Rick Warren - How to Prepare for a Life Reset

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Yesterday as I was about an hour before the first service on Saturday, I was finishing up my message and I spent about 18 hours on it and my computer froze up and I lost all my teaching notes. Now, there was about a 30-minute period of panic where I wondered, am I gonna have anything to say, or are we just gonna sing some extra verses of songs tomorrow? Fortunately, R.J. Hughes the wonder kind work around artist on our staff, once again, saved the day. He was able to recover about a third, not the whole thing, but out a third of the message. And I could reformat at least a third of it. I immediately gave him a raise of $1 million on a staff.

Now, my computer had been sluggish for some period of time, and it finally just stopped working because too many programs were clogging up the system and the screen froze. And then all of a sudden you start getting all these error messages, going error, error, and they start piling up. And then finally it just freezes. Now you've had this happen with your computer, and there's only one thing to do, hit the reset button. Okay? Reboot. When in doubt, reboot. My computer needed a clean memory. It needed a fresh start. It needed a reset.

Now, people are like that because we all live complicated lives. You have a complicated life. I have complicated life, and there are a lot of different programs running in your life, running in your brain, running in your body. And after a while, those programs can be so overloading and conflicting that you quickly find yourself on overload. You know what I'm talking about? In your life. And you just feel you're on overload because you start getting error messages in your brain. And when that happens, what you need is a life reboot. You need a fresh reset of your life, a fresh start, and you need a clean slate. And actually, you're gonna need resets in your life many, many times, not just one time in your life, and you're gonna need resets in different areas of your life, your career, your marriage, your education, your finances, you need a fresh start, a clean slate. That's what Jesus Christ came to do, is to offer you a fresh start.

If you were to ask me to sum up what Saddleback Church is all about and has been about now for decades, the goal of Saddleback Church, I could summarize the goal of this church in two words, we are about changed lives. That's it. Everything we do in this church is about changed lives. We are in the changed live business, the transformation of lives, helping people become what God always intended them to be, the transformation of life. And Saddleback is not about buildings. It's not about our size. It's not about music. It's not about the messages. It's about changed lives. People wanna go where their lives get changed. And when we want our church to be known for not, oh, they got great music or they at a beautiful facility or whatever, we want 'em to be, "That's where you go if you want your life changed".

Now, this transformation has many, many different kinds of names. It's called salvation. When you first step across the line to open your life to the love of God, it's called sanctification, which are the steps you go in growth of maturities. You become the woman God wants you to be, or the man God wants you to be, that's called sanctification. It's called conversion. A fresh start. It's called starting over. It's called being born again. It's called getting a new life, having a life reset, a fresh start. And in the history of our church family, Saddleback, hundreds of thousands of people have had a spiritual reset in their lives over the last four plus decades. Most of you could tell your own story of transformation. My life changed. God changed my life. Christ changed my life through Saddleback Church in this way or that way or this way or that way.

This last week, I receive a lot of letters all the time, but always after Easter, I received letters from many of the 38,000 people who attended an Easter service last weekend at one of our Saddleback campuses. And I wanna read you just one typical letter because it sets up where I wanna us to go in this new series called resetting your life. Here's the letter, the first time attended last week. "Dear Pastor Rick, I've known about Saddleback Church for about 15 years. And I was always curious about why it attracted so many people. But I had never attended a service until a friend invited me to last week's Easter service.

So, I went out of curiosity. Honestly, I was not prepared for what I experienced. Everybody was smiling. Everybody was smiling. They were so happy and joyful and welcoming. And the love on their faces immediately put me at ease, even though I'd never been in church. But when the people started singing with all their hearts, tears instantly started flowing down my face". Do you realize that when you sing like you you just did, Jesus Christ, my living hope, just a second ago, with all your heart, you are preaching. You are proclaiming the love of God. When you sing in church, you are witnessing to the people around you. They may not hear your voice, but they can see your face and they can see the intensity of how you mean, thank you, God, for all you've done in my life. You are a witness every time you sing with gratitude.

Said, "When the people started singing with all their hearts, tears instantly started flowing down my face. I didn't know any of the songs, but the way that the people sang them stunned me. I could feel God, for the first time in my life. I didn't understand it. But I instantly realized that I had been missing out on something I desperately needed. Then Pastor Rick you spoke about God's love and God's purpose and how God wants everybody in His family. I took it all in with great wonder. And at the close of the service, when you led everybody in a prayer, I prayed it too. And while I was saying those simple words, the tears returned, and I felt overwhelmed by God's love for me. Pastor Rick, I don't know what my next step should be. But I do know this, that the direction of my life was reset in that moment. Please help me now to know what to do next".

Now, what caught my attention with that letter, and that's just one of many. What caught my attention was how this person used the word reset. In a single moment, the direction of my life was reset. I was going this way. Hopelessness, doubt, fear, despair, this way. Now I'm going to hope, purpose, meaning, significance. The direction went from guilt to forgiveness. I went from anger to peace. These kind of directional change just happen all the time. They are a spiritual reset in people's lives, and it's happened literally hundreds of thousands of times in our church family.

Now, that caught my attention, that word reset. Because I told you that I've been going up to a clinic near Stanford University up in the Silicon Valley where a team of doctors has been studying why I had constant pain in my body literally for months. And they're trying to figure out the cure for it. And evidently, it's something rare. I don't even know. But at the first meeting with all those doctors at that clinic, I asked the lead doctor, "So doc, what exactly are you trying to accomplish here"? And he looked at me and he said, "Pastor Rick, we intend to reset your health". He said, "We're gonna reset your health. And we're gonna use a number of different biological tools that we didn't even have 10 years ago to reset your health".

And I heard that word reset again, and I thought, "Hey, that's great. I'm all in for a biological reset". And while you're at it, can you make me 30 years younger? And give me Brad Pitt's face. I mean, let's just do a total makeover of the new Ricky Warren. Now a year ago, some of you may remember, that when COVID started, the restrictions ended and we were able to start meeting outside down the hill, and at the very beginning of that, I did a single message on this theme reset. I wanna come back to it and actually do a whole series on it now. But I did a series, a message.

And I said, we've had this timeout during COVID and God doesn't want you to send simply resume your old way of living, now that COVID is winding down. He doesn't want you to resume your old way of living. Instead of resuming the old, God wants to reset our lives in a new and a higher dimension. So starting this weekend, our preaching team, Pastor Tom, Pastor Buddy, and I are gonna begin a series called restarting my life. And if you look at your notes, the notes that are inside your program, the definition of reset is to make a fresh start, the opportunity to make a fresh start or to begin again.

Now, that's something Jesus Christ specializes in. He gives people fresh starts, start over, begin again all the time. The S in our name, S-A-D-D-L-E-B-A-C-K. Every one of those letters represent a value of this church. And the first value S is second chance place of grace. If you've messed up, this is a place start over. This is a place for imperfect people who want a fresh start, a reset, a rebooting of their life. Now there's tons and tons of verses in the Bible about God wanting to give you a restart, a reboot, a refresh and a new beginning, in any area of your life. And you'll need these many times in your life.

We're gonna look at all of those verses in the weeks ahead, but let me just give you one of them right here at the top of your outline, Ephesians 4 says this. "You've learned the truth that is in Jesus. Jesus said, I'm the way the truth in life". You've learned the truth in you stepped across the line. Now, so in regards to your former way of life, that means before you had Jesus in your heart, before you knew the Lord, your former life before you were a believer, he said in regard to your former way of life, put off your old self and be made new in the attitudes of your mind and put on your new self created to be like God, truly good and holy. Now this is, God's saying here, that once you've invited Jesus into your life, and you've put your trust in Him, then there's a process of growth and change and growing and becoming and resetting every area of your life.

And he says, it's kind of like changing your clothes, where you take off some stuff and you put on some stuff, you take off all the old clothes that are smelly and sweaty and dirty. Take off your old clothes. And you get rid of those. And you put on some new clothes, which are fresh and smell good and make you feel good too. He said, there's some things you should take off. There's some things you could should put on. We're gonna deal with this now for several weeks. How do I do a life reset? Whether you're in retirement or whether you're at midlife, or whether you're just starting out, you're in your 20s or your teens, there are different times in your life you're gonna need to do a reset.

Now, today, what I'm gonna just do, we're not gonna go over the steps of how to reset your life. That'll take us weeks to do that. But in this point, I want us to look at the four preparation steps. In other words, these are preliminary things you need to do to get ready for a major reset in your life. Number one, start asking God to do something new in me. I start asking God to do something new in me. And you don't just ask Him once, you show that you mean business by asking Him more than once, by repeatedly bringing your request to God. Any parent knows that when at Christmas time a child says, I want this for Christmas. If they only mentioned one time, they don't really want it. They have to say it three or four times then you go, now, this is the difference between a whim and a genuine want.

Okay. And God says, "Are you serious about changing your life? Are you serious about being a different guy, a different gal, a man of God, a woman of God, are you serious about breaking some of those bad habits in your life? I need you to tell me". Now you might wonder, is it okay for me to ask God to do something new in my life? God, I want you to do something new, something fresh, something different, something unique in my life. Can you do that? Yes. In fact, it's in the job description of Jesus Christ. First verse there under that point, Revelation 21, Jesus says, "I am making everything old". Now, that's not what he says, is it? I'm making everything boring. I'm making everything the same. No. He said I'm making everything what? New. This is what he does. Jesus transforms life.

So if you're tired of your old way of living, this is the guy you come to. I make everything new. Now, a good prayer that you could pray is the one that David prayed in Psalm 51. In Psalm 51, he asked God to create a new heart in him, create a clean spirit, do some new work in him. And in Psalm 51:10, I love this verse particularly, in the message paraphrase where David says this, "God make a fresh start in me". I like that. "Shape a Genesis week from the chaos in my life". You need this verse. Make a fresh start in me, shape a new creation from the chaos of my life. You might wanna write that on a little card and put it on your refrigerator and memorize that verse this week.

Now, it's not only a good prayer. Just be the start of asking God to do something new in your life. But it's also significant even more when you realize that David wrote this after stealing another man's wife and having the man, the husband murdered. We got a little bit different context now. David has created two of the top sins up there, adultery and murder. And he's saying, "God, I need you to make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week in the chaos of my life". What that implies is really quite good news. What it implies is that you are never too far gone for God's grace, for God's forgiveness. You can't do a bad enough thing that God's gonna say, "Ah, time out, you don't get any more chances".

This is a message of grace. God do something new in me. I am so messed it up. So screwed up my life. So, made a fiasco of everything. And I've done this one, and this one and this one and this one and this, but I need a fresh start. I don't care what you've done. I don't care who you've done it with. And I don't care how long you've done it. You can get a fresh start and a life reset. Starting today, if you'll come to God and the first preliminary is to just say, "God, I need a fresh start". I'm carrying too much baggage. I'm carrying too much sin. I'm carrying too much guilt. I'm carrying too many regrets. Listen, your past is past. It's over. Did you do some dumb things? Yes. But you can't change that. You are a product of your past, but you are not a prisoner of your past. You might write that one down.

In fact, you might tweet that one. Rick says, "You're a product of your past. You have been shaped by the good and the bad and the ugly things in your life, but you're not a prisoner of it". You can change. That's the gospel. That's the good news. That's what Christianity's all about. There can be pushing the reset button and I get a second chance. I get a new life. I get born again. I get new freedom and I can get a second chance and a third chance and on and on. Now, here's what God says about your past. Are you listening? Isaiah 43:18-19. Here's what God says about your past. "Forget the former things and do not dwell on the past". Whether it's good or bad. "Instead," God says, "Look at the new things I'm going to do. They're already starting to happen. Can you see what I've begun to do"?

God says I don't want you constantly look at in the rear view mirror. If always looking in the rear view mirror, you're gonna crack up while you're driving. The only way you can drive effectively is look to the future. Not look what's behind you, but look to the future. All of the rest of your life is in the future, Not in the past. As I said, your past is past. So don't dwell on it. Start asking God to do something new in me. Do you know why nothing's happening new in your life right now? Because you're not asking.

Look at the next verse, James 4:2. You do not have what you want because you don't what? Ask God for it. Circle that start under... You don't have it because you don't ask for it. Have you ever asked God for a reset in your life? God, I need a fresh start. I've blown it. I've made a big mistake, mistakes plural, and I need a fresh start. I need a new start. I need a revamping. I need to reboot my life.

This is the first preparation step. You're gonna have to start asking God, "God, I want you to do something new in my life". And I pray that in the weeks ahead, during this series, you're gonna be praying this prayer every day. And I want you to pray it every day this week. I want you to, when you think about it, go, "God, would you do something new in my life? Would you do something fresh in my life? Would you give me a fresh start? Would you give me a renewed energy, renewed spirit, renewed hope and heart"?

The first step in preparation is to ask God for a reset. Here's the second thing in preparation. These are preliminaries, pinpoint specifically what I want changed in me. That's the second thing you do. If you wanna get a brand new start in life, pinpoint specifically what I want changed in me. Nothing becomes transforming until it becomes specific. You don't just say, "God, I want you to change me". And God's gonna say, "Specifically, what do you have in mind"? Change what? What do you want changed?

Okay. You can't change a generality. So don't just say, "God change me". Don't say change me. You have to clarify. You have to identify. You have decide where you wanna be different as a man or as a woman, where do I wanna be different? You see, you cannot solve any problem. Obviously, first you identify it as a problem. Do you know the problems in your life or are you just still in denial about 'em all? You gotta identify the problems in your life. You gotta clarify the problems in your life. You gotta admit that they are problems in your life. Oh no. I'm not really in debt. Oh no. I'm not really habitually procrastinating, whatever. No, I don't need help in an area. Well, then you'll be helpless.

Now, the more specific you are about what you want God to change in your life, the easier it's gonna be for God to do it and to help you and to do it faster. Now, what I've done on your message notes is I've created a little checklist to jog your memory. Where do I need help? What would I like to change in my life? What are the things in my life, relationships or whatever that I'm dissatisfied with? I'm just not cooking on all burners. I'm not on all the cylinders. So, I wanna do this is worth it for us to take some time right now in this service. This may be one of the most important things you do this week, is to take this personal inventory right now.

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Look closely at yourself". That means do a little self examination. "Test yourselves to see if you're really living in the faith". Okay? So here are here are a dozen or so areas. Let's look at these. Where do I need a reset? What would I like God to change in my life? Gimme a fresh start. How about in my connection to God? I said, well, how do I know if I need a reset there? Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt closer to God than you'd do right now? If the answer is, yes, you need a reset. You need a reboot, you need a reconnection. So you need to check that box. Yes. If you say I've never been closer to God than I am right now, you don't need to check that one. You're copacetic. You're okay.

How about, do I need a reset in my health and body, like the doctors are trying to do with me right now? Do you need help in your metabolism, in some area of your chronic illness or something? You mean I could ask God about that. Of course, you can. Do I need a reset in my priorities? Are your priorities out of whack and things that really aren't important, all of a sudden you're spending all your time doing those, and the things that are really important, you're not doing those. I need a reset in my priorities. Okay. Check that one. How about a relationship? Do you have a relationship, boyfriend, girlfriend, friend, or whatever? And you're going, it's stagnating or it may be deteriorating. Do I need to reset in that relationship? How about in your energy level? I said, I'm finding it going lower and lower. Do I need to restart there?

How about in your career? In my career or in my job, if you're outta work right now, you need to restart. If you just got laid off or fired, you're outta work, you need to restart there. How about in my thought life? I'm having thoughts that I don't like. I can't control 'em. They scare me. They're the wrong kind of thoughts. I shouldn't have these kind of thoughts and will bother me. Check that. Do I need a reset in my marriage? No marriage ever stands still. At every point in your marriage, you're either growing closer together or you're drifting further apart. No marriage just stands still. So if you're not growing closer together, you're drifting apart, and maybe you need to reset in your marriage. I need to re-fall in love.

I've had to refall in love with my wife, many, many times in almost 47 years of marriage, You just have to re-up and recommit. How about in your routines? Are your routines outta whack? The routine I'm in right now, it started during COVID, it's not helping me and I need to change my routine. I need to reset there. Maybe you need to check that one. Or how about habits? Do I need to replace some bad habits with some good habits? How about in my parenting? Some of you need to reset in your parenting. And right now, you need to reset a relationship with one of your kids. They may be an adult child, but you're outta whack with them. And you need to reset in that relationship. You check that one.

How about my time and my schedule? Have you figured out that it's easier to fill your schedule than to fulfill your schedule? Have you discovered that it's easier to get in to something rather than to get out of it? It's easier to commit than to actually fulfill. And my time's outta control. My schedule's outta control. I'm always pressured. I'm always late, whatever. You check that one. I need a reset there. How about in your self-confidence? See, why would I need to reset my self confidence? Well, if you've just experienced a major rejection, you probably do. If you've been rejected at work or you've rejected by a friend or a parent or a lover, you've been rejected by your spouse or somebody, anytime you have rejection, your self-confidence takes a hit. And I need to reset that Lord in my life.

How about finances? Am I in denial about all the debt that I'm in? I'm just pretending it's not really there. Or do I need a reset in my dream? Now what we're gonna do, I told you this week is just an introduction. In the weeks ahead, we are going to cover many of these areas in detail. So I don't want you to miss any of the messages in this series on resetting my life, because this is news you can use. Now, before we move on, there is, I need to say a word to a special group of you. And that is the few of you who just now, as I went through that list did not check a single box. Really? You're that perfect? You're in such denial. You couldn't even find a single box to check. Hello? You gotta touch with you may... You must be Jesus. You're so perfect.

Why don't you come up here and just take over and you start teaching 'cause I would certainly like to learn from somebody who's perfect. You can't find a single thing that you said, "Yeah, I need help in that area"? If not, it's desperate time for you. The most desperate thing is when you're outta touch with the reality in your life. And the Bible says the heart's deceitful, which means you lie to yourself more than you lie to anybody else. And for those of you who didn't check a single box, this is what God says to you. Next verse, Romans 12:3, "Do not think you are better than you really are. Decide what you really are by the amount of faith that God has given you".

So I wanna highly recommend, even if you use false humility, go back and check a few things, because trust me, you're not perfect. Trust me, there's things on that list that need a reset in your life. And if you don't understand that, you really are out of touch with your own self because nobody's perfect. We're all flawed. We know that, God knows that. And actually, you know it, but you're just trying to tell yourself something different. You rationalize. You know what rationalize means? You tell yourself rational lies. You tell yourself in your mind what your heart is telling you is wrong and your mind say it's okay. It's not. Now in this brief intro to the series we're gonna go into, I wanted you to hear a real life example of somebody who had their life reset and where we're going, so I want you to hear the story of Alice Park. Would you give her a warm welcome. Welcome, Alice.

Wow. That was great. Fantastic. Fantastic. All right. So this weekend, we're just identifying the four preliminary steps for a total reset of your life. Okay? Number one, start asking God, I want you every day this week, pray this prayer. God, do something new and fresh in my life. Just start praying that every day. God, I want you to do something new, something fresh, something unique in my life. Step two, I want you to spend some time pinpointing specific what you want changed in your life.

Now, the last two steps real quick. Third step, preparation. Find some people to support my reset. You wanna find some people to support my reset. You can't do this by yourself. Something as big as a total life change, a reboot, a reset. You're not gonna do it on your own. If you could, you would. But you can't. So you won't. You haven't done it because you've tried in the past by yourself. You need other people in your life. God has wired us so that we don't get better. We don't get healthy. We don't get whole and healed until we get other people involved in our lives. Why? That requires humility. It means you need other people.

As long as you think you can do it on your own, have it your way. It's not gonna work. It hasn't worked so far. It's not gonna work in the future. You need other people in your life. That's why we talk about small groups all the time at Saddleback. This church is built on small groups. It's more important than the weekend. We have over 7,000 small groups right now meeting in homes and offices and places, in a hundred ninety three, a hundred ninety six cities in Southern California from Malibu to San Diego. Every city in Southern California has Saddleback small groups in it. And so, don't tell me I can't find one. I'll find one for you. If you wanna start your own group, get some friends. Great. So, I don't have any friends. I will buy you some friends. I've told you this many times. Okay? I have influence, okay? I can buy some friends.

Now, why is it important to find some people to support my reset? Couple verses, look at this verse. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4, "A person can stand alone. Standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back to back and conquer. And three are even better for a triple braided cord. It's not easily broken". Two people working together, you're not gonna be defeated. Three people, that's even better. Four people's even better than that. A small group is what we're talking about. Look at the next verse. If one person falls, another can reach out and help. But people who are alone when they fall are in real trouble, you will fall in your reset. You will make mistakes. You're not perfect. None of us are.

And in your desire to be a different kind of man, the man that God wants, to be a different kind of woman, the godly woman that God created you to be, you're gonna fall. You're gonna make mistakes. You need other people in your life who are just gonna love you through that, carry you through it, help you through it. You need a small group. Write this down. Community is God's antidote to discouragement and defeat and failure. If you're discouraged, I know why, you're not in community. You're not in a small group all the time. If you feel defeated, if you feel like a failure, it's because you don't have people around you who are giving you a true perspective. I'm not a really good judge of myself. You aren't a really good judge of you. You need people in your life who can see what you can't see. You're a terrible judge of yourself.

Now, the Bible says, this is particularly true for those of us who are Christians. Romans 12:5, "Since we're all in one body in Christ, we belong to each other and each of us needs each other". Do you realize that in the body of Christ, in the family of God, you belong to me, and I belong to you. And the other people on your row who belong to the family of God are your brothers and your sisters. And that relationship is actually longer lasting than your family relationship. Your physical family, it's not gonna last. People grow up, they get married. They form their own families. They divorce. They separate, they die.

Physical families don't last, but your spiritual family is gonna last for eternity, which means that your connection and your commitment to other believers in God's family should be stronger than any other commitment. A political commitment, a financial commitment, a business commitment. Your commitment to the body of Christ is more important, 'cause it's the only relationship that's gonna last forever. I'm a six foot two tall, white American male overweight. Now, you would think that I would have most in common with other six foot tall two male white Americans who vote like I do. But actually God says, I have more in common with Alice who is short Asian female. And my commitment to her is actually greater than to people who look like me, come from my background and vote like me.

Does that make sense? And as a brother to my sister in Christ, I am... If you mess with her, you hurt her, then you're gonna mess with me 'cause I'm her brother. And if you put her down, I'm not gonna let you put her down because we're in the family of God. And that's a different kind of loyalty that you may have never thought of before. But God says, "If you're my child, I expect you to be more loyalty to your brothers and sisters than to people who think like you look like you act like you or have the same background as you do". That makes sense. But it's a new way of thinking.

So, Hebrews 10:25, "Let us not give up the habit". Circle the word habit. "Let us not give up the habit of meeting together. Instead, let us encourage one another". Why do we meet together in small groups? To encourage each other. Now, let's feel honest, COVID was a small group killer. It was a church attendance killer. We didn't even meet for a year and a half. And a lot of those people got out of the habit of coming to the church or being in a group. Some of you have been in small groups in the past, but you're not in an active one right now. Now's the time to get back involved. Let us not give up the habit of being together in a group. Why? That's where you get the encouragement. Now you heard one testimony, but I wanted you to hear just a few more. And this is part of a video clip of Celebrate Recovery. Watch this on the screen.

All right. So, if you're serious about having a total life reset, I mean, getting a fresh start. Okay? You're gonna need to get in a group, get in a small group, a celebrate recovery group, some kind of group here at Saddleback, will help you do that in today's head. You can't do this on your own. Here's the fourth preliminary, eliminate anything unhelpful or unhealthy, eliminate anything unhelpful or unhealthy. This is another preliminary before you actually start on the reset process. Hebrews 12:1, "We should remove anything from our lives that would get in the way and the sin that holds us back".

Now, if you've ever gone on a diet, you know what I'm talking about here. Before you do anything else on a new diet, you go into your refrigerator and you take out all the junk food and throw it away. And you go into the kitchen cabinets and you throw away all the stuff that would be a temptation. You wanna eliminate the junk food so you can get on the straight and narrow away. We worry about junk food and what it does for us. But what about mental junk food? If you wanna change your life, maybe you need to unplug or cancel your cable subscription for a few months. If you wanna really change your mind, stop the junk that's coming in over the internet and the stuff of social media.

I read a article yesterday that depression is at the highest level it's ever been in teenagers and young adults in their 20s, highest it's ever been. Why? 'Cause they're the highest consumers of social media. And they're looking at everybody's called perfect life and they're comparing themselves and they're feeling left out and they feel like I'm never gonna measure up. And they're always comparing and they're depressed. Hebrews 12:1-2 in CEV version says this, "We must get rid of everything that slows us down or slows down our progress". 'Cause we wanna make progress in our lives, "Especially those sins that just won't let go". That's those habitual things that hold on to. We'll talk about those. We must be determined to run the race that is ahead of us. And we must keep our eyes on Jesus who leads us.

So here's the question. Write this, this fourth question. Write this down. What do I need to get rid of or let go of? What do I need to get rid of or let go of? It might be a relationship that's pulling you down. A friend that's not really being a friend. They're dragging you in the wrong direction. If I stand up here and you're down there and I'm trying to lift you up and you're trying to pull me down, who's gonna win? There's no question. It's easier to pull somebody down. So what I'm trying to help 'em, pray for 'em, love 'em, invite 'em to church. But you should have is your closest friends those people who are actually making you a better woman, a better man, not taking you the wrong direction.

So, what do I need to let go of? Maybe there's some stuff, some reading material in my house. I need to get it out of the house. I need to clear out only you will know what cleaning out, what eliminating anything unhelpful and healthy will mean to you. Now, one of the things in the days ahead we're gonna have to work on are attitudes, because there are some attitudes that need to be cleaned out of our lives. And there's some new ones that need to be placed. We need to put on good attitudes and throw out bad attitudes. That's easier said than done, but we'll talk about how you do that. How do you replace an attitude that you've had for 20 years? How do you uproot it in your life?

Colossians, the Bible says this, chapter three, verse seven to 10. "You used to live," he's talking about before you became a Christian. "You used to live according to selfish desires". In other words, before I knew Christ, I just did what was best for me. Didn't matter for hurt did hurt anybody else. I just did what was best for me. You used to live according to selfish desires when your life was dominated by them, me, me, me, myself, and me. Okay? But now you must get rid of all these things, and he just gives a few examples of bad attitudes, anger, hot temper, hating others who believe or vote differently than you. No insults. So that rules out a lot of the social media. "No insults or filthy talk must ever come from your lips and stop lying to each other for you have put off your old self with its habits and you have put on your new self".

That's a reset. That's what we're gonna do in the weeks ahead. Now, since we're gonna do this, let me wrap this up. Since we're gonna do this series on resetting your life, different areas and you always will need resets at different parts of your life, I went and looked up the word reset in scripture and found that it's only used one time in the Bible, the word reset in the Hebrew language. The word reset in Hebrew is only used in the book of Isaiah. Now here's the background, 'cause this means a lot. The nation of Israel had been beaten in war by the Empire of Babylon. And when they won the war, they took the entire nation as prisoners of war back to Babylon, which is Iraq.

So an entire nation was transported from living in Israel. They moved them all to Iraq, where they were prisoners of war for 70 years. They're pretty discouraged. They're pretty displaced. They're like the Ukrainians in Poland right now, displaced because of a war, only that was escaping. This was taking 'em hostage. And it said that they destroyed the capital of Jerusalem, the holy city. So, God's people are pretty discouraged. And in the midst of all this, God did not want them to realize, did not want them to think that He'd forgotten them. He still loved them. And He was going to rebuild and reset their lives. And here's what He says in Isaiah 54. This is God talking. "The mountains may shake and the Hills may crumble".

In other words, everything may be falling apart in your life. But my unfailing love for you will never be shaken. Everything else could be shaken in your life, but nothing could shake me and loving you. It's never gonna stop. "And my promise of peace will never change," says the Lord who has compassion on you. And then he turns to this city of Jerusalem that as a symbol of hope for Israel, and He says this, "Oh Jerusalem, you suffering storm, ravaged city, needing comfort".

Maybe you feel like that. You feel like you're suffering. You've been ravaged by trials and storms and you need comfort. He says, I will rebuild you with priceless jewels and I will reset. There's the word. I will reset your foundation with sapphires. What you talking about? It's a metaphor saying, I'm gonna rebuild you. I've not forgotten you. I've never stopped loving you. We're gonna rebuild you, your life and your city. But this time, we're not gonna build it on the shaky sand that you can lose your foundation. I'm not gonna build your foundation of your life on clay. I'm not even gonna build your foundation on cement. I'm gonna build it on precious jewels, sapphires, and the next verse, He says, and rubies for your walls. Sapphires and rubies.

Why would God build a foundation on precious jewels? Because they are unchangeable. Everything else can rust or rot or decay, but sapphires and rubies don't decay and rot. They last, they're eternal. That's why they're so expensive. Sapphire's incredibly expensive. Ruby's are incredibly expensive. The top of the line Ruby can cost 1.1 million a karat for a really good Ruby. There was recently a Ruby sold 30 karat Ruby for nearly $35 million. 35 karat Ruby for $35 million. He says, "I'm gonna build your foundation, not on stone, but on the most precious things on earth," more precious than gold. Actually even more precious than diamonds. Diamonds are much more available than either rubies or sapphires, is that I'm gonna build your life on a precious foundation and it's going to last.

So, what I recommend as we start this series on resetting your life, that you listen to what God told Job to do and you follow that. Look on the screen. Job 11 says this, and Job gone through a lot of hard time. He said, "Put your heart right, Job, reach out to God and get rid of all the evil and wrong from your home. All that junk that's in your home, you need to clean it out, eliminate it. Then face the world again, firm and courageous". And he says, if you do that, here's the promise. "Then all your troubles will fade from your memory like floods that are passed and remember no more". He said, you know all that hurt from your past, it'll be like water under the bridge. It's just gone. How long do you remember water under the bridge? It's gone. You forget it. And He said, your life will be brighter than the sunshine at noon. And you'll live secure and full of hope.

Now guys, friends, as somebody who loves you, this is my prayer for you. That in this series, there will be a life reset where you go to a new level of living and all that junk in your past, it'll be like water under the bridge. It's gone. You don't have to deal with it anymore. It's forgiven. It's forgotten. It's over. And then your life starts shining bright as sunshine at noon, you live securely. You live full of hope. That's my prayer for you in this series.

Now, most of you are already believers. You've stepped across the line. You're in the family of God. But we still have to have resets at different point in our life. Some of you have not yet stepped across the line. And so the last verse is a verse for you. And the Bible says this, 2 Corinthians 5:17. "When someone becomes a Christian," you invite the Lord into your life. "He becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun". That's what you call a real fresh start. That's called salvation. So, whether I've already done the first step or I need to do the first step, all of us can take the next step in a reset of our lives. It's gonna be cool. Let's bow our heads. So as I pray, just follow me in this prayer.

That God, I want you to do something new in me starting this week. I'm asking you to do something new in me. You make everything new, God make a fresh start in me. Shape a Genesis week from the chaos in my life. You told me to forget the former things and to focus on the new things you're gonna do in me. I wanna do that. And then say, Lord, help me to spend some time this week, pinpointing specifically what I want changed in me, to look closely at myself, to test myself and find out what you want to change in me.

And then Lord, I'm asking you to help me to find some people who will support my reset. I know that standing alone, it's not gonna work, that I need group support. And I commit to getting in some kind of a group as we work on this life reset in my life. Help me to remember that when I get discouraged, when I feel defeated, when I feel like a failure, it's because I'm not in community at that moment. And Lord during COVID, it was easy to give up the habit of meeting together. But I commit to being in church every week and being in a small group because I know that's where I'm gonna get the encouragement I need.

Finally, Lord, help me to eliminate anything that's unhelpful or unhealthy in my life. And this week, help me to think through what I need to get rid of and what I need to let go of as you prepare me for the new me, the new improved me. I want you to do a reset in my life. You've never invited Jesus in your life to Jesus Christ. Come into my life, make yourself real to me, I'm opening my heart to you. And as much as I know how I'm asking you to come in and save me, and I humbly ask this in your name. Amen.