Gateway Church's Podcast
After the Miracle: Back to the Basics
A Gateway Sermon
This morning, I'm going to be going through about 12 different scriptures. They're all listed, of course, in your sermon handout that's in here, in your bulletin. And so you may want to follow along there or even take some notes today. We're going to talk this morning about after the miracle, back to the basics. You know, many of you have spoke about how you have experienced a miracle in the last few weeks, how God has been doing a work in your heart. And yet there's others that I've talked to that say, you know, I'm still waiting for my miracle. I've had a struggle. I've been under spiritual attack lately. God, I'm praying that you will still show up. Well, it doesn't matter if you're still waiting on your miracle or you've just had a miracle. It's still time to get back to the basics. So that's what we're going to talk about today. But as a way of testimony first, I want to tell you a little bit about miracles. I want to tell you about some miracles that happened in my life. You know, times aren't always good. And sometimes in the middle of the struggle, that's where God shows up. That's where the miracles occur in the middle of sometimes when we're kind of down, when we're really struggling with life. My wife and I, when we had our third child, the child was born prematurely. The child only lived for one day. It was a hard time. It was a time of sorrow. But I saw a miracle in what God did, the outpouring of love from the people that were around us, the pastors that came and prayed. God took and did a miracle in our heart. He took our heart and took it from being full of sorrow to being full of love, being full of joy. As we look back on that time, we think of all the miraculous things that God did in our life. A few years later, we had a year that was a year of terror. It was a year that you just didn't want to have. We had a daughter who would wake up in the middle of the night screaming every night. She would scream at the top of her lungs. She lost her balance. She couldn't walk. She was in gymnastics and she had to drop out. She was in school and she had to drop out. There was something wrong and no one could find what was the problem. We prayed. "Lord, show us what's the problem." But you know, the Lord's timing a lot of times is not what our timing is. A lot of times it takes a little longer for the Lord to get there. I pray a lot. "Lord, give me patience. Hurry up. Give me patience." We waited patiently throughout that year for God to speak to us and show us what was wrong. And finally, after a year, God showed us. She had a large brain tumor on the back side of her brain. All the tests they had been doing were on the front side and on her neurological system. They had somehow for a year missed. She had a massive brain tumor and this tumor was right by her spinal cord. So they said it was within days of being inoperable. So God did answer her prayer. He gave us time to go ahead and operate. And as we prayed, God said, "I'm going to heal her through the doctors. I'm going to bring a healing. I will bring a healing. I'm going to bring it through the doctors. And I'm going to show you every step of the way that I'm in the middle of this. As we said in the hospital room that night, it was about 6.30 in the evening. And I knew that it was too late to be able to be working on these kind of things. But as we sat there and prayed, God gave us the name of a doctor. Said, "This is the doctor that you're supposed to use. I'm going to do a miracle through this doctor." We had never met this doctor. We had never seen this doctor. But there was a name that we were given. We looked through the phone book. We found that name. I dialed that number, 6.30 in the evening. I was hoping to leave a message on an answering service and say, "Would you please have the doctor call me tomorrow? This is urgent. I need to speak to him." Didn't know what I was going to get. 6.30 in the evening, we dial and answers, "Hello, this is the doctor." I knew God was in that at that point. I knew God was in that. He said, "Yes, I'm a believer. Yes, I think I was supposed to answer this phone and I don't normally do that. I don't answer the phone in my office at 6.30 in the evening. I'm not even here normally at 6.30 in the evening. But I'm a believer, too, and God told me that I was supposed to answer this phone call. And I'm supposed to do the surgery on your daughter, and we're going to do that this Saturday." And I said, "Praise the Lord. You are in the middle of this." (Applause) We went on after the surgery, and we saw miracle after miracle after miracle. We played the blood of Jesus over her, and one of the things that was the biggest complication was that there could be bleeding. Bleeding would cause a serious problem, so we prayed the blood of Jesus over her. And when they took the bandage off, there wasn't even a drop of blood where the stitches were. It was a miracle. It was a real miracle. Sometimes God does the miracle in our heart. Sometimes God does the miracle through doctors. But then sometimes God just does miracles. When I was in Russia 12 years ago on a mission trip, I'm an asthmatic. I was teaching in places where it was 20 degrees, one minute, and a hundred and other because they just had some radiators and they couldn't control. There was no temperature control. I ended up coming down at the end of the week with pneumonia. I had bad pneumonia. They did everything they could at the clinic to take care of me. They finally took me to a hospital, put me back behind a locked door on a bed that had been a gunshot victim before with blood on it. Took IVs that were dirty and started cramming them in my arm. They weren't doing any good. My lungs were shutting down. I was in big trouble. I knew that I was probably going to die that night. I felt it in my heart. So I started praying. I started getting back to the basics of my Christian life. I started saying, "Lord, surely there's something else you've got for me." You know, they called my wife and she said, "I need to get in." They had gotten word to her, "I need to get into the country." And the Russian embassy said, "People die here every day. You're not going to get in. He's going to die." Imagine what was going on in our life. But this is the time, sometimes, in the midst of trauma that God shows up. This is when God does miracles. This is when we need God. This is when we show the world that the God that we have allows us to walk through these kind of times and walk through it in victory. Well, I'm going to skip through the story because I don't have time to tell you but just a few of the miracles this morning that happened during that week. There was a miracle in the hospital where a person in white that no one ever knew appeared to me and told me what I needed to do. There were miracles that happened getting home. But I got home. I'll skip to the end of the story. I got home and I went to the doctor. And the doctor said, "We need to check your lungs." He was a believing doctor. He checked my lungs and he said, "Your lungs right now are scarred from the pneumonia. Scaring cannot be healed. Your lungs right now show 10% lung capacity. You've only got 10% of your lungs left. You will be able to live. You will be fine. You just will not ever be able to exert yourself again. 10% lung power. Sorry, scarred lungs don't heal. But he was a believer. So we began to pray. I was anointed with oil that week. I had believers 24 hours a day that were pouring out themselves in prayer for me. I knew my lungs were starting to feel better. By the end of the week, I went back to the doctor and I said, "Let's check the lungs again. Let's do another x-ray." He said, "Your lungs now are not 100%. Your lungs are 105%." (Applause) I said, "Let's just really do the ultimate test. Let's run an x-ray. All that scarring that can't be healed that's in my lungs. Let's run an x-ray." He ran an x-ray and he said, "There is no scarring. Your lungs are totally healed." So sometimes God does the miracle in our heart. Sometimes he does it through a doctor's and sometimes God just shows up and does the miracle. But no matter what God does when he's doing a miracle, sometimes after a little bit of time goes by, we begin to doubt. We begin to let the memory of that miracle slip away. I began to say, even in my own mind, maybe that x-ray was a bad x-ray. Well, maybe that didn't happen. Well, did God really give me that number or did it come from somewhere else? This is what happens. The enemy tries to steal the victory of the miracle away from us. So if we don't stay grounded in the things of the Lord, if we don't stay grounded in the basics of our Christian faith, the enemy will steal away even those miracles that we have. You see this happen in the Bible. If you look in Exodus, in Exodus about chapter 12, they'd gone through hundreds of years of bondage. And all of a sudden the Lord showed up and started doing miracles in their life. We went through the plagues and went through the Passover lamb and how their children were not killed, even though the Egyptian children were killed. We saw the miraculous way that they were sent off out of slavery. Then we saw with the Jewish people, went through and the Red Sea parted. It was such a miracle. Can you imagine the parting of the Red Sea and going through and then seeing the Red Sea closed down on your enemy? I mean, it would just have to be in your mind forevermore. Every day they woke up and there was manna from heaven provided for them. This was millions of people and how do you feed millions of people every day? God provided manna from heaven. And to show you how miraculous even that was, the manna was only good for one day, but on the Sabbath there was twice as much and it lasted two days. They knew that God was providing a miracle for them every single day. Just like you know that God is doing miracles in your life every day. But if you skip on over to chapter 32 of Exodus, you find that what happened is they began to doubt. Moses had gone on up on the mountain. He was up there with God and all of a sudden the people said, "Do you think we can trust Moses? Do you think we can trust God? Is he even going to come back down off that mountain?" They began to mumble and grumble among themselves. They began to listen to the enemy and what he had to say. And all of a sudden they said, "Well, let's take things back into our own hands." They built a golden calf. They started returning to their old ways. They started returning to idol worship. That's after people had seen miracle after miracle after miracle every day. They still returned back to their old ways and took things in their own hands. Don't you see why we have that problem? Even after we see the hand of God in our life, it's very easy to slide back into our old ways. It's very easy to slide back into thinking the way we used to think. It's easy to become a person who is in idol worship. Sometimes the idol worship that we have is the idol of money, the idol of things. We've got to be careful not to slide back into that. All right, I want to tell you about the five things that I call the basics of faith. The first thing that we've got to do, if we're going to win in the game of life, we've got to go for the goal. We've got to go for the right goal. You know, it reminds me of, you see the basketball, that reminds me of a time when my kids were young and they both played basketball, but they played in the little Peewee League. You know, where the kids are about that tall and the ball is almost as big as they are. And just grabbing up the ball is enough of a challenge for them and trying to dribble it down the court. Grab up the ball, they're scrambling around on the floor. They dribble down the court and their parents are all hollering, no, no, no. They don't hear anything. They're so excited they finally got the ball and they're going for the court and they just kind of throw it up there. And because they're going to the wrong goal, it seems to go in. You know, as a parent you're just going, how did they make that? That's the way our life is a lot of times. A lot of times we're scrambling around in life. We're grabbing a hold of something. We're going for the wrong goals. People who love us are saying, no, stop. You're going to the wrong goal. You're looking for the wrong things. We don't hear them. We throw up our best shot and we make a goal for the enemy. We've got to set our goals on God's abundant life goals. It is so easy to be misled by the world about what our goals ought to be. We need to go for God's best in our life. I want you to take a look with me at Philippians 3, 14. I press towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. You know, there's an upward call on our life. We can either stay here thinking about things that are everyday or we can press on toward the upward call that God has in our life. We've got to start thinking more eternal. We've got to start thinking more eternal every day. We've got to press on towards the upward call that God has in our life. The things of this world, I'll tell you what they remind me of. You've seen those movie theater deals in the old westerns where the front of it was kind of a false front. But behind there was nothing. A lot of what we do in life is like climbing up a ladder. You see this great big false front. You climb up and you look over and it's empty. A lot of the things in life are like that. It's just a shell. It just appears to be something but it's really not. Sometimes we say that we have a goal but we really don't. I don't know if you're like me. I have goals to be a better Christian. I have goals to lose weight. Sometimes I say I have a goal but I really don't. You know what happens? I say I want to lose 10 more pounds. I want to lose 10 pounds. I really need to. I know I'm going to feel better. I know I'm going to be a healthier person. I need to lose 10 pounds. Okay. I go to sleep. I get up the next morning and you know what I'm thinking about? Where's the next meal? I love breakfast. Where's the next meal? I do everything I can not to think about losing weight. In fact what I do, I think I'll worry about that tomorrow. If that's the way our goals are, we're really not going to make them. If we've got a goal to be a Christian, to be an abundant life Christian, to have all we can from God, we've got to think about them from the minute we get up in the morning. So we've got to start positioning ourselves first thing in the day. You know, I look at what Jesus said in John 10-10. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. This is the kind of life that God is giving us. God wants to give us the abundant life. We keep going after the world's life, but God desires to give us the abundant life. And I've seen it all. I've seen wealth. I've seen power. I've seen prestige. I've seen everything the world has to offer. And there's only one thing that matters out there. And it's Jesus and the abundant life in Him. You know what happens is God gives us a radically changed heart when we become a believer. God gives us a radically changed heart and it gives us a radically changed life. When our heart changes and when our heart goals change, it changes our character. It changes our conduct. It changes everything in our life. That's what our goals should be to have a radically changed heart and to have God set our goals. Our life goals need to be God's abundant life goals. We need to filter every decision that we make through a filter that says, "Is this what God's best for my life is?" Alright, we've got our goals lined up. We're ready to start the day. What's the next thing that we're going to do? It's ready to get out of bed. First thing we ought to do each morning. We ought to have a pep rally. Think about it. If the big game is Friday night, what do they do before the game to get ready for the game? They have a big pep rally, don't they? Why do they have pep rallies? They want to get your mind thinking positive things. They want to get your mind going the right direction. They want to make sure that no thoughts about, "Hey, we may not beat this team." They want to make sure there's none of those kind of thoughts in your mind. They want to get everybody going together. They want to be everybody peped up and ready to go for the big game. Well, that's what we've got to do every day. We've got to start our day with a pep rally. And the way we do that is with praise and worship. You know, we start the services here with praise and worship. There's no accident to that. That's the way you start out. Start out getting your mind aligned to the positive things of God. Music has an amazing way of getting into us. Have you ever noticed that sometimes you'll start singing a song and you'll think, "How did I remember that?" You can't even get it out of your mind. It's some jingle or something that you heard on a commercial. You say, "I can't learn a Bible scripture, but I remember this jingle." Why is it? It's because music has a way of getting deep into your spirit. We've got to start our day with worship every day. We've got to start it with praise. Now, you can have your pep rally in your car. Some of you on the way to work just have a pep rally on the way to work. Some of you have it in your bedroom or a quiet place in the morning. And if you can get permission from your spouse or from your roommate, have it in the shower every morning. Look with me at Psalms 145 verses 2 and 3. The key thing here is it says, "Every day, every day I will bless you and I will praise your name forever and ever." Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. Also, look at Psalms 113.3. From the rising of the sun to its going down, the Lord's name is to be praised. You know, that's what our life needs to be like. If we really want to live the abundant Christian life, from the rising of the sun to the going down, the Lord's name needs to be praised. We need to be in a spirit, a positive mental attitude. The world knows these things. The world talks about having a positive attitude, talk positive to yourself. Well, that's what the Bible tells us. The Bible says we need to get our thoughts positively aligned every day and we do that through having our pep rally with our worship. To me, worship is an important basic of every single day. You need to have a pep rally. You need to praise the Lord because it gives you that mental tune-up. It puts you in the right frame of mind to start the day. Amen? Okay. We've had the pep rally. Now what do we got to do? Now we got to go back to the playbook. We need to study the playbook. It's the time for the big game, the game of life. Okay? We've had the rally. We're getting ready to go into the game. We need to study the playbook. We need to know what the enemy's going to do. We need to know what our opponent's going to do. We need to know what we're supposed to do to respond. Airline pilots study over and over and over, day after day, week after week, to know how to respond to an emergency. They already know how to fly the plane. They're trying to find out how to respond when things go wrong. That's what studying the Bible does. Studying the Bible lets us know how to respond. The playbook for us is the Bible. This is our playbook. We need to study this playbook every day. There is wisdom in this playbook. You will learn how to respond. And you'll respond differently because the way the world responds and the way the Lord teaches us to respond is totally different. And you'll have a lot more peace in your life if you study the playbook and don't make the mistakes we'll make if we don't. Let's look at Psalms 119 verse 11. Your Word, I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. You might be like me. You might be one of those that can't remember the exact place that every scripture is like Pastor Robert can and you can't quote exactly what it says. But I'll tell you what happens. God will hide it in your heart. He'll hide the truth of that scripture in your heart if you study the Bible each day. And that's what I want to do. I want to have the truth of that scripture hidden away. Even if I can't quote the exact scripture, I want to know the truth. Let's look at Psalms 119 verse 105. Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. So many times we take off down the path every day without thinking about where we're going, without thinking of what we're doing, we just start merrily down the path. We haven't asked God if this is the path we're supposed to take. The Word of God is supposed to be a light to our path. It lights the way that we're supposed to go. We need to use God's Word as a direction to stay on His path. Now, some of you all say, well, you know, I've gotten off the path. I'm not on the path of God anymore. I recognize that. I know that I've missed God in my life. There's always a way back to the path. God always has a way back to His best for your life. It doesn't matter how far off the path you've gotten. Get in His Word, get in worship. He will guide you back to the path. God loves you. God has only one plan for you. You know, some of you tell me that you have a hard time reading the Bible. You look at it and you say, wow, you know, I don't know where to start. I look at the Old Testament. It's a lot of names and it's tough. How do I really use this for my purpose? How can I get into it? Well, if you're having trouble getting into the Bible, start in Proverbs. It's a good place to start from me. There's 31 Proverbs, one for every day. If it's the 20th day of the month, just flip over to Proverbs 20 and read Proverbs 20. There's a lot of wisdom in the book of Proverbs. If you've got time, read one of the Psalms each day. And then if you want to really get some wisdom, take one chapter of the New Testament. It doesn't take very long. You can spend about 10 minutes in the Bible each morning and start getting that wisdom. But the cumulative effect of that 10 minutes every day will start to change your life. Alright, what's the next thing we need to do? The big game, it's a game day to day, game of life day. What are we going to do? The next thing we need to do on game day is we need to talk to the coach. We've got to go to the coach and find out what he wants us to do. You know, the coach always knows those little secrets. The little things that they didn't tell us earlier. We're down now to the real game and we've got to go to the coach. The coach is going to give us his personal insight, his personal wisdom. We've got to go talk to the coach before the big game. Today is a big day in your life. This is a big important day, just like the game of life that is important in your life. So we've got to go to the coach. If you want to go to a good coach, you always seek out who you think's the best. For instance, Carly Patterson won the Olympic gold medal just recently. She was with a coach over here in Plano and I was hearing on the news that that coach and that gym were just swarmed -- is that a good word, swarmed? A whole bunch of folks called them and said we want to be around that coach. We want to talk to him. We want to just spend time with him. Is there a class open with him? Can we be -- even if this class is full, can we just hang out with this coach and watch what he's doing? If you want to be a good gymnastics person, you want to be around a good gymnastics coach that you can just hang with and will give you some insight and some wisdom. Well, if you want to be around a good life coach, guess who the good life coach is? The good life coaches are Heavenly Father. He's got the answers that we can't find. He can talk personally to you. You can talk personally with him. Just being in his presence will make a difference in your day. When you're ready to start out on the game of life, it's time to sit down with the coach. Each morning. Look at James 4-8 with me. Says draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Sometimes you feel like, you know, I just don't feel God. I don't feel like he's close. I pray and my prayer is just kind of hit a ceiling or something. There's only one thing we can do. We need to draw near to him and he will draw near to us. It's not him that's moved, it's us. If you have a heart to draw near to God, God will draw near to you. An example in Jesus' prayer life, you know, when I'm trying to say, I want to lead the abundant life. I want to be like Jesus. I look at what Jesus did. So look at Mark 135 with me. There's two truths in this that I want to show you. Mark 135 says, "And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed to a solitary place, and there he prayed." That's the way Jesus started his day. He started his day talking to his Heavenly Father, talking to his coach. He said, "I don't do anything but what the Father says it." That's how Jesus began his day. That's a basic that we've got to do to begin our day. If we're going to line ourselves up for God's abundant life goals. Now the second truth in there that I wanted to show you is that Jesus was a morning person. He says, "He rose up a great while before day." See, Jesus was a morning person for all you that wondered, "Should I get up in the morning and study my Bible?" No, the reality is Jesus was a morning person. Jesus was an all day person. And Jesus was an all night person. Jesus prayed without ceasing all day long. It's an important part of our walk with the Lord. I want to tell you, you need to keep your walk with the Lord fresh, you need to keep it active. Prayers the way you spend time with the Lord. Now let's recap what I call the perfect 10. The perfect 10 is to spend 10 minutes in the morning in worship. It can be in your car, it can be in your bathroom while you're getting ready, but spend 10 minutes in the morning in worship. Then 10 minutes in studying God's Word, perfect 10, 10 minutes in worship, 10 minutes of studying the Bible. And then 10 minutes in prayer, 10 minutes talking to the coach for the day. To me, that's the perfect 10. Okay, we've got our day started correctly. We've got our right mental attitude, we know the play, we know the game. What's the problems that can come up now? Well, the problem is we've got an opponent out there. We've got an opponent that's going to accuse us. We've got an opponent that's going to say things to us and try to mess with our mind. Well, let me tell you, stop believing the opponent. That's what he's going to do. He's going to accuse you. I remember when I played football, I was a fullback. I was a guy, they'd run into the line and 10 guys would jump on and collaborate. And I'd come back up to the line, I'd line up and I'd get ready. And I knew it was coming. The guy over there on the other side, the guy that had just creamed me the last play, the guy that I was kind of like, oh boy. He'd start talking, we call it trash talking. He'd start talking to me and he'd say, I'm going to get you. You're a loser, you're going to fail. He'd start messing with my mind. And you know what, I'd start listening. Because I remember the last time it hurt a little bit. I remember some of those things that he said that ring a little bit true. So instead of knowing that this was a good play, that this was going to work, that our coach had researched this. Instead of that, I was sitting there listening to the enemy, listening to the opponent. That's what our opponent will do. He will mess with your mind. Let me tell you, look at Ephesians 6, 12. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. We are wrestling all day long against powers of darkness. They're coming into our mind. The Lord has our spirit. The devil can't get our spirit. The Lord has our spirit, but the devil sure does mess with our body and with our mind all day long. Also look at 1 Peter 5, 8. It says, "Be careful. Watch out for the attacks from the devil. Your great enemy." He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour. That's what he does. You need to realize you have an opponent on the other side. And a lot of these thoughts that are coming into your mind that are giving you negative thoughts that are making you think, negative things. They're because of things that the opponent is putting in your mind. Quit believing the thoughts that are from the enemy. Start believing the promises of God. Let me give you some examples. The enemy will tell you that you've got to become a better person before you can get saved. That is a lie. You don't have to be a better person. You can't get any better probably. If you had to be better, none of us would be saved. Jesus is here to save you today right in the midst of your sin. Do not believe the lie. You have to be a better person to be saved. The enemy is going to tell you in fact that your sins are too bad to ever be forgiven by God. You know why we believe that lie? Because we have a sin problem and we have a forgiveness problem. You know what our forgiveness problem is? We can't forgive ourselves in a lot of cases. And we can't forgive ourselves. We understand, well, maybe God can't forgive me because I can't forgive myself. We have a forgiveness problem with a neighbor, with a family member, with somebody else. And so we say, I've got a forgiveness problem. So when the enemy comes in and says God can't forgive you, you've been too bad. We believe it because we have a forgiveness problem. But you know what? God does not have a forgiveness problem. God has what I call holy forgetfulness. I've been praying for holy forgetfulness in several situations now. I've been getting the other kind of forgetfulness, but I'm praying for holy forgetfulness. What happens in holy forgetfulness is that when God forgives you, he forgets it. It's wiped clean. The slate is there. He does not remember it again. That's the kind of forgetfulness that's from God. That's the kind of forgetfulness that we need. The enemy's going to lie to you about so many things. He's going to tell you that you need to be self-sufficient, that you don't need God. That's a lie. He's going to tell you you don't have as much fun if you get saved. That's a lie. The people here at Gateway have more fun than any people I've ever been around in my whole life. The enemy's going to tell you that money's the answer to all your problems. If you just had a little more money, then everything would be okay, and that's not true. I've seen people with all the money in the world, and they're still not happy. The enemy's going to tell you lies about your marriage. He's going to tell you lies about your talent. He's going to tell you lies about your family, and he's going to tell you lies about your future. The enemy's here to lie to you. Stop believing the lies of your opponent. The truth is God has a better plan for your life. There isn't a plan B. There's one plan that's the abundant life plan that God has for you. Look with me at Jeremiah 29 verse 11. "For I know the thoughts that I think towards you," says the Lord. "Thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope." There's some of you here today. You don't know what your future is. It doesn't look very bright. There's some of you here today that don't have a lot of hope. The situation you're in seems hopeless. You don't know how you're going to get out. But God is here today to give you a future and to give you a hope. He's here to give you an abundant life in him. God's plans are to prosper you. We just need to get back to the basics that we need to do, and we can have victory in the game of life. You know, in a few weeks I'm going to be leaving on a mission trip for Thailand, Burma, and India. I'm going to be in the midst of some of the world's worst poverty. It's going to be a very tough trip. But you know why I like going on those trips? You know why it's a high point of my life? Because it helps show me and remind me over and over what's really important. It gives me an attitude adjustment. It gives me a mental clean up of all these things that the world's been telling me that are lying. When I go on those trips, I see people that have absolutely nothing. They don't know where their next meal's coming from, and they know it probably won't be today. But I see the joy of Jesus in their life. I see the abundant life that they have. I see them dancing to the Lord. I see miracles happening because they're focusing on the Lord. That's where their hope is, that's where the truth in their life is. It's the excitement that builds them, and that's why I like doing it. Some of you need to come with us on some global ministry trips and just get yourself with an attitude adjustment. It'll change your life. It'll help you to appreciate everything that you have here. You'll quit complaining about the little things that don't go right, and you'll just thank the Lord for the abundant life that He's giving you. You know, the definition of stupidity I heard one time, and I like this. Supidity is doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result. That's what we do. A lot of times, we'd like to have a better life. We'd like to have a better relationship with the Lord. We'd like to see His miracles happening in our life, but we don't make any changes. We keep doing the same thing over and over and over each day. So what I want to challenge you to do today is to get back to the basics. I want to challenge you to get back to the things that lead to the abundant life. Don't keep doing the same worldly things over and over each day and keep hoping for God's best. It's not going to happen. I'd like to ask some of you to rededicate yourself this morning to get back to God's best in your life. You know, if you wanted to get your body in shape, it's pretty simple. If you want to have the best physical fitness that you can have, you're going to join a health club, you're going to meet with the fitness counselor, you're going to start doing your exercises. Top athletes are in Gold's Gym every day. If you want spiritual fitness, top athletes, winners in life, they're in God's Gym every day. God wants to give you the victorious Christian life. The answer to true happiness is to set your mind on the things of God. Set your mind into tapping into His power to change your heart and to change your mind, your outlook on things. He will change your heart and ultimately He's going to change your life. If you need a victory today in your finances, if you need a victory today in your marriage, if you need a victory in your walk with God, we're going to be here today to pray with you after the service. Our ministry team will be here to help lead you into that victory. Some of you are ready today. As I've been speaking, you've been convicted. I need to stop believing the lies of the enemy. Come down after the service and let us pray with you to stop believing the lies of the enemy and to start believing the promises of God. Make a commitment today to be all you can be with all that God has to offer. Because you know what? We're not going to always live in the miracle, but we can always live in the victory. Okay, a quick review. That's just the teacher in me. First, we need to go for the right goal. Not the world's goals, but God's abundant life goals. Then we need to have a pepperale. Go to a pepperale every day. Have it yourself. Start the day with worship music. Third, study the Bible for wisdom on the challenges of life. Go back to the playbook. Fourth, go to the coach. Pray with God every day to get a fresh heart from Him. And then last, stop believing the lies of the enemy. Start believing the promises of God for the abundant life that He desires for you. I'd like to close this morning with 1 Corinthians 15, 57. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, we know the final score of the game. We know God's team wins. But let's have the victory right now. Let's don't wait until it's over to be on the winning team. Let's have the victory today. It doesn't matter whether you've just experienced a miracle through the last few weeks or whether you're still praying and believing God for a miracle in your life. It's time to get back to the basics. Amen. Let me pray with you before we close. Lord, I just pray that you'll convict each one of us about this message. I pray, Lord, that you will help us to stop believing the lies of the enemy. I pray, Lord, that you will line us up with the goals that you have for our life. Lord, I pray that you will show us the areas that we can change in our life and start leading life more abundantly with you. Lord, we thank you for the victory. We thank you for the victory in Jesus.