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Amen. All right, we're there in Isaiah, chapter number 28. And of course, on Sunday mornings, we've been going through a series the last several weeks on the subject of habits. And we're actually finishing up that series this morning as we look at this idea of habits. If you've been with us, if you remember, several weeks ago we started in the first sermon on the subject of the power of habits. And we looked at what habits are and why they can be, when they're good, they can be very powerful. And there's a lot of potential there. And when they're bad, they can be very destructive. And then on the second week, we talked about how to develop good habits. And we looked at several ideas in regards to developing good habits in your life last week. We talked about how to break bad habits. And we looked at some ideas in regards to that. Today, we're going to look at this idea of how to dial in your habits. And what I want to do is I want to give you eight practical tips for forming habits. And these are kind of just eight tips that I really didn't know where to fit them in any of the other sermons. But they're important. I think they can help you. And I want to give you these eight ideas. And like I said, we've been talking about habits. And of course, a habit is defined as a routine or behavior that is performed regularly and in many cases automatically. And the potential of a habit is that though it is maybe a small behavior that's done on a regular basis over time, it produces great results. And we see here in Isaiah 28 a couple of examples of that. I've showed this to you earlier in the series. But I want you to see it again in verse 10. It says, for precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little. That's really how we produce. That's how we create. That's how we grow. In the Christian life, you don't come to church one time and learn everything you need to learn and then go home and you're fine. No, it happens precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little. If you look at verse 13 of the same chapter, it says, but the word of the Lord was unto them. Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little, that they might go and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken. See, a habit is something, and hopefully a good habit, is something that is done routinely, regularly, here a little, there a little, and it produces great results. Now, you're there in the book of Isaiah. Go with me if you would to the book of Lamentations, Lamentations chapter number three. Now, if you're in Isaiah, the very next book is the book of Jeremiah. And after Jeremiah, you have the book of Lamentations, Lamentations chapter number three. And this morning, like I said, I'd like to give you some practical tips for habit formation. And I'm gonna give you eight tips. And I would encourage you to write these down on the back of your course a week. There's a place for you to take down some notes. And the way that I'm gonna do it is I'm gonna give you the tip. I'm gonna give you a scriptural reference or a passage, a scriptural idea to kind of back it up. And then I also, I'm gonna read to you just a little anecdote or a little article or a little story to kind of illustrate each one of the points. So I'll give you the tip. I'll give you a scripture to back it up. And then I'll read to you a little article or something, a little story to kind of back up the idea. These are eight practical tips for forming habits, eight things you can do. Hopefully you've been thinking about habits and thinking about your habits and forming some good habits, breaking some bad habits. And these are just kind of eight things that could help you in regards to that, all right? So number one, if you're taking notes, you can write this down. Here's the first tip, make the progress visual. Make the progress visual. When we're talking about habits and forming habits, it happens over a period of time, right? We just saw that in Isaiah. Here a little, there a little, precept upon precept, line upon line. As you are making progress with a habit, the first tip that I wanna give you is to make the progress visual. The Bible says in Lamentations chapter three in verse 51, I just want you to notice the first part of the verse. It says this, mine eye affected mine heart. We are visual people. We are people who are affected by the things that we see. Here, Jeremiah says, mine eye affected mine heart. He says, because of all the daughters of my city. And of course, he's referring to the fact that he's seeing the judgment of God come upon his nation. He says, what I'm seeing is affecting my heart, but the principle is true. Your eye always has an effect upon your heart. So when we talk about habit formation or developing habits, one thing that you should do is to make the progress visual. Let me read to you just a little story here to kind of illustrate the idea. In 1993, a bank in Abbotsford, Canada, hired a 23-year-old stockbroker named Trent Dursman. Abbotsford was a relatively small suburb tucked away in the shadow of nearby Vancouver where most of the big business deals were being made. Given the location and the fact that Dursman was a rookie, nobody expected too much out of him. But he made brisk progress thanks to a simple daily habit. Dursman began each morning with two jars on his desk. One was filled with 120 paper clips. The other was empty. As soon as he settled in each day, he would make a sales call. Immediately after, he would move one paper clip from the full jar to the empty jar, and the progress would begin again. Every morning, I would start with 120 paper clips in one jar, and I would keep dialing the phone until I had moved them all to the second jar, he told me. Within eight months, Dursman was bringing in five million to the firm. By the age of 24, he was making 75,000 per year, the equivalent of 125,000 today. Not long after, he landed a six-figure job with another company. And that little story just kind of illustrates that sometimes what you need to motivate you and to help you is just to see things, to be able to visually look at the progress that you are making. You say, why? Because mine eye affecteth mine heart. Go to Proverbs, if you would, Proverbs 24. You're there in Lamentations. If you head backwards, you've got Jeremiah, Isaiah, of course, then Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs. We started in Isaiah. If you're going backwards, you have Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs. So the first tip is to make the progress visual. So one thing I like to advise people as I counsel and try to help people, maybe in regards to breaking bad habits, like drinking or smoking or things like that, or in developing new habits, good habits, like daily Bible reading, daily prayer, waking up early, things like that. I like to advise people to get a calendar and to put a calendar somewhere where they're gonna see it every day, where it's just obviously placed somewhere where they can take a look at it every day. And I tell them, take a big black Sharpie or a big red marker and just mark a big X for every day that you don't perform the bad habit you're trying to break, or that you do perform the good habit that you're trying to break. So if you're trying to quit smoking, you go one day without smoking, you put one big X and you go another day without smoking, you put another big X and you go a third day without smoking or a third day without drinking, you put another big X. Or maybe you're trying to develop a habit of getting up early or develop a habit of Bible reading every day. Every day you accomplish that. You put one big X and two big Xs and three big Xs for every day. And as you continue to go on every day, you perform the good habit or don't perform the bad habit, your goal becomes very visual. You can visually look. And then you say, what do you do once you do that? Then you've got one goal. Don't break the chain. Create a chain of progress of not, I'm not doing what I'm trying to quit or I am doing what I'm trying to start. And your goal is don't break the chain. So when it comes to habit formation, I would encourage you. And however it works well for you, obviously we live in a world of technology today and maybe you can use some sort of a calendar on your phone or different apps that can help you with these things. But whatever you do, I would encourage you because my eye affected my heart that you make it visual. It could be as simple as paper clips in a jar, but that you make the progress visual, that it's something that you can look at and you can see how well you're doing, that you're breaking a bad habit or you're developing a good habit. So number one, make the progress visual. Number two, when you fail, because you will fail, when you fail, rebound quickly. Proverbs 24 and verse 16, notice what the Bible says. Proverbs 24 verse 16, the Bible says, for a just man, notice, for a just man falleth seven times and riseth up again, but the wicked shall fall into mischief. The Bible says here that a just man falleth seven times and riseth up again. What does that mean? It means that, look, we're all going to fail at times. We're all going to mess up at times. We're all going to not do what we said we were going to do. Remember, the apostle Paul taught us that in Romans chapter seven last week. He said, the things that I want to do, I don't do, and the things that I don't want to do, I end up doing. We're all going to give into the flesh at some point, and we're gonna mess up. You say, well, what's the difference between someone who succeeds and someone who fails? The difference between a successful person and a failure is not that they mess up. Everyone messes up. The successful person gets back up, tries again. The only way to fail is to quit. The only way to fail, you say, pastor, one of you says I'd like to go into ministry and I'd like to be a pastor. Well, let me tell you something. Sometimes being a pastor can be very difficult, but I can tell you this. The only way to fail is to quit. The only way to fail in your marriage is to quit. The only way to fail in life, the only way to fail in the Christian life is to quit. The Bible says, for a just man falleth seven times. Yes, it happens sometimes. We fall, we fail, we mess up, we sin. For a just man falleth seven times. But here's the difference. The Bible says, and riseth up again. So when you fail, rebound quickly. If you want to develop good habits or break bad habits, realize that you're going to fail, but when you fail, rebound quickly. Let me read this little article for you. It says this. This is from James Clear who wrote the book Atomic Habits. He says, I want to discuss what to do when you fall off the wagon. Every habit streak ends at some point. Perfection is not possible. Before long, an emergency will pop up. You will get sick or you'll have to travel for work or your family needs a little more of your time. Whenever this happens to me, I try to remind myself of the simple rule, never miss twice. If I miss one day, I try to get back into it as quickly as possible. Missing one workout happens, but I'm not going to miss two in a row. Maybe I eat an entire pizza for lunch, but I'll follow it up with a healthy meal. As soon as one streak ends, I get started on the next one. I can't be perfect, but I can avoid the second mistake. Generally speaking, the first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing one is an accident. Missing two is a start of a new habit. See, your goal, like we talked about in point number one or tip number one, is to make the progress visual. Make sure you can see your progress and your goal is to not break the chain like we talked about. But when you do mess up, when you do sleep in, when you do fail, when you don't do what you said you were gonna do or you do do what you said you weren't gonna do, then the goal at that point is never miss twice. You say, man, I had this chain going of all this Bible reading and then I slept in and I missed Bible reading. Okay, well, you missed Bible reading, but don't miss it again. Start that streak again. Start that chain again. Get that going again. See, successful people that develop good habits, not only do they make the progress visual, but they realize that when they fail, they're going to rebound quickly. This is often something you find with people that are struggling with habitual sins or addictions like drugs and alcohol is that they'll have a streak where they're doing well and then something happens and they mess up. They get backslidden or they go back and they drink or smoke or do drugs. And then it's like, well, I messed up. So then they have this like long binge, you know, where they just go for a long time and like, well, I already messed up. Hey, that's not what you wanna do. You wanna have the rule that says, okay, I'm gonna make progress. I'm gonna stick to it. My goal is to not break the chain, but if I do realize I don't wanna miss twice. I wanna get right back on track. As soon as one streak ends, get started on the next one. You can't be perfect. Sometimes you're gonna mess up, but you're gonna avoid the second mistake. It is a spiral. It is, I like how it says the first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is a spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. So number one, make the progress visual. Number two, when you fail, rebound quickly. For a just man follows seven times and rises up again. Go to Proverbs chapter three, if you would. You're there in Proverbs 24. Proverbs chapter three, look at verse number 28. Proverbs chapter three and verse 28. The Bible says, say not unto thy neighbor, go and come again, and tomorrow I will give when thou hast it by thee. Here, the Proverb, the Solomon tells us, the wise Proverb is this, that when you give somebody a task, you tell them, I'm gonna hire you to do this. I'm gonna give you a certain amount of money to do this task. I want you to go and come again. He says, don't say to them, go and come again, and tomorrow I'll give, or tomorrow I'll pay you when thou hast it by thee. He says, if you have the money to pay them, if you said, hey, do this task for me, and when you're done, I'm gonna pay you, and they get it done, don't tell them, well, I'll pay you tomorrow, I'll pay you next week. If you have it, he says, pay them right then and there. You say, why? Here's why, because whenever we are trying to help someone with behavior, trying to help ourselves with behavior and maybe modifying our bad behavior and creating good behavior, here's tip number three. We wanna make the reward or the punishment immediate. Say not unto thy neighbor, go and come again, and tomorrow I will give when thou hast it by thee. When it comes to habit formation, you wanna make the reward immediate, or you wanna make the punishment if you're trying to break a bad habit. You want to make it immediate. Let me read this little excerpt for you. It says this, the vital thing in gaining a habit to stick is to feel successful, even if it's in a small way. The feeling of success is a signal that your habit paid off and that the work was worth the effort. In a perfect world, the reward for a good habit is the habit itself. In the real world, good habits tend to feel worthwhile only after they have provided you with something of a benefit. Early on, it's all sacrifice. So for that reason, in the beginning, you need a reason to stay on track. This is why immediate rewards are essential. They keep you excited while the delayed rewards accumulate in the background. See, the problem with habits is that, like we started this morning, they take time for you to see the rewards. We saw it in Isaiah, hear a little, bear a little. Precept upon precept, line upon line. The problem with the habit is that you often don't see the rewards immediately. You have to be faithful at that exercise routine that you started and at that healthy eating habit that you started. You have to be faithful for a long time before you start seeing the results of that diet or you start seeing the results of that exercise. You have to put in a lot of time. And the problem with that is that we often want, because if you remember from last week, we learned about the fact that we want the path of least resistance. We want to do things that are easy. We want to see effects immediately. See, we live in a drive-through microwave society, right? Everything happens fast. We want it fast. We don't want to wait for anything. We don't want to wait to develop a relationship. We don't want to wait to develop success as a career. We don't want to wait for anything. We just want to do it now. The problem is usually when we move quickly, we mess up. We mess things up when we move fast, when we don't wait upon the Lord, when we don't put the patience in, when we don't realize, look, that things require time. As someone who's trying to form good habits, you have to realize it's going to take some time for this habit to pay off. It's going to take some time before I start seeing the result. Yes, I may start working on my debt, but it's really going to take some time before I can start really seeing the impact that I've made. I'm going to start working on saving towards that big purchase, but it's going to take some time before I can get there. There's going to be things that you have to do before you see that result. So what you want to do, and this will require some brainstorming, and you may have to sit down and kind of think through it and think for yourself how to do this, but if you can, you want to make the reward immediately. You want to make a small reward immediate as possible, and one way to do that is to, like we said in tip number one, make the progress visual. Now, depending on what the habit is that you're trying to accomplish, these things are going to be different, but let me just give you kind of an example. You say, how could we make a reward immediate? How would that work? Well, let's just say that one of the habits that you're trying to break is maybe you're eating out at restaurants. Maybe you're just eating out too much, and you want to quit eating out and make meals at home, or you want to cut back on your frivolous spending. You're just spending too much on little things that are not important. You want to cut back on those things. Something you could do, and this is just an example, is open up a savings account, and give that savings account a name of something that excites you, maybe a family vacation, or maybe it's get out of debt, or maybe it's down payment for a house, or something like that, and when you pass on going out to a restaurant, you want to go to a restaurant, and you say, you know, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go home, and we're going to cook a meal. When you pass on going out to the restaurant, then transfer the amount of money you would have spent at that restaurant that night into the savings account. If you would have spent $50 at the restaurant that night, take your family out to eat or whatever, transfer that into the savings account. When you pass on getting coffee, transfer $5 into the savings account. Immediately seeing the savings account go up, even just a little bit, will be a visual reward that'll help motivate and keep you going. The trick often is to make some sort of a small visual reward immediate to kind of help you get through it while you're establishing a new habit. Say not unto thy neighbor, go and come again, and tomorrow I will give, when thou has it by thee. You want to make the reward immediate. Now, on the flip side, you're there in Proverbs 3. Go to Ecclesiastes chapter 8, if you would. Ecclesiastes chapter 8. Ecclesiastes is just right after Proverbs. You have Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes chapter 8. On the flip side of that, not only do you want to make the reward immediate for good habits, you also want to make the punishment immediate for bad habits. Ecclesiastes chapter 8 and verse 11. Here's some insight into why crime can get out of control in a society. Ecclesiastes 8 verse 11. Notice what the Bible says. Because sentence against an evil work. What does that mean? Sentence there is referring to like a sentencing or judgment. An evil work is referring to like a crime. It says because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Here's what the Bible is telling us. When punishment is not immediate, it motivates people to do wrong. Now, you can apply that to a society where you live in a society like ours where people maybe perform some sort of a crime and they kill somebody and they're gonna be sitting in prison for 20, 30 years before they ever actually receive the punishment that they're supposed to receive or whatever it might be. The idea is this, that punishment must be given immediately or it will motivate people to do wrong. By the way, we can apply that to the criminal justice system, but we can also apply it to your home. Your kids, when you discipline your children, you need to discipline them immediately. You need to punish them immediately. This idea of stop slapping your sister. Stop slapping your sister. I told you, all right, and it's like, man, your little girl's getting beat down. I've told you 18 times, stop slapping your sister. Or my favorite is the counting. One, two, and it's like, well, you're counting to what? 37? At some point, you need to actually just get up and spank the child. And in fact, oftentimes they're emboldened because they say, mom's lazy. She's not actually gonna get up. She's not actually gonna close her Facebook page she's looking at and actually get up and punish me. She's gonna yell at me from across the room so I can do whatever I want. Here's what I'm saying. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore, the heart of the sons of men is fully set to them to do evil. Look, when it comes to reward or it comes to punishment, it must happen immediately. Rewards should be done immediately. Punishment should be done immediately. You see, and when it comes to bad habits, the truth is this. With a good habit, the problem is that the work or the difficulty is immediate. Getting on the treadmill is work immediately. Getting up early is work immediately. And the reward or the results take time. It's gonna take time of getting on that treadmill every day consistently for a while. See, the sacrifice of eating healthy is immediate, but the rewards are down the road. It's gonna take more than one meal. It's gonna take several meals over several weeks, over maybe several months before you really start to see the rewards with good habits. But here's the thing with bad habits. And look, this proves to you that we live in a fallen state, that sin entered into the world, and death came as a result of sin. Because good habits, the sacrifice is immediate, the reward is coming. Bad habits, the reward is immediate, and the consequences are delayed. I mean, you smoke, and the reward's immediate. You get your nicotine fix. The cancer doesn't come till 30 years later. Unhealthy eating, the reward's immediate. Right then and there, you get to fill your palate and all your taste buds with all the things you want to have, but the diabetes and the obesity and those things happen later on, whether it's drugs or alcohol, whatever it is, whether it's spending too much or not saving, whether it's sleeping in and being lazy, hey, whatever it is, the reward for a bad habit is immediate, and the consequences are delayed. And with good habits, it's the opposite. The sacrifice is immediate, and the consequences are delayed. So we must make the reward, if possible, as immediate as possible, make a small reward immediate, and we should make a punishment, if possible, immediate. Now let me just kind of read this to you, and this is just an idea. Just as government uses laws to hold citizens accountable, you can create a habit contract to hold yourself accountable. A habit contract is a verbal or written agreement in which you state your commitment to a particular habit and the punishments that will occur if you don't follow through. Then you find one or two people to act as your accountability partners and sign off on the contract with you. Now go with me, if you would, to the book of Matthew, Matthew chapter four, first book in the New Testament, Matthew chapter four, and let me just kind of illustrate. You say, what does a habit contract look like? Well, there's different ways to do it, but let me just give you a very simple illustration. I've heard lots of people use this. Have you ever heard somebody use what they might refer to as like a cussing jar? Sometimes you have people and they develop a bad habit of using curse words and cuss words. By the way, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, but let me just explain something to you. Statistically, not statistically, good night. Research has shown that people, when they take, they put recordings on people and record them for a week long, and then they'll take those recordings and transcribe them and go through and look for patterns. What they have found is people who refer to cussing or to use a lot of cuss words or foul language is because they have a very limited vocabulary. Let me let you in on a little secret. You don't know how else to describe. You're not familiar with another adjective, so you keep using the same S word and F word and whatever word. Maybe you ought to pick up a book and read it. Maybe you ought to sign up for dictionary.com to develop a new habit of a daily word that you can start using, but it doesn't make you cool. It just shows that you're not that intelligent. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I'm just trying to help you out a little bit. It says something about you. There's a reason you don't see the CEO of a company. I was just at a, I was telling my wife, I was at a business recently, and I was there taking care of some things that need to be taken care of, and I told my wife, I'm never going back there again. I said, I don't like my experience. She said, what happened? I said, all the employees are just cussing at each other and yelling at each other. Now, if they do that on their own time, that's whatever, but they shouldn't be doing that in front of a customer. I'm paying these people to provide a service. They've lost my business. I'm just telling you, this is how people look at the world. So, you know, anyway, I got off on that. The cussing jar, you're trying to break a habit of cussing, you know? People will say, every time they use a foul word or they get caught by their kids or their spouse or whatever using foul language, then they have to put a dollar bill in the jar, or they have to put a $5 bill in the jar, and at the end of the week, they take that money and go get ice cream or something like that. That's an example of a habit contract where you say, I'm trying to break this habit, I'm trying to break this, and then you set some sort of a punishment in place in order to keep you from doing that. I read, I think it was in this book, I didn't write it down, but I read of a guy who wanted to develop a habit of getting up at four in the morning every day, and he somehow figured out how to set up an automatic message to go out through his Twitter account. He had all these thousands of followers that would go out every morning at four a.m., and it would say this, if you are seeing this message, it's because I failed to get up early today, and the first 10 people to email or respond to this will get $5 through his Google Play account or whatever, and his whole thing was he had to get up to stop that message every day from going out, because if he ever didn't stop that message from going out, it would go to his entire, all his Twitter followers, if you're seeing this message, just because I was too lazy to get up today, the first 10 people to respond to this, I'll transfer $5 through my Google Play account or whatever to your account, and again, that's an example of setting up some sort of a habit contract to bring some immediate pain, just a little bit of pain, into your process for developing good habits or breaking bad habits. Are you there in Matthew chapter four? Look at verse four, let me give you the fourth tip. Matthew 4, four, but he answered and said, it is written. Now this is Jesus speaking, notice what he says. He says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Jesus here, and this is a common thing, and I'm not gonna take the time to develop it throughout the Bible, but it's seen throughout the Bible if you wanna study it out on your own, Jesus equates reading the Bible to eating. He says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Of course, he's making a reference back to the Old Testament where God had manna come down from heaven every day, and the children of Israel were to go out every day and pick manna off the ground and eat it, remember, they were supposed to go out every day and pick the manna off the ground. They weren't allowed to pick more than was needed for the day. In fact, if they tried to get more than was needed for the day, it would go bad. They had to go out every day and pick out the manna, and then God was teaching them a lesson. He told them, this is an illustration of Bible reading because the word of God is the bread of life, the Lord Jesus Christ, the bread of life, and he wanted to develop. He says, the same way you go out and you eat every day, I want you to read the Bible every day and consume the Bible spiritually the same way you do it physically. And again, this is found throughout the Bible. You find passages where it says that you eat the word of God and that you taste the word of God. And here Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. So here's tip number four, utilize habit stacking. Utilize habit stacking. You say, what does that mean? Or what does that have to do with Matthew 4? Well, let me just kind of, let me read this for you and hope that it makes sense. You probably have very strong habits that you take for granted each day. For example, your brain is probably very efficient at remembering to take a shower each morning or to brew your morning cup of coffee or to open the blinds when the sun rises or thousands of other daily habits. You can take advantage of these strong habits to build new habits. How? When it comes to building new habits, you can use the connectedness of behavior to your advantage. One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new habit on top. This is called habit stacking. The idea with habit stacking is this, that you develop a new habit by adding it to an already established habit. See, God was trying to help the children of Israel with this, when he was trying to get them to develop a habit of daily Bible reading, Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. God says this and Jesus says this, there's something you do every day, you eat every day. So since you eat every day, let's connect that to eating physically every day, let's connect that to eating spiritually. He says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. So here's an idea, you know, you get up every day and maybe you have breakfast, or you get up every day and you have a cup of coffee, maybe you have a habit every morning, you get up religiously. Religiously, you have a cup of coffee every day. Wouldn't it be great if you read your Bible religiously? Wouldn't it be great if you prayed religiously? It's funny how we do all these things that aren't religious religiously, and we can't do the things that are religious religiously. So you say, I have a cup of coffee every morning. Okay, well, that's a habit you've already formed. Let's stack a new habit on top of that habit and let's read the Bible while you're having a cup of coffee, or while you're having your bowl of yogurt, or while you're having your eggs or while you're having your whatever. See, habit stacking is adding, is looking at your life and looking at things that you already do every day, and then you add to that, you add to that a new habit, and it's referred to as habit stacking. This is something that I actually did, and I did this before I'd read the book. I just did this, and then I read this book and I was like, oh, that's something that I already did, but in our home, obviously, like all of you, I'm sure, all of you men that have wives and children, I have a little routine every night before I go to bed, and I walk through the house and I make sure that all the windows are shut and all the doors are closed and all the doors are locked and that the dogs have been brought in, and yeah, dogs now too, and that all the lights are off and all those things, and I set the alarm, and I go upstairs and where my daughters sleep, they've got a little nightlight and I make sure that the nightlight's put in so that they're not tripping on themselves, that they have to use the restroom in the middle of the night, and I go into our boys' room and we've got the internet router or modem or whatever, it has to be in their room because of the way the house is laid out, so I go in there every night and turn it off because I don't want it to give them cancer or something, I don't know whatever it's gonna give them. I don't want them to give it to them while they're sleeping, so I go through and turn that off, and this is something that I do every night, just developed a habit because something that needed to be done every night, and obviously I'm the man of the house, so I go through and whatever. Well, one day, I thought to myself, you know, I do this, I go into my girls' room every night, make sure that they're not falling off the bed or sometimes they're sleeping on the floor, I don't know why, and pick them up and put them in their bed and make sure they're situated properly, make sure they're nightlights, and I go into my son's room and turn the internet off so they don't get cancer or whatever, I go through, I thought to myself, I do this every day anyway, so I developed this new habit where every time I walk into my girls' room and make sure they're situated, I say a quick prayer for them, that Lord, please help my girls to grow up to be Proverbs 31 women, and I walk into my son's rooms and I say, Lord, please help my sons to grow up to be men of character and integrity, that they'll love you and they'll follow you, and just develop this. I was doing it already anyway. It was a routine that I was going through anyway, just kinda, you know, complaining about the dogs, and instead, now I go through and do a quick prayer for my family. Here's all I'm saying is there are things that you do every day and you can utilize this habit stacking because what happens now is that when you go and pick up that cup of coffee, your mind connects coffee with Bible reading or doing the rounds of the house with praying for my family or whatever it might be, so man shall not live by bread alone. Let's stack that to the word of God but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. So number one, we have the tip of make the progress visual. Number two, we have the tip of when you fail, rebound quickly. Number three, we have the tip of make the reward or the punishment immediate. Number four, you have the tip of utilize habit stacking. Here's number five. Go to Matthew chapter six, if you would. If you're there in Matthew four, just flip a couple of chapters over. And look, you can find something you do every day. Some of you, you know, you drive, you have a commute, you drive every day. You could use that for something. Prayer, you could use that for listening to some sort of maybe an audio book that'll help you with your business or whatever. Utilize the things you do every day and stack some habits on top of those. Number five. Well, look at Matthew six, verse 22. This kind of goes with point number one, my eye effect of my heart, Matthew six, 22. The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eyes be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. Here, again, the Bible is emphasizing that we are visual people. The light of the body is the eye. If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of light. Excuse me, if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. So here's tip number five. Make sure the best choice is the most obvious one. Make sure the best choice is the most obvious choice to your eye. Let me just read this little anecdote for you. Anne Thorndike, a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, had a crazy idea. She believed that she could improve the eating habits of thousands of hospital staff and visitors without changing their willpower or motivation in the slightest way. In fact, she didn't plan on talking to them at all. Thorndike and her colleagues designed a six-month study to alter the choice architecture of the hospital cafeteria. They started by changing how drinks were arranged in the room. Originally, the refrigerators located next to the cash registers in the cafeteria were filled with only soda. The researchers added water as an option to each one. Additionally, they placed buckets of bottled water next to the food stations throughout the room. Soda was still in the primary refrigerators, but water was now available at all drink locations. What happened? Over the next three months, the number of soda sales at the hospital dropped by 11.4%. Meanwhile, sales of bottled water increased by 25.8%. They made similar adjustments and saw similar results with the food in the cafeteria. Nobody had said a word to anyone eating there. People often choose products not because of what they are, but because of where they are. When the choice is obviously in front of you, you will often make that choice. In fact, major brands at grocery stores or places like Target or Walmart, major brands pay top dollar to have their product placed at eye-level shelves. They put all the generic stuff at the bottom, and they put all the expensive name-brand stuff right at eye-level. Why? Because the light of the body is the eye. Because sometimes the choices we make are not conscious choices. We just choose whatever happens to be in front of us. People don't choose the product based on what it is. They choose it off of where it is. So with that said, when it comes to habit formation, you should make the best choice, the most obvious choice. You should try to think through, where do you go? What do you look at? Look, if you walk in to the kitchen and there is just a plate full of cookies that you just keep stocked with cookies, you're going to eat those cookies. So make sure the best choice is the most obvious one, and make sure you realize that as a visual individual, you're going to often be affected by what you see. So make sure that the best choice, the choice you want to do, is the one that's obviously in front of you. And again, when it comes to Bible reading, when it comes to prayer, when it comes to these things, look, if you struggle with Bible reading, put your Bible right where you're going to see it, open it up to whatever passage, and have it there so that you see it. They say if you want to develop a habit of running every morning or exercise every morning, get all your workout clothes and your tennis shoes and whatever, and put them right by your bed so you trip over them as you get up. And make the best choice the obvious choice. Go to 1 Peter chapter 4, if you would. 1 Peter chapter 4, towards the end, towards the end of the New Testament, you've got, of course, the book of Revelation. If you go backwards, you have Jude, 3 John, 2 Peter. Revelation, Jude, 3 John, 2 Peter. I said, number one, make the progress visual. Number two, when you fail, rebound quickly. Number three, make the rewards or the punishment immediate. Number four, utilize habit stacking. Number five, make sure the best choice is the most obvious one. Number six, 1 Peter chapter 4. Actually, let me just read to you this little anecdote first. And I apologize. This one's a little lengthier than the other ones, but I think it's worth it. And it'll kind of set up the tip number six. It says this, many people are familiar with Michael Phelps, who is widely considered to be one of the greatest athletes in history. Phelps has won more Olympic medals, not only than any swimmer, but also more than any Olympian in any sport. Fewer people know the name Hisham Garouge, but he was a fantastic athlete in his own right. Garouge is a Moroccan runner who holds two Olympic gold medals and is one of the greatest middle distance runners of all time. For many years, he held the world record in the mile, 1,500 meter, and the 2,000 meter races at the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. In 2004, he won gold in the 1,500 meter and 5,000 meter races. These two athletes are widely different in many ways. For starters, one competes on land, the other in water. But most notably, they differ significantly in height. Garouge is 5 feet, 9 inches tall. Phelps is 6 feet, 4 inches tall. Despite the 7 inch difference in height, the two men are identical in one respect. Michael Phelps and Hisham Garouge wear the same length inseam on their pants. How is this possible? Phelps has relatively short legs for his height and a very long torso, the perfect build for swimming. Garouge has incredibly long legs and a short upper body, an ideal frame for distance running. Now imagine if these two world class athletes were to switch sports. Given his remarkable athleticism, could Michael Phelps become an Olympic caliber distance runner with enough training? It's unlikely. At peak fitness, Phelps weighed 194 pounds, which is 40% heavier than Garouge, who competed at an ultralight 138 pounds. Tall runners are heavier runners, and every extra pound is a curse when it comes to distance running. Against elite competition, Phelps would be doomed from the start. Similarly, Garouge might be one of the best runners in history, but it's doubtful he would ever qualify for the Olympics as a swimmer. Since 1976, the average height of Olympic gold medalists in the men's 1,500 meter run is five feet, 10 inches. In comparison, the average height of the Olympic gold medalists in the men's 100 meter freestyle swim is six feet, four inches. Swimmers tend to be tall and have long backs and arms, which are ideal for pulling through the water. Garouge would be at a severe disadvantage before he ever touched the pool. The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competition. This is just as true with habit change as it is with sports and business. Habits are easier to perform and more satisfying to stick with when they align with your natural inclinations and abilities. Like Michael Phelps in the pool and Hashim Garouge on the track, you want to play the game where the odds are in your favor. Embracing the strategy requires, embracing this strategy requires the acceptance of a simple truth that people are born with different abilities. Now this, hopefully that makes sense when we talk about physically and sports, but this can also be applied spiritually and it can be applied to pretty much any habit. It can also be applied to your career. 1 Peter 4, look at verse 10. Notice what the Bible says. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same. Now notice, I want you to notice what the Bible says here. The Bible is saying that every believer has received a gift, and this is talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same. So he says, whatever gifts God has given you, use those to minister one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. God has given you certain gifts, talents, ability, and you should steward those gifts properly. Verse 11, if any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. Here's what he's saying. If God has given you the aptitude to speak, to communicate, maybe to preach, then you ought to do that well. Let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do that as of the ability which God giveth. I want you to notice that little phrase there. Let him do it as of the ability which God giveth that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever, amen. See, the truth is this. God has given you some strengths, some talents, some abilities, and you ought to work with the ability which God giveth. So here's tip number six, work within your strengths. When it comes to habit formation, you ought to work within your strength. I was recently listening to a business leader give a speech about business and managing people and leading people and things like that. And he said, look, sometimes you have to realize you can't send a duck to an Eagle school. And a duck is a duck. And that might all, you can't get mad at a duck because he quacks and he waddles. And sometimes we try to make and get more out of ourselves and out of other people that they're just not meant to give us. They just don't have the ability. Now, here's what people often think. They say, well, I've got the strength. I've got the strength, so I'm not gonna worry about that. But I've got all these other weaknesses and I'm gonna try to work on these weaknesses so that I can bring my weaknesses up to my strength. That is a mistake. Instead of working on your weaknesses and frustrating yourself on your weaknesses to try to bring your weaknesses up to your strength, what you should be doing is working within your strengths. Don't look, don't try to be a runner when you're built like an orangutan, I guess is the idea. Get in that pool and swim, you know? And the idea is this, that if you have certain strength, if you have certain abilities, if you have certain talents, if you have certain gifts that God has given you, then don't try to work on your weaknesses. You gotta work within your strength. And here's what often happens. Here's what happens. People will look at someone else who's maybe accomplishing great things. They'll say, oh, I need to, they're doing this and I need to work on that. And then they'll say, well, here's my strength. My strength may be, your strength may be public speaking, which is not a common thing. In fact, most people are terrified of public speaking. Statistics tell us that people's number one fear, for the most part, is getting up in front of people and speaking. But sometimes people have been given an aptitude or the ability to be able to speak and communicate in front of people. And people think, okay, I got a talent for speaking, so I'm not gonna work on that. I'm gonna work on this other weakness that I don't have and try to bring that up. And so you'll get preachers that are just winging their sermons, cause they've got an aptitude to teach and they're trying to work on all these other weaknesses, which what they should be doing is realizing, okay, God maybe gave me a gift to speak publicly. Let me work on that. Let me make that better. Let me put work within your strength and find other people to help you with your weaknesses. Work within your strengths and find other people to help you with your weaknesses. Number seven, go to Second Samuel, chapter number 11, if you would, Second Samuel, chapter number 11, you find the one and two books, they're all clustered together, First Second Samuel, First Second Kings, First Second Chronicles. See, and you know what your strengths are. And sometimes people ask me, how do you know what your spiritual gift is? How do you know what your talents are? How do you know what your strengths are? Here's how you know, when you're doing something that other people, maybe it drains them, but it energizes you, that's your strength, that's your gift. That's your talent. Some people, if I said, hey, I need you to get up on Sunday morning and preach to 200 people, they would just be like, oh, I can't, I don't know. You know, that's not their strength. For others, it might, you know, obviously we should put work into it and put time and energy into it, but it might energize them. For me, one of my strengths is organized. I like to organize things. I like to structure things. I like to run things. You know, I love the verse where it says that, let all things be done decently and in order. You know, I like calendars. I like to-do lists. I like to be able to look at things and say, okay, well, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna have this conference, or we're gonna have this event. We're gonna do this, and here's what needs to happen. Now, for many people, and I know this because people say this to me, that drains them. You know, it's just like, ah, thinking and organizing and preparing. You know, that drains them. But for me, that energizes me. In fact, when I'm just, you know, winging things, that's when I get drained. I don't like it when I'm just kinda like, you know, doing whatever. I like to think and plan ahead and be prepared. So here's the thing. That's a strength for me. So you know what? I don't delegate that because that drains other people while it energizes me. Now, obviously, you can delegate people helping you in those things, but the point is this. You need to figure out what's your strength. What do you do well? What energizes you? And work within your strengths and then have others help you with your weaknesses. So here's point seven. Have an accountability partner. To help you with developing good habits and specifically to help you with breaking bad habits, you ought to have an accountability partner. Second Samuel chapter 11, let me give you an example of this. Look at verse one. Second Samuel chapter 11 and verse one, the Bible says this, and it came to pass, this is of course the story of David when he commits adultery with Bathsheba. He's about to have, David's about to have a major moral failure in his life. The Bible says, and it came to pass after the year was expired at the time when kings go forth to battle. Now notice, the Bible tells us here, David's a king, and this is a time when kings go forth to battle. This is what David should have been doing. He should have been going forth to battle. Instead, here's what David did, and David sent. He sent away Joab and his servants with him. He should have gone with them, but instead he stayed back and he sent them away. Now who did David send away? He sent away his peers. He sent away his equals. He sent away the people that are closest to him, the people that are closest to him personally, the people that are closest to him in rank. Obviously, he's the king. Joab is the general of the army. He sends them away. He sends away the mighty men. He sends the people that he's been fighting with for years and pretty much his entire adult life, and David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Reba, but David noticed Terry still at Jerusalem. He stayed back, and it came to pass in an evening tide that David arose from off his bed. He can't sleep at night. I'll tell you why he can't sleep. He's not working. He should be battling. If he was out in the field fighting, he'd probably be getting a good night's rest, and it came to pass at an evening time that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the king's house, and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful to look upon, and David sent and inquired after the woman. Now I want you to notice the next few words in verse three. And one said. Now the one there is referring to one of David's servants, and I want to give it to this guy because this guy tried. Now this guy was not one of David's mighty men. This guy was not one of David's generals. This guy was a servant who did not get sent to war with the rest. He's not even close to being close to the king, but he tries, notice. And one said, notice what he says. Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliim, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Now this guy's trying to kind of tell David, hey, isn't this the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Hint, hint, this lady's married. But notice, David just disregards, and David sent messages and took her, and she came in unto him, and he lay with her, for she was purified from her uncleanness, and she returned unto her house, and the woman conceived, and sent, and told David, and said, notice, I am with child. And of course, we have a major problem in David's life. What was it, why was it that David failed? One of the reasons that David failed is because he failed to have people around him that could keep him accountable. Now I want you to compare and contrast that with another guy in the next chapter that confronts David, Second Samuel 12, verse one. And the Lord sent Nathan unto David, and he came unto him and said unto him, and he goes on to give him this little parable that he's gonna use, but I want you to notice Nathan's boldness, verse seven. And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anoint thee king over Israel, I deliver thee out of the hand of Saul. See, here's the thing, you say, what is Nathan? Nathan is a good accountability partner. He's in a different field as David. He's playing in a different field. You say, what do you mean by that? David is a king with an army. He's a politician. Nathan is a prophet. He's a spiritual leader. He's an equal in some ways to David. And Nathan walks up to David, he says, thou art the man. See, what David needed in chapter 11 was a Nathan. Before he messed up, he needed a Nathan to say, no, David, this ain't right. Thou art the man, don't do this, David. But what David did was that he removed anyone, removed anyone from his life that could really get in his face and correct him and confront him. And look, I have seen men over the last 11 years of ministry do this time and time and time again where they live their life. One of the main reasons men, I'm talking about red-blooded, you know, hair on their legs, males, one of the reasons they shy away from coming to a church like this is because they don't want accountability in their lives. They don't want a pastor that's gonna pull them aside and say, what are you doing? What are you doing with your wife? What are you doing with your kids? What are you doing? They don't want that. But let me tell you something. That's what you need. That's what we all need. We all need somebody in our lives that can keep us accountable, that can help us, that can be there for us. So look, when it comes to habit formation, you oughta have some accountability partner. Now, this can be done in a very structured way, obviously, especially if you're trying to break the habits of drugs and alcohol. It's good to have like a weekly accountability partner you meet with every week and you talk about your progress and how things are going and when you mess up and they can ask you, how are you doing? Did you drink this week? That can be done in that way. But it can also be done in a very informal way. I mean, people often just, my wife, recently I was sitting there at the table and my wife gets a phone call from one of the ladies in the church and I saw an accountability situation take place. Because, by the way, let me just say this. Be careful about the people that are trying to give you unsolicited advice. There's two types of people in this world. There's the people in this world that are always telling you everything you want to hear. Those are called the yes men. Now you say, why do I need to be careful with those people? You need to be careful with the yes men for two reasons. Number one, they may be a bad person. They may be buttering you up just so they can stab you in the back. They may also be a good person who does bad things. We call those enablers. They actually like you, they love you, but they have no character or enough character to tell you the truth. So they're constantly telling you, you're great, you're wonderful, while you're just destroying your marriage, destroying your children, destroying your life. So be careful about the people that are always just telling you you're the greatest thing ever. But also be careful about people who are always just trying to make you feel like you're the worst thing ever. Because those people are often just insecure and they're often just pulling you down so they can make themselves feel better. You say, who do I need in my life? Here's who you need in your life. Someone who's gonna tell you the truth. Someone who's gonna tell you, hey, you're doing great when you're doing great, but they're also gonna tell you, that's not right when you're not doing right. And they're not trying to make you feel bad, they're not trying to, you see, you say, what do I need? Here's the thing, and that's why oftentimes what you need is a pastor and a pastor's wife because your little buddy can't be your accountability partner. You need someone in a different field, someone playing in a different league. Joab could not be David's accountability partner or he could have, but to an extent, not like the Nathan prophet, not the Nathan prophet, good night, the prophet Nathan. I'm dyslexic, okay? Sometimes you need somebody to be able to come into your life and speak the truth and know that there's no agenda, they're not trying to butter you up, they're not trying to bring you down, they're just speaking the truth in love. And they're telling you what you need to hear. Go to Luke chapter 17, if you would, Luke chapter 17, this is the last one, we'll finish up. Matthew, Mark, Luke, Luke 17. When it comes to habit formation, number one, make the progress visual, number two, when you fail, rebound quickly, number three, make the reward of the premonition immediately, immediate, number four, utilize habit stacking, number five, make sure the best choice is the most obvious one, number six, work within your strengths, number seven, have an accountability partner, number eight. Here's tip number eight, we'll finish up. I'll give you a verse, give you a little anecdote, and we'll be done. Number eight, work out of duty. Luke 17 and verse 10 says this, so likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you. Now this is Jesus speaking about how a servant is to serve their master. And then he makes the application, he says, so likewise ye, he says you are like the servant, serving the Lord. When ye have done all those things which are commanded you, say, when you've done everything that God has commanded you to do, Romans 12 calls it your reasonable service, what's expected of you. When ye have done the things which are commanded you, say, we are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do. When you have responsibilities that are given to you to do, and you do those, let me help you out with something. Some of you had enablers as mothers, enablers as fathers. Let me help you out with something. When you do what you're supposed to do, you haven't done anything special. You've only done what was expected of you. You've done your duty. You haven't gone above and beyond. We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do. And by the way, I'm not saying that in a negative way, I'm just saying this, sometimes you have to realize in life, sometimes you just do things out of duty. Because it's what you're supposed to do. Because it's the right thing to do. Because it's what you're expected to do. Let me read to you this little article. This is the writer talking about when he was an athlete in college. He's talking about working out at a gym and meeting a special coach, they brought a coach in. He says this, on this particular day, there was a coach visiting who had worked with thousands of athletes over his long career, including some nationally ranked athletes and Olympians. I introduced myself and we began talking about the process of improvement. What's the difference between the best athletes and everyone else, I asked. What do really successful people do that most don't? He mentioned the factors you might expect, genetics, luck, talent, but then he said something I wasn't expecting. At some point, it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over. His answer surprised me because it's a different way of thinking about work ethic. This coach was saying that really successful people feel the same lack of motivation as everyone else. The difference is that they still find a way to show up despite the feeling of boredom. If there was one thought, if there was one idea, if there was one conviction that I could download, if God would allow me to just download one thought into the life of Christian people, it would be this idea of duty, duty. Sometimes we do things not because they're exciting, sometimes we do things not because we're motivated, sometimes we do things, sometimes we just do things and we should do things out of duty because it's the right thing to do. Say, Pastor Jimenez, why do you show up at soul wedding every week? Rescue the perishing, duty demands it because it's the right thing to do because it's what we're supposed to see. People say, Pastor, when I first started coming to church here, I really was excited about soul wedding, soul wedding was so exciting, we were going out knocking doors, it was this great thing, but then I'm not as excited anymore. And they come to me, you know, they're asking like, I'm not as excited anymore, can you help me? And I'm thinking to myself like, okay. So, well, what do I do? Go soul wedding? But I'm not excited. Yeah, I'm not excited to have the time either. You just do it. Look, look, see, here's what you want. You want the pastor to get up and preach this, you know, this tear-jerking, heart-wrenching sermon about soul wedding, which we do, by the way, which we do from time to time, and that motivates you and gets you going, and that's great, we do that so you get going. But at some point, you have to realize, sometime, you just do it out of duty. You just show, you say, I don't feel like showing up. I didn't feel like showing up today, but I'm here. Sometimes I don't feel like coming to church either. Sometimes I don't feel like reading the Bible either. Sometimes I don't feel like meeting with you after a service either, but I do it, why? Because it's the right thing to do, because it's what you need, it's what I need to see. In life, we all need a little bit of duty. Well, we just do the right thing, because it's the right thing to do. We don't need a gold star for it. We don't need all this attention for it. We are unprofitable servants. We have done that, which was our duty to do. So get motivated, read books, listen to preaching, go to the Red Hot Preaching Conference, do all those things that you need to do to motivate yourself, but realize, go to some mission strip, go to whatever you need to do to motivate yourself, to get excited, but realize at some point down the road, you're gonna get up on a Saturday morning, it's gonna be cold, and you're gonna have to make a decision. I don't wanna go soloing, do I go soloing? And at that point, you'll decide what kind of a Christian you are. Are you the person that always takes the path of least resistance? See, you start, January 1, open up the Bible, Genesis chapter one, I'm gonna read the Bible through this year, and you read, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and you read all these passages about creation and about all these successful stories, and Genesis, then you get, you know the story, you learn about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and then you get at the end of Genesis, I think the most exciting part of the book of Genesis, the story of Joseph and that great story, then you finish Genesis and you get into Exodus, and you got Moses and Pharaoh and the plague, but look, eventually, you're gonna get to Leviticus. Eventually, you're gonna get to Deuteronomy. At some point, you're just gonna have to do it out of duty. You get to about March, and you've forgotten all about your New Year's resolutions, and you just get up and do it because it's the right thing to do, and you make a decision and you say, I'll do it, and when I'm done, we will say, we have done that, which was our duty to do. Let's bow our heads in that word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for your word, thank you for these principles, and Lord, I pray you'd help us to develop habits, develop good habits, to realize that we've got to develop good habits, we have to break bad habits. Help us to use these tips to our advantage to help us, but help us to always remember that at some point, we just have to probably do it out of duty. Help us to be people of character and integrity. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.