Bayside Baptist Church

Jason King: When I was a kid growing up, I used to love to go fishing. We lived probably a 15-minute bike ride away from a pretty large lake, and there was a little finger on the lake that I could ride my bike to. As a little kid, I would put a rod on the front of my bike, I would have my little tackle box in my hand, and I would go to fish.

I would tie on whatever it was that I wanted to fish with for the day and I would stand on this bank and cast and cast and cast and cast. You know how many stinking fish I caught? Zero. I went time and time and time again thinking, "This is going to be the time. This is going to be it." I couldn't catch anything. As a result of that, I thought, "Fishing is stupid. It's a waste of time. I'm not down for that."

About 20 years ago, I got into fly fishing when we lived in Arkansas. I went and I got the rod, I had all the stuff and the flies, I learned the knots, and I practiced casting in the yard. I went to the river and I casted in the river multiple times. I fished in the river multiple times and I never caught a thing. I thought, "All right, I understand how this works. I'm just going to sell it." So I sold all my stuff.

About 15 years ago, a friend of mine named Carlton invited me to go fishing with him. I thought, "All right, I'll go." And you know what? We caught fish. Then another friend named Mike invited me to go fishing with him. He had done it professionally on one of the crappie trails. I thought, "This is how it's supposed to be." That first day, we caught over 180 fish. I thought, "My man's got something figured out right here."

I decided I'm going to go with Mike as much as I can. I said, "Mike, I'm going to come with you whenever you're going. You just let me know. If I can go, I'm going to be there." I asked him questions. I watched what he was doing. I studied how he was doing it. I asked questions like, "Why this color? Why this time? Why this depth?" All these different things. Over time, I found out that I could catch fish too.

The same thing is true with fly fishing. I gave it up, but I had an opportunity to go fish with a guide a few years ago. I thought, "Man, this is fun." What made it fun was not all the gear and the stuff and the knots. What made it fun was catching fish.

Let me ask you a question. What's the goal of fishing? This is a part where you're interacting with me, I hope. I'm shooting for that, so let me try it again. What's the goal of fishing? If you say it's to watch the sunset or the sunrise, or it's to look at the environment or to be out on the pretty water because it's so peaceful, you're just saying that because you're not catching fish. I've done it too.

The goal of fishing is not just to enjoy being outside or be on the water or see a sunrise or sunset or the mountains or whatever. The goal is to catch fish. If you're fishing and you do it enough times and you don't catch anything, you'll only do that for so long. It's boring, it's pointless, and it's a waste of time. So you're like me, and you're like, "I'm not doing that anymore. I'm done." When I go fishing, I want to catch fish. Anything else we say is just what we make ourselves feel better when we don't catch fish.

Am I getting a little too close to home for some of us? I want to ask you, what's the goal of your faith? The goal is not just to do stuff, have some stuff, be in a place where we talk about stuff, learn some more stuff, and then try to live for the next week. The goal is for there to be some fruit in your life, for there to be a tangible result to what you're doing.

In the same way that when you go fishing and you don't catch anything, you've not accomplished the goal, in the same way in your spiritual life, if you're doing the stuff, reading the stuff, saying the stuff, wearing the stuff, showing up at the place where the stuff is talked about and repeating for the next week, but you're not seeing anything tangible, any fruit in your life, you're going to give up.

I believe that you want to see God move. You want to see a result of what you're doing and trying to grow in your faith to see God provide, make a way, heal, save, change, or give peace or give hope and make a difference in your life and in the lives of people around you. You want some results from your faith, just like when you go fishing, you want to catch some fish.

I'm convinced that for some of us here today, we've just been fishing spiritually; we haven't been catching. We've just been doing the stuff and coming to the place where we talk about the stuff and putting ourselves in the right area where the stuff is, but we've not experienced the fruit in our lives.

When we don't catch anything spiritually, we often move on to something else in life where we do catch something, be it work, a hobby, a sport, or something else. When we do that, when we choose to move on because we say, "I tried that. It didn't work. I've been there, I got the t-shirt, and I got the hat too," when we take that approach and we begin to invest our lives and put the focus of our lives in other things that aren't necessarily bad things, but when we say when it comes to faith, "I tried that and I'm just stuck," we miss out on the power and the presence of God working in us and working through us.

Can I say that 21 Days in the Word is about teaching you how to fish? Not in the lake. It's about teaching you how to catch fish, how to find the fruit and the results that faith is intended to have in your life and mine.

I want to challenge you over the next 21 days. Starting tomorrow, starting today, for the next 21 days, will you set aside just a parenthesis of time in your life and say, "I want to learn how to see the fruit that God intends to be in my life. I want to see it become reality." I'm going to put my focus over the next 21 days to seeing God do what only He can do in my life.

I want to challenge you to catch what God has for you for the next 21 days. Start doing, start fishing like we're talking about today, like we're going to show you in small groups over the next few weeks. If you'll stick with it for 21 days, statistics show that human nature is when we practice something for 21 days, it becomes a habit. It becomes a part of who we are. I believe that what you'll find is that spiritually speaking, you're not just throwing a line out there and getting the latest reel and buying all the fishing clothes, but that you are seeing the results of faith, that you'll see it in your spiritual life.

In the book of Ezra, which is where we're going to be, page 538 in my Bible if that helps, the story of Ezra is linked together with Nehemiah. In Ezra's story, it's this picture of what's taking place in the life of the people of God. There's this short phrase, there's this statement that is found in the passage we're going to look at today that we're really going to learn from for the next few weeks.

It's this statement about how you begin to see spiritual fruit in your life, how you begin to see tangible results of faith where you're not just talking about stuff and looking at stuff and reading stuff and trying to learn stuff, but you're seeing the faith, the work of God come alive in your life. There's this little sentence, part of a sentence right before he tells us how that happens, which gives a picture of what I believe God has for you. It's what you're going to catch if you start to fish like Ezra is going to show us.

Ezra chapter 7, verse 9, the second half of verse 9. It says this: "For the gracious hand of his God was on him." In the verses before that, it's saying the incredible things that God was doing in and through Ezra and his life and his leadership, and people had noticed. It says, "For the gracious hand of his God was on Ezra." Do you know what that means? It means that my man Ezra was seeing some tangible, practical, real, authentic results in his faith.

His faith, his practice, what was going on in his life, what he believed, what he embraced, his faith was bringing results to his life. But not just any results; supernatural results. He wasn't just coming to church, he wasn't just doing good stuff. God was pouring out supernatural favor on Ezra's life. Everywhere this dude turned, it was evident that God was at work in him and through him. You read the rest of the book, it's evident God's gracious hand was upon Ezra.

I don't know about you, but that's what I want. I want to see God's gracious hand upon my life, and I believe that's what you want God to do in your life. That's what you want to see characterize your life. Now, it was not a coincidence. This is what we're going to talk about for the next few weeks. It's not a coincidence that God's hand of favor, that God's gracious hand was on the life of Ezra. It wasn't a coincidence that while everybody else is just tossing a spiritual line in the water and looking at it and wondering why it's not working, my man Ezra's pulling out fish left and right.

Ezra is finding the fruit and the results of the faith, and there's this formula that he paints for us, that he gives us in verse 10 that tells you and me today how we can see God's gracious hand upon our lives. End of verse 9 and beginning with verse 10, he says this: "For the gracious hand of his God was on him. This was because Ezra had determined to study and to obey the law of the Lord and to teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel."

What's he saying here? God's gracious hand was upon Ezra because this is what his life was about. It says he devoted himself to the study of God's Word. Ezra demonstrated not only a desire but the discipline of learning from God through studying the Word. He didn't just want it, he didn't just feel a certain way, he chased it. He didn't just feel it, he fought for it in his life. He didn't just think about it, he acted on it. Seek to understand and apply God's Word to his life.

He looked for the connection between what God had spoken in the Bible, what God had spoken in His Word, and his life. He wasn't just trying to accumulate information or gather more stuff about God. He was setting his heart, he was determining. That's literally what it means, that he set his heart to listen to what God was speaking into his life through the Word.

That word "determined," maybe it says that you set your heart, it literally means that he was inwardly determined to follow through. I said to you last week that a lot of studies show that most of our New Year's resolutions are done by February 4th. I actually heard that it's actually January 9th. I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, but anybody feel me on that? My man Ezra here didn't make any New Year's resolution that fell down as soon as he got to Leviticus. He didn't make a promise to himself that he was going to do something that he couldn't follow through on.

It says he determined in his heart. He settled it at the very core of who he is that this is what I'm going to be about. He set his heart firmly that he made a decision that no matter what came his way, he was going to follow through. When he talks about the heart, when he set his heart, that's literally the seat of your will. It's where what you do originates from. Your life and your actions, your choices, they flow from your heart. That's why Proverbs 4:23 says this: "Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life."

What I'm saying to you is my man Ezra took this in his heart. He understood that he had to guard his heart and he settled his heart, set his heart firmly that what he was going to be about is he was going to be about learning to hear God speak through His Word. He was determined to study. That didn't mean just to accumulate more information, attend more Bible studies, read more blog posts, listen to more podcasts, read more books. What it says is that he is seeking to learn to understand what God is saying with a mindset of application.

In other words, he wants to do what he's learning, to dig in and to learn something for the purpose of not just accumulating some information and knowing some details about this or that or saying that you've been there, done that, and learned that, but he wants to see it applied to his life. He's saying he sought it out, sought the understanding, sought the reality of God's Word so that he could follow it.

Before you think since Ezra's in the Bible that his life doesn't really apply to ours, he's actually living in exile. He's in a place called Babylon, which is a godless place. It's not like the shiny part of the buckle of the Bible belt, which is kind of where we live. In this day, it is a pagan country, a pagan area, a pagan king, and he's living in the middle of that. It was antagonistic at best, the culture was towards God. And yet, Ezra set his heart, decided in his heart that he was going to receive direction, instruction, and life from God's Word.

He set himself firmly. Don't miss that. He was diligent, he was disciplined because he knew that's where life was. I think you have to determine for yourself that it's going to become a part of who you are if you're going to see the spiritual fruit that God wants for you.

I get it, right here at the beginning of the year, you may be thinking, "Well, I'd really like to see that happen, but I just don't know if I really feel that. I don't really know if I just... I want to, but I just don't follow through." Can I tell you I was there? Christmas break of my sophomore year of college, I was living in that place. I had become a believer when I was younger, but kind of started taking a different path in college and just sort of lost, sort of took my hands off the reins of my spiritual life and was just kind of going to college, doing the college thing.

I remember having this conversation. We were in Colorado meeting with some friends, we'd gone skiing with them, and this guy had been a youth pastor and he asked me the question, "How's your spiritual life?" I was like, "Let's talk about something else." He said, "Well, what's going on?" I said, "Well, man, I'll tell you the tension that I'm wrestling with. I know the right thing to do and the direction that God is calling me towards, but if I'm just being honest, there's other things that crowd that out, and my desire is for other things more so than what God wants for me right now."

He said, "Well, I want you to look up a verse. I want you to memorize this verse, and I want you to start praying this verse over your life." It's Philippians chapter 2, verse 13. Look at this verse: "For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him." I started to pray that for my life, and wouldn't you know that God began to change my desires and then He began to follow through? God did what the power to do what my desires were being changed to.

I'm sharing that with you because that may be where you're living right now. You're just thinking, "Well, work's pressing in more. I can see some fruit there. I don't see any fruit in my spiritual life. The thing that I like to do on the weekends, my hobbies or my stuff or whatever, or that sport that I'm involved in, that's really what I find my desires are towards." What I'm challenging you to do is if you want to see the spiritual fruit, the gracious hand of our God upon your life and you're just not feeling it right now, begin to pray those words. Begin to pray those words because God can do that.

That's really what 21 Days in the Word is all about. That's what I want for you. I'm not trying to get a Bible reading program to you or get something from you. I'm saying, hey, God has something for you that He invites you to experience today. I'm inviting you not just to go fishing but to catch fish. Not just to do some spiritual stuff, not just to attend church, not just to read the Bible here and there, not just to try to be a good person, but to see spiritual fruit in your life.

How do you do that? Can I give you four simple steps that I think flow out of this passage today where you can begin to set your heart on learning from God, putting yourself in this position of where, like Ezra, you set your heart firmly to study, to learn, to take in the Word of God to impact your life?

The first one is this: to answer this question. Do I really trust God? You've got to answer that question for yourself. Do I really trust that these are God's words for me? If they're God's words for me, if God is who He says He is, if He's given us this book that is Him revealing Himself to us and giving us direction and guidance and help for life, if He's who He says He is, if He's the one who created all things, if He sustains this world, if He's one day going to redeem all things, then I need to be able to trust Him.

The God of this universe loves you with a faithful love as His child. He loved you so much that He sent Jesus to pay the price for your sin to make it to where you could have a relationship with God, something you couldn't do on your own. God has revealed Himself in His Word, and when you recognize that, you receive that, you understand that His Word is given to you not as one option among many, not as just something that you ought to consider amongst all the other stuff that you're taking in, not as just something that's a suggestion for your life, but He's given it to you as a direction for your life, then you realize God, I can trust you.

If He is who He says He is, then He invites you to trust Him. But you've got to ask that question. Do I really trust God? Do you really trust God with your marriage? Do you really trust Him with your job in this new year? Do you really trust Him with your career? Do you really trust Him with your finances? Do you really trust Him with that broken relationship? Do you trust Him with that deal at school, with that sport, with that hobby, with that thing that you got going on? Do you trust Him?

If He's who He says He is, then you can trust Him. But I can't make that decision for you. I can't do that for you, as much as I would love to. I'm still trying to learn how to do that myself. God invites you to trust Him. Ezra trusted God, he trusted His Word. How do I know that? Because he's in exile. He's in a pagan land. He's not in the Bible belt, and there could be significant consequences for Ezra living by faith. He studied the Word, he did the Word, he taught other people. There were serious consequences because it was a pagan king who did not worship the one true God.

The rebuilding of the temple had taken place 80 years ago. That was not the new thing that was going on. It was in the midst of this pagan culture that Ezra had to decide, "Am I really going to trust God?" He didn't do it because the preacher said he should. He didn't do it because he felt bad. He lived by faith and he trusted in God.

What he found, if you read the rest of the book, is that God poured out His favor on Ezra. The king wrote a letter, a pagan, godless king that said, "Hey, this is my boy Ezra. Whatever he needs, give it to him." He paved the way for people to go with Ezra to begin to reinstitute and to teach the Word of God, to bring about a spiritual revival. God did this through a pagan king.

But when he showed up in Jerusalem later on in the book, the people of God were in shambles spiritually. They were far from God. You and I live in a day where people are far from God. Sometimes even people inside the church are far from God. People aren't always going to applaud you when you do what's right, or you stand up for what's right, or you speak what is true. They're not always going to like that. Your family may push you to the side or treat you differently. You may lose your business or some business. You may lose friends, they may back off or start ghosting you, or you might not get that job or promotion. But faith, trust in God is the only way that you're going to experience the hand and the favor of God in your life. He wants you to trust Him, that He's got you. Whatever you're facing today, you have to decide, "Lord, I may not be able to explain all this, I may not have all the answers, but I know who you are, and I'm going to start with saying, 'Lord, I trust you.'"

I don't trust the information that I've gathered. I'm not trusting the place that I sit on Sunday. I'm not trusting the stuff. God, I'm trusting you. That's what Ezra did. So do you trust Him? No, really, do you trust Him today? Are you trusting Him with whatever it is that you've got on your shoulders? Do you trust Him enough that when you hear Him speak through His Word, that by faith you're going to walk in that, and you're going to choose to do what He says because He's revealed that to you in His Word?

The second thing I think you can do from this passage is that you and I got to learn to slow down. Just slow down. It's hard to slow down today, isn't it? Your phone and technology make it nearly impossible. The pace of life is just crazy for us. Don't you find yourself just running from thing to thing to thing? The pace that we live in often gets us in this place that we do a lot of fishing but not a lot of catching. We're so distracted and so pulled in a lot of different things, we don't even feel the bite on the end of the line. We're moving on to the next thing.

The work of God in your life is not done in a microwave. It's like putting meat on a smoker. Can I get an amen about that? It's like cooking in the crockpot. I love the InstaPot, I don't know if anybody feels me on that, but that's not how God works in your life and mine, spiritually speaking. It takes time, and specifically you and I have to learn to slow down.

According to recent studies, 60% of US adults sometimes feel too busy to even enjoy life. You ever feel that? 52% of Americans are trying to do multiple things at once. Some of you all are doing that right now. You're trying to make a grocery list and listen to a message and keep up with a text message and respond to an email right now. I ain't mad at you about it. It's all right, it's just a little piece of weather stripping back there, it's all good.

See, we're all doing a lot of different things, got a lot of different things on our minds. 39% of employed Americans say technology makes work more demanding. 94% of surveyed US workers felt overwhelmed by information. The average worker focused on a task for only 11 minutes before being interrupted. Half of you didn't take all your PTO because you were afraid of the backlog that's coming when you're out.

You need to know that you're fighting an uphill battle to try to intentionally slow down your life. The pace of life is dizzying, isn't it? Buzzes, dings, notifications, pressure, demands constantly. Your phone and technology begin to cultivate a way of life. Work doesn't stay at work anymore. When you stir all this together, the result is a distracted heart.

What happens is you and I get distracted so much by all the things that are going on around us that we don't even need those things anymore; our heart's just distracted. So if you try to slow down and sit down and listen to God's Word, immediately you start to think, "I wonder if anybody's texting me. I wonder if I got an email. I need to make a list. I need to go do this. I wonder if I can look this up. I wonder if I can check that out. What about tomorrow? I need to put that on my calendar." On and on and on. We don't even need interruptions because we interrupt ourselves.

But Ezra set his heart deliberately to slow down, to listen to what God was speaking into his life. It's a choice. It's a practice. It's not about a program. That's really what the Life Journal is all about. It's why we want to put one of these in your hands for free over the next few weeks. If you didn't get one coming in, get one going out because you need this in your hand. It is a tool that will help you learn to slow down and hear God speak to you. It's not about a program. It's about becoming a people who learn to hear God speak through His Word. That's who we are. But you'll miss what God has for you if you don't slow down.

Do you remember what Jeremiah said? Jeremiah 29:13, actually he's quoting from the Lord. It says, "If you look for me wholeheartedly, you'll find me." So are you wholeheartedly looking for the Lord? I'm not talking about between emails and texts and phone calls and other things on your to-do list that you're trying to take care of. Are you looking for the Lord wholeheartedly, or are you trying to squeeze it in?

For me, this is just my personal thing. I'm not saying what you should do, I'm just saying this is me. This is why I do not use my phone as a Bible. If you are right now, don't shove it in your pocket real quick. It's all good. That's you, this is me. I don't use my phone as a Bible because there's so many other things that pop up when I'm trying to use that as a Bible.

Maybe in a pinch. Just a couple of weeks ago, we were back home and I went to church. And you know what I forgot when I went to church? I forgot my Bible. I get into church and I'm sitting there like, "I don't have my Bible." I didn't have my phone either because I left it in the car. I'm just saying, it's a good idea. But I know me, and I knew that I would be better off to pay attention to what the pastor was speaking on and what he put on the screens rather than trying to keep up with my phone because I would get distracted.

Maybe you're convinced you're going to miss something, or that activity makes you feel important or busy, or that life is built around your phone. You've got your notifications and your calendar and you've got to keep track of everything on there. The result is you run around like a chicken with its head cut off. I don't know if that's an appropriate thing to say. I'm just saying, if you've seen that, that's what happens all the time.

Can I make some suggestions for technology? Don't throw golf balls at me or anything, but turn off your notifications. Turn off your phone. Leave it somewhere. Leave it anywhere. Who cares? Just leave it behind. You'll be able to make it, I promise.

Can I say a word to parents for just a minute? Can we be parents for our kids, especially with phones? Fight against fostering an addiction to distraction in their lives. I'm probably going to tick somebody off, but a 10-year-old nor a 12-year-old needs a phone. Don't let your kids have their phones in their rooms, no matter what their age is. Would you want to be the one supplying all that? Of course not. But yet to turn a child loose on a phone or a tablet or a computer unsupervised, you're fostering an addiction.

Studies show the addictive power of our devices. So be a parent and model for them what it looks like to slow down, to disconnect, to disengage. We have a basket in our kitchen. That's where they go. They don't go upstairs into bedrooms, they don't go all over, they go in the basket when we get home.

And you know what? There's this other thing too. You might say, "Well, I need something to wake me up." Do you know they make alarm clocks? They still make alarm clocks. I woke up this morning to one. They do. It's this novel thing: you set the time and it's got a buzzer and it makes an awful noise and it gets you up, right?

Remove distractions that compete for your intention. It's impossible to set your heart to determine to hear from God through His Word with constant interruptions. So whatever you need to do to remove the interruptions to be able to slow down and hear God speak, it's worth it. Take time to listen to God speak to you through His Word.

The last thing that I believe this teaches us is, for all my Nick Saban fans out there, trust the process. One of the things I did hear him say was that when you trust the process, you don't worry about the results. I like that for our spiritual life because the process is us learning to hear God speak through His Word and letting Him take care of the results. It takes time to grow in your understanding of God's Word. Don't give up, don't get frustrated, just keep at it. Whether you're learning to read or write or run long distances or hunt or fish, it's a process. In the same way as you learn to hear God speak to you through His Word, it's a process. God speaks, and He wants you to hear what He's saying.

So we've put together some resources, and you may have seen this. If you didn't get one of these, we put together this little bookmark right here that you can keep with you with your Life Journal. I encourage you to grab one, but on this little bookmark, it has some very, very practical stuff that I want to tell you real quick. The first thing that it says on there is that you need to find a time. You need to find a time when you are at your best and you can be uninterrupted and not distracted. Riding down the road while you're eating your hash browns and fixing your hair and whatever is not the time to say, "Lord, I really want to slow down and hear from you speak right now."

You need to find an undistracted time. Maybe that's early in the morning, that's when it is for me. Maybe it's late at night for you, that's fine. Maybe it's at lunch when you can go sit out in your car. You need to find a time when you are not distracted. Maybe the kids go down for a nap or they leave for school or whatever's going on. I don't think that driving down the road is the best way to do that. You need to find a time, you need to find a place. For me, it's the kitchen table. Maybe it's a recliner for you, maybe it's the office, maybe it's somewhere else, but you need to have a consistent place where you can be in that environment.

I heard about one lady that she goes in the bathroom and shuts the door, and that's her place. Anybody coming in there with her? Just so that she can put a parenthesis around that moment in her life to hear what God says. And you need a plan. A plan is the Life Journal. There are a couple of options as far as a reading plan in here, and again, the purpose, whether you have just a few minutes or you have a little bit more time, choose one of those reading plans and let that be your plan.

It's going to be a process and it might not come easy. You might say, "Well, I don't like to write or I don't really like to read or I don't like to..." But trust the process. It's not going to come easy, but it's worth it if you'll stick with it, if you'll determine, if you'll set your heart, if you'll be patient with yourself. It's not all going to click at once, and it's not all going to become a habit immediately. It's going to take practice and diligence. But you will find the fruit if you set your heart to hear God speak through His Word. You'll succeed some, you'll struggle some, but it'll be worth it. The more you walk with God, the more you read, the more you listen to His voice, the more you do what He speaks into your life, the more you'll see God's gracious hand upon you.

You'll find in the Life Journal just a very simple way to do that, and there's an explanation on our website as well as in the Life Journal for just a four-part acronym that helps you to do just that: to say, "God, I'm slowing down, I want to hear what you have to say to me and I receive it."

As you read the scripture, you find a passage or a verse or a word or a theme that sticks out to you from what you've read. Write it down. What do you observe about that? What's taking place? Jesus said this or Abraham did that or this is taking place here. It can't mean a bunch of different things, it means one thing. So you need to find out what that is. Use a study Bible if you need to. Be careful with Google, but you can use some reliable websites to try to learn how to do it. What are you observing? What's taking place? Application: this is where it's personalized to you. You know what, when Abraham says, "The Lord will provide," he took a step of faith into the unknown and he saw God provide. Lord, that's what I need to do today. Would you help me with this relationship? Write it out. Finally, a prayer. God, all this is taking place and I know you're speaking to me today, but man, I struggle to believe that you're going to provide. Would you help me to walk by faith today?

I think it's important that you use a plan and a method and that you become deliberate in your process. Then what's the last thing you do? Now repeat it and repeat it again and again and again and again and again. I'm convinced, church, that when it says that the gracious hand of our good God was upon Ezra, it wasn't because Ezra was awesome. It was because God is awesome and Ezra had put himself in this position to listen to God, to learn from God as a way of life. That's what God is calling you into today as well. Let's pray.