Solitude

Let's get into the message today. We're in week five of the spiritual gym. Y'all liking this one so far? I love this series.

I think the last time we did it was back in 2018, 2019. So it's been several years. And every time I've heard of one of our churches doing it, or we did it, it's just incredible to go back to the basics. And we're going to start in Romans 3 today.

So if you have your Bible or you can follow it on the screen, we're going to get straight into it. Romans 3, Paul describes the dilemma that every human being finds themselves in. It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter what language you speak.

It doesn't matter the color of your skin or your gender or your education, how popular you are, how much money you have, Romans 3, 9 through 12, gives us our human dilemma and our state before Jesus. It says, all people, whether Jews or Gentiles, if you're new to the Bible, all that means is Jewish people or anybody else. So it literally just means everybody. Are under the power of sin.

As the scriptures say, no one is righteous, not even one. No one is truly wise. No one is seeking God. All have turned away.

All have become useless. No one does good, not a single one. Now that's not the most hope-filling or encouraging scripture that I could start with today. But it's important for all of us to understand this.

It's worth this is our state. And listen, knowing all of that about mankind, the God of all creation sent his son to die. Jesus was born a man so that he could die a painful death. And Romans 5, 6 says, for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

And listen, that painful death, it wipes the slate clean for all of those who believe in Jesus, turn from their sin and follow him. Men, is anybody done that in here today? Come on, Jesus died for you. If you haven't done that, you need to know that today.

And in Paul's letters, the Apostle Paul, he mentions all these amazing gifts that we receive when we believe in Jesus and declare him to be Lord over our lives. First, we receive salvation in Romans 1, verse 16. It says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for the gospel, it is the power of God, for salvation to everyone who does everything right in their lives or follows all of the rules or doesn't make any mistakes. No, what does it say?

The power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Men, we also receive righteousness. Romans 3, 22 says, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested. So for the Jewish people, they were given the law of Moses and they had to follow all of these rules to be in good moral standing with God.

But now Paul is telling the Romans, he's saying, apart from the law, the righteousness of God, it is here, it is now, the righteousness of God through everything that you did right this week and all the rules that you followed, no, no, no, no, faith in Jesus Christ for all of those who believe. So we are saved, we are righteous, and we've been justified. And Romans 5, 1, it says, therefore, having been justified by, do I need to do it again? By faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We are justified not by anything that we have done. It is a gift paid by Jesus' blood, a gift paid by Jesus' perfect sacrifice. And then also we are saved from God's wrath, Romans 5, verse 9, much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. And listen, I could go on and on and on just in Romans.

I mean, I love, it's one of my favorite books of the Bible, it's not my favorite. And I could go on and on about these wonderful gifts that God gives to people who believe in Jesus, but we simply don't have time. I mention all of these things because I wanna get back to the key verse of this series because there's a big difference that we need to understand. Does anybody know our key verse of the series?

Is that verse Timothy, anybody know? Maybe we need to listen to the message more than once. There we go, more than once. Verse 10, 54, 7, train yourself to be godly.

Another translation says, exercise yourself toward godliness. Or just put, like hit you right between the eyes, the message version says, exercise daily in God, no spiritual flabbiness, please. I love that one. Anybody who experienced any flabbiness?

Like maybe on the outside, but spiritually, no spiritual flabbiness please. So when we talk about all the things that we referenced in Romans, salvation, justification, being reconciled to God, righteousness, these wonderful gifts, all of that was paid for by Jesus' sacrifice and it's given to all believers. But this isn't what's being talked about in verse Timothy 4 or 7. It says, train yourself to be godly.

Exercise yourself toward godliness. And it has an action there. We need to train, we need to exercise. In godliness here, it's the Greek word, you say by ah, and the definition is this.

I've looked and I've studied this word, a ton, a ton, a ton. And this was the best complete, just general definition that I could find that would make sense of this word without spending a ton, a ton, a ton on it. And it was this, acting with a proper reverence, respect, and devotion toward God. Now this has nothing to do with salvation.

It has nothing to do with justification, with righteousness, with being reconciled to God. This is our journey after that happens, to become more and more and more godly, to increase in godliness, acting with the proper reverence, respect, and devotion toward God. This concept challenges believers to go way past religious traditions, way past religious rituals to a posture of inner reverence and devotion toward the Lord. And that type of reverence and devotion, it will transform your character, and it will transform your actions in life.

But this is not something that God just gives to us, like the list that we looked at before. We have to discipline ourselves to train and to exercise toward this inner devotion. And as I grow in godliness, life becomes less and less about me and more and more about him. And also, becoming godly is not an option for believers.

It's a command. This is a command. God expects this from us, that we would do everything in our power to increase in reverence, respect, and devotion to him. And this lifelong spiritual workout that we're on toward godliness, it has several workout stations.

We've covered four of them so far, fasting prayer, the word of God, and worship. And Stevie, first time up last week, did an amazing job on worship, didn't he? Amen. Love it.

And as I said at the beginning, I don't know about you, but I like getting back to the basics, because life gets busy sometimes and sometimes I feel my time with other things. And I need to remember that these spiritual disciplines will make a huge impact in my life if I will be faithful to get to the spiritual gym, to exercise, to be faithful, to get stronger, to put on more way, to put the reps in, to be consistent every day showing up to do these things. And when we do, God's word says that this godliness will be profitable for all things in our lives. So this morning, again, we're in week five, and here's what we're tackling today, and that is solitude.

Solitude. When I was preparing this message, it reminded me of the first few years that I was in GMI. And I would go to different events out at Caris Canyon. And Caris Canyon looks very different back then.

And we had less churches back then as well. But it was early on being a pastor in this church. And they would ask me to run sound a lot, especially at CRTC, our annual men's conference. There was only one, now there's three of them, every year, three weekends back to back.

But there was only one, and there would be 150 some odd guys in there. And man, it was just amazing to me. If you know me, I love worship, I love music, I love worshiping God. And I was standing in the back and I'm behind the soundboard.

And I just found myself on top of the chair that I had back there because you just saw all these guys that are just lost in worship. And it was just like a warrior cry. If you've never been in a room full of men, passionately worshiping the Lord, there's nothing like it. It's awesome.

So I'm up on that chair and I'm taking a video, I'm like, man, this is cool. This is awesome. I gotta send this to everybody, no, because you just don't see this everywhere. This is great.

And then a very GMI thing happens. When during worship, we have a prophetic leader who's hearing from the Holy Spirit. They've prayed all week for that service. It doesn't matter if it's at Kerris or if it's at a local church.

And anybody can go up to that person if they feel that they've heard from the Holy Spirit and they've jumped in to share with the congregation or with the person or whatever. And so Steve Wernicki, which is one of the original people in GMI period, GCF Warden was our first church, and his family was one of the first families. He goes up to the prophetic person and he has a word. Now again, I'm standing on a chair in the back of the room.

And he comes up and this doesn't happen very often. I've never seen it happen since at a CRTC or any GMI event. I'm standing up on a chair and he turns around with a mic and he says, Ryan Beverly. And everybody turns around and I'm standing on a chair.

And he read my mail. Absolutely read my mail. It was obviously God speaking to him. He said, God wants you to know that he loves you.

He appreciates all the things that you do for him and for his church and for his kingdom. But you're making your relationship with him all about what you do and your performance. And how much you serve. And he just wants to be a friend.

He said, Ryan, he just wants you. And at first, admittedly, I was younger. I was embarrassed. I was frustrated.

I'm standing on the chair. Everybody's looking at me. I had a little bit of fear of man going on. I was embarrassed.

But eventually that weekend I got over myself. And I realized, God, you're trying to tell me something. And what I knew is that I needed solitude in my life. What am I saying when I mean solitude?

I'm saying, God wanted me to intentionally stop, get away from everything and everyone, and just spend time with him. Very simply. I just want to speak to you, Ryan. I just want you to speak to me.

I want to have a dialogue. I want you to sit at my feet and just let me minister to you. I'll never forget that day. My relationship with God was primarily based on what I did.

I was just serve, serve, serve, go, go. Onto the next thing. Tackle the next project. And God wanted me to go into a deeper relationship with him.

And that meant solitude. Getting away from everything. No working, no music, no people, no distractions. God, just you and me.

And we find this in scripture over and over and over again to the gospels because Jesus did it, didn't he? He would withdraw away from everyone and everything and spend time with his father. In Luke 5, 15 and 16, it says, yet the news about him, Jesus, spread all the more. So the crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Some translations will say he withdrew to deserted places or desolate places, lonely places. Places where no one and no thing is a distraction. And he can just completely devote his time and spend time with the father.

So Jesus as a man needed to do the same exact thing that we desperately need to do. We need to get along with God and we need to pray. And so many of us, I know I already said it, but I'm just going to say it again because so many of us, it's just like programmed in me. I don't know about you.

Maybe it's a religious thing or how we grew up. But every time we think pray, we think talking to God. No, no, no, no. I'm talking about getting along with God and having a conversation.

Having times where I am saying thanks to him, but I'm intentionally spending time listening to the Lord. See, we like to think that Jesus was able to do all these miraculous things and live a perfectly moral life and not sinned because he and God are one and the same. But this is proof that he was fully God and fully man. And being fully man, he felt pain.

He felt emotions. He felt overwhelmed. He felt temptation. He felt the temptation to be anxious and be worried and have fears just like us.

But he overcame all of it. Well, yeah, but he was Jesus. Yeah, but he was fully God and fully man. So how did he get over these selfish attitudes?

How did he overcome the temptation to sin? How did he not become overwhelmed by the pressure to perform? Because I am God's son and I know exactly what I'm called here to do. And this just seems like too much.

How did he do all of that? He often withdrew to lonely, deserted, desolate places to pray. And it's in those times church that God gave him a fresh perspective, that God directed his next steps, that God showed him his heart, that God gave him the strength to overcome and to endure. And can I tell you, God wants to do the same with you and he wants to do the same with me.

He wants to give you a fresh perspective about your situation. He wants to direct your next steps on where you should go and who you should do life with, amen? He wants to show you his heart to help you see your life through his eyes, not yours, his will, not yours. And he wants to give you the strength to overcome any obstacles, any sin, anything that you face, the battle belongs to him.

And he will give you the strength to overcome. He will give you the strength to endure. And Jesus knew this for himself, which is why he directed the apostles to do the exact same thing. If you all noticed this, in the gospels, when it talks about Jesus feeding the thousands of people with a few fish and a few loaves of bread, his disciples in that time, when that was going on, they were overwhelmed by all of the people so much so that they didn't even get a chance to eat.

And Jesus looked at his apostles and he said, oh, I know what they need. And in Mark 6, verse 31 and 32, it says, then because so many people were coming and going, and they didn't even have a chance to eat the apostles. He said to them, come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.

See, I believe so many of us, we are just professionals at filling our time, at filling our schedules to the brim. Just like the apostles, so many of us self-imposed. We are overwhelmed by appointments and tasks and meetings and emails and texts and people needing something and kids needing something and spouse needing something and missing deadlines and burning out and frustrated and feeling hopeless. And then I need to go to the store and I need to pay this bill and I need to clean the house and laundry and laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry.

And laundry and laundry and I believe Jesus is trying to tell some of us, just like the apostles, come with me by yourself to a quiet place and get some rest. Amen? Get away from life, sit at my feet. Let me speak to you.

Let me refresh your soul. Let me refresh your spirit for the things that you have coming. And I can tell you from personal experience there's nothing outside of solitude in my life that's given me the reset that I needed. Nothing.

When I do this, I feel God's peace and I'm filled with faith. He increases my faith for what's to come and what I can accomplish in him. He increases my hope for the future and that he has good plans for me, my family, this church. Amen?

But those feelings, those emotions, that belief down deep in my heart, it doesn't come from me striving and striving. No, no, it comes from me spending time alone at him sitting along with him and sitting at his feet, man. It's literally like I'm a dead battery, completely out of a charge. And I plug into the heavenly outlet, right?

And I leave that time more than fully charged. I leave those times as a brand new, longer lasting, and more powerful battery. See, solitude, it's choosing to spend a short time period to be separated from people, to be separated from all your pursuits, denying yourself of worldly interaction to spend time with your father. There's a quote from Dallas Willard.

Listen to this first sentence. Solitary confinement, and he is talking about prisons. Solitary confinement is used to break the hardest of wills. It is capable of this because it excludes interaction with others and things upon which fallen human personality depends.

The life alienated from God collapses when deprived of its support from the sin laden world. Wow. On the other hand, the life in tune with God is actually nurtured by time spent alone. You might want to take a picture of that one.

It took me about four or five passes to really let that one sink in. I love the first sentence there. Because sin can be easily defined this way, my will, instead of God's will. My way, instead of God's way.

And in that time spent alone with God in solitude, it can break the hardest of wills. And when we step away from a sin laden world, God can tune our spirits to align with his will and to align with his ways. Now if that one didn't hurt, this one might just hit you right where it needs to. There's a New York Times article.

This is incredible. A while ago, this article was written that says, people complain about how busy they are. Can anybody else raise their hand on that one? Just a pastor?

OK. Right. Be honest. People complain about how busy they are, but it's almost always self-imposed.

In addition to work, it's 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. They're busy because they're addicted to busyness. And they dread what they might have to face in its absence.

I tell you, when I read that, I relate to this so much because of just my natural wiring. When I spend time with God alone, it takes a while for me to shut everything else off and to be able to completely give him my full attention. To just shut off my mind, I have to go through a mental detox. And sometimes it takes 30 minutes or more.

It just quiet my mind, open my heart, and just receive from him. So whether we're driven by competition or insecurities or even something good, like ambitions and goals, there's only one true source of life, of good life, true life. And that comes from sitting at Jesus' feet. Thomas Merton has another quote.

He says, solitude is a terrible trial for it serves to crack open and burst apart the shell of our superficial securities. See, sometimes we just fill our schedules because if we sit down for too long, those insecurities are going to come in, those fears, those worries, all those things that we're running from, we can't run from them anymore because we sat down. I don't want to do that, I'm just going to keep going. But solitude brings us face to face with Jesus.

Getting away from the hustle and bustle, the routine of life, allows the Lord to comb through our lives and to speak into our lives. So let's look at both of those really quick. That's what we're going to do with the rest of our time today. We're going to look at those two things.

Solitude, allowing the Lord to comb through our lives and speak into our lives. And here's the first one, solitude allows the Lord to comb through my life. So on 139, 23 and 24 says, search me God. We know this verse, search me God and know my heart.

Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Can I tell you church, this is not a comfort verse? This is an invitation for inspection.

An invitation to God, I want you to inspect me. See, God wasn't asking God to affirm him. And that's what so many people in this society are looking for all of the time. I'm going to make my own choices and I'm going to do life my way and I just want you to affirm what I'm doing.

I don't care if it aligns with truth or anything good. I just want you to accept me. No? No?

We're going to align with God's ways and what he says is true and right and pure and holy and good. Amen? And in order for all of us to do that, no matter what we're doing in life or where we come from, we have to invite him, hey, God, come on in. Look around.

Is there anything in here that's not of you? Is there anything in here that's nasty, that's hurtful, that's offensive? See, he wants God to find things that are not immediately visible and that only happens when we pause, when we stop, open our hearts to receive and stay a while so that he can examine. Now, God can examine whether we're moving or whether we stop.

He can. He's all knowing. He's all powerful. He can do anything.

So I think the emphasis here is not on him. It's on us. Spending that time, enough time for him to examine and then waiting to hear his voice. Notice that David doesn't say, I searched myself and found nothing.

I'm good. No. He asked God to search him because we're often blind to what is shaping us. The people we hang out with, the movies we watch, the music we listen to, the things that we let into our lives, they're shaping us.

And a lot of times we either blind to it or we don't want to admit it. And our habits, our thoughts, our attitudes, our defense mechanisms, our sins, they find their best hiding places in noise and social interactions and constant interaction in hurry, in a full schedule. David says, see if there's any offensive way in me. He assumes that there might be something wrong that he doesn't see yet.

Man, that's a great way to live life. God, I don't have it all figured out. Man, I'm not the man that I was 20 years ago. Thank you, Jesus.

But man, I don't have all this figured out. You need to keep combing. You need to keep looking. You need to keep searching because I am not perfected yet.

There's something that I probably don't see yet. And solitude is the space where God doesn't just hear what we confess and correct it. No, no, no. He reveals what we haven't noticed yet.

And then comes the promise in this verse, lead me in the way everlasting. See, God doesn't expose things in our lives to shame us. He exposes things to lead us to a better place. It's a good thing for him to expose these things and sometimes even discipline us.

And he leads only those willing to stop long enough to be examined. Amen? Psalm 46, 10. A lot of us know this one too.

Be still and know that I am God. Sometimes we don't need a lot of dialogue. Sometimes we don't even need that back and forth and back and forth with God. Sometimes solitude looks exactly like this.

Be still and know that I am God. In your situation, be still and remember who I am. Remember my thoughts about you. Remember who I said that you are.

Remember the path that I have you on. Remember. I had to remember that when I was going through my heart issues in the fall. Ryan, remember that vision that I gave you.

Remember, be still and know that I am God. No one gets the final word. I do. Come on.

See, be still. Here we go again. It's a command. There's another command.

Be still. So if we don't take those times to be still and know that he is God, then we are being disobedient. It's a command. Be still doesn't mean just quiet your mind.

It means cease striving, literally physically, emotionally, spiritually, everything. Stop. Stop. Release control.

Stop self justifying. Well, I can't stop because I need to do this. And stop. Stop.

Just stop. See stillness, it's uncomfortable because it removes our ability to outrun our thoughts. But here's the beautiful thing about stillness. In stillness, God doesn't raise his voice.

Everything else just gets quieter so that we can hear his voice. We often think that we don't hear God because he isn't speaking, but more often he is speaking. We don't hear him because we don't stop moving. We don't take the time.

So God doesn't need solitude to speak clearly to you. We need solitude to hear him. We need solitude to hear him, honestly. Stillness doesn't create God's presence.

It reveals it. God's presence is there. We just put all these barriers in the way. We build up all these walls that are unhealthy for us.

We need to just tear them all down and sit at Jesus' feet. And when we finally slow down, we realize he's been there the whole time, waiting for us to stop doing and performing and going and just start listening and let it minister to us. So the first thing solitude allows him to comb through our lives. The second thing is it allows him to speak into my life.

See, we find Elijah in 1 Kings 19, he's freaking out. You all have read this? Because he's the only one that's dedicated to God. I mean, the people of Israel, they have forsaken God's covenant.

They torn down the altars. They're killing prophets. And they're on the hunt for Elijah. So he's just freaking out.

And in 1 Kings 19, verses 11 and 12, it says, the Lord said to Elijah, go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord for the Lord is about to pass by. Oh man, if you're in his situation, do you think that you need an encounter with the Lord? Do you think that you need his help? Do you think you need his presence?

Do you need him to speak to you? Tell me what to do. These people are trying to kill me. And here's what happens.

It's in a great and powerful wind, tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

New King James Version says, a still small voice. Many of us have heard that before. Can anybody, not the same situation, not as dangerous? But can you relate to this?

What's your wind? What's your earthquake? What's your fire? What are all these things that are getting in the way?

And you have to fight through those and just stay still and just keep in it, keep in it, keep in it. And finally, you will hear a gentle whisper, his still small voice. Will you hang in there for that? We have to come to a place where we patiently wait through the noise of our thoughts, through the noise of our insecurities, through the noise of our anxiety and worries and fears, until we hear that still small voice.

That's what Elijah did in the midst of, I mean, so much chaos around him. He didn't give up. He didn't say, well, I mean, it's been five minutes. And there's all this stuff going on.

I'm out of here, man. This is crazy. The Lord definitely isn't here. There's earthquakes and there's fire and there's wind and there's all that.

Well, they said the Lord was about to pass by. Do you believe that God wants to speak to you? Do you believe that he loves you and he wants to spend time with you and he wants to minister to you? He'll patiently wait.

So Elijah had to wait. And that's exactly what he did. Will you wait? Simple question, right?

I have all these things to do. Will you wait? Not satisfied until you hear that still small voice. Sometimes you have to wait through doubts.

Well, I'm not sure if I hear something if it's going to be my mind or if it's going to be the Lord, then keep waiting until you know it's the Lord. Or are you in too much of a hurry? I just don't have time for all that because I've got to get all these things done. Hurry up, Lord.

I have things to do. I mean, you know all these things are on my list. So it would be really nice if you could be considerate of everything that I have going on and just speak to me so I can go. Look at this quote from Peter Lord.

Says, hurry isn't of the devil. Hurry is the devil. Why would he say something like that? Because anything that takes us away from time with God, solitude is not of God.

We need him. See, hurry is also a lack of faith. I love this story. If you've been to GMI, you've heard the story before, but it's so good.

Martin Luther, Reformation, he had an apprentice. Him and his apprentice, they would spend two hours of prayer every single morning, two hours in prayer. And faithful every single day. One day the apprentice was like, man, we got this laundry list.

We got all these things that we got to get done today. So we hurries to Martin Luther and he tells him, hey, we have all these things that we got to get done today. So we need to cut an hour out of our prayer so that we can make sure that we get all those things done. And Martin Luther says, OK, hold on.

Wait, you've got it all wrong. We need to spend an hour longer in prayer so that we can get all of those things done. You lack faith, apprentice, because without us being connected to God and hearing from Him and Him directing our steps and giving us the strength to do all of this, we can't do all of those things on the list. And also, this isn't part of that story, but I'm just putting it in today's perspective in our situation.

Is everything on that list from the Lord? Honestly, if you want to real answer that question, pull up your phone later, not right now. And look at your screen time. I mean, what are the apps that get most of your time?

Time's precious. It's a commodity. It's worth something. Could you take some of that time and rearrange it to spend time alone with God?

I think we all could, right? Me included. And if you're hurrying and rushing around, fretting and patient, you'll never be able to focus your attention on the Father. So when I say attention, I think about Kingdom Kids.

I think about the way that we raise our kids. We talk to them about what is being attentive to me, listening with your eyes, your ears, and your heart. And we're supposed to have a child like Faith, right? So I feel like a lot of times that's what God's trying to say to me.

Hey, pay attention. You ever done that with your kids? Hello? I'm talking to you.

And we're just like our kids. Whoa! Whoa! Wait, what?

Ah! Ah! Have a child like Faith. Don't act like a child, right?

Ha! Eyes, ears, and heart. I mean, to give the Lord our attention. God, I'm looking to you.

I'm not taking my eyes off you. I'm listening for only you. There's a lot of noise in my head. There's a lot of...

I'm getting alone, so there's not actual noise. I don't hear anything, but I'm listening for just you, God. And I will stay here, and I will listen until I know I'm here and you. And I'm just...

My heart is completely open. Whatever you want to say, whatever you want to do, this time is your turn. God wants to speak to us. We have to patiently wait until he has...

Or he will patiently wait until he has our full attention. And then, in those times, here's a great thing that happens. Does anybody ever look for solutions? Does anybody ever look for answers to questions?

And you don't want... Maybe that's a good idea. You want a really good idea. You want the right idea.

You want the right answer. This is where we get them. The best decisions come from these times, where God speaks to us. Men, solitude not only allows God to come through our lives and speak into our lives, it also gives us what I talked about earlier, that reset that we really need.

And that's exactly what Jesus was looking for. He needed a reset. He's around all these people. He had all these expectations and temptations and all these things.

And he needed a reset. And remember that scripture we looked at? It said, he often withdrew. Did you guess that?

Often withdrew. If Jesus often withdrew, we need to do it probably way more than him. Wouldn't you agree with that? We're not him.

Daily. Time alone with the Lord. If Jesus needs it, then we obviously need it. Psalm 23 says, he leads me beside the quiet waters, or the still waters.

We've read that before, right? And have you read what comes after it? It's in those times of solitude with him. He's leading you beside the still waters and quiet waters.

He restores your soul and he guides you in the paths of righteousness. And we're going to end with a quick story. I'm going to read it to you. It's going to be on the screen.

2007 Washington Post Experiment. And here's what happened. It was 7.51 a.m. on Friday, January 12th at the busiest subway station in Washington, D.C.

For the next hour, a violinist would perform some of the most beautiful classical pieces ever ever written. Over 2,000 people would pass by. Most of them on the way to work. No one knew it.

But the fiddler standing against a bear wall outside the metro was the highest regarded violinist in the world playing on one of the most valuable violins ever made. It was a surprise tag of $3.5 million. Each passerby had a quick choice to make. Do you stop and listen?

Or do you hurry past? Do you have time for beauty? His performance was arranged by the Washington Post as an experiment and priorities when beauty went out. After one hour, only 7 people had stopped to listen.

Even a little bit. All the others hurried by mainly only 3 feet away. Oblivious. Few even turning to look.

It was all videotaped by a hidden camera. You can play the recording once or 15 times and it never gets any easier to watch indifference, inertia, cups of coffee in their hand, cell phones at their ears. The gray rush of our modern world. The violinist seems a world apart from his audience, unseen, unheard, otherworldly.

You find yourself thinking that he's not real, that he's not really there. And then you see it. He's the one who is real. They are the ones who are not really there.

Wow. Do you have time for beauty? Some of us might hear this and think, well that's ridiculous. I mean, who in the right mind wouldn't stop and listen to how much more beautiful is the still small voice of the Lord?

How valuable would that be to you? To hear his voice? To have him minister to you? So I want to encourage everybody, wherever you're at on solitude, spend some time alone with the Lord quiet, set aside time each day.

No distractions, no phones, no other people. Just you and him. And we're going to start with an exercise today this morning. Y'all game for that?

Okay. Not going to be the exact same because we're all here together and there's going to be a little bit of distractions, but we can get a head start on this before we leave church today. So we're going to spend 3 minutes. I want everybody to close their eyes.

And we're going to start in 5 seconds. 3 minutes, you're just going to spend some time with the Lord. No talking. Just you and him.

Okay, you can open your eyes. If you haven't fallen asleep. So for some of us, that was incredibly peaceful. It's something that we really needed.

For some of us, that might have been frustrating. Because that wasn't enough time for your mind to turn off. For some of us that felt like an eternity, for some of us that felt like that, that was not enough time. And all of us are in different places with this.

And I think it's a good exercise to show us. Man, we need this in our lives. Amen? Would you all stand up for me?