Focus on the Family

John Fuller: This is John Fuller and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website.

Guest (Male): A branch doesn't have to work hard to produce fruit. All it has to do is stay connected to the trunk, the vine, and fruit happens naturally. I'm the vine, you're the branches. Stay connected to me and you will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.

John Fuller: That's Pastor John Burke and he joins us again today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, I'm so excited to have John Burke back with us. He's been here a number of times, but last time we talked about how we can trust God with our hopes and our dreams and really our deepest longings are found in Jesus. And when we can understand that, it changes our life.

John gave us some ideas on reorienting our minds and connecting with God so that we can be in tune with the things he desires for us. The good gift giver, if I could say it that way. If you missed any part of it, get to the website, download it, get the smartphone app, you can listen that way. But today we're going to dive a little deeper into that content based on his book, Soul Revolution.

John Fuller: And John Burke is the pastor and founder of Gateway Church in Austin, Texas. He and his wife Kathy have an adult son and an adult daughter, and his book Soul Revolution: How Imperfect People Become All God Intended is indeed the foundation for our conversation.

Jim Daly: John, welcome back.

John Burke: Oh, great to be back.

Jim Daly: It's good to see you. Let's pick up from last time. You talked about the 60-60 experiment. So for those that didn't hear it, give us a quick briefing on what the 60-60 experiment is all about.

John Burke: The context, like we talked about last time, is that we all have deep longings, we have hopes, we have dreams. They're not bad, but oftentimes we settle for too little. It's as C.S. Lewis said many times, it's not that we desire too much, we settle for too little.

And God actually wants to give us the deepest longings of our hearts, the love and the joy and the peace and patience and kindness—all these things that things from out there can't give us. But it only comes from intimate relationship with God. In fact, that's what we were created for. We weren't created to do life apart from the very source of life and love and goodness. He created us for that.

The Christian walk really is simple. It's incredibly simple. And Jesus said this his last night on earth in John 15:5. He said, "Look, I'm the vine," like I'm the trunk of the tree, the vine, "you're the branches. Stay connected to me and you will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing." So what that means is this is the one thing that we've got to pay attention to.

You can find this all throughout Scripture. In Galatians chapter five, "Walk by the Spirit and you won't carry out the desires of the flesh, but the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, all that—will grow naturally." And that's what he's saying. So for 60 days, you set a beeper to go off, your alarm on your smartphone. We have an app that does it that'll ding your phone and bring up a verse reminding you of how to stay connected or what God wants in this relationship.

Or maybe you just put sticky notes in your car and on your computer just as a reminder. And what you're trying to do is change your habit from going through the hours of the day, the moments of the day forgetting about God who's there with you, or distracted, or not listening and responding.

Jim Daly: John, let me ask you this. As a pastor, I'm sure you have counseled many, many people that fit this description. But I want to really speak to that person that this is true of, and that is the person that's trying to satisfy longings that are artificial. It might be success, money, houses, cars, relationship, the beautiful wife, whatever. And how when they reach it, how it doesn't meet the need.

Speak to that individual, and even in the church, some who's made a commitment to Christ. It's sometimes hard to shake those habits of what you're actually going after and how to get better oriented around exactly what you're saying, opening your heart so the Lord can help meet the deeper longings of your life. I mean, some people might not even know what those longings are. That's how distracted they can be.

John Burke: I think the other part is we don't stay connected to the Lord because we fear that if I do, he's going to [fill in the blank]. This was my old fear. I was an engineer. I had a dream and a goal to start my own, get an MBA, start my own company, be rich and successful, because that was what I was trained is success.

Well, then my dad did that, but it killed him. He died. He died from cancer, but he also struggled with alcoholism, he struggled with stress, he had ulcers, and on his deathbed he said to me, "John, I'd give it all back if I could just have my health and my family." He knew the Lord, but he didn't know how to walk with the Lord, abide in him. He didn't know how to abide, how to stay connected.

As a result, there were a lot of wounds. His father abandoned their family, he was abusive, there were just a lot of wounds from the past my dad had never worked through. I didn't realize this. And this is the thing. Our deepest longings are really trying to answer a few questions: Am I lovable? Or am I loved? And do I have worth? Do I have value? Do I have purpose?

Really, we're trying to get those questions answered. The shallow strategies oftentimes are like, we're trained or we come up with an idea that if I'm successful, if I have a husband who looks like this or does this or is this status, or if I have a wife who looks like this or does or kids or, you can fill it in with a thousand things. But those end up subtly becoming idols.

In other words, they become the singular most important thing and they distract us from the one thing that Jesus said is necessary. And that is relationship with the Lord, walking moment by moment with the Lord. I think the thing I would say is don't worry about changing all your dreams or your hopes. They're not bad at all. Focus on walking day by day for 60 days and just see if you don't end up going, "Oh my gosh, this way of doing life with God is so much better."

Jim Daly: You had a story in the book about going skiing with your college buddies and you encountered what sounded like ski bunnies. What happened in that story and what was the outcome? And what state were you in? Colorado?

John Burke: Crested Butte, to be specific. It's a great ski spot. We were single college, met these three girls and we were trying to show off. And Texans. If you don't know, Coloradans have a love-hate relationship with Texans. But they love Texans who think they can ski really well. These girls were leading us into the trap.

They're like, "Okay, you can ski, let's go skiing." So they take us up to the backside and it's this big bowl, probably two feet of powder, three feet of powder, 70 degrees. It looked like a straight down drop. They said to me, "You can't fear. You just have to go like you're falling down the mountain, plunge and then use the speed to control your speed."

I start, but I'm terrified so I lean back. That's the worst thing you can do and boom, I snowball for 200 yards. Then I have to climb back up 100 yards to get my skis and put them back on. She comes back and she's like, "No. If you give into fear, you're not going to be able to do this. You have to throw yourself down the mountain and then you'll be able to control your speed." It seemed counterintuitive.

Jim Daly: I'd be right with you on that.

John Burke: But I did it. I did it that time. I leaned down the mountain and I didn't fight the speed and I started to then turn and it was the most fun I've ever had. It was a thrill. This 60-60 experiment, doing life moment by moment with Jesus is the same. Here's what I challenge people to do: For 60 days, you have to go all out in complete willingness to do his will. Lean in.

After watching thousands of people do this experiment for 60 days, nobody ever says who goes all out, "Oh, I wish I hadn't done that." Nobody. It's always, "Oh my gosh, God is real, he loves me and cares about me. I couldn't believe the things I experienced, the way God showed up, the way he led me, the joy, the peace, and the way he takes care of the little things when I just focus on the one thing Jesus said is most important: Abide in me, you'll bear much fruit. Apart from me, nothing."

Jim Daly: John, that is so good. In the book, you share how you responded at a crucial time when a friend of yours, Jerry, really needed you. How did God work in that situation?

John Burke: I'm sitting there doing emails one day and, actually I was working on a message and I was on a deadline. I have this thought go into my head, "I wonder where Jerry is." Jerry was not a Christian. He and his girlfriend had started coming to our church and I hadn't seen him in a while. I didn't know why I had that thought. I thought, "Why did I think that, Lord?" And then I was like, "I'm busy." So I go back to writing my message and I have the thought again. And it was kind of like, "Email Jerry."

It was like, "I don't even know if I have Jerry's email and I don't have time to email Jerry." I go back to working again. It usually takes three times for me. I don't know why, but I'm kind of slow.

Jim Daly: It's like a relationship, somebody asking you to do something. That's what the impression is, "Hey, can you do this?"

John Burke: Many times my first thought is, "Was that just my dumb thought?" And oftentimes it is. It's a thought that's out of the blue. You've got to learn to go, "Lord, is that you?" It's kind of like Samuel, "Lord, here I am." It comes back a second time. I keep ignoring, comes back a third time.

So I'm like, "Okay, I don't know what this is, but in faith," and this is the key. Learning how to hear the voice of God requires faith. Hebrews 11:6, "Without faith, it's impossible to please God." I emailed Jerry, "Hey Jerry, haven't seen you in a while. Hope you're okay. Just was thinking about you, stopped and prayed for you. Let me know if I can do anything for you." Shot it off.

The next day his girlfriend, who Jerry lived with, got that as she had just taken him home from the hospital having tried to commit suicide the day I wrote that email.

Jim Daly: The day the Lord was nudging.

John Burke: The day the Lord nudged me. She saw it as an act of God. They came in and he unloaded all the guilt and burden that he's carried because basically he started dating his brother's girlfriend. It tore their relationship apart because his brother was in love, and he felt incredible guilt. It just drove him. He didn't know the forgiveness of the Lord. I shared the gospel with him. He came to Christ. The Lord turned his life around. It was amazing. Because of one little prompting thought. That's the adventure we get to go on with the Lord.

John Fuller: Well, we're inviting you to go on a journey with God and to be used by him as John was just describing. The book that we're talking about today on Focus on the Family is written by John Burke. It's called Soul Revolution: How Imperfect People Become All God Intended. And we're making that available to you. Just give us a call, 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: John, that can be one of the big barriers is moving toward people with the right attitude. You're in the 60-60 experiment, you're asking the Lord every 60 minutes, okay, Lord, checking in, where do I need to go? And boom, that thought hits you, "Contact so-and-so." Okay, I'm not sure if that's the Lord, but in faith I'm going to make that happen. These could be relationships that have historic conflict in them or something. Bundling those thoughts together, the concept of moving toward people for some can be really intimidating.

John Burke: It can be past conflict or it could be present conflict. Or just fear. One of the things in the book I talk about, using the Lord's Prayer as a model. It leads in because again, it's not being formal. It's realizing the Lord's Prayer is really a model. "Our Father, who art in heaven, holy is your name." In other words, you're greater than I can possibly imagine, better than I can possibly imagine. I'm going to trust you. That's the sentiment.

Then the second, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus taught us to pray that because God's will is not done mostly on earth. This is what we're trying to do in this 60-60 experiment is change it from the way we typically will things to be done and allow God's will to actually work in us.

Love requires willingness and free will, and so God doesn't force himself on us. Many times he waits for our willingness. The responding in obedience, the radical response in those moments throughout the day, it does require humbling ourselves and trust.

I think about my own personal experience when our kids were little. We were in the middle as a church of doing the 60-60 experiment, so my watch was going off, beeping every 60 minutes to remind me to stay connected each moment of the day. We go down to the beach and the kids are little, we stay up late swimming. We get up the next morning and I had this plan in my head of how the day was going to go.

We had to get back, it was Sunday. We would get up, get ready, we'd be out on the beach by ten, we would enjoy the afternoon, we'd hit the road by two, because we had to get back and get ready for school and everything else. It's 10:00, 11:00, 12:00. We're all grumpy because we didn't sleep well. We're in a cramped little hotel. The dog kept us up all night. We're all getting on each other's nerves, but I was doing a really good job of being patient.

My wife disagreed, but she was wrong. So you get the picture. I really felt like we were all getting on each other's nerves, the kids were crying and upset and I was trying to be so patient. But now it's noon. It's two hours past plan. Time to go, i.e., my will be done. My wife finally confronted me. She said, "You're being so impatient." I was like, "What? Don't you realize how patient I've been for two hours? You've not noticed?" And it just exploded.

Then we started getting in and we were all in and right as we're in the middle of it, what do you think happened? The stinking beeper goes off on my watch. The 60-60. And I'm not kidding, in my mind I said, "Sorry, Lord, can't connect right now. I'm busy." Not this time. I do not want accountability.

What I realize is in that moment, my wound and my pride, my way, it was blocking my spirit from even wanting to consider what the Lord wanted. His will be done. It was only because this verse from Scripture kept coming to my mind. I think it was the Lord's prompting. "God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand and he will lift you up."

I kept hearing that and I was like, "Ugh, should have never memorized that scripture." They always come back to bite us. I went for a walk and I just calmed down and I was able to say—and sometimes this is what you have to say—"Lord, I can't do it for them, but I'll do it for you." That's obedience. That's "abide in my love." And how do you abide in my love? You know how much God loves us, a depth that we can't fathom—how high, how low, how wide, how deep. But we only have one thing to offer him in love: our will in any one moment.

I said, "Okay, I'll do it as an act of love for you." And I went back and I apologized, even though I wasn't wrong, they were wrong. I could see it went deep. Still got to go through forgiveness. That is the reality. That's "your kingdom come, your will be done." What we're doing in these moments throughout the day in this 60-60 is we're changing our habit of just letting our pride and our will be done, and we're actually following him and we're seeing it's better.

It was better. We went out and had a great day the rest of the day. They apologized too, once I led. But leadership often requires humbling yourself.

Jim Daly: Yeah, and I think in that 60-60 experiment, one of the things is just getting to know the voice of the Lord. And it doesn't need to be a shameful thing or an embarrassing thing if you haven't practiced this. It takes a little time to say, "Okay, is that just me thinking that or is that really the Holy Spirit nudging me?" In fact, you had a story in the book about Kathy. You guys, I think, were in Russia and something at a nice restaurant occurred.

John Burke: We were living in post-communist Russia, so it was right after the fall of the Soviet Union. We moved to Leningrad, we left Saint Petersburg. During that time, it was hyperinflation, just horrible economic crash. Anyway, we were at a Christmas break out in Switzerland for a conference.

We go to this really nice restaurant, steakhouse in Switzerland, and we've been eating borscht and potatoes and cucumbers—you couldn't get much. We're having this incredible meal and just loving it. My wife couldn't eat. She has a huge mercy gift. She helps me with the Lord's heart for people.

She couldn't eat. And I'm like, "Why aren't you eating?" She goes, "I just can't eat this beautiful meal knowing some of our Russian friends, the parents in married student housing, can't even get milk for their kids. We've got to do something to help them." So we stopped and we prayed around the meal. We just said, "Lord, if this prompting that Kathy's feeling, we're all feeling, we were all like, 'God, are we supposed to do something?' then tell us, show us."

We spent the rest of the night brainstorming. Maybe we could find trucks in Finland and we could truck food in from Finland, we could raise money from churches in the United States. We started to develop this plan. We get back that next week to our flat, we lived in a Russian apartment. There was a phone message waiting for us.

We call and it was an organization that had a C-110 military transport plane flying in a whole cargo load of food enough to feed 2,000 families for three months. Their contact had turned out to be mafia. They heard we were Americans living there. Is there any way we could possibly help them distribute the food?

Jim Daly: That's crazy.

John Burke: Crazy. We ended up being able to not only meet the needs physically, but we were able to share Christ with all of them and tell them about the God who cares about their needs physically and spiritually. It was amazing. This is the adventure God wants to lead us on. Sometimes it's amazing like that, like he wants to do something through us, but we have to be willing to just seek his will and then willing to act. Sometimes it's real simple.

Jim Daly: Yeah, and I like that through both days you've talked about that, keeping things simple, that the gospel is simple. It's not easy.

John Burke: It's the hardest thing. Really. That's why the 60-60 experiment is for 60 days we're trying to reorient our habit of not doing this one thing Jesus said is necessary. Getting distracted by everything else.

Jim Daly: Everything else. And I think that's where I want to end with this last question. That person, maybe they don't even feel worthy. That's so much the guilt that the enemy lays on our heart that we couldn't possibly be noticed by God because we're so unworthy. Think of the things that you've done and the way that you've acted and the thoughts that you've had. I'm trying to hit all the checklist here. Or still have, struggle with. But the Lord's good with all that. He just wants that relationship and those things will take care of themselves when you stay grafted into the vine. That's the point. And so speak to that person that continually has that loop playing in their head and they don't know that they can get out of the rut.

John Burke: That's a lie from the enemy of your soul trying to keep you in the trap he's got you in, which is, if—and I've struggled with my own sin patterns and even addictions in my past as I was coming to faith in Christ, and I remember that. I remember what would happen as I would want to do well and I would try and then I would fail. Then I would hear in my head, "Man, you're disgusting. God is so displeased in you. He doesn't want to hear from you until you can clean up your act."

So you know what I'd do? I'd stay away from God, the only one who as I abide can produce the fruit in my life. You see the irony is when we try to do it without God, we stay stuck. That is the evil one's intent. He lies to you about that. If you're feeling that, memorize what I memorized, Romans 8:1: "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." It's pretty straightforward. No condemnation.

John Fuller: What a terrific reminder from John Burke today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Staying connected to God is one of the best things you can do to stay strong in your faith. He is the source of all life and we hope you've been encouraged and inspired to seek him out today in a fresh way.

Jim Daly: I really love what John Burke shared in this conversation, especially the idea of connecting with the Lord every 60 minutes. This is what Focus on the Family stands for. This is the bedrock of our ministry is a relationship with Christ so that you can flourish in this life. That doesn't mean everything will be perfect, but you'll be able to weather the storms of life knowing you aren't alone. If you're not sure where to start, give us a call. We're here for you. We even have a team of caring Christian counselors who can help you find hope and healing.

John Fuller: Another great resource is Pastor John Burke's inspiring book Soul Revolution: How Imperfect People Become All God Intended. And we have that book here at the ministry.

Jim Daly: I also want to recommend that book if you want to deepen your faith. You'll spend 60 days intentionally experiencing God in everyday life and discover a deeper connection, purpose, and transformation your soul has been longing for. When you support the work of Focus on the Family with a monthly pledge—and any amount is great—we'll send you a copy of that book as our way of saying thank you for partnering with us. If you can't commit to a monthly amount, we get it. We'll send you that book for a one-time gift as well.

Let me just tell you though, when you contribute to the ministry, you're helping people like Marissa, who wrote in to tell us this: "Thank you, Focus on the Family, for meeting me in one of the darkest seasons of my life. Through your broadcast, God softened my heart, restored hope where there was despair, and helped my husband and me rebuild our relationship with kindness and respect. The impact was so profound that I became a regular donor so others can experience that same encouragement and hope. Today our home is calmer, our daughter is happier, and I am deeply grateful for the truth and support that helped me keep fighting for my family."

That kind of comment is why we do what we do here.

John Fuller: Exactly, Jim. And we would love for you to be part of this life-giving family ministry. It's only possible because of support from friends like you. Jim and Jean, of course, support focus. I know John and Dena do as well. So please, let's all pitch in and do what we need to do to reach more families like Marissa's. Donate today and get your copy of Soul Revolution.

Also, set up a free phone consultation with one of our counselors when you call 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, 800-232-6459, or online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.

Guest (Male): God wants true disciples, ones that think like him, talk like him, walk like him. Disciples that bring shalom to the chaos of this world. Pursue that path with the RVL Discipleship Series. Bible scholar Ray Vander Laan will give you the tools to understand the Bible more deeply and inspire you to be a passionate follower of Christ. Watch the first episode at rvldiscipleship.com.