Most journeys use transportation and itineraries to help you explore the world outside. but there's another kind of journey that's even more rewarding. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah suggests taking an interior journey. a journey focused on drawing you closer to God and further from life's distractions.
With a special message for the new year, Here's David to introduce the inward journey. Most of us will do some traveling during this season with all of the challenges we have right now in our country. Maybe not as many trips as usual, but a journey is always exciting. There's the beginning, the anticipation of it, and then there's the every mile, every moment experience of the journey. And just as we have journeys outwardly, we have journeys inwardly as well.
And I'm praying that this year you will take that inward journey in your life to a greater and more healthy experience with Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that if we want to be so, we can be renewed every day. We're going to talk about that today and again on Monday. And I hope you'll be with us as we try to prepare ourselves now for the new year and the journey that's before us outwardly. and inwardly.
We are also coming to the end of our Resource for the month of December. I've talked to you a lot about it, but I just want to mention it again: this beautiful devotional is available only from Turning Point and only for the next two or three days here in this month. If you haven't ordered your copy of it, be sure to ask for it when you send a gift of any size to Turning Point. You may also inquire on the bundles for this. You can get these four or five at a time from Turning Point, and there's a way to do it if you go to davidjeremiah.org.
There you will find all the information you need to order additional copies of the 2026 devotional.
Well, it's time for us to get started with today's journey. And the title of the message today is The Inward Journey. In late May of 2010, When the tropical storm Agatha had finally finished its course, A 330-foot deep sinkhole opened up in downtown Guatemala City.
Now, like all sinkholes, this one caused the ground to collapse. And in this case, it sucked the land into the hole, including electricity poles, a three-story factory building, and one security guard. all sucked into this sinkhole.
Now, in case you're not up on what a sinkhole is, let me tell you: a sinkhole is created when the ground underneath the surface is rich. in easily dissolved rock type. And if enough water seeps into that area, These formations collapse and they create a large crater known as a sinkhole. land that looks stable and strong on the surface suddenly collapses. Often producing havoc for anyone who lives near the sinkhole.
Now that's the metaphor. Unfortunately, our interior lives can sometimes resemble. the danger zone of a sinkhole. When we're too busy to spend time with God or when we Refuse to deal with past hurts or habitual sin. or secret addictions or character flaws.
We set ourselves up for a collapse. The surface of our life may look stable and secure, but underneath the exterior, we're actually sitting on a fragile base. and the storms of life, or even just the normal process of living. can suddenly expose our hidden vulnerabilities. and it causes something that kind of looks like a spiritual sinkhole.
I want to ask you to think about a journey that is not quantified by charts. or graphs. I want you to anticipate a year that is not validated by how many or how much. I want to ask you to think with me for these moments. about a journey inward.
When I speak of an inward journey, Maybe I can give you an illustration of that from a rather strange passage, but a passage that really illustrates the truth. Romans 2, 28 and 29, Paul's writing to the Romans using some. Jewish discussion, but he says this. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly. Nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.
but he is a Jew who is one inwardly. And circumcision is that of the heart In the spirit, not in the letter. The Apostle Paul was reminding his readers That outwardness is not authentic unless it is the reflection. of the inwardness of one's life. It's not the flesh, but the heart.
It's not the letter, it's the spirit. And the inner life describes the heart behind the habits. It describes the belief behind the behavior. It describes The desire behind the duty Unless you think this is a negative thing we're going to discuss, let me remind you. That we should be greatly encouraged, that God does not want us to live as hypocrites.
No, God wants us to live transformed all the way down to who we are. He wants us to live from the inside out. He doesn't want us to go around posturing all the time, trying to cover up what we really know is true.
Now nobody does that perfectly, not in this world, because we're all flawed and we're all sinners. We still have the old nature. But as we think about the beginning of this new year and the opportunities it presents. I want to talk with you about the distractions. and the disciplines.
of an inward life. And I want you to listen with all your heart. There's something in here for all of us. I know there was a bunch of stuff in here for me. Maybe there'll be something that will help you as you get your feet on the ground.
Merriam-Webster says a distraction is something that draws or directs your attention. to a different object. Or in a different direction at the same time, you're supposed to be concentrating on something else. And we've seen the consequences of Distractions. in unengaged relationships.
sometimes children with short attention spans. and perhaps most tragically the deaths that are caused by distractions. The number of people who have died on the highway this past year because of distractions is incredible. I have a pastor friend whose son twenty some years old, an incredible young man. Was texting on his phone and for just a minute apparently took his eyes off the road, ran his car into the back of a truck and was killed.
Distractions are deadly. not just on the highway, but in life as well.
So, there are two distractions I want to talk to you about that can get in our way of growing in Christ. The first one is the distraction. I'm going to call it frenzy. The distraction of frenzy, busyness. Did you know that busyness can be an addictive drug?
You say, what do you mean? That's why they call them workaholics. They're not alcoholics, they're workaholics. According to James Houston, busyness For many people, acts to repress our inner fears and personal anxieties. We get busy because we can't deal with what's really true in our own life.
So we cover it all up by just getting so busy, we just go from one thing to the next, and we don't have to think about what's really important. In a New York Times article called The Busy Trap, Tim Crider describes the frenzy of many Americans. This may sound like somebody you know, and it may remind you of yourself. He said, if you live in America in the 21st century, you've probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It becomes the default response when you say to somebody, How are you doing?
And they'll respond, busy, so busy, crazy busy. It is pretty obviously a boast. disguised as a complaint. And the stock response when people say that to us is a kind of congratulations. We say, well, that's a good problem to have, or better than the opposite.
Notice, it usually isn't people pulling back-to-back shifts in the ICU or commuting by bus to three minimum wage jobs who tell you how busy they are. No. What those people are is not busy, but tired, exhausted, dead tired, dead on their feet. It's almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed. Work and obligations they've taken on voluntarily.
Classes and activities they've encouraged their kids to participate in. They're busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety because they're addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face. if they weren't so busy. And so life that is frenzied doesn't leave any room. for inwardness.
When we will not provide a place for the direction of the indwelling Christ, all that is left is the frenzied agenda. of a hassled discipleship. That's the first distraction. We're going to talk about what to do with these distractions in a moment. The second distraction is really It caught me off guard.
Maybe the same will be true with you because I grew up in the church. My daddy was a pastor. I've been going to church ever since I can remember. I don't remember any time when we didn't go to church. I've been a Christian since I was about 13.
Grown up in the Christian faith. And distraction number two is what I'm going to call familiarity. We become like the people that Paul wrote to Timothy about. You know what he said about these people? He said, they have a form of godliness, but they don't have any power.
On one occasion in the book of Revelation, actually on two occasions, John wrote to some churches. Listen to how he described these churches. This is the church of Sardis. He said, These things, says he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works, that you have a name, that you are alive.
But you're dead. And to the church of Laodicea he said this, you say, I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. We can become so familiar with the outward tokens of our faith that they no longer draw us inward toward God. Many of us are like Samson, who did not know that his strength was gone until he needed it, and then. It wasn't there.
You remember his story? He had his hair cut off by Delilah. And that was the source of his strength, and he didn't know it. And when he woke up, And they came to get him. The Bible says he got up as he had done before.
And he was weak. There was no strength. In the nineteenth century, There was a philosopher that I had to read when I was in seminary. Uh his name was Soren Kierkegaard. A Danish philosopher.
And All the way back then, he was very disturbed by the church situation of his time. He was a pastor in the city of Copenhagen, and everywhere he saw Christians, but he said they were Christians, quote in quotation. He saw professed Christians who were completely secure and self-satisfied, for they had the Bible. Many of them carried the Bible in their pockets. And they had the Word of God.
It was theirs. And life went on peaceably and happily in a well-adjusted fashion. But Kierkegaard asked himself, is this really the religion? set forth in the Bible. And his answer was that such a religion was an impudent indecency.
Now he was a very plain-spoken philosopher. And what I'm about to read you, I don't think I would ever have the courage to say. He said it. Just remember, this is Kierkegaard, not Jeremiah. He said a young girl of sixteen summers It's her confirmation day.
Among the many tasteful and beautiful gifts, she also receives the New Testament in a very pretty binding.
Now that is what one may call real Christianity. To tell the truth, no one expects, and probably rightly so, that she any more than anyone else will read that New Testament, or at any rate not as originally intended. The book given her as a potential consolation in life. Here, should you need it, you will find consolation. Of course, it is assumed that she will never read it any more than any other young girls, but if she does, it will not be read as originally intended.
Yet, said Kierkegaard, that is supposed to be Christianity. You have a Bible. You go to church. You do the Christian things. I would be tempted to make Christianity another proposition, said Kierkegaard.
Let us gather together every single copy of the New Testament. Let us cart the whole collection out to an open place or up to a mountaintop, and then, while all of us kneel down, let someone speak to God and say, take back this book. We humans don't know what to do with it. And I swallowed hard when I read that. Who would ever think of something like that?
But what he was saying was It's possible to get so familiar with the Christian stuff. You know, there's even a language, did you know it, called Christianese? When you first become a Christian, you talk like a normal person. Then, after you're a Christian for a while, you get a whole new vocabulary and you walk around, everybody's so impressed with your these and thou's and all that stuff. But if we're not careful We become familiar with it, and it doesn't really make any difference in our life.
And we just go about the business, and church becomes a part of our culture. And being a Christian is what we write down on the Questionnaire and That's what it is. But Kierkegaard is right about one thing: that is not the religion of the Bible.
So these distractions that we deal with, how do we deal with them? In this section of my message, I want to talk about the disciplines that will defeat the distractions. And I want to tell you something. There's no rocket science here. And this is not something you probably haven't heard before, but at the beginning of this new year, this is what I believe God wants to lay in our hearts.
So Before I go there, I want to remind you of the importance of discipline in the Christian life. I know that's not a favorite word of many. and particularly now Since some of you have already broken the resolutions you made, I struggle with discipline myself. All of us do. If we don't, we're not being honest.
But no one really succeeds without discipline. We need it. We need to develop it. We need God to help us become. more disciplined about the things that really matter.
Harry S. Truman. One of my favorite presidents, a quaint guy. Said, in reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they all won. was the victory over themselves.
Self-discipline with all of them came first. And I love what Jackson Brown wrote, He said, talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways. The Word of God tells us that discipline is a part of our life. Paul wrote to young Timothy, and he said, Timothy Bodily exercise profits a little.
But godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and that is to come. And at the beginning he says, exercise yourself. toward godliness. What does that mean? I've always loved that verse.
Comes from a Greek word, and here's the Greek word, I'm going to pronounce it. Kim Nazio. It's the word from which we get the word gymnasium. almost exactly right out of the Greek language. And what Paul is saying to Timothy is: just like you need to go to the gym and stay in shape physically.
You need to go to the spiritual gym and stay in shape spiritually. Just like there are exercises that help you to become stronger physically, there are exercises that cause you to become stronger spiritually. And he says this, bodily exercise profits little. I know some people that have taken that little phrase as their life verse. Bodily exercise prophets little when they're tempted to get up in the morning and take a walk.
Their life first comes into play. Bodily exercise profits little. But Paul only uses that As an illustration, He says, bodily exercise profits little, but spiritual exercise is profitable in all things. And then he goes on to say that bodily exercise is temporal. Our bodies wear out.
Can he get a witness? But the Bible says while bodily exercise is temporal, spiritual exercise profits us now. and throughout eternity.
So he's making the case That While you make a priority of physical exercise, don't forget spiritual exercise. And in reality, if you look at it, Biblically, spiritual exercise is way more important because it has a longer shelf life, right? Right. through the discipline of frenzy. What discipline do we begin with if we're living lives out of control frenzy?
Where do we go?
Well, the discipline of solitude is one that we might suggest. And I want to give you a verse that's so important, I'm going to read it to you in four different translations or paraphrases. Here is the verse, Psalm 46, 10. Be still. And no.
That I am God. Do you know that it's hard to really know God? You need God in traffic. But you may not know God in traffic. The way you know God is, you have to carve out some space.
In your frenzy? where it's just you and God. Listen to the other translations of this verse. I love this. Psalm 46.10 in the Living Bible.
Cease striving and know that I am God. Stand silent. I am God. Here is the Amplified Bible. Let be and be still.
And no. recognize and understand. That I am God. And my favorite is the message. Step out of the traffic.
Take a long, loving look at me, your high God, above politics, above everything. Be still. and know that I am God.
Now what's the problem with those verses for all of us? We're never still. We get up in the morning and it's a rat race all the way through the whole day. We put our tired heads on the pillow at night, only to get up the next day and start over. We don't have any solitude in our lives.
And it's not just about being quiet, although people who aren't even Christians have discovered the power of that, and we'll see that in a moment.
Solitude in itself is not. what will help you out of your frenzy. But what happens when you are still before God, you listen for His inner voice in your heart. The next thing you know, you're talking to God and you're praying. Because when you're still before God, the discipline of solitude joins hands with the discipline of prayer.
And Isaiah says that when we pray, God will keep us in perfect peace because our mind is stayed on Him. When you get into fellowship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, something happens in your heart. If you rush into every day without any time whatsoever for God, God won't abandon you, but you will not be aware of his presence, and that's the problem. Oswood Chambers. Puts it in all perspective when he says, remember.
No one ever has the time to pray. We have to take time from other things that are valuable in order to understand how necessary prayer is. The things that act like thorns and stings in our personal lives will go away instantly when we pray. We won't feel the smart anymore because now we will have God's viewpoint on life and God's viewpoint on people. Do you know something that I have discovered?
And you probably have discovered it too. I would be disingenuous and certainly dishonest if I told you that every day of my whole life I've started with prayer, because that isn't true. But what I've noticed In starting a day with prayer and sometimes journaling and spending time with God is. A lot of the things that are all collected in the back of your mind that you need to get done that day, you wonder how you're ever going to get done. All of a sudden, Things that you can't even explain happen.
that care for the cares of your day. God has a wonderful way when we put him first and take time for him and helping us get through the day.
Sometimes, without our even knowing it, he reorganizes everything. in our day. I didn't know how in the world I was ever going to talk to this person, and I went to the gas station, and they were pumping gas next to my car. Have you ever had that happen?
Somebody said, oh, that's just a coincidence. You know what I've discovered? The more I pray, the more coincidences happen to me. Amen.
So be still and know. That I am God. The Inward Journey. Part 2. on Monday.
I hope you'll Join us then for the continuation of this very special message. Hey, it's the weekend, and I'd like to tell you on the weekend how important it is for you to go to church. Why don't you get a head start on 2026 and get to church this weekend, and then make it your purpose to do that every week in the coming year? You will be blessed and encouraged, and you will not be sorry you made that commitment. I urge you to do it.
Maybe you've still been hanging out at home because of COVID, and it's time really for you to get a new start. The new year can be that, but get a start on the new year. Go to church this week. It'll be special, I promise you, and you'll be prepared for the year that's to come. I'll be with you on Monday for part two of the Inward Journey and we have a couple of more special messages to fill out the year.
So grateful for your presence. You make this work for us and we're grateful. We'll see you next time right here on this grid station. Today's message came to you from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor Dr. David Jeremiah.
Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where to find it, visit our website davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's helpful new 365-day devotional for 2026, A Closer Walk with Jesus. It's yours for a gift of any amount.
You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard New International and New King James Versions. We love hearing how God is using this ministry in your life.
So please write to TurningPoint P.O. Box 3838 San Diego, California 92163. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us Monday for more of our special New Year's message on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
