Happy Year of Our Lord 2025! Now it's time for the classic question of what you will do differently this year. Exercise more? Be more generous? Read The Word all the way through? Sean has some good ones to add to the list, but the challenge is that it takes discipline. Muscle through this podcast...you can do it.

Transcript:

We'll do the whole section again Yeah, but what do you want me to say? Maybe I shouldn't ask you a question. I'm not the guy Mr. Mark No, but what do you think of what do you think of when I say spiritual disciplines you can say you could say Okay maybe something like, faithfulness and You Yeah, whatever.

That's great. What do you think of when I when I mentioned spiritual disciplines? Oh the first thing I think of is faithfulness. Yeah. Being faithful. That's what we're called to do. When we talk about spiritual disciplines, we think of things very, let me get much more basic. Okay.

Daily time in the word. Okay. Daily time in the scripture. That is a spiritual discipline. I am in the word every day. And I'm not by nature necessarily the most disciplined person. I have to work at it. But through the help of some great tools, the you version Bible app, I've always been committed to the word of God, you miss days or, with the help of the U version Bible app.

Even if for some reason, something comes up and I got to leave early and I haven't yet had my quiet time. I'm going to listen to the word on the way in, I'm going to pray on the way. And so it's what has allowed me to do is be a person who doesn't miss those days. And the word and prayer is a spiritual discipline that I'm going to each day, I'm going to sit with the Lord and I'm going to listen and I'm going to hear his voice.

And I'm going to talk to him about the things that are going on in my life and my day. And I'm going to, in the word and prayer together, I'm going to commune with him. How about fellowship? Being a part of a church, being a committed part of a church and gathering, the scripture tells us, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves.

And we know that the model of the early church was on the first day of the week, they gathered together, they shared the Lord's supper. So fellowship's a discipline. Sabbath, the Sabbath is a spiritual discipline. The idea, I'm going to take a day each week and I am not going to work. I'm not going to move the ball down field, whether it be financially, whether it be even, I'm not going to sit and do be working at the house all day.

This is a day to recognize and the such a beautiful principle of Sabbath. It's disciplining my ambition. Yeah. Because what it says is I'm not the one who makes the world go around. God does. Yeah. God rested on the seventh day. I can do it too. And you know what? The world will be fine. One day I'm actually going to be gone and this world is going to go on without me.

I might as well take it for a spin now while I'm here, right? And some people think they're indispensable and I, Oh no, I can't take a day off. No, that's not true. Yeah, exactly. But Sabbath is a reminder of who's God, who makes it all work and who doesn't. Yeah, life's a vapor. I loved how you talk about how people own the land before you on the way you're at.

And guess what? Yeah, someone else is going to have it after the fact. Yes, it's true. Yeah, it's empirically true. See what I try to do. I want to talk. Let's talk about stewardship. I try to empirically show people, you know what Job said. I came in with nothing, I'm leaving with nothing. So that's true. So Sabbath is just a regular discipline in my week.

It's like a rhythm that reminds me, Oh, okay. And I worship, I spend time with my family. And it's this is I'm not the one who makes it all happen. God does. Yeah. Fasting, I hate fasting. But it's a good discipline. It quiets the flesh. All these spiritual disciplines are designed to silence the flesh tithing is a major discipline in the scripture a financial discipline to teach me to trust God and to Teach me that it's not all about me and watch God provide more and do better with 90 percent than I could have done with 100 And boy, talk about a discipline that builds your faith.

Tithing is an amazing discipline. And if you're not tithing, you are missing out on it. I just encourage you to look at that spiritual discipline. Yeah. Pastor Sean, this is again, a topic that always comes up January 1st, but the way you're talking, why isn't February 1st, March 1st, April 1st, every day that we're thinking, why do we wait till the end of the year to start getting serious?

I don't know that we. It's what I like about the first of the years is built into the rhythm. We stop and evaluate, we stop and look and go, okay, wait a minute. How'd I do last year? And what do I want to see different this year? And I think that's a good rhythm. I encourage you to do that.

Just a point of, it's a natural fulcrum of, for reflection. And so I feel like that happens and it's a good thing. And you need to understand something when we talk about disciplines, because a lot of people might be going well, but my disciplines were in the area of diet and exercise. Okay. Diet and exercise.

And I, is that not important? Cause it's good for health. It's a temple. Yeah. It's exactly right. If I'm a steward, If I'm a steward, my body's the temple of the Holy Spirit, then taking care of it with health, diet, and exercise is a good thing. Let me tell you something additional, though.

I believe discipline, like exercise, is a great way to just tell your flesh no. It's the same muscle of the will, That, that you're exercising that helps you with your spiritual disciplines. So I believe there's something very spiritual about something as simple as healthy diet and regular exercise because it's, my flesh says, Oh, my flesh wants to just melt.

But it's like telling your flesh no. Telling your flesh shut up and be quiet is such a powerful principle, because what that translates into is spiritual disciplines, which translates into obedience. Yes. You begin to learn to tell the spirit or to listen to the spirit and obey the spirits and say yes to the spirit and say no to the flesh that's.

That's life changing, that's crucifying the flesh. And so that's a very powerful part of this. The most exercise people do nowadays. So Pastor Sean is there with their index finger doing this thing called scrolling nowadays. You don't want to get a cramp. Exactly. Got to keep it in shape.

Yes. But fasting, the social media was a popular one. I heard this past season. And I'll tell you what when you do that. Especially you will find out very quickly if you're addicted, because if you find yourself quickly being drawn back and getting a little shaky when you don't have the phone in your hand, okay, you got a problem.

So I will say the same thing. The discipline of telling your flesh your impulse no is powerful. It's the same muscle that you're going to use to tell your flesh no, when it wants to keep you from being in the word or being in prayer. When you're fasting and you're like, Oh my gosh, I'm dying.

And you're like, wait, you just skipped lunch, right?

Another popular discipline that people look at. And I think it's an important one is financial disciplines, right? There's sometimes they'll recognize, okay, I want to do some things differently. Okay. And I want to, have my, get my finances in shape boy. Talk about one that is a exercise in the will and discipline financial disciplines, think about things like eliminating debt, right?

I don't think God wants us to be living in debt. Scripture tells us to, Oh no, man, anything but the debt of love the borrower's servant to the lender. I just think so many people can't do what they believe God's called them to do just because they're in debt. And so the discipline of saying, yep, I'm going to do something different.

Now I want to talk about a great bit of accountability. Dave Ramsey's financial piece. Great resource. I came across another financial resource that I'm really interested in. I showed it to my wife, Laura, and we're just checking it out. It's called Simple Money, Rich Life. It's a book by Bob Lodich and they have a whole ministry.

You can check them out, but, and similar principles, but they come at a little different angle, a little different approach. It might appeal to a different kind of person. Okay. Great resource. He'd be a great guy to give him a podcast by the way. Sometime. Sure. But Dave would be too, but I just think we have a harder time, the Dave Ramsey stuff of, Dave does a beautiful use a beautiful illustration and total money makeover talks about gazelle like intensity, and if you've gone through his material, you know what I mean by that?

It's like when a gazelle is being chased by a a leopard or by a cheetah, it's like that thing is running in his focus. If you understand the danger of debt and you understand all that it's keeping you from, he says, you will attack it and you will flee with gazelle like intensity. And one of the things I love about Dave Ramsey and Bob Lodich in his book as well is the practical tools that speak to regular people.

Yeah. Okay. There's the people who are just great money people and super disciplined and just, that's great. But most of us aren't like that. Dave Ramsey and Bob Lotus know how to speak to regular people and say, here's how you do that. And eliminating debt is a huge piece of that, but then living within a budget, just saying, I'm not going to spend all my money.

I'm going to save. I'm going to be generous. I'm going to give I'm going to be a tither. That is an important principle. And I'm just going to have, I'm not going to consume everything that I make. That's huge. Living on a budget is a big part of that. It's a discipline that you can, Pick up an embrace and that's something that Ramsey does with his book, but that puts it down on paper You can track it and you can measure your growth and this gets fun when you start seeing the difference Oh, it's unbelievable when you use his debt snowball.

Yeah, the debt snowball and again loaded chooses a debt snowball, too I don't know that it's unique. I don't know that it's original the Ramsey Again, Dave Ramsey doesn't isn't teaching things that nobody's ever heard of or thought He just does it in a way that regular people can understand and he really is helpful By just bringing it and making it accessible to so many people, right?

It really is the discipline of the financial discipline of generosity. Just saying I'm, I believe God's blessed me and I want to be a generous person. So learning how to have an open hand financially and with the rest of your life, just being generous. So these are the kind of disciplines that we hit at this time of year.

And what I want to say is I think I think that's a really good thing. I think picking up and saying, okay, I want to grow in some disciplines. I just encourage you. Look at some areas and say, yeah, this is an area I would like to see growth in this year and go get some resources. If it's finances, get a resource like the two I've just mentioned get an accountability, financial piece is great because you do it in a group.

But if you even, if you just want to go through his book, Total Money Makeover, or one of his seminars, then get someone, get an accountability partner, another couple, another individual, and just do this and let this be a year where things change. If it's spiritual disciplines, maybe you're a Christian, you're listening to this and you go, I'm not consistent in the word of God.

I'm just here to tell you, then you're not living a healthy Christian life. It's like a person that says, I don't eat well. I don't eat consistently. You're malnourished. And so I'm just saying, man, just get into a daily habit of reading the word. We have a Bible reading plan at reallife. org. You can check out the, I love the YouVersion Bible app.

It's such a great resource. There are multiple Bible reading plans and you can go through those. There's ones that are accompanied by someone giving you some devotional thoughts and there's just Bible reading. And they all have Bible on, audible that you can just listen to, as well as read while you're driving or whatever.

Yeah. And so there's no reason not to be a person of the word, not to be biblically strong and biblically centered. And so I just encourage you take that this year and say, I'm going to pick up that habit. Very good habit, Pastor Sean. As we were talking previously about, social media and maybe doing less, I would encourage you ladies and gentlemen, one, follow this podcast and two, follow Sean Nazaro on the X, on the Twitter there.

You got some funny stuff on there, Pastor Sean, I will say. I challenge you to do more posting. I do. I, that is a discipline. See, thank you. Will you be my accountability partner? Exactly. Now, get off of social media, but I'm going to be, I'm going to be there and the series continues next week. Pastor Sean.

Yeah. Yeah. We're, the series is called more than money, a study of stewardship. And yeah, we're going to continue talking about it and I'm in each time we're going to get to talking about money, obviously, because the Bible does so much, but even then the issue of stewardship is the.

Your position of worship and your position of being a servant of God and recognizing that you are a steward of everything that he's given you. And so it really does involve some big heart issues. Last week we talked about the idea of who, who owns it. My life is not my own. And that's the big issue of faithfulness.

The call of a steward is to be faithful. It's what, first, first Corinthians four, it's required of a steward that they'd be found faithful. We're going to talk about the whole trust issue. What, why is stewardship hard? Why is it a tough issue? Why is it uncomfortable? Because I don't trust God, right?

Probably if we say, honestly, and boy I have grown in trust in the Lord, but none of us trust the Lord fully, even the most mature among us, there's areas where we struggle with that and that's why stewardship is hard, we're going to look at Discipline and not just financial disciplines but this topic that we've talked about today, if you listen to this podcast, you'll have a little headstart.

And then we're of course going to talk about how do I make the most of what God's given me as far as for generosity and mission. So it's a great topic and it's one that I feel is immensely important and clarifying for people. It's this Sunday at river city community church, starting at 9 30 and then 11 o'clock right here on lookout road, right behind Retama park in San Antonio, Selma shirts, if you will.

And we'll see you next Sunday. Yeah. We'd love to have you. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Let me pray for you, Lord. Thank you so much for this listener and these listeners and just the, this opportunity for us to just connect. I just pray that you would help us to grow in this area of discipline.

And help us Lord to be willing to get an accountability partner or become accountable in some capacity to just growing. And so we thank you for that. I pray that 2025 would be an amazing year of growth and a vision and of life in you. We thank you and honor you in Jesus name. Amen.