this is one of the best things you will ever have to help you be able to get organized in getting to know more about how to change your life with him.
And so as I said, I've had this. I've got a little picture I'm gonna pop up here. This is from my Bible in here. So this Bible I've had for 26 years. It's Don't worry about that. There's so many notes in here. It's falling apart, like the back's not even stuck to it anymore. But so much, this has been my anchor in so many major things in my life, and I can never get rid of this.
I've got things underlined. I've got little notes in the sides. I've got little things that I've, oh, I remember that time, and I've written it in there. I will never, ever get rid of this thing. It's beaten up. I've driven over it with a car. I've, in Acts, there's red skin stuck to it 'cause I stuck a r- a Red Ripper, sorry, in the microwave, and it melted into my...
Doesn't matter. I will keep it forever. But this is what I underlined from this exact scripture: "Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things. But those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit." And I wrote in big letters, "Think."
Think. And so much of my life, I've come back and gone, "I just need to think. I need to think upon the right things today." So have you seen Jesus? Have you seen Jesus? And I'm sure that this would have been a really dangerous phrase back in the time of Jesus' ministry, because there were lots of people that were curious about Jesus at the time, and there were ones that were looking at him for healing, and there were some that were just bystanders, and there were some that were looking at him to prove that he was the Messiah, and there were some that were looking at him because they wanted to kill him.
There were lots of different people looking at him. But the s- thing that I saw time and time again in scripture and in stories of people today is when you fully see Jesus, and you experience that connection with his Spirit, and you see him with your own eyes, your life changes. In the Book of John, you see all the miracles of Jesus and all the people that he met with, and they met Jesus one time and their life changed.
And we have that opportunity every day. When we are battling through things, we have that opportunity every day to see Jesus, and to meet with Jesus, and to have our life changed. And it's not by us. It's not us. It's by him. So when did you last look at Jesus? Let's be honest. The world can be a busy place.
The days can go by quickly. There's a lot of things needing your attention, but when- Did you lost? Look at Jesus
And see what he did for you, and grasp the magnitude of how that is there to change your life forever
Not a story I read in a book that was written hundreds of years ago. A plan for your life, a plan for my life, a plan to help us get back to just the best relationship with God that will sustain your entire life