Today, from guest teacher Kyle Eidelman. The
Bible would teach and would prioritize, I believe,
how we spend our morning hours, our time with
God in the morning. I did just a quick survey
of scripture on this. Abraham, Genesis chapter
22, 3 and 5, rose early in the morning to split
wood for burnt offerings and to worship God.
Moses rose early in the morning to worship God,
to meet with God. Welcome to Living on the Edge.
How you start your morning, sense the trajectory
for your entire day. Whatever you tune into first,
the news, your phone, your fears, is what you'll
be listening to for hours. But what if you could
change the channel? Today, guest teacher Kyle
Eidelman shows you how. Before we get started,
here's our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram, to introduce
today's special guest. You know, I've taught
the Bible for a number of years. And over and
over, I've tried to help people, beginning with
me. Life change doesn't happen simply by trying
harder. The key, according to Romans chapter
12, too, is renewing our mind. And I have a special
guest. His name is Kyle Ottoman, pastor of Southeast
Christian Church. He's written a book, but he
has a series that he's going to share with us
called Every... Thought Captive. It comes out
of 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5, where we're commanded
to take every thought captive. You're going to
learn the power of thoughts, not only from Scripture,
but Kyle uses some great information from neuroscience.
I am privileged today to introduce my friend,
and then I'll be back at the end of the program
to share a few final thoughts. Thank you, Chip.
Now with his contribution to our teaching series
called God's Dream for Your Life, here's Kyle
Eidelman with a brand new message titled, Win
the Morning. Life is difficult. Life is difficult.
In fact, the Bible tells us that life is difficult.
If anybody ever tries to preach a message that
doesn't include the fact that life is difficult,
then they're not preaching the message of Scripture.
Jesus said in John 16, in this world you will
have trouble. And he goes on to say, I have overcome
the world. So there's hope, there's strength.
Like we have confidence in who Jesus is, but
in this world, you'll have trouble. And that
word for trouble is the word tribulation. Meaning
that these are not small challenges. These aren't
light difficulties. These are things that are
significant. This is a darkness that is so deep,
it can feel like it's consuming all the light.
That's the word here for trouble. It is a young
Ukrainian girl stabbed to death on a train in
Charlotte. It's the shooting in a Catholic school
in Minneapolis. It's a 31 -year -old husband
and father being assassinated while speaking
at a university in Utah. And so what it can feel
like is that every morning we wake up and we
don't know what the headlines are gonna be, but
we know that darkness is waiting. And what that
means is that we end up carrying some sadness
and some grief with us that can at times just
feel like it's sitting really heavy on our chest.
What that means is that sometimes we have to
fight back anger and certainly confusion. Things
just don't make sense. Things don't unfold the
way we think they should or that would make sense
to us if we were sitting in God's seat, which
we're not. And so we pray and we pray for the
church. The church is called to be a light in
the darkness. And the way we see it, church,
is that the darker it is, the brighter the light
shines. The Ephesians says, so we pray, Jesus,
let us be a light. Somehow let us do what you
tell us to do of loving our enemies and praying
for those who persecute us. And so it's a time
to pray. It's a time to reflect on our own lives.
I often say at a funeral that this is a time
when we gently close the eyes of the dead, but
we open the eyes of the living. The Bible says
in Psalm 90 verse 12, teach us God to number
our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
God teach us to live with an awareness that our
days are numbered so that we live with an intentionality
about our lives. James 4, 14 says, what is your
life? You're a mist that appears for a while
and then disappears. And we need to be reminded
of the temporariness of this life. That from
our perspective, the years run together, but
compared to eternity, none of us are here very
long. And that's not meant to scare us. The scriptures
aren't meant to scare us, but they're meant to
wake us up. They're meant to help us pay attention
to our one and only lives and understand that
moments like these matter, that matter. And we
need to look up long enough to recognize that.
That one day we'll stand before God. And on that
day, it won't matter what anybody else thought
of you. It won't matter what your boss thought
about you or your critics said about you. It
won't matter how many followers you had or what
your bank account looked like or what car you
drove or house you lived in. It won't matter
who won the last election. It won't matter what
grade you got on the exam this past week. Like
what will matter is your relationship with Jesus.
And so this is a good time to just pause and
ask a question. If this is your last day, are
you ready? Have you surrendered your life to
Jesus? Have you confessed that you're a sinner
who needs a savior? Have you believed that Jesus
died on the cross for your sins, that he rose
again so that you could have eternal life? Is
that where you have put your hope? Is that where
you find your confidence? Jesus defeated death
so you can live. That's the platform. And so
we pray and we reflect on our lives, but we also,
if we're honest, and I think we should be, we
find ourselves in moments like these and weeks
like these asking questions that have perhaps
always been there below the surface. But when
certain headlines hit the news, those questions
get louder. Like, how do we make sense of such
evil? And how do we respond when violence becomes
the answer to disagreement? How do we find hope
when darkness seems overwhelming? Like, how do
we even do that? And so I want to talk to you
about some of those questions because this is
true. And this isn't just true globally. Like
this is true personally. It's not just the darkness
and the headlines. It's like the darkness in
our hearts and darkness in our homes. And it's
the darkness when we're in these quiet moments
alone with our thoughts. Life is difficult. That
is actually the first line. of the book called
The Road Less Traveled, which according to the
Guinness Book of World Records holds the record
for the longest time on the New York Times bestseller
list, The Road Less Traveled at six, last time
I checked, 694 weeks. Bestseller for 13 years.
Starts off life as difficult. But in the midst
of the difficult circumstances that we have no
control over, in the midst of the darkness that
can seem overwhelming, in the midst of grief
and fear, the Bible tells us God's will is for
you to live with joy and gratitude. How do you
do that? Like, I know that's what you want. I
want that. But it's not just what you want. It's
what God wants for you. 1 Thessalonians 5, 16
through 18 say, rejoice always. Some translations,
be joyful always and pray continually and give
thanks in all circumstances for this is God's
will. You wonder what God's will is for your
life? You lay awake at night and say, God, what
do you want from me? What's your will for me?
This is my will for you, God says, is that you'd
be joyful, that you pray continually, you give
thanks in all circumstance. And there's always
and continually in all circumstances, not just
some of the time, not just when things are going
well and everything's unfolding the way we hoped
that it would and things just make sense for
us. All of life is up and to the right. It's
like, no, it's always. all the time, in all circumstances.
And so how do we do that? How do we live with
that kind of joy when life is difficult and we're
hit with wave after wave of difficulties and
everywhere we look, we're reminded of how hard
things can be. How do you find that kind of peace
when maybe you're carrying a lot of shame and
regret and you don't know what to do about it,
but it feels, it just feels like too much. You
just can't go back. and do things differently.
You wish you could, but you can't. And now it's
like every day, you're just reminded of the reality
of your decisions, what it's done to you, the
people around you, and it just all feels like
too much. How do you find victory over temptation
where it just seems to get the better of you?
Like you don't want to keep doing what you've
been doing, but you keep doing it. How do you
find victory? How do you intentionally fill your
mind with thoughts that are true and God honoring?
How do you overcome the voices in your head that
tell you, hey, it's too late and things are too
dark and evil is winning? So the answer, I believe,
is connected to the series we're in called Every
Thought Captive, where the Bible would teach
us that either you take your thoughts captive
or they're taking you captive. That the way we
tear down these strongholds in our life is by
being renewed in our minds. that we partner with
the Holy Spirit in experiencing this mind transformation.
We align our thoughts with what God says. And
as we do, he gives us a new way of looking at
things. He gives us a new way of thinking. He
transforms our minds. And as he transforms our
minds, our lives change. And so what I wanna
do is focus this in a little bit as we get in
this series and talk to you about taking your
thoughts captive at a certain time of the day,
specifically taking your thoughts captive first
thing in the morning. Now, listen, I know some
of you are not. morning people. Like I get it.
Some of you don't, you don't even, you don't
even believe in God till after lunch. That's
sort of how you feel about it. Like you wouldn't
say that out loud, but the people around you
might wreck, like, are you a Christian yet? Okay.
I'll give you another hour and we'll see if it
kicks in after you have the coffee because you're
just not a, you're just not a morning person.
So I'm going to talk to you about the importance
of taking your thoughts captive in the morning,
but I want you to hear me. I'm not putting it
like a time on what the morning is for you. It's
just whenever you wake up. All right, so that
might be five something. That might be 10 something.
If it's 11 something, I mean, okay. But really
what we're saying is what you think about when
you first wake up has a way of determining what
you think about through the rest of the day.
Like your thoughts early in the morning have
impact on who you are. I don't remember where
I first heard the phrase when the morning. I
think I heard it from, I know I heard it from
my junior high. soccer coach. He may have been
the first person. He would, he just took all
of it too seriously. I don't know if you ever
had a coach like this, like in junior high, where
you're like, this is not professional soccer.
That's not what, it's not what we're doing here.
But he, he coached as if it were, and he insisted
we have our practices before school instead of
after. And we'd show up half awake and he would
blow his whistle and yell at us with this. annoying
William Wallace -like energy and say, win the
morning. Win the morning, boys, and you win the
day. Have a sprint back and forth. And look,
we were tolerating the morning, I feel like,
and I thought we should have gotten credit for
that. Like we were there tolerating the morning,
but he wanted us to win the morning. And my question
was always, why can't we win the afternoon? I'm
all for winning. Does it really matter when we
win? And my coach would say, yeah, it does. You
got to win the morning if you want to win the
day. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in that.
You're listening to Living on the Edge. And today's
teaching from guest teacher Kyle Eidelman continues
in just a minute. His message is available anytime
at livingontheedge .org. Listen again, share
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live the Christian life every day. It's all waiting
for you at livingontheedge .org. Now let's get
back to today's message. And what I discovered
is that there's a reflection of this in Scripture.
Like the Bible would teach and would prioritize,
I believe. How we spend our morning hours, our
time with God in the morning. I did just a quick
survey of scripture on this. Abraham, Genesis
chapter 22, three and five, rose early in the
morning to split wood for burnt offerings and
to worship God. Moses, Exodus 24, Exodus 34,
rose early in the morning to worship God, to
meet with God. Gideon rose early in the morning
to find the Lord's favor, Judges six, Judges
seven. Proverbs 31 describes a godly woman as
one who rises early and with intentionality.
Hezekiah worshiped God first thing in the morning,
2 Chronicles 29. Job made it his habit to rise
early in the morning and to pray for his children.
Isaiah spoke about waking up and meeting with
God in the mornings, Isaiah chapter 50, verse
four. You read through the Psalms and David uses
this as almost a refrain, this in the morning.
Let's look at a few of these together. Psalm
five, verse three. In the morning, Lord, you
hear my voice. In the morning. I lay my request
before you. And then here's what happens. Because
he starts his day this way, then throughout the
day, what's he do? He waits expectantly. Because
he starts his day by praying and laying his request
before God, it changes the way that he lives
out the rest of his day. Throughout the rest
of his day, he's living with this anticipation
of how God's gonna show up because of how he
started his day. Psalm 143, verse eight, in the
morning, God, bring me word of your unfailing
love. I've put my trust in you. Show me the way
I should go for to you, I entrust my life. God,
in the morning, just give me direction. Help
me know the path I should take. Next verse, Psalm
59, 16, but I will sing of your strength in the
morning. In the morning, I will sing of your
love for you are my fortress and my refuge in
times of trouble. Next one is Psalm 88, verse
13. But I cry to you for help, Lord. In the morning,
my prayer comes before you. In the morning, in
the morning, in the morning, in the morning I
worship, in the morning I seek your direction.
In the morning, I'm reminded of your love for
me. In the morning, I ask you for help. How you
start your day, the thoughts you first think
have a way of setting the direction for the rest
of your day. And then ultimately, your days become
your life. Jesus modeled this for us. In Mark
chapter one, It's this crazy busy time in the
life of Jesus. Lots happening, lots of crowds
with expectations for Jesus about what he should
do and what he shouldn't do with his time. And
in the middle of all the craziness, we read about
Jesus in Mark chapter one. It says of him very
early in the morning. How early? Well, it was
still dark. And Jesus got up and he left the
house and he went off to a solitary, to a quiet
place where he prayed. And if Jesus needs this,
like if he's prioritizing this, if he's intentional
with his mornings, then how much more should
we be with ours? And so it was just really clear
to me that, okay, like this is biblically emphasized,
this idea of connecting with God in the mornings,
of meeting. God in the morning of taking my thoughts
captive when I first wake up. And then I started
to wonder if maybe science backed this up. In
other words, if this is true in scripture, maybe
it's true biologically. Like maybe this is how
we're made neurologically. That God has wired
us in such a way that our brains are especially
moldable in the mornings. And it turns out they
are. When you wake up, your brain moves from
delta waves to theta waves to alpha waves. And
in that time, important things are happening
that determine whether you respond or you react
to whatever happens to you throughout the day.
Dr. Andrew Huberman and his research for Stanford
University, he uses some language I find really
helpful. He calls the morning hours your neuroplasticity
window. That you've got a couple hours in the
morning that are your neuroplasticity window
because in those few hours, you're thinking.
disproportionately shapes your brain. It's your
neuroplasticity window. The first hour or two
of your day, what you think about has disproportionate
weight. It has compounding effects on what you
think about the rest of the day. Dr. Sonia Lupine
and her research on cortisol patterns talks about
how our stress hormone levels are naturally highest
in the morning. It's called the cortisol awakening
response. And the idea here is that our morning
thoughts have amplified emotional impact through
the rest of the day. Like our morning thoughts
set us up for either having a resiliency throughout
the rest of the day or having these negative
thought patterns for the rest of the day. Psychology
would call this a primacy effect. Like your first
thoughts about something, first thoughts about
a person or your first thoughts about the day
disproportionately influence everything else
that follows. So your thoughts early in the morning
create neural pathways that are used to process
whatever else happens to you throughout the course
of the day. Psychologists also refer to the morning
hours as a time of priming. Like if you ever
put a coat of primer on a wall before painting
it, you can't see the primer, but it's underneath
what you can see. And if you've ever done much
painting and you've tried to skip the primer,
you know it's a bad idea. Like you pay attention
to what's underneath what you can see. Even though
you can't see it, even though people can't see
how you're spending your morning hours, what
they can see is impacted by what they can't see.
So think of it like this. Imagine that somebody
gives you a gift as kind of an old school radio
that has a tuner on it that you tune into different
radio stations. But the way this radio works
is whatever you tune into before 7 a .m. is what
it stays on the rest of the day. So whatever
station you tune into first, is what you gotta
listen to all day long. And you better be like,
you could tune into some country music and maybe
that's nice to start your day, but around five
o 'clock in the evening, you're like, why didn't
I choose differently? Like whatever you start
the day with is what you have to listen to all
day. And in a sense, this is the way our brains
work, that whatever you tune into to begin your
day is what you listen to throughout the rest
of your day. So play this out with me. You wake
up, you immediately grab your phone. There's
a news alert, another tragedy. A political post
makes you all angsty to start your day. A couple
of messages from work marked urgent that you
miss during the night. You've not even gotten
out of bed yet and you're already dealing with
anxiety and anger and feeling overwhelmed. But
what really the cost of this is what happens
the rest of the day. Because it's not just in
that moment, but now you're setting yourself
up where. Small inconveniences, you're reactive
to them. They feel like a crisis. Traffic makes
you furious. Your coworker's innocent attack
or comment feels like an attack and you're reactive.
It's because you primed your brain for chaos
at 6 .47 in the morning. Or maybe instead of
checking the news, you get on your phone and
the first thing you do before you even get out
of bed, you look at Instagram, your friends posted
their stupid, perfect vacation pictures. And
you look at the, perfect date that somebody else
went on the night before and that fitness influencer
you follow has been up for like four hours already.
And like before you've even had your coffee,
you're feeling inadequate and insecure. And so
what that does for the rest of the day is it
primes it. Like now you're measuring yourself
against others. Your accomplishments feel small.
Your appearance is lacking. And you spend the
day feeling less than because that's what you
primed your mind for. That's how you set the
trajectory of your thinking to begin your day.
But you think of the flip side of that. Like
what if you take your thoughts captive and you
wake up and before you even reach for the phone,
you say, okay, God, before I get out of this
bed, I'm gonna think of three things today that
I have to be grateful for. And you say it out
loud. And maybe the first thing is I woke up.
Maybe that's what you go with. I woke up. I'm
thankful that I woke up today. And you pick a
couple of other things and you say it out loud.
And what happens? Well, the rest of the day,
you've primed yourself for some gratitude. And
you can notice things that maybe you would have
missed otherwise. And this time when the traffic
is heavy, you find something to be grateful for.
The podcast that you're listening to or your
work is stressful and you notice a coworker who's
there for you that maybe you would have missed
otherwise. And you respond instead of react because
you primed your brain to see some blessings.
This is what it looks like to take your thoughts
captive, is you recognize in the morning what
you see, what you look for, is what you're going
to see the rest of the day. The station you tune
into is what you're going to listen to the rest
of the day. You've been listening to Living on
the Edge with special guest teacher Kyle Eidelman.
Chip Ingram has a few thoughts to share in just
a moment. Kyle brought it home today with a simple
but convicting challenge, win the morning. What
you tune into when you first wake up, the station
you set your mind on before your feet hit the
floor, that's what plays for the rest of your
day. And your days become your life. Scripture
has been saying this for centuries. David said
it in the Psalms. Jesus modeled it in the Gospels.
And now neuroscience is confirming what God's
Word established long ago, that the morning hours
are your greatest window for transformation.
For 30 years, living on the edge has existed
for that moment. The moment a listener wakes
up and chooses, maybe for the first time, to
tune into God's voice before anything else. That
happens because of friends like you who believe
this mission matters. If this broadcast has ever
helped you start your day differently, remember
that your gift today will do the same thing for
someone you may never meet this side of heaven.
To give right now, go to livingontheedge .org
or call us at 888 -333 -6003. Even easier, use
our mobile app. Just click on the heart icon
and follow the instructions. And by the way,
we also encourage you to subscribe to the Chip
Ingram Sermon Podcast, where you can hear complete,
full -length messages anytime. Well, Chip, go
right ahead. You know, I've been a pastor for
a lot of years. But I have to tell you, every
time I hear Kyle speak, I feel like I learned
something. And today's lesson boils down to such
a simple, yet hard truth. Life is difficult.
I mean, I know this in my head. But remember,
Jesus said in John 16, in this world, he didn't
say you might have trouble. In this world, you
will have trouble. And then here's the good news.
But I have overcome the world. Scripture emphasizes
meeting with God in the morning. I mean, if you
could just read through the entire Bible like
in 10 seconds miraculously, you would think,
wow, Abraham, Moses, David, Job, they all prioritize
meeting with God early. Now, one of my favorite
passages in Mark 1, it says, a great while before
dawn, Jesus arose to met with his heavenly father.
And if you read the context, it's the busiest
day recorded in his life. That means he went
to bed late. He was really tired, but he just
knew. More than anything else, he needed to meet
with God. He needed to reprioritize and renew
his mind. Here's what's fascinating. Neuroscience
backs this up. Your first two hours of your day
is what researchers call your neuroplasticity
window. It's when your brain is most moldable.
Your morning thoughts set the trajectory for
your entire day. What you tune into first is
what you're going to listen to all day. My time
every day with God first has been the most powerful,
transformational thing that has ever happened
in my life. So here's what I want to encourage
you to do. Win the morning. Before you reach
for your phone, look at the stock market, scroll
anything, go on social media, start with gratitude.
Meet with God first. It will change your thoughts.
It'll change your brain. It'll change your life.
Make a commitment. Take a step. Do it today.
Life is difficult, but in the middle of grief,
confusion, and darkness, there's a choice you
can make about what you call to mind. I'm Dave
Drewy, inviting you to learn more next time on
Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced
and sponsored by Living on the Edge.