This is the final episode of this series and I just want somebody to be excited for what God's getting ready to do. Crying time is over. Morning is over. Weeping may endure for a night. Boy, joy comes in the morning. I was sick this past week, but I'm well today. Grab your Bibles, stay standing. If you would go with me to Mark chapter 10. While you're turning there, special announcement. All the married couples make some noise. All the happily married couples make some noise. Yes. Well, we have something special for you who are married coming on February the 15th. We have an event that we're calling all the fields, married couples dinner party.

This is going to be an amazing time for all of you that are married. If you're not married, get married, join us. It's totally fine, but here's the QR code. We'd love for you to sign up because registration is open right now, but I will say registration is limited. We have a limited amount of space, but you don't want to miss it. It starts at doors open at five 30 and then the party starts at six. Well, we're talking drum folks, music, live band, entertainment, and then played at dinners, dessert, appetizers. There's also a special entertainment piece that I'm not going to tell you about because you got to be here. Sign up. We'll see you here February 15th if you're married.

If not, hurried up. You got a couple of weeks, 21 days of prayer and fasting ends today. Come on somebody. We've made it. Take it easy. Don't just run out there and get the chicken wings. Tear yourself up this week, ease into it, salads, soups. Don't just go on a sugar rush, just ease into it. But I'm so proud of you if you stuck through the entire 21 days or you just did a couple of days, I'm so proud of you for joining us. We love doing this at the beginning of the year because it kind of sets the stage for our intentionality for the rest of the year. So well done, well done. You've done a wonderful job. Hey, if you're a guest with us, we want to say welcome to Embassy City Church. We're so delighted that you're here, whether you're in the overflow or even online, we're just so delighted that you're here now something that you'll see in the seat back pocket in front of you or the seat back in front of you.

It's a little QR code. If you're a guest with us, we'd love for you to hit that QR code and just let us know that you're here or if you want to take your next step, maybe you want to sign up to serve on a team or you want to get water baptized or you want to enter into generosity, hit this QR code and that seat right in front of you and take your next step as somebody say amen. Alright, mark chapter 10, verse number 46. This is what it says. Very familiar past the scripture. If you've been in church, you've probably heard this story before or read it before. Mark chapter 10, verse 46. And they came to Jericho and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples in a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of TEUs was sitting by the roadside, and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David have mercy on me and many rebuked him telling him to be quiet. I love this part. If you ever want to get on somebody's nerves, do more of what they ask you not to do.

But he cried out all the more son of David at mercy on me, and Jesus stopped and said, call him. And they called the blind. Man, don't you love it when God turns your situation around to the point that your enemies have now got to be your allies, that the ones that were opposing you now have to support you. The ones that said you couldn't buy the car, now have to sell you the car. They said to him, take heart. Get up. He is calling you and throwing off his cloak. He sprang up and came to Jesus and Jesus said to him, what do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said to him, rabbi, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, go your way. Your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered sight and followed him on the way. For the last several weeks, we've been talking about how you get prepared for the new and the first week we talked about new hope and we talked about having a new heart. Your spirit's got to be right. You have to have flexibility. New wine for a new wineskins wine. Then we talked about having a new head. Your thinking's got to change. You got to use your imagination. And today we're going to talk about new habits.

I'm not going to preach long, but I am going to preach. Lord, we are so grateful, so thankful to be in your presence. I thank you Lord for what you've already done in this place. I thank you for what you're getting ready to do. Lord, we are interested in what you have in mind for us, and we want to go all in to see the new. So Lord, do what only you can do. Move as only you can move. We give you name, the praise, the glory and the honor because you're worthy of it in Jesus. Name me, pray. Amen. Look at your neighbor, say Neighbor, neighbor, everything new. Look at your other neighbor. Say the other neighbor, other neighbor, everything, everything new. God bless you. You may be seated.

Anyone have a Costco membership or how many of y'all about that? Sam's life, okay, okay, where a house divided. I see Costco and Sam's, both of those places are pretty extraordinary places because of what you can get right? You can buy everything in bulk even though you don't need everything in bulk. The problem with going to Costco or Sam's is that you always walk away with more than you should have, right? Do you really need 500 pounds of chicken? You don't even have the room for it. But one of the things I remember when we first moved over here to the United States from Germany, we didn't have Sam's and Costco and I remember some folks in the church said, Hey, we're about to go to Sam's. That's going to change your life. And we didn't really know what that meant, but we met in the parking lot and it was like a little pep rally before we went to Sam's Club.

So we were getting ready, we didn't really know what we're going to go experience, but when we walked into Sam's, they said, all right, hope you came hungry. And I started to realize why Sam's was so packed on Saturday around lunchtime because everywhere you turn there were these little samples, corn dogs, apple chicken, gung pow chicken, orange chicken, barbecue chicken. There are all these samples and once you got to taste these samples, the strategy behind samples was that if you came in hungry and we gave you a sample, if it was good enough, it would tempt you to buy the whole thing. And Sam's Club and Costco know that if they can tempt you with the right stuff, you'll commit to the full thing. And so they still do it today. They tempt you with little samples hoping that somebody is hungry enough to commit themselves to the whole thing. And what's interesting is they've made a killing off of this because how many of you have ever bought something off of a sample and realized you hated it and you still feel like you have to eat it because you paid for it, but you didn't really want it? You were just so hungry that you made a decision off of starvation. And as good as Sam's Club and Costco is about sampling, no one does samples like God.

No one can give you a taste of something that you want more of like God. In fact, that's just the way God works. When God gets ready to do something, he usually will give you a sample first. That's why the Bible says taste and see

That the Lord is good. Why is God so confident that if you taste his goodness you'll want more? Because he knows you can't lose? What's the stuff he uses, right? That once you get a sample of it, you'll want the whole thing. And what we've talked about here recently in the last couple weeks is that God is going to do something new. But did you know all throughout scripture you'll find out that God will always give you a taste of what's getting ready to come before he gives you the full thing. Because often he wants to test and see how many people are willing to go all in based off of a sample.

Because just because you had a sample don't mean you've had the whole thing. If you want the whole thing, it's going to cost you. A sample is free and you can have multiple samples for free, but at a certain point that person's going to be like, are you buying or just eating samples? Every time God got ready to do something in somebody's life, he would tell 'em about it. Before he told Noah, Noah Rain is coming, he told Moses, I'm calling you to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. He told Abraham, I'm going to bless you with children. He told Joseph that your family is going to serve you. He told Jacob that the elder would serve the younger all throughout scripture, every time God gets ready to do something new, he tells you about it first. Whether he says it verbally or he does it through a dream or he does it through some kind of sampling, however God does it, God tends to tell us what he wants to do in our life before he does it.

That is called hope. When God begins to show you what he wants to do for you in your future, he's giving you hope and everybody knows that you can survive for several days without food. You can survive several days without water. You can survive several minutes without air, but take away a person's hope and they have no will to live. So God starts giving us hope. At the biblical definition of hope is the sure and confident expectation of receiving what God has promised us in the future. Hope is the promissory note that God is going to do what he is promising you He's going to do, and you can survive anything as long as you have hope, as long as you believe that your future is greater than your present, you can make it through anything, but it's not just enough to have hope. In fact, hope is ineffective if you don't have faith. Because faith is believing that hope is real. Faith is believing that God tells the truth. Faith is believing that what God says is in your future is actually true. Lemme put it this way. Faith is necessary to give hope. Power.

Lemme say that again. Faith is necessary to give hope. Power faith gives hope. Substance. This is why the writer of Hebrew said that. Now, faith is the assurance of things, hope for the conviction of things not seed. Faith is the vehicle that helps us get from where we are to where God wants to take us. Faith is not just some way of feeling. We used to preach sometimes. I remember back in the day, I used to always think that faith was a feeling that if I could get up to the front and get in the convulsions and have a vein pop out of the side of my head that somehow that was a sign of faith. But faith ain't got nothing to do with your physical.

You shake it back and forth. Faith is all to do with believing that God tells the truth. Faith is not subjective to you. Faith is dependent on your willingness to believe that what God says belongs to you, belongs to you. But it is not enough just to say you have faith, because faith without action is like a car without wheels and a lot of people are in cars without wheels hoping to get to the future that God has for them. They say they believe that God has something good for them, but wondering how they're not getting there is because faith without works is dead. So it's not just enough to say you believe that new things are happening. The question is, are your actions in line with your belief moving you toward what you believe God has for you? Well, I don't know where I'm going. Neither did Abraham.

In fact, James said it like this. So also faith by itself if it does not have works is dent works. Here is the word, duty is the word that the Greek word Iran, it means work that a person is obliged to perform for moral or legal reasons. In other words, what James is saying, that faith, you can say you have faith, but unless your body is following your words, we don't believe it. That's exactly what James said. James says, you can say all day long that you believe the new thing is coming. You can believe it in your heart, you can believe it in your mind, but if you're going to get what God has for you, it's got to get in your hands and feet. It's got to get in your actions throughout the scriptures. Every time God got ready to do something new in somebody's life, they had to first of all believe, but then they also had to act.

God says, I'm going to do something great in your life, Noah. And Noah said, all right, I believe that. But Noah still had to go build an ark. Abraham believed that he would be blessed, but he still had to pack up his stuff and start traveling. Moses believed that he was called to leave the children of Israel out of Egypt, but he still had to go into Pharaoh's throne room and tell 'em the truth. They even believed that he would be king, but he still had to go fight Goliath. Daniel believed that God would hear him, but he still had to pray. It isn't just about you believing that God's going to do it. The question is, is your body are your actions in line with what you're professing to believe about God? You can say you're a worshiper, but does your body show it?

See, the new is going to require some new habits. Here's the thing. Anybody have goals this year? Maybe you got some financial goals. Maybe you want to pay some stuff off. Maybe you want to save a certain amount of money. How many got some physical goals? You want to get a six pack by June? Get rid of the case. I'm saying I believe in faith is going to have supernatural six packs, right? You have some goals in your life. You believe that it is possible to get the right body at the right time. Maybe you have some other goals, some spiritual goals. You're going to read the Bible through entire year. You're going to read the whole Bible through. Maybe you've got some goals in your life, but did you know goals by themselves mean nothing? If you don't create habits to get there, you can believe all day long that you're going to have a six pack by June, but until you put down the chicken wings there he goes with the chicken wings again, until you build some habits of eating right, doing some crunches, your faith is void because believing is just the first step.

Your belief has to be followed by actions.

I'd love to tell you that just believing that new things are going to happen means new things are just going to happen. But I would be remiss to tell you that without saying, Hey, listen. If you want God to do something new in your life, you're going to have to find some new habits. There may be some things that you're doing right now that are keeping you stuck where you're at, and God wants to challenge the status quo just to continue doing the same thing. God wants to shake that up in your life and God wants you to try some new things. How many know that anytime you start doing new things is going to be uncomfortable? If you haven't been to the gym in a while and you go to the gym, it's uncomfortable. In fact, most of the time if you go to the gym after not being there a while, you got to, I'll set up for a two pack.

Whatever a two pack looks like. It sounds good to me, right? We'll start making concessions and we'll start trying to modify what God says he wants to do in our lives. God, I will settle for Ishmael. I think Ishmael will do just fine because this journey is a little too hard. And God says, I need you to build new habits and stick to it now. Now, when we talk about someone who had faith and actions to match, we can't go any further than talking about Brian Bartimaeus. The reason why I read this scripture is because I want to look at this verse by verse, and I want to kind of, if you don't mind, I want to dig into this passage because I think there's something we can learn from Bartimaeus about how to get away from where we're at to get to where God wants us to go.

And so I want to take an observation of his life and I want to look at five things, five habits to prepare you for the new. So if you're taking notes, I want you to write that down. Five habits to prepare you for the new. So let me give you context. First, we don't know much about Bartimaeus. In fact, we're just introduced to him as blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. Now this story is recorded in all three of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, mark, and Luke all mentioned this story. Mark, however, is the only one that mentions Bartimaeus by name. Now here's what's interesting. Out of all the people that Jesus healed that are listed in the synoptic gospels, all the people that he healed, only one person is ever named. And that's Bartimaeus. Every other healing that is ever listed in the synoptic gospels only give a description of the person, the lay man by the pool of Bethesda, the woman with the issue of blood, the centurion servant, the widow's son, the woman by the well.

There's always only these descriptions, but in this particular story, mark thought it was necessary to identify that this is a particular man by the name of Bartimaeus. If Mark knew that it means that Bartimaeus was notably in that place for a time that everybody knew who he was and he was identified as a blind beggar. That was his identity. That was his lot in life. And the scripture says that he was on the outside of the city of Jericho. Now, here's what's interesting. When Mark writes, he says, and they went to Jericho, and as they were leaving, it's almost as if whatever they were doing in Jericho didn't matter as much as this story does. We don't even know what Jesus was doing in Jericho. Mark says, and they went to Jericho. And as they were leaving, as they were leaving, the scripture says that blind Barnabas is sitting by the wayside begging as he does every single day.

And what you have to understand about beggars in those days is there wasn't a program for them. There were no shelters for beggars. There were no help programs. There were no soup kitchens. Beggars basically had to live off of the alms of individuals. Whatever they were willing to get is what they got. Whatever someone was willing to give them is what they received. And beggars were not allowed to look into the eyes of those who walked past them. So generally what a beggar would do is they would have what they call a beggar's cloak and it identified them as a beggar, but it also shielded their face from people seeing them and from them not looking into someone else's face. And they were only allowed to ask for alms. They could only say, please give me alms. Please give me alms. But in this particular instance, as the Bible says, Jesus was passing by blind Bartimaeus who had been in that same condition in that same place for a very long time.

When he heard that Jesus was passing by something within him said, this is my chance to get something new, blind bar Bartimaeus thought in his mind, if there's ever an opportunity for me to change my status in life and leave where I have been and get to somewhere new, it's got to be right now while Jesus is passing by. So the scripture says in Mark chapter 10, verse number 46, that they came to Jericho and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples in a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of tomatoes was sitting by the roadside, and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. So the first habit that you need to develop if you are going to prepare yourself for the new is you need to pray boldly.

You need to pray. Let me ask you this. When was the last time you prayed such a bold prayer that it made you even nervous to say it? When was the last time your prayers sounded ridiculous? Where they were beyond your expertise, beyond your ability to accomplish them, beyond your friend's ability, beyond anyone that you could call? When was the last time you prayed such big prayers that you said, oh my Lord, I can't believe I even asked for that. Who says you can't pray for that house? Who says you can't pray for that car? Who says you can't pray for that loved one? I want to shake somebody here this morning and tell you time for you in 2025 to pray prayers that make you nervous. I may just be preaching to myself, but the first thing you have to realize if you want something new is you have to ask for something new.

Here's what the Bible says. You have not because you ask not. Sometimes we wonder why God isn't giving us miracles. Have you prayed for a miracle? I remember one time I was in California preaching as an evangelist and I was distraught about not being able to see miracles. And I remember going to prayer on Saturday night. I had to preach on Sunday morning and I said, God, why is my generation not seeing miracles? And it was like the Lord spoke to me. Clearly you have not because you asked not. I said, done. I want to see a miracle tomorrow.

I didn't know what I was asking for. I got up Sunday morning to preach and I look over here on the side and there was a guy started having a seizure, fell over into everyone was waving. They were calling the medics, and God said, I said, all right. I went down there. I said, yo, y'all got some of that extra virgin of olive oil. I kid you not. That man was sitting there, unconscious, shaking. I took the oil, dabbed him on the forehead. I said, God, I don't know how, but I asked for this. And so I pray that you would show up, show out, do a miracle in his life. And right then and there, he blinked once and got up like nothing ever happened.

The ambulance came, the medics walked in, they put him on the gurney. They said, where's the guy? They said, he's the one. They said, well, it looks like nothing's wrong with him. They did all the testing, the EKGs, they ran all the scans they could find absolutely nothing wrong with him. He never had another stroke or seizure since then. If you want to see God do something in your life, life, you got to start praying some bold prayers. I challenge you to start getting uncomfortable with your prayers. Blind barn made us say, I don't just want another coin. I don't want just another dollar. I'm not satisfied with getting some more change. I want a miracle that changes the disposition of my life. That's why he said he didn't say Jesus, give me a hundred.

He said, Jesus, give me a new jacket. He said, Jesus, have mercy on me. Change my entire life, change my lot in life. Change me so much that people will look at me and say, there's something different about you. Have you prayed that kind of prayer that makes you so nervous to pray that you don't even want to say it, but listen, it's not about your ability, it's about the ability of God. And if you know that Jesus is passing by, why wouldn't you just go for the sky? So number one, let's pray boldly. Here's number two, refuse to quit prematurely.

Mark chapter 10, verse number 48. And many rebuked him telling him to shut up, be silent, but he cried. All the more Son of David have mercy in me. I want you to get ready. I want you to get ready. I'm here to prepare you that if you are getting ready to walk into a new season, there going to be some old people want to pull you back into old habits and old places. I can guarantee you, when God starts blessing you and he starts opening new doors, your haters who have not been talking to you will all of a sudden show up and it's like, can you really afford that house? Should you really be driving that car? Does God really want to bless you? Do you really think that God is going to deliver them and somebody has to make up in your mind, refuse the invitation to quit on the journey?

It is like the story of Naman. You know the story of Naman in two kings, chapter five, here's this captain of the Syrians and God is using the Syrians to whip up on to discipline the Israelites and this man named Naman had leprosy. And what you have to understand about leprosy, leprosy can be, there's really two versions of leprosy. One is just general skin condition, eczema or any rash on the skin. The second is a more advanced stage of leprosy, which is generally deteriorating your body and leprosy, once it got on you, you maybe had between nine and 14 years and you would pass away. But leprosy was a condition that there was no cure for it. In fact, God gave a condition to the Israelites and says, listen, this is how you would declare somebody unclean, and this is how you would declare somebody to be clean.

There isn't a single recorded instance in the scripture in the Old Testament where anybody was declared clean after being declared unclean. So Naman has this disease of leprosy and he doesn't have a solution for it. But then they end up going and bringing this girl into captivity and she says, listen, Naaman, there is a man of God by the name of Elisha and he can help you get a healing. And so Naaman says, all right, I'll pay him for it. So he gets all of the gold and silver and he goes and finds Elisha and he says, Elisha, I'm willing to pay you to work at your magic and let me get my healing. And Elisha says, listen, I'm not even going to bother going out there to meet him. And he sends his sermon. He says, don't tell him to dip seven times into Jordan. And Naman says, I thought you were going to wave your hand and a miracle was going to happen. At least you could have came out here and talked to me. Naman says, you know what? Forget this. I don't want to dip myself in the Jordan River seven times. There are two other rivers that I could actually get cleaner, so I'm leaving. His servant goes, listen, if the servant asked you, the man of God asked you to do something so simple

As to dip seven times in the Jordan River, why would you not at least try it? Even if you don't get healed, at least you tried it. You know how many people give up on the journey because it's inconvenient. Would you rather live the way that you are and give up, or are you willing to do something you've never done before for the chance of experiencing something that you've never experienced before? If you want to experience something that you've never experienced before, you have to do something you've never done before. You have to be willing not to quit on the journey. Abraham tried it. It didn't work out for him. He thought, you know what? I'm going to quit and I'm going to have Ishmael, and God says, you're not there yet. I just want to encourage somebody, no matter where you are on the journey, refuse to quit before you get it.

You say, well, I've been praying for this for 30 years. Pray for 30 more years, but don't quit on the journey. Here's point number three. Be encouraged. He heard you Mark chapter 10, verse number 49, and Jesus stopped and said, call him. And they call the blind man saying to him, take heart. Get up. He is calling you. What's interesting about this passage is that blind Bartimaeus number one made a bold request. Yeah, from Jesus. Jesus, I want you to have mercy on me. When they tried to get him to shut up, he refused to quit.

What he didn't realize is that Jesus was listening the whole time. Even if you haven't got the answer yet, you can be confident and encouraged in this thing that he has already heard you, that your prayers are not. They are not going on death ears. God is literally hearing every request, and I know that you may not have the answer yet, but be encouraged. I just want to tell somebody to be encouraged. I don't know where you are in your lot in life, what you're dealing with, what you may be discouraged about, but be encouraged today because he has heard you. Jesus oftentimes was being yelled at.

Think about when the Bible says that the multitudes would press against him. They always wanted miracles, but this particular point, Jesus stops and he says, call them in. And here's what's interesting. The very people that try to get him to shut up now had to encourage him. I really feel like in this next season, the people who have been discouraging, you are going to be the ones that have to deliver the good news to you. I really feel like the enemy that has been bothering you is going to be the one that ends up being your ally. I feel like that in this next season that you're stepping into that God wants you to know that because you pressed and because you were willing to stay your hand to the plow and because you didn't quit and because you didn't give in that God is about to unleash some things in your life that you've been praying for a very long time. I want somebody to be encouraged. I want somebody to be filled with faith and hope. I know that your circumstance may not change today, but take heart because he heard your prayers. If he's answered you before, why wouldn't he do it again?

Here's number four. Leave the old behind. If you're going to step into the new, you got to release the old. Look at this Mark, chapter 10, verse 50 and throwing off his cloak. He sprang up and came to Jesus. Now, mark is the only one who mentions this specifically because again, mark is looking at this story and he's dissecting it deeply. He knows that a cloak is an outer garment that identifies blind Bartimaeus as being a blind beggar. It's his identity. It's the thing that tells everybody before they even meet him who he is. It's the thing that is his identification marker.

Barna May is he's just the blind beggar. He's always been right there. We can depend on him needing arms every day at the same spot. We know that he has no money. We know that he has no family. We know that he cannot see. We know that he has nothing in life worth living for. That's just blind Bartimaeus. And yet, when blind Bartimaeus found out that Jesus heard him before getting a miracle, before getting a healing, before getting another dollar, he said, let me leave the old behind because I can't take into the new what has identified me in the old God. Have mercy. I cannot step into new things holding onto old stuff. You cannot go into the new season that God has for you. Holding on to old habits, old people, old prayers, old ways of doing things. Jesus wants you to release it before you get the miracle. Some of us want to wait to give God praise until after the miracle has happened. But what would happen if you gave God praise as if it already happened? What would happen in your life if you acted like you got the new job before you got the new job? What would happen if you acted like you got the miracle before the miracle happened? What would happen if you worship God the way you would if it already happened?

Sometimes we're waiting on God and God's like, no, I'm waiting on you. The Bible says that Jesus didn't go to him. Jesus stood right there and said, Hey, if you want it, come get it. I feel like God is in this place looking at some people being like, if you want it, come and get it, but don't come get it with the old stuff that you're wearing. Get rid of that and then come get something new. You cannot walk into 25 wanting God to do new stuff if you're holding on the old stuff from 24. This is why the Bible says that when you pray, pray, give us this day our daily bread. If you try to keep bread from yesterday, it will spoil your stomach. I'm sick of eating day old bread. I want new non wormed bread every day. Church's coming unbuttoned. Lord have mercy. I'm literally taking off my outer garment. This is how much I want to go into the new. I'm ready to take it all off. I wish some of y'all had that attitude about what? I'll make anything preach. You got to be willing to take off the old and get ready for the new. Some of the greatest hindrances of new things is old garments. Blind bar to Mays was not trying to get to Jesus, still being identified as blind Bartimaeus. I don't want to step into 2025.

He said, throw his cloak aside. You know what he did? He didn't just take it off. I got to be careful. Now He just take it off and slowly walk to Jesus cool car. Collective Bible says He took it off, sprang up and reign to Jesus. How desperate are you to get something new because you can't get something new pitter pat around. Just wait now. Now, Jesus, you come to where I'm at, Jesus like, no, I don't care what kind of condition you're in. I don't care what you're dealing with. If you want a miracle, get up and come to me. And the Bible says that he came to Jesus and then Jesus looked at him and said, what do you want? It's like, wait a minute. Isn't that obvious?

Mark chapter 10, verse 51. Jesus said to him, what do you want me to do? Do for you? Hallelujah. And the blind man said to him, rabbi, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, go your way. Your faith has made you well. What do you mean your faith has made you? Well, I could tell you have faith because you asked and then you acted. I know you have faith because your actions speak to what you are saying. I know you have faith because right now you're starting to develop some new habits, some new ways of doing things. I know that you have faith because you don't just say you want to do something new, you're actually doing something new. I know you have faith because you're not just asking God for new things. You're ready to change your clothes and maybe get uncomfortable and do some new things. You're not just saying that you want God to do great things in your life. You're starting to move in that direction. You're not saying you want a new job. You're starting to wear a suit and tie like you own the place.

I may just be preaching to myself, but I'm going to walk different. I'm going to talk different. I'm going to move different into this new season. I'm not going the same old way. Here's my fifth and final point. Go all in. This is what he says, verse 52, that Jesus said to him, go your way. Your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight. But you know what He didn't do? He didn't go run back to where he had always been. He didn't go back to where it was comfortable. He didn't say, oh, I got my sight. Finally, he didn't say, oh, great. I finally got what I wanted. It says, and he followed him on the way. In other words, with the new, he went all in to the new.

With the new. He went all in with the new, I'm going to say it again with the new. He went all in with the new. If you want God to do something new in your life and you plan on being halfway in, stay back there because nothing will hurt more than be halfway in the new things and halfway in the old God was looking for some people who are ready to go all the way, all the way in through the new. You mean I got to leave my friends? I don't know what my family's going to say. Let 'em talk. I don't know what this is going to look like. Don't worry about it. Go all in. You cannot go into a new season holding on to old things. You have to be willing to get some new habits in your life.

You can't keep eating chicken wings and expect to get a six pack. You got to change some things. You can't expect to have a new culture. Your life, hang around with the same people, and they may be great people, but they may not be great for you in the next season. Here's my question. What new habits does God wants you to develop in this new season? Maybe it's a new way of praying. Maybe it's a new way of praying. Maybe it's not just praying in the morning. Maybe it's praying in the morning and the afternoon, in the evening. Maybe it's not just reading your Bible once a day. Maybe it's doing a Bible study digging into the word. Maybe it's not just coming to church. Maybe it's coming to church and going all out and worship, getting uncomfortable, kneeling, running, jumping. Ada Carre.

Where's God challenging you to develop some new habits? So many of us, I think at the beginning of the year especially, you have these lofty ideas of new goals, but did you know that less than 9% people who set New Year's resolutions actually stick to it? And the number one cause is it didn't develop new habits. So God's about to challenge you. He is got something new for you. He's got something great for you, but it's going to require you to change some things that you've just been doing. He's wanting you to do something new. Pray bold prayers that make you nervous, but don't make you nervous. Refuse to quit prematurely. Be willing to leave the old behind and go all in. Stand to your feet crosses, please.

How many will say the Lord's been challenging you? This has been a new season, but a challenging season. Thank God for it. Thank God for it. You know why? Because the muscles are built out of resistance, right? God is developing you through the pushing. Embrace the new, get some new habits, and get ready for God to do something new. Father, we thank you so much for your goodness and your mercy. We thank you Lord Jesus for new things. We thank you for challenging us to embrace new habits. We pray that your will will be done in us, that your spirit would move in us, that we would be willing to try new things.