Checkpoints - Gather - Luke 4:14-30

Well, good morning again Listen, some of you are thinking, "This has been such a great day in the Lord's house. Let's not mess it up with a 30-minute sermon, okay? Let's just go ahead and call and be done." I got great news for you. I don't have a 30-minute sermon today. I have a 45m minute sermon. So, it's going to be a great day in the Lord's house. Just having all those baptisms. Just curious, how many of you are here specifically because you're here to celebrate someone who has been baptized? Can you just raise your hand? Wow. Thank you. So, thank you. So, can you just church that's here just say thank you for being here for them? Whether you came because of that or maybe you're just a guest here and didn't know what was going on and stopped by, please take a few minutes and fill out the connect card. It was in the handout that you received. This is just our way of connecting with you. I promise we won't bother you. I personally love to text people who come and just introduce myself. Make sure you've got my number, but if you'll take a few minutes and fill that out, you can drop it in one of our new offering boxes that we have located as you leave here today or there's a few out in the hallway as well. But that way we can just get to know you better and you can get to know us and just kind of move on with the body of Christ here. Listen, many of you know this, but before moving here, my wife and I lived in San Diego, California. And one of the things that we love doing more than anything else is go to Coronado Island. Now, if you don't know much about San Diego and Coronado Island, it is one of the most exquisite beach cities in all of Southern California. I mean, it's white beaches. It's just beautiful houses. We would just go there and we would go for three hours one afternoon and just feel like we went on a vacation. But one of the best parts about going to Coronado Island is the bridge that you have to take from San Diego land to the island. In fact, I think we have a picture of this this bridge up there. Just beautiful. I mean, you get up there and I got would always get the very pinnacle of it and I would want to look down because you would see the sailboats that way. If the picture looked the other way, you would see all the Navy ships lined up. And I love to look over it. But here's the problem. I wasn't allowed to. My wife would not allow me to look at all the beautiful sites that God had given because when I drive, I have a tendency where I look, therefore I go. Okay? So if I'm looking over the beautiful ships, I am moving towards the beautiful ships. So she had a rule. Only she would enjoy the bridge, not me. Now when we moved here, I realized there's some other just amazing views. And there's this thing called the Milliondoll Highway. you ever heard of it? And everybody had been on it. I think we have a picture of it just in case you're not sure what I'm talking about. And it looks something like that. And so I saw that online and I said, "Denise, we need to go on this. We need to go check it out." You know what she said to me? She goes, "I will never go with you to check that out." Okay? She goes, "I may check it out and you may go check it out, but there will never be a we in checking it out." Because she knows my tendency when I drive is to drift. But you know what? I think we all have that tendency, don't we? It may not be when and how you drive. But we have the tendency in our lives to drift in lots of other areas. M maybe you find yourself at times drifting with your health that just one more piece of chocolate cake. Oh, I don't need to exercise today. Oh, I can just sleep a little bit longer. And before you know, you have drifted into just bad health practices. Maybe it's not your health. Maybe it's your marriage. You know, you started saying, "I do." But you quit doing what you said, "I do." That you no longer date. You no longer have those long conversations. You no no longer do that wooing. And after months and years and years of marriage, you found that you've drifted to be almost more roommates than marriage partners. But there's so many other areas that we drift, too. All the kids who just went downstairs are going to school. And I know all of them are starting out going, "We're going to get A's this year until day two." And they have a tendency to drift to more video games or drift to not doing as much homework or drift to drawing instead of listening to teacher and their grades begin to drift. And here's what's drift happens with drifting. no matter what area of our life it is that the first moment doesn't seem like much. But then you drift a little bit more and you drift a little bit more and all of a sudden you wake up whether it's your health, whether it's relationships, whether it's your grades, whether it's your vocation, no matter what area it is that you drift and you look up going, "How did I ever get here? This is not where I want to be." yet you have no idea how you actually got there because of the drift. I think another area that we find ourselves drifting so many times is in our spiritual lives, right? Oh, we can miss a Sunday at church. Oh, another Sunday at church. Before long, we miss more than we actually go. We we we stop reading the Bible on a daily basis. We pray, but more when we need something than when we're just talking to God. And there might have been a time in your life that you're going, I am passionately loving and living for Jesus. But you wake up and you've drifted so slowly but yet so far that you're going, "My spirituality looks more like an empty religion than an empty an intimate relationship." And so we're going to begin this series today called Checkpoints. And here's why we're starting this series. It's a fiveweek checkpoint. Check five fiveweek series called Checkpoints. And the reason is because we all have drift. And if we can establish in our own life some checkpoints, some markers to make sure when we begin to drift, if we see the marker, the spiritual marker in front of us and we realign our spiritual life to it. I think it really helps us to stay on the straight path. Not the straight path of being better, but the straight path of being more intimate in a relationship with Jesus. And so if you're here this week, you picked a great great week to come because we're just starting this series. In fact, here's a reason why it's so important that we do this series because we want to follow Jesus. In fact, let me just share with you a verse and it's found in Luke 9 23. And in this verse, Jesus is talking to his specific his followers, his disciples. And he knew they would have the tendency to drift. He knew the very dynamic of human nature whether it's our marriage whether it's relationships whether it's our job you fill in the blank but he knew spiritually that even his followers would have the tendency to drift and so this is what he said in Luke chapter 9 23 he says then he said to the crowd if any of you wants to be my follower you must give up his own way take up your cross daily and follow me. He must pick up his cross. He must come follow me and follow me. Circle that word, that phrase, follow me. You see what Jesus was doing as he talked to these people that want a relationship with him. He wasn't setting up a bunch of dos and don'ts. He wasn't set a bunch setting up a bunch of rules. He was setting up a relationship. And he said, "Follow me." That's how you'll keep from drifting. That that's the antidote to it. You just have to follow Jesus. So if I'm one of those listeners, I'm going, "This is awesome." In fact, I might even pack my bag like his disciples did. And I followed Jesus wherever he went. Think how easy his disciples, his 12 disciples had it. If Jesus walked to Jerusalem, guess where they walked? To Jerusalem. If he stopped to pray, guess what they stopped to do? They stopped to pray. If he stopped to do some miracles, guess what they did? They would stop and help him. They had it so easy, I feel like, when it comes to following him. But can I be real honest with you? Now when I can't touch and see and feel Jesus, it seems a little bit more difficult to me because while Jesus is real and scripture says he gives us the Holy Spirit, it's still not an entity that I can touch and feel and watch. I can't see the footprints in the ground like his disciples did 2,000 years ago. Yet, he gives us these instructions to follow me. Now, here's what I know about God's word. God's word may not tell me everything I want to know, but it never leaves me guessing to what I should know. And so throughout Jesus's ministry, he gave specific ways, specific things, specific signs, if you will, specific spiritual markers that are what it looks like if we are to follow him. And that's what we're referring to as checkpoints. So, if you've ever found yourself in a spiritual drift, you have come a great week as we learn how not to and how to counteract that drifting. In fact, I want to try something here for just a second. This is audience participation. Okay? So, if somebody's next to you starting to sleep right now, can you go ahead and nudge them right here? Has anybody in here at any point in your life, whether now or a different season in your life, have you ever found yourself spiritually drifting? Raise your hand. Okay, look around. Okay, you think Jesus knew what he's doing when he set these checkpoints up? Absolutely. Because he knew we would face and experience what we experience in our spiritual lives now. So, next five weeks, five spiritual checkpoints. Here's my challenge to you. Make sure you come the next five weeks, okay? because you don't want four because if you get four out of five, you'll be doing better than you are, but you still may not be going the right direction. And let me just go ahead and give these checkpoints to you just as you're kind of thinking them through right now. Here's the five spiritual checkpoints that we'll be looking at over the next few weeks. Gather, serve, connect, invite, and give. The preacher is faster than the computer people. You got all those up there right there. together, connect, give, invite, and serve. Each week we will cover a different one. And the one that I want to take a little bit more time today and kind of narrow in on the remainder of our time is the first one. And it's gather. And in fact, gather is what we're doing right now. When we say gather, it is the people of God, the family of God, the followers of Jesus who gather weekly in this environment. We gather to worship. We gather to study God's word together. We gather to celebrate people's relationship with Jesus. We gather to pray. We just gather weekly in a corporate envir environment like this. Now, I realize this that there's other times throughout the week that you may gather with other followers. You may do it in a small group. You may meet for dinner. So, there's different ways that you express community. But when we use the word gather in our five checkpoints, we are specifically referring to moments on Sundays when we all gather corporately together. In fact, I want to give you a definition. If you're taking notes in your handout, you can write this one in there. And here's what we say gather is. It is centering your life around God's presence and God's people. Think about that for a second. When we gather, it is centering your life around God's presence and God's people. You see, just because you sit in a chair here doesn't mean you're gathering. How many times have you thought, "Oh, it's Saturday night. We need to go to church tomorrow. I don't really want to go." So, you sleep as long as you can. You hit that snooze button as many times you can. You get in here and you're more looking at your watch, not when it starts, but when it's going to be over. you don't really think about. You're not centering your life on God's presence. And oftentimes, we don't even center ourselves on God's people. We may be centering our rear on God's chairs, but we're not centering our lives on God's people and God's presence. And so, when we talk about gathering, it is more than a physical sitting. It is a heart preparation. It is more than where you place yourself. It is more where you place God in your life. Gathering with other people. And so as we think about this idea of gathering, here's what we need to understand. It is such an important piece of the spiritual life that Jesus himself prioritized it. Let me take you to Luke chapter 4. There's a verse when he was just beginning his ministry and he was at probably at the peak of his fame. Everybody knew about Jesus. Let me read for you in Luke 4:14-16. It says, "Then Jesus returned to Galilee and he was filled with the Holy Spirit's power." So, like I said, he was in this place of his ministry that he was doing miracles and he was teaching and crowds would gather wherever he went and reports about him spread quickly throughout the whole region. And he taught regularly in the synagogues and was praised by everyone. And then look in verse 16. And when he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual. Don't miss that word. That word is the key in really understanding what's going on. He went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and he stood up to read the scriptures. I've got to believe that at this season of his life, Jesus might have been exhausted. The Bible doesn't tell us this, but have you ever been in that season where there's not enough hours and day to complete all that you need to complete? That's where Jesus was. I mean, he couldn't walk somewhere without somebody wanting to heal, somebody wanting him to teach. He was sought after. Come over here. Come over here. Would you come over here? He could walk down the street and crowds would gather around him. So, he wasn't just physically giving up himself. He was emotionally giving up himself. He was mentally giving up himself. He was spiritually giving up himself. You would think this is Jesus. You don't get much more spiritual than Jesus. This is God's son. You would think that if anybody's allowed a Sunday to play hookie from the synagogue, which is what we would call church today, it would have been Jesus. But what did it say? He went as usual. It was his practice to go. It was a thing that he would do. You see, when he came to the village of Nazareth, his home, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath. Here's what Jesus realized. And if you can take anything away from today, if you only get this nugget, this is the nugget I want you to get. Even if you're not taking notes, I want you to grab a piece of paper and write this down because this is the foundation of when we talk about gather. This is the foundation of it. And here's the point I want you to write down. Jesus followers intentionally protect the priorities that matter the most. Jesus followers intentionally protect the priorities that matter the most. And I believe as I look at that passage in Luke and it says Jesus as usual went to the synagogue. Jesus says that's a priority that I have to protect. That is an action that I must do. Everything else comes and goes but this one must stay consistently. You see when he went to the synagogue he went to teach. Everybody wanted him there, but it was for himself, too. Because he knew in the gathering of God's people, when he worshiped, when he prayed, when the scriptures were read, when there was fellowship with other believers, he knew at that moment that God would be doing something in him to recharge him for the next thing. Can you imagine going to gas station and you need to fill up your car? Imagine it was 30 or 40 years ago when there'd actually be somebody there that would put the gas in your car full service. And so you pull up and you roll down the window and said, "Fill her up, please." And the person went over there, the gas attendant went over there, and got the the gas pump. And he went to stick it in. And just as he's about to stick it into your car to fill your car up with gas, you just start driving around the gas pumps. And that gas attendant, and I'm sorry if you're under 30 years of age, you have no idea what I'm talking about here, but just pretend here for a second. That gas attendant is trying to put it in, and you just keep circling and circling and circling. And he's looking at you and he's trying to put it and you just circle again. What's finally going to happen? You're going to run out of gas because it was in that moment of being filled up that you could then go out. And that's exactly what Jesus is talking about when he says making the gather coming together at the synagogue, coming together at church a priority of everything that we do. You see, when we gather with God's people, God does something in us that we desperately need. When we gather with God's people and we center on his people and his presence, God does something in us that we desperately need. You might ask the question, so what does he do? What is this thing that I need? Here's the goodness of God. It's different for every one of us. There's sometimes I've gathered with folks at church and I just needed a word. I just needed something the the preacher said that day. I just needed to hang on to that. There's other times that I've come together at church and it was the hug of somebody that I needed more than the word that day. This is sometimes just watching someone else live out their life going, "Okay, that inspired me to go live my life out better tomorrow for Jesus." [snorts] But when we come together and we gather, God does something unbelievable that we need in our lives. Now, let me just say if you're watching at home, there are some of you watching at home that can't physically get here. I'm so glad that we have on video liveream that somebody can watch it at home. You are here with us. Okay? You may not be in the room, but you are here with us. But there's the other side of live stream, too. I can watch it at my convenience. The mountain sound better than gathering. Hanging out and sleeping late sounds better than gathering. So, I'm not here to condemn anybody online or you I watch it online another time. But here's what I say. The best option is when you physically can can to gather in this room. Because think about this. You may not need anything that anybody else in this room can give you, but somebody next to you might need what you can give them. And so, when you stay alone and do it solo, we're missing out what the body of Christ is designed for. In fact, let me just share with you if you're taking notes. Here are some benefits. Like gathering together, what do we get out of gathering together? Here's several things. If you're writing this down when we gather to together, God reenters my heart. Every week we drift a little bit, don't we? I mean, the war world pulls us too much and there's a little bit of s re pulling my heart away. And gathering together like this reenters my heart. It's not centered on my success. It's not centered on my comfort. Fear can can off-center us. Control can off-center us. When we come together and we gather, God will use it to reenter my heart towards him. I wrote this down. Gathering red redirects my affection to the one who alone is worthy to be the center. All week long the world says, "No, put this at the center. No, put this at the center. No, put this at the center." And when we gather, it gives God that opportunity to reenter us. Here's something else if you're writing down. When we gather together, God reconnects me with his people. God reconnects me with his people. Isolation is where discouragement grows in faith often weakens. Gathering with people reminds me that I'm not in this alone. [snorts]

You know, I think the way Satan does it, he's like, "Hey, I don't want you to stop going to church. That'd be crazy. Satan lies to us just like he lied to Adam and Eve in the very first sin." He goes, "No, no, no. You need to go to church, but you can miss this Sunday. It's no big deal." Next thing, oh yeah, just watch it online. You're still catching the sermon. And Satan just keeps redirecting and removing us and just just moving us away from his people. And here's what I've seen happen to so many people. You miss four or five or six weeks, four or five to six weeks of not just worshiping, but connecting with people that you know. Now, watch this. I've learned from all these years of experience in ministry, about the fifth or sixth week that you miss and you finally decide to go back. You know what? Most people go home going, "Okay, that was awkward. Felt like I don't even know those people. I feel so distant. May maybe maybe those aren't my people. And here's why. Because Satan sells the just the false bill of goods and he moved you and he moved you and he moved you and he drifted and you drifted and you drifted and now the people of body of Christ no longer feel like your body of Christ. Here's a third thing if you're writing down. When I gather with God's people, one of the benefits is God reggrounds me in biblical truth. The world spends all week shaping my beliefs with its values and promises. But when I come and I hear the word of God, it plants the word of God. Plants my feet into the word of God. The psalmist wrote, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." But the world comes in and gives us different better lights, supposedly better lights. And so it reggrounds me in biblical truth. Here's the next one. When I gather, God reshapes my thinking. The longer I follow my own thinking, the more I begin to think like the world. Think about this for a second. Getting God's word for 30, 40 minutes on a Sunday morning as we gather. But how much news and how much media we get so much other saturation of other information of other truth there and it's natural that our thinking begins to align with the thinking of all these voices we hear and so gathering allows that time every week to go and know God my thinking is your thinking your thinking is my thinking that's how I want to operate I loved in the video testimonies if you as you watch Rose, little Rosa, second grade. She said, "My daddy gave me God's word and said it says this." That is the reentering her mind. That is the reshaping her thinking. Her dad going, "It is not even what I say as your father. It is what God's word says." Let me give you one more. If you're taking notes, write this one down. God rekindles my love for Christ. the routines, the pressures, the stress can just seem like it puts water on my passion for Jesus. I mean, it happens in all relationships, right? I mean, how many times have you gone through just stressful family situations or just busy family rhythms and you look up to your spouse, you look up to your child, you look up to whoever's around you in those relationships going, "Man, do we even know each other?" Because all the stuff of life pressed in, pressed in. And here's what happens first and most of all when life happens like that. Who goes first? It's the people closest to us because they'll always be there for us. And so we begin to step away and our emotions begin to pull away from people. The same thing happens in our relationship with God when life gets busy. Yes, God's there, but he's saved because he'll always be there. And our emotions begin to pull away from him. For me, when I gather on a Sunday morning, that's why the worship part of our service is so important because it is a moment that I can emotionally reconnect with God. Some sometimes people ask me, Keith, when you sing and you worship, why do you raise your hand? Well, I'm glorifying him, but I'm reconnecting with him because the world has zapped my emotions. Now, my relationship with Jesus is far greater than emotions. But I don't want a relationship with Jesus without the emotions. It's a holistic relationship that he gives us. And so when we gather, it rekindles our love for Christ. Now, you may be sitting there thinking, "Well, Keith, all those things I can do on my own, right? Like, I can read the Bible on my own to go up the mountains and just experience God up in the mountains in his nature. I can do that. I can pray as I drive. I don't have to gather to get all that. I can reenter. I can regground myself. I can even rekindle my love for Christ. And I can do it just fine all alone. Here's what I would say. I hope that you're doing it alone. I hope God's word in this room is not the only time you get it. I hope that your worship of God and the rekindling of your emotions for God is not just happening for an hour on Sunday morning. I hope it's happening seven days a week.

But to say I can do it alone and I don't need others is going directly against the way that Jesus walked. You see, if you look in scriptures, Jesus often rekindled his own spiritual life alone. There's a number of times in the gospels that said, "And he went away to solitude place by himself." So, there was some alone time in there. But here's what we have to understand that if we're following Jesus, remember when we talk about following Jesus, we're taking the same steps he's taking, we may not see him. So, we're looking for these spiritual signs, these spiritual checkpoints that he's given us. And gathering is one of them. Jesus prioritized gathering. Remember, we read in Luke, it was his regular routine that he came to the synagogue. It is our regular routine that we gather at church. And so yes, it is alone, but it's not either or. It's both. And we have alone intimacy with God, but we have corporate intimacy with God. I often think about it this way. Gathering is like getting on a ship. Okay? Ever every Sunday, think of it this way. We get on a ship together. The problem is we have the wrong idea for the wrong type of ship. Most followers of Jesus think the ship that we're gathering on a Sunday morning is a cruise ship. It's here for me. What do you have for me? What can I do today? What can you do to make me happy? It's all about me. And if I miss this cruise ship, I'll catch another one next week. And so it's just all about me. When we gather, it's not a cruise ship. It's an aircraft carrier. We gather because we're about to be sent out. Think about that for a second. The only reason aircraft carriers have a the only purpose they have is to send out the planes in the fighting the spiritual in the warfare. When we gather together on a Sunday, it is like an aircraft carrier and that we are gathering to be sent out. That's why we need to reenter our heart. That's why we need to regground with the scripture. That's why we need to reshape our minds. That's why we need to rekindle our relationship because it's coming here that God's about to be sending us out. If you've been around here very long, there's an expression that we say at the end of every service. You know what that ser that expression is? And we don't say it and that by accident. It is on purpose. We are done being the church in here. Now, let's go be the church out there. We are done gathering in here and getting filled up so we can go spiritual warfare so we can go live our life out there. That's why we gather. It is as much about what I get out of it is what I need to put out into it. At this point in the sermon, this is when you're supposed to be shaking your head. Aren't you glad you came this week because you don't have to feel guilty. It's next week and the next week that we got to check you out, right? Do you realize this? The average church attendance in America, if you ask somebody, "How often do you go?" and they say, "I'm a regular attender." So they classify them as a regular attender. The average church attendance for a regular attender in the United States of America is one out of every four weeks. Now, you may say that's regular. It's regular. One out of every four weeks. in Jesus' time in that book and in Luke when we read it they would meet regularly weekly on the Sabbath. And so really the following the footsteps that we're following of Jesus is to meet weekly together for all these things. [snorts]

In the book of Hebrews the writer says this let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves. He was writing to a group of people and he could have written that as as as relevant today as he did 2,000 years ago, but they had gotten busy. Their priorities had gotten out of whack. They had lost focus. And he said, "Let us not give up the habit of meeting regularly." And so, here's what I want to do as I close here. I want to give you, and we're going to do this every single week. I'm going to give you what I'm refer to as next steps. If we're following Jesus, what next steps do we need to do in our own lives? But I realize this, following Jesus is not a onesizefitsall. We're all at different places in our spiritual lives. And so the next step for one person might look different for the next step of the next person. And so each week as we wrap up in this checkpoint series, as I deliver the next steps, I'm going to deliver them in three different phases. Crawl, walk, run. Think about a little child just starting to get off his knees. They or to move at all. What do they do first? Crawl. You don't look at a six-month old going, "Run, run, run, run, run." You look at the six-month-old going, "Okay, can you crawl? Can you crawl?" And when that child starts crawling, what's the next stage they do? They walk. And then they eventually start running. And so I'm hoping as I give these next steps every week, it would allow you to value where where you are in your spiritual life and take the next step, the next level of what God wants you to do. So if you're taking notes, here's the first one. The next step, if you're just like, oh yeah, I'm one of those one and four, one in five, one and six. Sometimes if it's convenient, here's what I would suggest. Take the next step, and that is the crawl is simply be consistent. Jesus met as usual. move your somewhat sometimes when it's convenient attendance on a Sunday to more of a regular attendance. And so here's my real challenge to you. If you're in that crawl category, I'm going to give you a very objective, measurable goal for yourself. Attend three out of every four Sundays. Make it a commitment. Okay, fall's going to start. It's just around the corner. Every month, I'm gonna attend at least three out of every four Sundays. Now, that might be arranging your weekend. That might be arranging Saturday night. You got the you you get to flex all that out, but just attend. That's a crawl stage for you. And you're going, "Well, Keith, just attending that you you said it's more than just sitting in a seat." But you got to get s in a seat before you do the next part of it. So, if you're a pretty regular attender and you you can probably Yeah. Three out of four Sundays I'm here most of the time. Let me give you the walk stage. Okay. So, this would be the next level of of stepping. Be prepared. Can we all admit we probably come to church unprepared? We're It starts at 9:00. If we can get there by 9:05, that's a good Sunday. And we run in and we sit down and we are no more prepared. Remember that we are with God's people and God's presence. If I sent an email out this next week said, "Guys, y'all need to be here because God is going to be here." Like in presence, God is going to be here. Would that change how you attended? Absolutely. Well, God's Holy Spirit is here every single week. And so, here's my challenge. If you attend regularly, but you can evaluate going, "Yeah, but sometimes I'm just showing up and I've got about 15, 20 minutes into it, I finally got my mind where it needs to be. I've moved my heart a little bit where it needs to be." Come prepared before you ever get here. Um, attend every Sunday and prepare your heart before you worship. Now, we're going to do something starting next Sunday. The staff doesn't even know about this, so I hope they're listening right now. Most of you may not know this. Through those doors right over to there to my left, we have a beautiful chapel. It is one of the most peaceful, just God, if you can call it God- centered rooms. It is just rich. And starting next Sunday, we're just going to It's always open, but we're going to make sure it's open. We're going to just have some soft music going in there. Here's my challenge to you. Come 10 minutes before the service and go spend five minutes in there, just you and God before you ever step in here, just to prepare your heart. Now, could you prepare your heart right here? Absolutely. That room is not like special. You have to go there. But it's just a place that you can go to kind of trigger your preparation. My my real challenge is to you, and I promise I'm not looking my wife when I say this. My real challenge is come 15 minutes early. Sorry honey, I'm in trouble later. Come 15 minutes early. That way, you're not rushing. You're preparing the drive. You're getting yourself ready. I I have a routine when I come to church. I have a certain way that I drive that I don't do the rest the week. And [snorts] I always have some worship music on. And I think I've shared this before. I drive some I I don't even know what what reservoir it is, but it dead the street I'm on dead ends into the reservoir. And one time when I was driving, I saw this eagle. Like that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. So every Sunday when I drive, I'm going, God, can I see that eagle? But then it triggers my mind to say, "But God, can I see you at church?" It's just a routine, some triggers that I get into. Here's the third one, and I'll wrap up this one. Maybe you do come regular. Maybe you do come prepared and your heart's ready. Here's the third one. Run. The run step is be intentional. And here's what I wrote. Attend every week and intentionally help someone else feel seen, welcomed, and connected. So, I've come. I'm regular here. I've prepared my heart. But now I'm looking, God, who do I need to connect with? Who needs a hug? Who needs me? Ask me to sit by them. Who needs me? Because remember, gathering is more than just the word of God. It is the fellowship of his people. It is the presence of God and is the presence of his people. And so maybe God's nudging you to wrap people around you with it. So the first checkpoint, first checkpoint is gather. Now, we're giving you something else, too. You've got the steps to take. When you came in today, hopefully you received this. This is this is not the handout. This is a a a devotional. And so what we're producing and we've done this in the past and many of you have had comments about it. There's a daily devotional every day over gather. And so I really want to encourage you and challenge you. Take this home today and take five minutes a day and sit with God and do that one for that day. Here's why. Because now God's word is taking and he's sinking in deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into you to drive home the very thing that Jesus is showing us. Because we know this and we've all recognized without some checkpoints in our life, we will drift. And so what we want to do is follow Jesus in the first step, the first checkpoint is gather. Will you pray with me? Father, we come before you now. And and your word, thank you that it's real. Thank you that your word speaks to us. Thank you that your word convicts us without just beating us up. And so we all confess that we have a lot of priorities in our life and and life can just sometimes squeeze you out. So thank you for the body of Christ that you designed. Thank you for the church that you set up. Thank you for the rhythms that you created. And may we be a people who prioritizes your presence and your people as we gather. And we pray this in your holy name. Amen. Amen.