Morgan Teruel: Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We're glad you're here, and we hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: We're good to go? Yep. Oh, why were y'all waiting on me? Cool. Let's do this.
We're recording. We are. Let's go. Man, happy New Year, Sandals Church. Welcome to 2023.
You know, the start of a new year, I think, has a special way of connecting all of us unlike anything else. There's something about a new year that I think makes us dream again. We think about where we wanna travel to, the kinds of people that we wanna become more like, the kind of people that we wanna be around. Right? And there's something to that.
It's because I think there's something deep within all of us as human beings that longs for a fresh start, and the new year kind of offers that. But truth be told, a new year doesn't always mean a better future. We know this from years past. And it's important for us to realize that it's actually Jesus, not January, that makes all the difference. He and he alone is the one that can make you new, make me new, and make this actually a new year.
So let me ask you, what do you want this new year to be for you? More importantly, where do where do you actually wanna go from here? But it's hard to answer that unless you know where you are first. Where are you right now? A number of months ago, Ashley and I had a chance to go to a, a new mall that we'd never been to before, a beautiful outdoor shopping mall down in San Diego, and, we were excited to go.
We we knew that we wanted to go to some of the stores there, but we didn't know how to get there. Because when we arrived at the mall, we had never been there. We we had no idea where we were. Now Ashley's approach is to kinda just enjoy the moment. She takes it in.
She likes to explore. I'm the one guy at the mall that actually wants to go to the mall map. So I stop. I look at the little x that says, you are here, then I kinda trace all the way up. I'm like, oh, damn.
We gotta go all the way here. Then I'm like, shoot. Why did I park the car down here? Right? And so I'm like, I'm I'm about to do a 5 k just to get a pair of jeans this morning.
But we had to locate ourselves, and you need to be able to locate yourself. And so when you when it comes to thinking about where you wanna go in this new year, you need to first ask yourself, where are you? You and I need to understand that it's hard to move forward unless we know where we're starting from. It's gonna be hard to move forward in 2023 unless you know where you actually are at. And so today, even though it's after Christmas, we're gonna receive the gift of reflection, an opportunity to reflect on where we're at and and to see where God wants to take us, because it's so important to be able to locate where where you might be.
It's it's weird to say that but think about what maybe what's impacted you the most in 2022. Maybe you find yourself kinda satisfied, content. You feel good about where you're at. Maybe you've experienced a lot of change and so you find yourself a little bit confused, unsure. Maybe you've gone through some loss and and so you you just feel sad.
Right? It's important to be able to locate where you're at in order to know where you wanna go next. And so our passages today is gonna help us to do that. We're gonna read from Lamentations 3, and we're to ask that God would help us just to reflect and see where he wants to take us. And so let's read today, from Lamentations 3, starting in verse 40.
Jeremiah writes this, Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. Now let's pause for a second, because it's New Year's day, and we were all up past midnight. And let's just hear that again. Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. This is God's word.
Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, for your word. God, we thank You for a new year. And we pray God that as we hear Your word today, that we might also hear Your voice and that You might just open up our hearts and, and our eyes and our ears and our whole selves to receive all that You have for us. We pray these things in Jesus' name.
Amen. Amen. You know, when was the last time you actually spent at least like 20 minutes just reflecting on your life? And when I talk about reflection, I mean paying attention to your actions, paying attention to your reactions, paying attention to the stories that you tear tell yourself. More importantly, listen now, paying attention to the shame that some of you carry in your life.
To reflect is to maybe pay attention to how God's been speaking to you, how you've been using your time this last year, how you aligned your priorities. Right? But here's the thing. There are 2 things that generally get in the way and keep us from reflection. The first is time, and the second is our distractions.
Unfortunately, we live at a pace today that just doesn't allow for us to slow down and have time to reflect. Secondly, man, the moment that I get bored, I'm so quickly distracted. Any moment in my day where I have, just enough moments to be bored or enough time to be bored and actually take a moment to reflect, I get distracted primarily by my device. Time and distractions keep us from all of what God might wanna reveal to us when we actually don't spend time reflecting. Now so let's pause and think about that.
Because reflecting, or I should say it like this, not reflecting on our lives can actually lead us to lead to live very, very dangerous lives. Not reflecting on our lives can lead us to live dangerous lives and and here's why. Because reflecting on my life can actually keep me from reacting so much in my life. Think about parts, in your life. Maybe at work, Maybe with a spouse.
Maybe with your kids. Where where do you find yourself reacting so much? I would venture to guess that where you find a lot of reactions in your life, it's because there's so little reflection in your life. You haven't spent time allowing God to actually reveal to you what's happening to you in those moments, what's happening to you in those relationships. Without reflection in our lives, we can live very, very dangerous ones.
Listen to David's words from Psalm 139. He says search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting. Did you catch this phrase?
Know my anxious thoughts. In other words, he wants to know in his life where he's reacting. He wants to know where he's, coming off maybe short or rude. He he wants, through prayer, as he reflects on his life to God for God to reveal to him what's actually going on in him. And so think about where where you're experiencing this as well.
But then remember his ending phrase. He says, and lead me in the way of everlasting. Man, you see for David, his reflection actually has a kind of direction. It has a direction. This is the same case in our text today from Lamentations 3.
Jeremiah is writing to a group of people who have gone their own way. They've been uprooted from their their homeland and they're in exile now. They have not listened to God. They have disobeyed him. They have turned to do their own thing.
And Jeremiah is saying, listen, examine your life. Examine what you're doing and return to the Lord. You see our reflection should have a direction and it's one in which we're actually coming back to God. We're we're reflecting for the purpose of returning. We reflect not just so that we can experience less reaction in our life, but we also want to reflect because we want to return to God.
We want to be restored to him. And I love that even in a book named Lamentations, where it's full of lament and and in a time when Israel has abandoned God, God is still pursuing them. They may not care about his presence, but God is lovingly being present to them and saying return. Return to me. And that's what he's calling us to do too, which is secondly why I want us to think about this.
Reflecting on my life can either fill me with regret or with God's love. Reflecting on my life can either fill me with regret or with God's love. This is why it's so difficult for us to, actually spend time, giving ourselves to the practice of reflection. Because because we don't want to just simply replay all the ways that we didn't do things right over the course of last year. The weight we didn't lose, we don't want to think about the the relationships that we did lose out as well.
We we don't wanna think about the ways that we, failed. We don't wanna think about, how we we came short. Right? There there's so there's such a temptation to feel only regret as we reflect on our life. But that's not God's desire.
In the same way that he's calling Israel back to him, he is calling you and I back to him. Would you reflect and be restored to me? Because it's natural for us as we think about the past year to just replay scenes in our mind where we messed up, where we fell short, where we couldn't even live up to our own standards. And then that inner voice, that inner critic begins to just speak to us and say, look at you. Look at all the things you couldn't do.
Look at the ways that you messed things up. Look at the vacations you you you couldn't take. Look at the work that you couldn't get done. This is always going to be you, which is why we so desperately need to hear these words from 1st John 3. 1st John 3 writes, I'm sorry, John writes to, a group of people in which he's giving them assurance, and he says this.
He says this, this is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence. Pause. Think about that for a second. How we set our hearts at rest in his presence. If you wanna avoid regret and reflection, this is what you need to do.
This is what John says. If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything. He knows everything. God is greater than our heart so that when that inner critic starts chirping, when you start thinking about all the ways that you messed up this last year, know that your heart knows a lot. Of course it does.
But it doesn't know more than God. It would be important for us and humble of us to realize man God, you know more than my heart and you are greater than our hearts. And so would you help me to believe what you say about me as more true than what I say about myself or or than what maybe 2022 says about me. Because the truth is this, God can take our even our greatest mistakes and turn them for good. God God is always listen now.
God is always moving toward us in his love and desire for our good. And so, man, I I'm curious as to know why the story we tell ourselves seems to have so much more power over us than the story that God is telling us. Because the invitation to reflect on our lives is a way that that might allow us to be more rooted into God's love for us and be freed of the shame and the guilt that that inner voice wants to just pile on more and more regret. And so as we continue to move on, I I actually just wanna pause and give us time to reflect on 3 questions. Three questions as we prepare for 2023.
And the first is this. What are the spiritual practices you need to stay connected to God? We start with this question because all of our life flows from our connection to God. It's the most important question to ask. And so what are the practices that you want to do?
And and by practice, I mean this. A practice is anything you do that brings your attention to God. So what are those things for you? Maybe scripture can be a practice that you engage with more. Prayer.
Maybe spending time with community. Spending time, serving people. Right? These are practices that help bring our attention to God. There are ways for us to connect with him.
Now let's pause and just think about this for a second, because it's often the case that you and I, struggle to do the same practices that we that we realized once helped us before. Right? And so we we need to embrace that maybe in 2023, what used to help me in the past connected stay connected to God isn't going to be what I need now this year, and that's okay. That's okay to realize that there are certain practices for certain seasons of my life, and I need to figure out what I need to do this year to stay connected to God. I know for me, man, I need to obviously continue, being in God's word, spending time in prayer, but also, I've realized in my own life, it's hard for me to always know how I'm feeling.
And so a practice that I wanna give myself to is actually just to journal a bit more this year. And I know you hear journaling like, oh, god. But I'm not writing an essay. I'm not writing a short story. It's not a blog post.
I'm literally just in my daily planner writing 2 sentences, 2 or 3 sentences. Just there's some questions there that prompt my thinking. And it's interesting how just writing something down helps me to better understand where I'm at and then to take that to God in prayer. And so for me, journaling is a connection, is a practice that I want to do to stay more connected to God. Second question is this, what are the practices of self care?
Listen now. What are the practices of self care that I need to care for my body and soul? Now I know when you hear the word self care, I know many Christians, we we struggle with this. We we almost feel like, man, that is a selfish thing to do. You know, we're supposed to be caring about people.
We're supposed to be, caring about our relationship with God. So self care feels like a selfish thing. But listen, I want you to hear these words from Parker Palmer. He's he's a well known Christian writer and he has an incredible take on self care that I think we need to hear. He writes this, self care is never a selfish act.
It's simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. Now, Paz, think about that. Self care is good stewardship of the only gift I have. You know what that gift is? It's you.
It's your body and your soul. How can you love others well if you have not taken good care of of yourself, of your body and your soul? Paul says in 1st Corinthians 6 that your body is the temple of the living God. In other words, Jesus died and rose to to purchase your body, to redeem your body and soul. It matters to God.
Your body and soul matter to God. They should matter to you. And And so what are the things that you need to do in 2023 to care for your body and soul? For some of us, that means maybe receiving the gift of Sabbath, taking time away from work to rest, to worship God, to enjoy the life He's given us. Maybe it means saying no to more things in 2023.
Maybe it means entering into, a season of counseling, for you or for your your family, your your spouse. Maybe it means that you engage more in fasting or you just have a meal plan, like you just change your relationship to food. You get out and exercise more, man. One of the most powerful ways for many of us just to connect with God is to get outside to walk. And and so what are the the movement oriented routines that you need to say yes to as a way to care for your body and soul?
I know for me, man, 6 months ago, I had to make some significant changes in my life and and in a way that I related to food. And so I got a good friend of mine, to train me and Ashley. He gave us meal plans. He put us on a workout. And, man, it was so helpful because I was treating food, less like a gift and more like a God.
Because, man, when I was stressed, I ate. When I wanted to celebrate, I ate. And I ate all the time. I ate like a hobbit, man. I was always ready to snack on something.
And so I needed to significantly shift the way that I just related to food and and and started to see it more again as a gift from God. And instead of always reaching for our snacks, I needed to reach for him. And it was deeply important for not only my health, but just the way that I live life, the way that I lived out God's calling for my life. And so I want you to think about and reflect on what are those practices of self care you need. And then lastly, our third question before we close is this.
What are the gifts and the passions and the burdens that God wants you to express for the good of others? You see to have a healthy spiritual life means that life isn't just about us. And to embrace the fact and the truth that God has placed in each one of you gifts and passions and burdens that he wants to bring out for the sake of other people. In other words, for some of you, you have gifts of compassion to care for people. Some of you have gifts of creativity to to to use to tell stories, to create environments, to do things that bless other people in the name of Jesus.
What do you have to offer the world? Because the lie today that many of us will be tempted to believe from the enemy is that there is nothing good in you to offer anyone in 2023. As you enjoy the new year and coming off New Year's Eve, the temptation for some of us is just to kind of sigh and to believe the lie of the devil from hell itself that there is nothing good in you, and that you will continue to be pathetic and to have nothing to offer people. But the truth is this, God has placed a burden in each one of us, a calling, a gift, and and he he wants to see it drawn out of us, to be used to bless people. And the way that gets drawn out of us is through the practice of reflecting and saying, god, what are my burdens?
Maybe for some of you, you have a burden to to disciple other people. Man, we'd love to have you be part of that journey here at Sandals Church. For some of you, you have a burden to share the good news. You have a burden to serve other people. Put those into practice this year.
And and be encouraged by this, man. Regardless of what happened in 2022, 2023 is a new year. And I think of Paul's words, that he wrote in Philippians 1 where he says that the work that Jesus began to do in you, He will bring it to completion. God is not finished with you. He's not done.
If if you got a pulse today, you have a purpose today. God is not done with you. He is not done with me. And there is so much opportunity this new year to allow what he has placed in us to come out for the good of other people. And so receive that word and and reflect on, man, God, what do you want from me in 2023?
And know that it's not something you gotta overthink. You don't gotta over spiritualize this moment. Listen. Listen to God. Hear what he says.
Take note, and and move forward in faith. And pray that God would do incredible things, ordinarily incredible things through your life, through the life of your family. Let's pray that in now together as a church. Heavenly Father, I ask that you, God, would would help us to receive the gift of reflection so that we might see what we need to practice, what we need to do to care for ourselves, And ultimately what are the burdens you have placed in our hearts to draw out, to bless the world. God, we pray that our lives in 2023 would be great.
That they would be amazing in the name of Jesus. Would you do this now through him? We pray these things in his name. Amen. Amen.
Morgan Teruel: Thanks for listening to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision here is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. At Sandals Church, we wanna see a movement of authenticity take place all over the world, and donating to the work of Sandals Church helps make that happen. If you wanna support this movement here at Sandals Church, I wanna invite you to visit donate.sc. Thanks again for listening, and God bless.