“Some things are better left unsaid.” Have you ever heard that piece of advice? It’s a good one. Especially when it’s applied to other bits of advice we often hear. Phrases like “Follow your heart!” or “Speak your truth!” sound helpful on the surface. But when you actually apply this awful advice in your life, you’ll see the results are not what you hoped they’d be. The good news is, there’s a better way to a better life—far better than living by one-sentence slogans that don’t actually work. Behind every piece of awful advice we can find a timeless truth from God that, when lived out in practice, will change our lives for the better.

It’s not a secret that everything worthwhile in life lives uphill—a healthy body, healthy finances, healthy relationships. You have to work to build a fulfilling life for yourself. So does that mean that life is a constant slog of pushing through pain to get something good? Not at all. In fact, when you start making God-honoring decisions, they tend to create momentum that propels you toward the life God has in mind for you.

Well, man, it is good to see everybody you guys excited to be here in house today, man. It's, it's good being back, let me tell you it's weird preaching to an empty room like it's it was weird this last couple of weeks just preaching to the camera. So happy to have people back in house with us, man, keep staying healthy. Just stay healthy. We still have so many people in our church family who are facing different kinds of illnesses and diseases. And not even just, you know, COVID. But like just other things coming up, a lot of dear members of our church. So as you're continuing to pray this week, just make sure you include your church family, because we have a lot of people going through a lot of stuff right now. And they could definitely, definitely use it. And again for yourself, just stay healthy. Stay healthy, please. But man, it is so good to have everybody here. We are in week three of this series, "Follow Your Heart and Other Awful Advice." I hope you guys have been enjoying it so far hope that it's you know, been helping you, been speaking to you in different ways. What we're looking at in this series, as we're talking about awful advice is we're looking at specific pieces of advice that can sound good on the forefront. Like these are things that they sound good. They're sayings, they're slogans, they're hashtags that we hear them, and we're like, oh, okay. But if you dig down even just a little bit, you realize, yeah, this is kind of insufficient advice. If I if I really follow this, if I really take this thing to its logical conclusion, it's not going to take me where I want to be in life. Who's ever gotten advice like that before? Like, it sounded good, it sounded good. And then you followed it, right? If you're online, you can put in, you can put in the chat specific advice that you've been given in your life, but you're like, not great advice. 

There's actually a few years ago on I think it was The Tonight Show. They do those Tonight Show hashtags, where they'll post a hashtag and ask people to comment on it, if they've had an experience, and one of them that they did a few years back was called #BadAdvice, like bad advice. And some of the ones that they had were so funny as I wanted to read some of these because they were cracking me up. This first one, "my dad told me when I started driving to not use my blinkers because it was nobody's business where I was going." I think that person lives in Ohio. Like I think I've been following behind that person. Let's dive into this next one. If you've had if anyone's if you ever had wasabi, the green stuff, like sushi and everything that okay, if you've had it, then you'll get it. If not, this will go over your head. But this person, "I had Asian food for the first time. My friend told me wasabi is like Asian butter to put it on everything. I promise you I could taste feelings after dinner." And then this last one, this one had me laughing too. "I bought a car that smelled like smoke. But my friend told me it's no big deal. Vinegar would fix it. Now my car just smells like pickled cigarettes. Awesome." Sounds delicious. Right? Just bad advice. This bad advice. You're like, man, why did I listen to this? This is not giving me the result that I wanted. And there's some pieces of advice out there that a lot of us follow. A lot of us have maybe said before, maybe this is advice, not just that we follow it's advice that we've given in the past. And it's faulty. Right? It will leave people wanting, like it won't, it won't get the results that you hoped it would get. 

And so where we've been so far, and if you've missed any of these, you can always catch up on our archives online, cornerstonechurch.info, and you can check out all these past sermons. But where we've been so far, week one, we talked about the awful piece of advice of speaking your truth. Speak your truth, right? We hear this all the time is a very, very common piece of advice that people give. Maybe you've said it before, maybe you've been given this advice before. But this is terrible advice. And the reason this is such bad advice, the reason this advice will leave us wanting is because there's no such thing as your truth. Right? There is no your truth. Truth is not something that you or I or anyone can possess. It's not something we own. Truth is a person that we know, right? We don't own truth, we can come to know truth through the person of Jesus. And we can see what truth actually looks like through him and through his life. But we can't own it, but we can know it. And that's better. Because when we seek to know truth that pushes us into relationship with Jesus. So that's where we were week one, speak your truth.

And then week number two, last week, we talked about the piece of advice that says if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but ain't broke, don't fix it. Now, this can seem like a pretty decent piece of advice to base your life around to follow because, I mean, there's some things in your life, you're doing habits, routines that are good, and you probably shouldn't deviate from those you probably shouldn't change things up. But this mindset right here, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, if you apply this logic, if you apply this advice to every area of your life, what this becomes is it becomes a prison. You start to say no to things that you should be saying yes to. You say no to relationships, you shouldn't say yes to, you know, you say no to opportunities that you should say yes to. And we talked about the example of Blockbuster, at one time Blockbuster, think about this, on average, they were opening a new store every 17 hours. Think about that, at the height of their powers, right in the mid 90s. At the height of their powers, they had over 9,000 stores, they were bringing in $6 billion with a B dollars annually, just a mammoth monstrosity, like this store was just huge, and their model wasn't broke. So why try to fix it? Well, in the middle of that a man named Reed Hastings, the CEO of a small startup company called Netflix, walks into their boardroom offers them $50 million for their company, and they turn it down. Right? They turn him down, and he leaves. And the reason they say no, the reason they turn him down is because we don't need you. Our model ain't broke, why fix it? We can do the same thing in our lives, when we follow this advice of hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We can say no to opportunities that God brings our way no to these greater things he wants to do in our life. So we've got to be careful. We've got to be careful. We got to keep our eyes open when God brings opportunities our way, something different than what we've done before. 

So that's where we've been and that brings us up to today. Now, the scripture I want us to look at today is from Matthew 7 This is the closing argument of Jesus's sermon on the mountain, the most famous sermon ever preached in history, Jesus's sermon on the mountains in Matthew, chapters 5, 6, & 7. Jesus just preaches the paint off the wall, right? Like he, he gives this sermon talking about what the new kingdom of God, what this kingdom ethic looks like, in real life, what it looks like whenever we live this out, and this is how he concludes his sermon in Matthew 7, starting in verse 24. This is what Jesus says. "'Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine, and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock,' Jesus says, 'Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine,'" these words of mine, not slogans of culture, not hashtags, not these catchy things, not follow your heart, not speak your truth, not people who follow that advice, but follow in practice and put into action,  "'these words of mine. They're like a wise man who built his house on the rock,'" verse 25, "'The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.'" Now what this means when Jesus says it has its foundation on the rock, in Jesus's time, what this means building a house on a rock in ancient Palestine, that is something that is costly. It's something that is time consuming. That is something that is difficult. If you are building your house upon the foundation of rock in Jesus's time, you are going into it knowing okay, it's going to take a lot of time, it's going to cost me a lot and it's going to be very difficult. Verse 26, "'But everyone who hears these words of mine that does not put them into practice is like the foolish man who built his house on the sand,'" built his house on the polar opposite of the rock, build his house on something that wasn't costly. It was cheap. Build his house on something that it wasn't time consuming. Man a house can go up on sand, can go up on dirt quick. So you don't have to, you know, drill into anything. It can happen really fast. It can be quick, and it's not difficult, man, it's easy to build your house on the sand. That is an easy thing to do. Verse 27, "'But the rain came down the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against that house. And it fell with a great crash.' When Jesus had finished teaching these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching at the Sermon on the Mount, because he taught as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law."

I want a strong house. I want a strong house. Why don't you turn and tell the person next to you I want a strong house. I want a strong house. I don't want to because this is the thing that I know about you. There's a thing I know about you watching online because this is true of every person who has ever lived. Storms are not an if, they are a when they happen. They just happen. People in our church, we have a lady in our church who she's a mortgage professional. She had people come in to start a process for loan to get a new house. Fifty-four-year-old woman caught COVID two days later, died right in the middle of this process. These are people who, people who are looking to buy a house, not remotely thinking that a storm is going to come in and it came. There are people who, there's storms coming, there's job changes coming, there's financial changes coming, there are storms coming, and you're gonna want a strong house. You're going to want a house that's able to withstand that, that was able to stand up against what life throws your way, because storms are coming. 

And so today, we're going to see how we do that, how we build a life that can withstand the storms that we face, if you would bow your head, let's pray together just real quick. Father God, we are thankful for the truth of your word, we are thankful that if we follow the words of your son, Jesus, if we follow the teachings that he has put into place, this new way, this kingdom ethic of living, this kingdom of God way of life, that if we do that, God, that our house will be like a house that is built on rock, a house that is able to withstand every change, every disruption, everything that life throws our way. God, that's what we want. And so what we ask today, God is that you would supernaturally go before us in this moment to clear our head, to clear our thoughts so that we can be present in this moment right now to hear a word from you. God, I ask that you would be with me that all the words I say today would not be my opinion or my thoughts and ideas because Lord knows no one came here today, no one tuned in today to hear what Pastor Jacob thinks. We are here for you. We want to know what you think about life. We want to know what you say about our situation. Help us to hear you today, God, and to put it into practice so we can see change for the better in our life. We love you so much. And we pray all this in your name. Amen. Amen. 

Well, today we are looking at this piece of advice, "No Pain, No Gain," no pain, no gain. Who's ever said this before? You've probably said this to your kids before, whenever you're telling them to do something to complete a chore, right? Like ah no pain, no gain. I was actually looking this statement up to see like, where did this start? Who came up with this statement? I found three different people saying three different things about who coined this phrase. The first place that I found said that Jane Fonda, Jane Fonda coined this phrase back in the 80s, with her workout tapes. So I don't know about that. Seems a little bit fishy. Can't believe everything you see on the internet, right? The second person, another page that I saw said that Benjamin Franklin, in one of his early letters that he wrote to a newspaper that he coined this phrase, not that exact wording, no pain, no gain, but something similar. But the earliest example we have of this gift, this is the earliest example we have of this phrase, of no pain, no gain, this idea goes all the way back to about 600 to 700 BC. So six to 700 years before Christ walked the earth. We have this idea of no pain, no gain, and it comes from Hesiod, a Greek poet and this is what he says, "Before the road of excellence, the immortal gods have placed sweat." I'll read that again. "Before the road of excellence, the immortal gods have placed sweat," translation, no pain, no gain. You want excellence? You want something worthwhile in your life? You want something that is good? And you're life, it's full of purpose and potential, you want that? There's going to be sweat, there's going to be cost, there's going to be pain, it's going to be hard. It's gonna be difficult. No pain, no gain. This is not a new idea. Jane Fonda did not coin this back in the 80s. This is an idea that has been around for a long, long time. And you want to know why it has? Why this idea has been there for such a long time. Because to a degree This is true. 

Is this true? Like the piece of awful advice we're talking about today? This is the truest piece of advice that we'll look at in this entire series. So in this entire series, we got five weeks, out of all of the weeks, this one "No Pain, No Gain," when you look at it, you're like, ah, kinda. Like kind of though. And you know that, like, I'm not cracking an egg knowledge on your head right now, you know that that's true, because you've experienced it. Have you ever done a diet before? Case in point, there is no gain. Well loss, I guess actually. Right? I guess it's backwards here. You don't get to where you want to go without some pain. You don't get to where you want to go without some exercise. You don't get to where you want to go with fewer pizzas and more salads like you just you do not get there. You've experienced that. Hey, man, if I if I want to see good gain in my life, there is going to be some pain. There's going to be some hard things that I have to go through. If you've ever tried getting out of debt, my word that is a painful process of telling people, no, I wish I could go out to eat. No, I wish I could do this. No, I would love to buy that. No, I would love to do this with my tax refund. But I've got debt to throw it at, I've got debt to pay off, I've got bills that I've got to pay off. And that is hard. And it's painful. And it can take years. I mean, you'll read about people who will pay off debt in a short amount of time, like nine months. But my word what they had to do to get there, sell one of their cars, move to a smaller house, get rid of a bunch of possessions, like just crazy stuff going through all this pain to see gain in their life. Because to a degree, it's true. No pain, no gain. 

If you've ever tried to end a relationship, you know, okay, like, it's gonna be hard, it's gonna be painful is going to be difficult, I may have to say something that you know it, it hurts their feelings. But in the long run, it's good. It's gonna be hard, it's gonna be painful. It's going to be costly. It's going to be difficult. But if I want to get out of this toxic, toxic relationship, I have to do it. No pain, no gain. I can tell you, I experienced this in the process of selling our house. We just bought a new house back in 2019. It's the house we're living at now. But to get into this house, we had to sell our old house and let me tell you, it was insanity. Like it was just an insane process. Because whenever we were getting ready to move, our neighbors next door, they didn't own their house, they were renting it out. And so they told us, hey, if you don't mind, we would love to purchase it from you before you even put it on the market. Like okay, I mean, yeah, that's great. We don't have to go through all that hassle and all the craziness. So no problem. Absolutely. So we start working with them. And you know, expect from everything we've heard this is a 32, at most, 60 day process - I kid you not 107 days. That's how long it took us to sell our house, 107 days, even though we had a buyer before we put it on the market, because they were dragging their feet on stuff. No, we don't have our pre-approval yet. Oh, no, we haven't gotten stuff. We haven't gotten that stuff done yet. Oh, no, we're still working on our downpayment on all this stuff. And so we're like, oh my gosh. And on the flip side, we have our current house that we're wanting to buy, that is on the market. And we're like, us buying that is contingent on this one selling and so they're getting agitated with us because it's taking so long. We're like, we can't help, but we're trying. I mean, it was it was a crazy, crazy process. The mortgage professional who helped us out, Cindy, she's an attender here at Cornerstone. She said that it took a few years off of her life, just trying to navigate with us. Because it was so crazy. And it was painful. And it was hard. But through that pain, we got our house, right? So through that pain through that crazy process, we ended up with our house, no pain, no gain. 

But here's where the frustration comes in. If you are anything like me, here's where the frustration comes in. So we got our new house gain, right? There's still pain, right? There is still pain. It's not like we went through that crazy process of buying the house and then now we just well, mic drop, we're done. Now everything's up and to the right for the rest. No, we get the house and then guess what happens? Plumbing issues, we get the house then guess what happens? Oh, we have to do some updates, we get the house and then we decided you know what we're going to refinance because the interest rates are so low. And so we have to do an appraisal and it's money, you have to pay for it. It's the house, you got to get it all cleaned and ready to go and everything. It's constant headaches after you buy it. And so it's like okay, well, all this pain to get the gain of the house, but then instantly diving right back into more pain, like what in the world, just one thing after another. 

And you may have been there because you're maybe someone who has lost weight. You went through all that pain of losing weight of getting into shape of lifting weights of eating right, and then your birthday hits. And then the holidays are not too far after that. And before you know it you're like wait, how much did I lose? And how much have I gained? Crap, like I'm +5 now like I've I've added five more than where I was at and it's like man, all this pain to get where I wanted to be and it's gone already and I'm back in pain. I'm back and trying to figure this out again. 

In a relationship you go through this pain of cutting it off and finally getting out of this toxic relationship and then you jump back into another one. You're like are you kidding me? What in the world now I gotta go through all this crap again? You spend all this time paying off debt and you throw your tax refund at and you're saving up money and you're not going out to eat all this different stuff. And then something goes wrong with your car, that check engine light comes on. And then you need to make another purchase and before you know it the credit card balances is at $3,000 and you're saying what in the world, this thing was just paid off. I had all this pain, a little sliver of gain where I wasn't in debt. And then now I'm back in it, I am back in the thick of it. Like, is this crazy? Is this how it supposed to be? And if you are anything like me, you look at that reality, and how that seems to be true in almost every area of life. And you say, okay, is this just how life is supposed to be? No pain, no gain until I die. Every area of life is just pain and work and discipline and hard. And if I even let up for a second, then well, pain. Pain again, pain again, and everything's wrong again. Is that really how life is supposed to be? Just everything is hard, and difficult and bad until I go to heaven? Like, doesn't that sound awful? Like that sounds awful. 

That doesn't sound I mean, it makes you just want to veg out. Not even try, it makes you just want to say, well, that's how it's gonna be then I guess I don't need to try in all of these areas. No pain, no gain? Is that just how life is? And if you are asking yourself that question, if you've ever felt that way, like, man, there's just constant work. What in the world? That's what we're hitting on today. That's the question, we're going to address talking about pain, talking about discipline, because in actuality, a lot of times they're the same thing. Pain is discipline. Pain is us trying to navigate and get through in a disciplined way what we need to, and I want to let you know from the onset, and this is, this is so true. We see this time and time again. In the words of Scripture, we see this in Jesus's ministry over and over again. Your view of discipline, your view of pain, it says a whole lot about how successfully you get through it. It really does. How do you view pain in your life? How do you view discipline in your life? The things that you go through, the cutting out going to eat to save money, the starting to lift weights, to lose weight. Like how you view these things says a lot about how effective your outcome will be. 

So how do you this is a rhetorical question, how do you see discipline? How do you see discipline? Do you see it as a sacrifice for today? Or do you see it as an investment for tomorrow? Because I promise you how you see it will totally affect how successful you are? How closely you are living to what God has in mind for your life has a lot to do, if I'm okay, God, I'm sacrificing so much for you. I'm sacrificing so much. Or if you're saying no God, I realize the life that you have created me for the life that you have intended for me. I know, I know, you want me to have a life that is built on the solid rock foundation of what Jesus said, I know that and so no, this is not a sacrifice. Me following what Jesus says is not a sacrifice for today. And it's an investment for tomorrow, in the me in the future is going to be so unbelievably thankful that I did what I did today. 

How do you see discipline? As a sacrifice for today, or an investment for tomorrow? I promise you, it's an investment. It's an investment, you do not need to be bummed out over what you had to give up. You do not need to be bummed out over what you had to go through, you do not need to be bummed out over what you have to deal with. Because it's an investment, and it's worth it. Again, let's look at Matthew 24. This, this builder, this, this builder, who builds on the rock, he built his house on the rock, the rain came down the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against the house. But it did not fall. It did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock, which again, that is a time consuming foundation. That's a hard foundation. That's a difficult thing. It's costly to build on the rock. But you see, the builder knows that, you know what this is an investment. I know it's hard. I know it's difficult. That's the point. Because it's going to be worth it. Because this is not a sacrifice. This is an investment. This is an investment in tomorrow. And when you realize that, the pain that you go through isn't as painful. Whenever you realize you know what, this is not a sacrifice for today. This is an investment for tomorrow. 

Does anyone have a retirement account? Or money you even just put aside, right?  Just any kind of savings account. It's not fun putting stuff into savings. There's nothing fun about it. There's nothing fun about taking money out, putting it into account to just sit there because that's what it does. It just sits there. Like it's not, you don't use it to to buy things with your net. It's literally just sitting there. And that is hard, especially whenever you're looking at your budget you're going man, that extra, I know it's only $100 but that extra $100 would sure be nice right now. That extra $150 that extra $200. Man if I if I wasn't putting that aside, man what a sacrifice, what a sacrifice. Yeah. Whenever I look at my monthly budget for April 2021, and I see the money that we've put aside into a savings account, it feels like a sacrifice for today. But whenever I look ahead and think, okay, that's short sighted. That is, that's house built on the sand, short sighted. Because if I look to April of 2051, the Jacob who lives in that future looks at the decisions being made today and thanks him, says, thank you, thank you for not thinking this was a sacrifice. Thank you for realizing no, this is an investment. This is an investment in what you want to see happen in your future, you are building your house on the rock by doing this. It's an investment for tomorrow. It's not a sacrifice for today. And when you realize that, it is not as painful. The pain that you go through, the pain you go through goes from being and feeling pointless, to being productive. You realize that the pain that you're going through the money, you're giving up, all the ways that you're trying to get yourself in shape, the way that you're disciplining yourself to get in God's word and to listen to him more, these disciplines that you're setting up, you're realizing man, I'm not, I'm not losing anything by doing this. It may feel hard, it may feel painful. It may be like, man, this is stretching to me. But I'm investing in myself. I'm investing in who God created me to be. This is not a sacrifice, this is this is producing something, this is producing something. 

And so whenever you're selective about dating, it can feel very painful. That can feel frustrating, because you're looking around and you're going, man, I'm sure I'm sure if I opened up the dating pool, I could probably be in a relationship right now. But I'm trying to be selective. I'm trying to see someone who is pursuing Jesus, like I'm pursuing Jesus, I'm trying to find someone who we align on these things. And because I'm being selective man, this is hard. Because I'm seeing other people start families, I'm seeing other people do these things that I wish I was doing. And it can feel like a sacrifice. But man, whenever you shift your way of thinking, realize this is an investment. you're thankful for it. It doesn't feel as much like pain as it used to because you realize, wow, there's a purpose in this. It's producing something that I want, it's producing a person I want to be in a future relationship I want to have. Maybe whenever you're parenting your kids, and you feel like you're telling them for the millionth time, the same thing, like man, this is just, ugh, like, this is so frustrating. I just don't want to even do it anymore. Can I just punt on this? Like I'll just let them do whatever they want to do. Because it just feels aggravating, it feels painful. And it feels pointless. Whenever you realize that the struggles, they're going through five, just being a five-year-old, and what you're doing, even though it's hard in the moment, man, when they're 15, you are going to be thanking God, you put that into their life. You're going to be thanking God that you know, even though it hurt in the moment, it was hard disciplining them and it was hard, you know, having to say no to the certain things, I am so thankful because that was not a sacrifice. That was an investment. That was an investment. When we realize that it changes our view and man, it changes everything about the way that we navigate pain. When we realize this is not a sacrifice for today, it's an investment for tomorrow. 

I want to tell you, this is not, what I'm talking about, this is not positive thinking or self-help guru stuff. This is this is what we see in Scripture. This is, this is the laws that God has put into place that govern the universe. Discipline matters, right? Like pushing through on some of these hard stuff, it matters because it produces something in us and what is produced is momentum. Momentum is produced. I want to hit on this idea for a little bit. Whenever we push through pain, whenever we start putting discipline into our life, and we get through it, we start to produce momentum. And here's what I want to tell you. Do not under any circumstances, underestimate the power of small but steady discipline in your life. Because it creates momentum in your life. It creates godly momentum in your life. Do not underestimate the momentum of small but steady discipline. 

Again, let's go back to the the idea of a savings account, like a 401k or IRA or retirement account. When you put your money into an account like that whenever you put your money, and again, it can feel painful, because you're taking money, you could have spent somewhere else you could have used this to buy a good or service somewhere else. And you're just setting it off to the side. And you're not touching it. But the money doesn't just sit there, right? What does it do? It grows, it grows. There's such thing as interest. Interest is basically another word for momentum. Momentum, it starts to build, it gets a force driving behind it and it begins to grow. And the same thing happens in our life when we start to incorporate these small but steady, small but steady, small but consistent, we just keep doing what we know God is calling us to do, what he has told us to do. And when we do that, we see momentum build in our life. 

I have to imagine that the wise builder that Jesus is talking about would see this happen too. That as you start taking those small steps and start doing what you know you need to do, even if it's painful and hard, it's worth it and you see momentum start to build, because the build at first is hard. And it's costly, because it's the foundation of rock. And so you have tedious cuts, and you have time consuming cuts. It ain't easy to cut into rock, like that takes some time, it takes effort, it takes muscle it takes will-power to do that. But as you start doing that, and you get one part of it done, then that allows you, hey, well, now that that's done, I can do this. Oh, great. And since that's done, now I can do this. And you start to get momentum. And before you know it, your momentum is building until the house is built. And suddenly it's there. And it's because you've got this momentum that all started with these small, steady disciplines of pushing through the pain and doing it anyways because you know, it's going to be worth it. 

We need to work the process of pain, work, the process of pain, work the process of discipline, because it's always worth it. It creates momentum in our life. And we see this not even just in Scripture, we see this in like social studies, there's a an author and a researcher named Charles Duhigg, he wrote a book called "The Power of Habit," where he talks about how our brains are wired for habit. Like I said, God has instituted this at such a core level. We run off of habits, we run off of discipline and so whenever we fight against it, we actually fight against our own nature, like we are meant for this. We are meant for discipline and, routine, and habit. We're meant for this kind of thing. 

And he talks about how there are certain habits that whenever you do them, they build momentum for the rest of your day. And one of the greatest ones, one of the greatest identifiers is making your bed. Just that. We've got a bed maker, hallelujah, in the front row. Most people hate the process of making the bed, it's pain, because most people's morning looks a little bit like this, I have an alarm set for 6:05, then one for 6:10, then one for 6:15. Then one for 6:20. I just keep hitting snooze, snooze, snooze, and then at the last possible second, I get up, rush into the bathroom get ready as quick as I can. So I get out the door and not be late. That's pretty much like 90% of the population morning routine, right? And so to think about having a part of that routine, being getting up in enough time to get the covers and you know, fix the fitted sheet, if it's come on down and put the throw pillows back on and make it look nice. Not a lot of people do that. But the crazy thing is that whenever social scientists study this, the people who do that one small but steady, small, but painful thing of making their bed in the morning, they routinely are off the charts more productive than the other people, the people that don't. Time and time again, there seems to be some kind of momentum that is generated from doing this first initial task of the day of making my bed, of saying the first thing, the first decision I have to make today, I'm choosing discipline. The first thing I have to do today I'm choosing even though it doesn't feel good, I'm gonna do it. And so they found it time and time again, people who make their bed in the morning have higher productivity than people who don't. They follow budgets more closely than people who don't, they have an overall sense of well being and purpose more than people who don't, all because this one decision builds momentum through the rest of their day that I'm saying yes, every single day to discipline. I'm going to say yes in the morning. And it's going to build momentum for me throughout the rest of the day. Work the process, get momentum. That's really how it works. You work the process, you do what you know, you're supposed to do, what God's calling you to do. And you build momentum. 

Now if you are tracking with me at all today, chances are you're thinking to yourself right about now. Okay? Pastor, that's, that's great. And that's awesome. I get you, like push through the pain. It'll be worth it. That's awesome. But you're kind of just validating the advice, no pain, no gain. Like, you're pretty much saying that this awful advice isn't awful at all. But it's actually true that if you want any gain in life, you have to push through pain. And yes, it is true to a degree. It is true to a degree that pain is a part of life and whenever you push through it, you can build momentum, but that's where things change, and that's why I can't validate this piece of advice and say it's not awful because momentum changes everything on the "no pain, no gain idea." It changes everything, momentum when it comes in, what happens is life that can feel so hard and it can feel so, man, I just got the house bought and now I'm into like crap with the house. Like I just I just got this moment of gain and I'm already having to call a plumber. I'm already having to get inspections done like what in the world? This is what happens. When momentum comes into the picture, life doesn't get easier. But I get stronger. Life doesn't get easier, right? Like I I'm not here preaching a prosperity gospel telling you that hey man, as soon as you start following Jesus, just everyone around you changes, your boss becomes nicer your husband becomes more romantic and more caring, like stoplights always go green whenever you come up to them, like cops never pull you over. I'm not saying that happens, because that's not the case. Life does not get easier. But you get stronger, you get stronger, you handle the pain better in a new way. Because you have the momentum of discipline. You have the momentum on your side. 

I think about it. Whenever I weight lift, right, I've been trying to get back into weightlifting, I did it back in high school. hadn't done it for years. And so I bought some stuff for the house, a bunch of used weights. I've got like a kettlebell 35 pounds, which isn't bad. Like it's not a ton of weight, you know, but I had lifted in forever. And so I'm picking it up. And I'm kind of doing some exercise with I'm like, Oh, that's not too bad. Doing some swings. For too long. I'm like, okay, I mean, I'm a little sore. A couple minutes later, I'm like, yeah, I'm about to die, right? Like, holy cow, what in the world? And so put it down. But I just stuck with it. Right? I just stuck with it. Small but steady, just little bit by little bit. Before you know it the 35 pounder, it feels like nothing. Like it feels like nothing now. Now let me ask you a question. Did the kettlebell change weight? Did it lose any of its mass? No. It weighs the exact same that it did on day one, the exact same weight. What changed was me, not the weight. And in the same way, I am not saying that life is going to change and when you start following Jesus, everything gets easy, and it's just a cakewalk. That's not what I'm telling you. Things are still hard and things are still painful. But you get stronger. You get more capable of handling what life throws your way. As you follow Jesus, as you incorporate his kingdom of God way of living into your life, small but steady disciplines, you start to change, you build momentum, and you are able to handle things that you never thought you could handle before. Life doesn't get easier. But you get stronger, you get stronger.

We see this in the example of the wise builder. Because he built his house on the rock, didn't mean that suddenly the storms like oh, okay, well, we just we won't even bother with this house. The storms still came, the storm still hit the house. Scripture tells us the wind still blew the water still hit the streams rose. But the house stood not because the storms were easier. But because the house was built on a solid foundation. That can be true of you that can be true of our life, where man life doesn't get any easier. In fact, it can get harder. And we still handle it better than we used to. Because we're stronger because we're on solid rock and the foundation that we should be on. Life won't get easier, but we can get stronger. 

So if I if I had to, if I had to like change this, this piece of advice, no pain, no gain to something else, I would change it to something like momentary pain, momentum gain. Right? Like, because that's really what it is. It's, it's not whenever you follow Jesus and you follow his ethic for your life, and you follow what he what he's pointing you towards, life is not supposed to be one pain after another after another after another. Even the moments that feel like pain aren't moments of pain. We see the apostles singing and worshiping in the middle of prison in Scripture, even the moments that looked like pain are turned into gain when you follow Jesus his way of living. And so you realize, you know what, no, it's not no pain, no gain for the rest of my life. Everything's hard. Everything's difficult. It's always it's always discipline. It's hard stuff. No, you realize, okay, momentary pain. And I build up this momentum of gaining this momentum of like, I'm running in the lane of God. And so I'm seeing things for how they truly are and I'm responding to things how I should respond to them. And so what was once painful starts to become in some ways, not always, but in some ways it starts to become effortless. The thing that you used to have such a struggle with before it becomes second nature, like the decision that it used to be man, should I go to that party? Should I do this? Nah. I don't know. Man, I don't know. it's second nature for you to make the decision on it now because you have the momentum that you have built up through small but steady discipline. Push through the pain small and steady, and you will build up momentum. 

And here's what happens when you do that. Whenever you build up this momentum, you start to get over obstacles easier and quicker than you ever did because you have momentum on your side. Because you have built this up the best way, the best way to get over an obstacle. The best way. Let me put it this way, the NFL, they just had their scouting days for everybody who's getting ready to be drafted into the league. One of the things that they do is they test your vertical jump for all the athletes. And so what they do, they have a big pole and it's got these kind of markers at the top like whole row of them. So you jump, you try to hit them, and it will show how high your vertical jump was. Well, what they do is they have the people stand flat footed, like you take off from here, you don't get a running start. And the reason is, is because a flat footed jump into a vertical is harder than a running start. It's why some guys at your local YMCA can dunk if they get a running start from one end of the court to another. But if you tell them just flat footed, tried to dunk it, they can't do it cause it's hard. But when you have a running start, when you have a running start, obstacles suddenly get easier. Things that look daunting suddenly looks smaller because you have a running start to get over it. 

The best way to get over an obstacle? Get yourself a running start. Get yourself momentum. Whenever my family went on vacation a few years back we had, we call it our evacuation. Because we went to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for vacation. We were there two days, two days. Hurricane came in, mandatory evacuation. So we leave. Well, this stinks. We just like we are missing out on it. What are we going to do? We contacted the beach rental property. Luckily, they were like, hey, you guys have like the right insurance for it. So you'll get all your money back. That's like okay, awesome. Well then, because we're getting the money back. We know we can go somewhere else for like a substitution vacation because of it. So we're like okay, well, where are we going to go that we can afford that fits with this? And so we decided to go to the Pigeon Forge like Gatlinburg area and Tennessee, it's a place that we've gotten a bunch of different times before. And so we decided to go there, we found a house in the mountains that we've never stayed at before. And so we're driving there, and we were there we got there at night. We're trying to find it and whenever I say like it was in the mountains, it's like oh, yeah, like up some hill? No, it was up a mountain like a mountain. And so the car that we're driving is like a car that I just told you a few weeks ago, it was the car we had to replace, Jessica's 2005 Honda Pilot van because the thing was just I mean to say it was on its last legs is putting it mildly the door. I'm not kidding you. This is no exaggeration, the door would open like just open if you took a turn pretty quick. Like the van was just it was shot like it was this close to us being Fred Flintstone, it like it was it was really, really bad. 

And so we get there. And we're like navigating some of these hills in this van. We're like, this is not good. Like this is just this is not good. So we realized we see the GPS pointing us to the house. And it's whenever I say it's up the mountain it, it wasn't like a gradual hill. It's like you're in the car like this in that van. And so as we're going up, I kid you not the van is like chugging. It's like we're all praying, we're like, please for the love of God, get us up here because we're looking in the rearview mirror like this is how we end like this is how we die if this van doesn't make it up this hill. So we're like chugging up there. And I'm not kidding you. We barely made it, like we barely made it to the top. But because that happened the next day whenever we came down, we made note of where the bottom of this hill starts. And so what I did from then on and my mom can tell you, whenever we would be getting ready to go back to the house after a day out. As soon as I would see that turn coming up there where the hill starts, I would tell everyone alright, hang on. I would gun it. It sound like a chasing from chips, man just like, like going up the hill. 

And whenever I did that, whenever I got all that momentum at the bottom of the hill, we didn't have a single problem from then on getting up there. Not a single one, the van made it fine. That busted old van was able to get up that hill fine, because we had momentum because we had a running start. So this daunting thing, this daunting hill that when we tried just walk like walking up, but it wouldn't work. Once we had a running start. It wasn't that bad at all. 

And that is the same in our lives. When we get a running start, man things change. When we have momentum, things change. Things that used to be super difficult for us suddenly become easier. Those people that we like, man we love them, but we know we shouldn't be at that party or hanging out with that person. It used to be so hard to say no and to not go, but then once you get momentum on your side it starts to become easier. It starts to become second nature, those old habits that you used to fall into so easily, and it was so difficult to say no to, suddenly it gets easier. Because you have momentum, you have a running, start. So man, get some running shoes, get some running shoes so you can get your running start. Because momentum changes everything. 

We say this a lot here at Cornerstone that everything worthwhile in life lives uphill, right? That everything worthwhile in life that you want the person, you know, God's created you to be lives uphill, and when you have momentum of small, steady discipline in your life, it's a lot easier to get to the top of that hill, it's a lot easier. Even the pain you go through isn't as painful as it used to be when you have the momentum of a small and steady discipline in your life. And I want you to know, that's what God has intended for you. That's what he has in mind for you. When we read what Jesus says he did not just come to give us eternal life, he gave to us to start our eternal life here now. To start living life to the fool. In this moment, Jesus came to redeem us right now. He wants us to live to the full. That doesn't mean prosperity gospel stuff, that means Jesus wants you to live the way that he created you to live, and he's not waiting for you to get to heaven to do it. He wants you to start now. And that happens with small, steady discipline. 

And when you do that, you will see goodness in your life. I can promise you that. I don't mean your life will be easy. But you will see goodness in your life, you will see healthy relationships in your life, you'll become a healthier person. People will look to you as the stabilizing steady influence in life, things will change, you will experience goodness. And that's the last thing I want to close us out on today is we will experience the goodness of God when we embrace the goodness of God's plan. We can experience a good life, not a life, that's no pain, no gain. Everything in life is hard. Everything in life is difficult. Anytime I ever want to do anything worthwhile, it's going to be a hard, difficult, costly, time consuming thing. And if I let up for even a second, it's all pain again. And that's just how life is. That's not what, that's not how life is supposed to be. That's not how things were intended. How things are intended is for us to embrace God's plan, to embrace God's plan for our life. And when we do that, we will experience the goodness of God in our life. Even the valleys that look like pain, God turns and uses for good even the things that used to be painful. God says no, that's not painful, it wasn't a sacrifice. That's an investment. I've been turning you and making you into the person that you're supposed to be. 

We can experience God's goodness, when we follow the goodness of God's plan. Don't you want that for your life? Don't you want the goodness of life that is built on the solid foundation of the rock of who Jesus is? I want that for me. Because I know storms are coming. I've been through some storms and the only reason I am still here is because God is true to his word. And you can experience that too. You can experience the goodness of God when you embrace the goodness of God's plan.