Soul Care Until the End

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Soul Care Until the End

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Grab your Bibles, go to Philippians chapter 1. This is the last week in our soul care series. We've taken four weeks to just try to uncover some of our sin, some of our idolatry, some of the things that have affected how we view God and how we relate to Him and relate to each other.

And it hopefully has been heavy and helpful. When I was growing up, if you were, if you'd hurt yourself and you were telling my dad, if you'd say like, yeah, I hurt my arm or whatever, I got a bruise here. He'd say, come here, let me see. You get close to him and he put his hands around it real tenderly. He's a very gentle man. And then he would take his thumb and he would press it and say, is it hurt right here?

And just push down on whatever was painful. Um, cause he thought it was funny. And when I was about seven, my grandmother had hurt her arm and it was very bruised. Y'all see where this is going? And so I said, let me see. I'm so sorry that happened.

And she gave me her arm and I said, does it hurt right here? And she had my thumb into it. Uh, and apparently this was inappropriate. And it's hard for a seven year old to gauge what, what the context of things are, but it's different from father to son than from grandson to grandmother. Uh, when we do series like this, when we take time to investigate sin and pain and drag up some things from the past and try to look at our lives, sometimes it can feel like this is all we've done. Look at something painful and go, does it hurt right here?

And just kind of poke at it rather than actually being helpful. But that's, that's not the goal. The goal is as we investigate these things, we want to, to view this a lot more. Like if you had a rock in your shoe, you don't just muscle through. You stop, you take your shoe off, you get the rock out and life gets to be better. And so the hope is, as we've investigated some of this, as we walk through this together, that we've seen some of our sin, but that we seen some of the things that have hurt us from our past and some of the ways that we're affected by what people have done to us and the things that we've done.

And that we take the time to stop and to get rid of it so that we can move forward without a limp. That's, that's our hope in this series. And last week Spencer talked to us about the fact that we're capable of change, that you can change. And he kind of laid out for us a bit of a roadmap for that. But today, as we finish up the series, what we want to see is that if you belong to Jesus, you will change.

Not just you're capable of it, but you will change. That he is going to make us into something whole and complete and cured. That if you're struggling with sin, if you're struggling with depression and anxiety, if you're struggling with past things that seem like they loom over you like a cloud and dictate to you what life is going to be like from here on. If you have this thought of, I better just get used to this because this is how it's going to be forever. I want us to take courage this morning from Philippians to see that you are incorrect. If you belong to Jesus, it will not be like this forever.

So let's pray and let's study this section of scripture together. God, we thank you for your word. And more than that, we thank you for your salvation in Christ. We pray that as we study your words, that we would understand your work. So that we might take courage and rest.

And that we might continue. To move forward in the hope of what you have accomplished for us and what you will accomplish in us. We love you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen. So in Philippians chapter 1, Paul is writing from prison to the church in Philippi.

He was arrested for going around and presenting the gospel. It was causing a lot of trouble, but he kept at it. And he was arrested. He's writing to the church in Philippi. He's writing to the Philippians. And he has a good relationship with them.

And they have consistently been good to him and partnered with him in ministry. And so we're going to pick up in verse 3. And we're going to take some encouragement from his words to them. And we're going to see that they apply to us in Christ. So it says, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.

Always in every prayer of mine for you all. Making my prayer with joy. Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. So Paul in prison says, Every time I pray for you, I'm just filled with joy. I'm filled with thankfulness because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Now the gospel is the message, the news, the good news of what Jesus has done for us.

That Jesus Christ is the son of God who came, who lived a perfect, sinless life. Who did not come to teach us how to be better, but came to save us out of our sin. That he was crucified, that he was dead, that he was buried, that he rose again. And that we have hope in him. That all those who place their faith in him will be saved. And Paul went around proclaiming this message and the people in Philippi believed and then partnered with him so that more people could know this news.

So he's in jail. And he writes, I'm so thankful for your partnership in the gospel. And one of the things that Paul's taking to encourage him in his walk with the Lord, in his midst of his difficulty as he faces persecution, is that he's not alone. He's in prison, but he's writing and said, I'm so thankful that I'm not alone. That y'all have partnered with me in this. And that's one of the first things I want you to see.

That as you walk in your desire to follow Jesus and your struggle against sin, you're not alone. That you have gathered this morning. That's why it's a gathering of the people who belong to the Lord. This is not an individual experience. That you're not alone. That you belong to a people.

That you can be in a community group. Many of you are, most of you are, in community groups where you belong to a group of people. And they're not allowed to get rid of you. That you get to walk out in life with them, following Jesus and being known by them and being loved by them. That they are partners with you in the gospel. See, the Philippians had partnered with him in everything, as far as how you would partner in the gospel.

They partnered with him in repentance and faith. They had partnered with him in proclamation of the gospel and in persecution that comes when we proclaim the gospel. And so I want you to know that you're not alone. Every so often our community group will just take a night where we just kind of tell our stories or we'll spend a couple of weeks just doing this, reminding everybody, here's how I got here. Just kind of who I am. And I love this.

Because every time we do this, I'm reminded, oh yeah, I'm not alone. Everybody has pain. Everybody has hurt. Everybody has bad decisions and sin and struggles. And Jesus is good. I'm not the only one here who's a sinner just trying to fit in with all these well-behaved people in my group, hoping they don't find me out.

No, we all are here because Jesus is good and we're not alone. And so he takes courage in the partnership that they have. And I want you to do that as well. As you fight sin, you do not have to be alone that we have partnered in the gospel. Verse 6. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

We'll spend most of our time there today. But let's look at verse 7. It is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. So Paul says, I'm certain that he who began a good work in you is going to bring it to completion at the day of Christ. And it's right for me to feel this way because I love you. That's nice.

I hold you in my heart. And he says, because you're a partaker of grace with me. You've joined me in ministry that we've partaken in grace together. And I want you to know that that's the qualifying thing for the statement that we're about to spend our time studying is have you partaken in grace? Have you seen your sin? Repented of your sin and asked Jesus for grace, which is unmerited favor, unearned love, that he would do the work on our behalf, that he would redeem us.

Have you partaken in grace? Because Paul says, it's right for me to feel this way because you've partaken in grace with me. And then he gives, it's active grace. It's at work grace. It's not just you partaken in grace and then you moved on, but you partook in grace in, and he says, as displayed by my imprisonment and in defending the gospel that you've joined in this. So let's go back to verse six.

And we're just going to break this statement down a little bit and spend our time here this morning. He says, I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. The day of Jesus Christ is judgment day. That's the day of our Lord. That he comes and time's up. That he sets up his active rule and reign as king.

This is when we were walking through the book of Matthew. This is when he has the sheep and the goats. This is when it comes down and the master returns and sets his house in order. That's the day of Jesus Christ. And if you want to, you can go search in a Bible app or on the internet, or if you have a concordance, which is a big book, you can look up the day of the Lord or the day of Christ, and you'll see that that's what this is. And so what he's saying is that there's going to come a day when Jesus calls everybody to account and to give an account of themselves and that he's certain that on that day, you'll be complete if you've partaken in the grace of Christ.

That he's certain on that day that you'll be whole. Didn't that help your soul? Because of how incomplete we feel so often, how broken and how marred, and how much we feel like we've fallen short to think that someday I'll be whole. I'll be complete. But I want us to see what he's putting this on.

So if you will, just look ahead to your very last day. If you belong to Jesus, on that day you are complete. There's nothing out of alignment. There's nothing missing. There's nothing wrong with you. On that day you'll stand before Christ complete.

How? He says, I'm sure of this, that he... That's very important. That he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. He does it. It's personal and it's powerful.

That it's done by Christ. That he began the work, you didn't begin the work. And he finishes the work, you don't finish the work. You're not done, but he's begun. And that he's going to bring you to completion. That he's going to fix you, finish you, complete you, make you whole.

That's good news. That he is the one who empowers this. Jesus says, he gives a parable at one point in the Gospels, and he says that the kingdom of heaven is like yeast. It's like leaven that's put in a lump and it takes over. Guess what? Your sin doesn't win if you belong to Jesus.

And your desire to hold on to your sin doesn't win if you belong to Jesus. Sometimes it feels like we're wounded and we come to Jesus and he binds us up. Other times it feels like he hunts us down and wounds us and then binds us up. Sometimes we're on board with the fixing that we're getting and other times we're going, please, please, please just let me keep this. And he's like, no, it's bad for you. That he actively works in you.

It's not an impersonal thing, but it's Christ himself at work to bring us to fullness. So he is the one who supplies the power and it's a promise. Paul says, I am sure of this. It's a certainty. Do you belong to Jesus? I'm sure that you will be brought and made complete.

You will be whole. You will be fixed. You will be repentant. You will be changed. It's a certainty. And it's not because Paul believes in you.

It's not because he believes in the Philippians. It's because he believes in Jesus. He says this elsewhere in 1 Thessalonians 5, 23. He's 5, 23. He says, Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. That means make you perfectly good.

The sanctification is the process by which he actively, practically redeems us from sin. Now that he sets us apart. Now may he sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the same thing, that you'll be blameless, that you'll be complete on that day. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it.

Oh, that's so good. Because it'd be a little scary if Paul wrote to the Philippians. I am sure of this, that on the day of Christ, you will be complete because y'all are great. Because if there's one thing I know about the Philippians, is that y'all keep it together. If there's one thing I know about the Philippians, is that you make good choices. Galatians, not so sure.

Corinthians, I'm sure, but it's the other direction. But you Philippians, I'm proud of y'all. You got this. You ever have anybody encourage you that way? You're trying to work something out and they go, you got this. I know you.

I trust you. You don't mess stuff up. You always end up making the right decision. We should hang out more. I've been with me my entire life. That is incorrect.

There's part of you that takes that at first. You're like, yes, you're right. I am smart. I make the right decision. Then you leave and you go, wait, no, I don't.

And now all this waits on me and this feels overwhelming. Now I've just got all this extra pressure. It's like it builds us up just to have more come crashing down on us. And Paul does not say to them, y'all got this because you're great. He says, he's going to do it. So I'm certain.

He didn't say, I know you. He says, I know Jesus. Now that's good news. That when you stare right now in the face of your sin and your pain and your weakness, it is not, can I muscle up enough to bring myself to the finish line? It's will Jesus who is faithful be faithful? Yes, he will.

Is Jesus who is strong be strong? Yes, he will. Is Jesus who loved us so much that he would die for us? Will he keep loving us with that same type of love? Yes, he will. Will we stand complete?

Yes, we will because he will. That's the reality of this. That not only can we change, but we will change. But I want you to see something else. He says, I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. See that in?

It's not just a work that he did for you, but it's a work that he's doing in you. That dramatically changes how this plays out. I heard a comedian say one time, I'm sick of following my dreams. I just want to find out where they're going and hook up with them later. And some of us in our growth in Christ want to be able to do the same thing. I just want to show back up when I'm all grown.

I just want to be there. Can I just get to the end growth part? I just want to like, can I just putter around and then just show up and the answer is no. He's going to do this in you, which means that you'll be here the whole time. This process, empowered by him and it's a promise carried out by him, will take place in you. So for you, what's it going to look like?

It's going to look like a lot of work. Let's go to verse 8. I want you to see this. For God is my witness how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with all knowledge and discernment. I love that.

One is, if it abounds more and more, it means we grow in it. Paul says, I'm praying you grow. He says, I pray you abound in love. And as Americans, we're like, yes, love. All we need is love. Love.

We love that. We love love. Love's great. Love wins. Love. Love.

But he says, no, no, hold on. With knowledge and all discernment. I want you to grow in love, but not the stupid love that y'all have. Wise love. I want you to love the things you should love and not love the things you shouldn't love. And that's what we've been spending some time looking at.

That's what idolatry is, is that we don't love God enough and we love other things that are worse more than we should. He says, I want you to abound in love, but I want it to be wise love, discerning love, love that's pointing in the right direction. And he says this, so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. Okay. He says, I'm certain of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ. So I'm praying that you will make good decisions so that you'll be pure and blameless at the day of Christ.

Which is it? It's both. He's going to do this, but you're going to have to be there. And so his prayer is basically, I pray Jesus is going to do what Jesus said he's going to do. That's my prayer. That's a good prayer for you to have.

Lord, do in me quickly what you said you're going to do. I had it quickly, but I think it's okay. Sneak it in there. That I pray that you will change me and mold me into what you said you're going to change me and mold me into. It is in you through him. So what's that look like?

Well, he keeps going. In chapter 2, verse 12, he says this, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. You see it again? Obey, work, because he works in you. But what's it look like to us?

It looks like obedience. I've said this before. I say it a lot because it's really helpful for me, but obedience and agreement are different. Agreement's nice. We can obey when we agree. It works out well, but obedience shows up where agreements differ, that we obey the Lord even when we disagree with him.

So he says, obey and work. So what's it look like? Well, it looks like waking up early so you can read your Bible or staying up later so you can read your Bible or both because you need a lot of your Bible. It looks like psyching yourself up to show up to your community group. I love so much that we host our community group. All we have to do is psych ourselves up to unlock the door.

I don't have to every week sit and go, okay, remember, remember it's good. You remember, you remember how you feel afterwards because there's always right before it's time to leave, there's just like, huh, do I actually want to have to get in my car and use the steering wheel and press the thing with my foot? There is, there's some kind of pressure that pushes on us to not be around each other and the reality is it's going to take some energy for you to go be around your group. It's going to take some energy for you to actually confess some sin. It's going to take some energy for you to pick up the phone and invite somebody to a thing or accept an invitation.

It's going to take some energy for you to walk this out. It takes energy for you to show up in the morning. It's going to take some work. It's going to take some obedience. It's going to take you some times where you wrestle with the Lord and you say, I don't want to give this up, but I believe that you're good and I believe that you're doing something good in me, so I'm going to repent. So he says in chapter 3, verse 12, he says it again, not that I have already obtained this, talking about this resurrection, talk about being made new, or am already perfect.

Isn't that nice? Paul doesn't think he's perfect. He isn't saying get on my level. He's saying let Jesus do what Jesus is going to do. But I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

I press, I work, I labor, I obey to make this my own, to become what he says I'm going to be, to receive this resurrection life because Christ has already done it in me. He's already made me his own and he's promised he's going to bring me there so I fight to get there. That's encouraging. Messes with our head a little bit. Is he going to do it? Yes.

Are you going to do it? Yes. Is he going to do it in you? Yes. Do you have to be there the whole time? Yes.

Is it going to hurt at times? Yes. Is it going to be good? Always. In one of the Harry Potter books, they're time traveling, which if they had just done this earlier could have fixed a lot of problems, but whatever. They're time traveling and there's this time where Harry Potter is about to die, which also would have ended the books.

And he sees himself come save his life by doing some really like amazing stuff. And so you experience this the first time. He shows up and saves his own life. Then later, because of time travel, he shows up as this version of himself and does the really cool thing to save his own life. He's hanging out with his friend afterwards and she says, how did you do that? And he said, well, I knew I could do it because I already saw myself do it.

Does that make sense? And she says, no. That's right here. I'm pressing on to be made perfect because I already see that he's going to make me perfect. I'm repenting because I know that he's working repentance in me. I'm showing up.

I'm doing the stuff. I'm obeying because I know that he's working obedience in me. I'm empowered to do what I'm supposed to do because I know that I've already seen that he's going to do it in me and that one day I'll stand before him holy, blameless, above reproach that on the day of Christ I will be complete so I press on towards completion. And the reason I press on towards completion is that he's already promised to do this and he's going to get me there. I already know I'm going to win so I run the race to win. Does that make sense?

No. Does it work? Yes. That's how this plays out. That you take courage from the fact that Christ is going to complete what he says he's going to complete and then you walk with him in it. So he says I'm sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

So at the day of Jesus Christ and we're going to look down at verse 10 and 11 because this idea comes back up. So this is where he says I pray that he works this in you so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. There it is again the day of Christ. I want you to know two things about the day of Christ. If you belong to Jesus if you've placed your faith in him if you are a partaker of grace which means Jesus has done the work and is doing the work not that you are a partaker of your own good works or your own good effort or your own righteousness that's not what it is it's a partaker of grace.

On the day of Jesus Christ there are two things that you need to know about yourself on that day. If you belong to Jesus this is a reality we're just peeking into the future. There are two things that are true about you on that day. One you are pure and blameless filled with the fruit of righteousness. Come on. Good Job y'all.

Pure and blameless filled with the fruit of righteousness. That's what we want. Don't you wish when your group was like hey we're going to get together we're going to spend some time just looking at ourselves kind of repenting of sin. Don't you wish that you could with all certainty just be like oh that's not a thing I have to do. I'm pure and blameless. I don't know if y'all have noticed I'm filled with the fruit of righteousness.

He's working that in us. Part of the process of that is repentance. Which repentance is a joy that is given to us that we could let go of things that are bad and take hold of things that are good. I heard somebody say birds fly fish swim Christians repent. This is something that we get to continually do as we work on towards being more like Christ. But on that day when he lays the world bare and you would be completely exposed in your sin if you belong to Christ you're covered by his blood you're filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.

He's accomplished it but you're filled with it. So on that day if you belong to Jesus you are pure blameless and filled with the fruit of righteousness and it says to the glory and praise of God that we are praising God that he does this work in us so that he gets the glory. We get the results of it we get the joy of it but he gets the glory. We've said this before when we get to heaven we are not singing praises to our own names. I will not stand up and sing glory be to Chet or Chester I don't know what name you have to use when you're in heaven. I don't know if it's a nickname situation or like you know given name whatever.

I won't do it. I won't have earned myself the opportunity to be there. I will not be there by my own works I will not be there by my own goodness I will not be there by my own intentionality or my morality or anything. I will be there because of the work of Christ and so when we gather there all praise and all glory goes to Christ we sing his name because he is the one who has accomplished this for us and in us. All glory be to Christ. There's one name that's sung and shouted in heaven and let me tell you something that you need to know about praise.

The first thing you need to know about praise is that all genuine praise true praise includes genuine delight. True praise includes genuine delight. Praise without delight is flattery. This is really good. Of all the meals I've eaten this is one of them tastes like someone cooked it. And we're trying to find a way to be nice but we don't have anything really good to say.

We get to heaven when you actually genuinely praise something when you actually genuinely enjoy something it just falls out. If you're eating something really good sometimes you just make a noise. It's a little weird for the people around you. You bite into it and you go mmm and it's like okay take it easy we get it you like it stop. Somebody starts dating somebody and that's all they want to talk about. And it just falls out this genuine delight so there's genuine praise.

So all true praise includes genuine delight which means that if we're there praising the Lord we are delighting in the Lord. second the best praise and the moments in life right now when you are the most free is when you are caught up in enjoyment of something else other than yourself. There's a true self forgetfulness to genuine praise that brings freedom. There are moments in life where you stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon and you just stare. when you hear a certain type of music and you're just swept away. You don't exist anymore. You're just getting to participate in the music. You're eating a meal and you're able to just enjoy the meal and not think about yourself.

Being praised we all like being praised and there's a place for it. But there's something about receiving praise that is never quite the same never quite as enjoyable as actually being swept up in genuine praise for something else. It never hits the same place. And so what you need to know about that day if you are in Christ is on that day you are whole. Nothing out of place. Nothing there that shouldn't be there.

You're complete. Nothing that you're dragging behind you. Nothing that's looming over your head. You are delighting in the Lord. Genuine delight. And you are free from yourself. that's a good day.

If you belong to Christ you're free you have joy and you're complete. And if you belong to Christ that stands as the finish line marker of your life. And it can't not stand that way because you can't escape Christ. You can't out sin him. You can't outrun him. If you belong to Christ you are in an unpluckable hand.

In an unpluckable hand. You will be there. You can be the worst person in your community group. On that day you're complete. You're whole. You're in Christ made wonderful delighting in him singing his praise. completely free from

Yourself. You can have day after day month after month year after year of struggle and pain and hurt where you're hurting others where you're

Wrestling with the Lord where you're fighting him over your sin and on that day you will be standing complete in Christ because he

Is the one who does the work that is the reality for you so we press on towards it that we might the truth

That's the reality for you if you belong to Jesus the band is going to come back up I want us as best we

Can to put this in our mind to see this this next week on Thursday I get to go to the beach with my

Family this week is going to be a good week all week not just when I get to the beach all week leading to

The beach because it's going to be hard to make me sad because on Thursday I get to the beach you know that school

Is about to be over you get to go on vacation you just keep stuff happens and you go well it's about to be

Over I'm about to be at the beach I'm about to be on vacation this class is about to be over this teacher is

The worst but guess what only for another week and the reality for us in Christ is that we get to look forward to

That day to give us courage and strength in this one that we can face this day because of that day and this day

Actually gets swept up in that day to make that day more glorious that this day actually stands in testimony to the goodness of

Christ to bring you along to bring me along that when we stand and praise Christ he's actually praiseworthy because he got us there

How powerful how good how loving how gracious did he have to be to do that infinitely he is good and that day is

A glorious day when we stand complete in him some of you are tired tired tired of your sin tired of your struggle tired

Of your pain tired of your weakness tired of your depression you're tired it's labor and work to get out of bed and to

Make it here on Sundays you don't even know how many songs our church sings because you've only ever made it to the one right before we start preaching because you're tired on that day there's nothing out of joint there's no exhaustion

Your lungs never tire of singing the praise of Christ you're complete some of us are sad just down on that day you are swept up in a joy that you cannot fathom that your best moments right now

Are just the taste just the hint just the scent of what's going to be tasted at that time some of us are anxious and we're worried well there's a day when you are a conqueror so that we're more than a

Conqueror now Jesus says that in this world you'll have trouble but take heart because he's overcome the world and that we get to stare at the end and go I don't know how it's all going to play

Out but I know what the scoreboard's going to be at the end of it I know where I'm going to be at the end of this when I was in high school my wife she wasn't my wife in high school but I was playing

My senior year of football and she was making a scrapbook so it turns out it was a great great scrapbook it was really kind thoughtful thing for her to do turns out she was a keeper she was making this

For me and we were in a game and in the first quarter the team that we were playing was up on us by three touchdowns it was 21-0 it was not going well and my younger brother took the camera from her

And took a picture of the scoreboard and sat back down and she said why did you do that and he said it's going to look really good in your scrapbook when they come back and win this game for us to have

Seen that it was 21-0 so the home game so the scoreboard says 0-21 and there's a picture in the scrapbook that says 7-21 and there's a picture in the scrapbook that says 14-21 and there's a picture

In that scrapbook that says 21-21 and there's a picture in that scrapbook that says 28-21 and he was right that 0-21 actually just looks really good because you get to see a 28-21 later and the reality is that for some of

You right now in your exhaustion and in your sadness and in your depression you need to just take a picture because if you belong to Christ this day is going to look really good when you stand complete

In him when you stand before the king made pure and blameless filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ to the praise and glory of God this day will just be a testimony it'll just be a moment in time that points and screams the name

Of Christ for all eternity that you can look back and go he got me from there to here because he's good so let's press on we know where it ends let's go and let's cling to Christ as we go knowing that he who is faithful

Will do it let's pray God we thank you that you're faithful and we pray that you would help us to press on to make it our own but we are not perfect it's not ours yet but we are yours so it will be ours later Lord you've made us yours

Through the work of Christ may we cling to you and praise you and may we work and obey as you empower us to do it and God for anyone in this room who on that day will not stand complete in Christ because they

Have not partaken in grace that they will stand in their own work in their own sin Lord we ask that by the power of your spirit and your spirit is in this room right now moving we pray that by the power

Of your spirit that you would convict and that you would help them to repent so that they might place their faith in you and not themselves so that they can stand with the chorus of the redeemed screaming Christ is glorious

At the top of their lungs free from their selves free from their sin and made complete in you oh Lord work through your spirit in Jesus name we pray amen

Process of Change

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

The Process of Change

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Spencer. I am one of the pastors here. We are in week three of our four-week series on soul care. This is an introduction to the idea of soul care that we would, as Christians, grow in understanding the brokenness and the sin that's beneath the surface that's in our soul and that we would treat, we would help grow in the gospel and grow as Christians as we care for ourselves and ultimately care for one another. So the first two weeks of this series, in the first week we introduced this idea of soul care that at the core of our souls is our heart and at the core of our heart is our view of God, how we worship Him, our lack of worship of Him, and our view of self in light of who God is.

That's at the core of who we are and we took a step back from that and looked at us as complex people with complex stories, that our history, that the way we're built, that our behavioral patterns, that there are things that affect our hearts. So we walked through that in week one. Last week Chet walked us through what is the core problem of our hearts, that we worship things in the place of God, that we have functional saviors that we run after. And even beneath that we've got deep idolatry, deep idols that's at the core of our heart, that creates this dysfunction in us, in our souls. So the first two weeks was really getting to know what's going on underneath the surface.

And it stirred up quite a bit, I'm sure. Sometimes my wife and my kids will go out to my parents' house, they live on the lake, and they've got this entryway into the water. And at the lake, before you walk in, you can kind of see the water, you can kind of see underneath the surface. After about a minute of being in the lake and standing there, the whole, like, the water's cloudy and muddy. We've been, our feet has been all in the mud beneath and all this stuff's been stirred and clouded the water and clouded to the surface. And that's kind of what it's felt like the last couple of weeks as we've walked through this.

We've just been stirring up stuff, we've been poking at things underneath the surface, and some of you are like, okay, thank you for telling me everything that's wrong with me. Appreciate it. And others of you, there's probably a range of responses. Others of you are excited, and you're like, yes, you've told me what's happening beneath the surface. Let's go.

I want to tackle this sin. It's like, okay, we're getting there. The first two weeks is really getting beneath the surface. This week, what we want to do is walk through Colossians 3 and walk through the process of change. Now that we know what's been going on underneath the surface in our souls, what do we do with that?

How do we actually change? That's what we're going to do today. And as we walk through Colossians 3, we're going to see three stages of change, three kind of steps of change for us. So I hope this morning can be incredibly practical for us as we seek to change and grow to know more of Christ. So let me pray, and then we'll jump into the text.

Lord, we love you. I'm thankful for the last couple of weeks that we've been able to walk through the Scripture's teaching on our soul and what's going on beneath the surface. God, I pray this morning that you would, as that has been brought to the surface, as that's been brought to the light, as that's continually going to be brought to the light, that you would give us a vision for change. That we would not be hopeless as we face sin and brokenness in our life, but you would give us hope from the Scriptures. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, so we're going to walk through Colossians 3, but I want to give some context because we're jumping into a book. Typically, we walk through books of the Bible. But when we are kind of going through topical series like this and we're sitting in a chapter, I want to give you a little bit of context for where we are in Colossians 3. In Colossians 2, in the middle of it, Paul is proclaiming the gospel to this church. This is a letter to the church at Colossaea. He's proclaiming the gospel to the Colossians.

In the middle of it, he says, and you who were dead in your sins. Those of you who were once dead, that's the idea that before we knew Christ, we were dead in sin. We were spiritually dead. We did not know him. He says, and you who were dead in your sins and the sinful nature of your flesh. God made alive together with Christ.

He made us alive. When you place faith in Jesus, he brings you to life. And he says, having canceled the record of debt that stood against you with its legal demand, the sin debt that we've accumulated, it says, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross, that your sin was bought and paid for as you were raised to life in him. He proclaims this truth to this church. This is what's true about you because you've trusted in Jesus. And then he shifts into addressing kind of some problems that's been happening in the church, the Colossian church.

Some self-made, self-religious efforts that have been added on to the gospel. So he addresses some of these things that they're doing, they're adding on to the gospel. And he closes out chapter two with saying in verse 23, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion, an appearance of wisdom in promoting asceticism and severity to the body. But they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. This self-made, self-religious effort, it has no value in actually stopping the indulgence of the flesh. There's no value in bringing about the change that you want to see.

You're doing it wrong. You've got a bad model that you've been surrounded by for change. My daughter, my oldest, she's in first grade this year, which is crazy to me that she's now in first grade. And last year, she was in kindergarten, and she was learning to read. And the teacher said, hey, I want to do a parent-teacher conference. I couldn't be there.

My wife did it. It was a Zoom conference. But later that night, right before we went to bed, she said, hey, let me tell you how the parent-teacher conference went. And I said, okay. She's like, is she doing well here? She's doing well here?

But when it comes to reading, the teacher is taking extra time. She's sitting down with her and reading. And Ellie won't look at the pictures. She's like, look at the pictures and the words and try to make the connections here. And Ellie just looks at the words. She won't look at the pictures, and the teacher can't figure out why.

So I was like, hmm, I think I know why that is. I said it to myself. And then I said it out loud. All right, well, good night. The next day, I was like, no, I can't hide this. I need to fess up.

So I said, honey, I think I know why our daughter doesn't look at the pictures. It's because every time that we're reading together, I say, don't look at the pictures. You're cheating. Don't look at the pictures. Look at the words. Don't look at the pictures.

Don't look at the pictures. To which I find out by talking to teachers about this is harmful to learning process. It damages your child. And I didn't know. Listen, I pay my taxes. I send my kids to public school so they can learn.

I can't. We don't teach. I just I didn't know. I'm just kind of rocking with what I got. It seemed like pretty logical. She's cheating.

Looking at the pictures. Focus on the words. And since then, we've had to implement the correct process. It was a bad model for change. And the problem is for us is that we sometimes have a bad model for change. We want to grow in our faith, but we were doing it wrong.

So I want to let the scriptures address some of our self-made, muscling through, trying to own change by our own strength. I want the scriptures to address us with this process that it lays out in Colossians 3. So pick up in verse 1. This is the first step in change. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Step 1 is to set your mind on Christ. It is to focus on Him. You look to Him first. If you have, Christian, if you've been raised with Christ through believing in Him, if you've laid down your life and trusted Him, it says continue to look to Him.

Set your mind on things that are above. Set your mind on Christ. Because here's the problem. If you jump straight into addressing sin, if that is your first focus, your effort to affect change will be by your own effort, not Christ working in you. It is of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. It is a self-made effort of your own.

He says, Behold Him. Behold Christ. Set your mind on Him. The one who died for your sin. The one who conquered death of the resurrection. The one who ascended to the right hand and is seated at the right hand of the Father in power.

The one whom you can hide in, in the face of fire. He says, Look to Him. And I love the physical nature of that command. He's literally saying, Look up. Look above. I love that, because often when we are in sin, we don't do this.

We look down. When we feel the effects of depression and the effects of sin through deep sadness and depression. The Bible has a category of language for this. In the Psalms, you're downcast. You're literally, your body language is down. That when you're ashamed in sin, your body language, you're looking down.

I remember a few years back, I was confessing some sin and some brokenness to a friend, to a brother of mine. And as I was confessing this, I didn't realize this. The whole time I was talking with him, my head was down. I could not look at him in the eyes. And he finally just said, Hey, look at me. Look at me.

You're proclaiming the gospel over me. You can look at me. I love this command to look up. Jesus, in the midst of our sins, says, Hey, look up. Look at me. Focus on me.

Set your mind on me. You're no longer a slave to sin. You're no longer identified by your sin and your brokenness and the worst aspects of your sinful nature. Look to me. Set your mind on things are above. Set your mind on Christ.

And this is not a formality. This is not a checkbox. We say, Okay, okay, step one. All right. Set your mind on Christ. All right, I pray.

All right, Jesus, now help me with my sin. This cannot be a formality. This has to be a desperate need in looking to Him. This is you in the ocean as the waves are crashing over you. And you see a life buoy. And you're like, That is my only hope.

You fix your eyes and your grasp and your hope on that to save you. That's the type of desperate need that it takes to set your mind on Christ as your only hope for change. It starts with this. Now, how do you practically do this? Well, you practically do this through a desperate pursuit of Him through word and prayer. A desperate pursuit of Him through word and prayer.

And I know that when I say that, that the response from some is, Oh, huge shock, preacher man. Read your Bible and pray more. It's not like I haven't heard that before. And others will say, That's over simplistic. To look at someone and their sin and their brokenness and their disorders, and to say, Read your Bible more. That's overly simplistic.

You don't understand the complexity of the problem. My hope is that the last couple of weeks have highlighted that we absolutely believe that the problem is complex. That the sin and the brokenness, that our stories, that our idolatry is absolutely complex. But I, hear this, I wholeheartedly reject any idea that does not place word and prayer as a sin. central aspect of soul care. I reject any idea that doesn't, that downplays the need for word and prayer in the process of change. I mean, honestly, that, I mean this, that, that can really only come from someone who hasn't desperately sought Christ as their only hope through word and prayer.

Not just for a moment, not just for a couple of days, not just for a couple of weeks, but has for seasons, for years, clung to Christ in word and prayer as their only hope for change. That critique can honestly only come from someone who has not done that. And I have seen, over the last three years, some of the people I've watched grow in our church immensely have grown in this. They have, there's a common thread. They have sought the Lord and word. They're growing in prayer.

It is a long-term approach. It is a long-term pursuit. One of my former pastors, he used to say, I'm sure he's not the source of this quote. He used to say, soul work is slow work. That soul work is slow work. It takes time.

It takes more than just a couple of months pursuing God. You need to look at him as your only hope and continue to look and fix your gaze upon him. And that happens practically through word and prayer. Over and over and over again to see the change you want to see happen. Now, the reason this is so important is that when you focus on him, when you continue to look at him in his word, he starts to change your perspective on all of it, on yourself, on life. There's a book that I'm almost done reading called Gentle and Lowly.

It is the book you see on both sides. Crossway was, the publisher was generous enough to give us 200 free copies. So today I want you all to take a copy when you leave. But this book just does that. It looks at the heart of Christ. As a diamond, you're turning all the facets and seeing different aspects of it.

And as you sit in it, as you look at the heart of Christ, it begins to change your perspective on everything. It changes your perspective on your sin, on your brokenness. That's what he's calling us to do. To continue to look at him, continue to gaze upon him, continue to fixate on him, to pursue him in prayer, to go after him. We need to tether ourselves to Christ, to fixate on him. And when you do this, it sets you up for the second part of this, in step two, which picks up in verse five.

He says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. And these, you too, once walked, when you were living in them. But now, you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self and its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge after the image of its creator. Here, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all.

Now, we could spend a few weeks just walking through that right there because there's a whole lot packed in. But I want us to see, take a step back and see that the big second step in the process of change is this. It is an aggressive approach to sin. It is an aggressive approach to sin that when you put and focus your mind on Christ, it will inevitably result in this, an aggressive approach to sin. There's an illustration in that book, Gentleman Lowley, that I found incredibly helpful. He says that the father's view of sin in us is similar to a father's view of cancer in their child.

That when their child is diagnosed with cancer, they hate it. They hate the cancer in them. They hate seeing it hurt them. They hate seeing it harm them. That you hate that in your child. You want it destroyed.

That you will aggressively treat it with chemo, which hurts. But you will aggressively treat, you will treat this disease. And he says that's the father's approach to sin in us. That he hates sin in us. He hates the disease of sin. He knows what, he can see what it does to us.

He sees how it destroys us, how it kills our fellowship with him, how we run to lesser things. He sees what it does to our friendships, to our marriages. He sees what it does to our community groups, what it does to our churches, what it does to our society. He hates the disease of sin in us. And he wants us to aggressively approach it. And he gives two basic metaphors in this.

The first metaphor that he gives is put to death what is earthly in you. That's the first aggressive approach to sin that we're given. It's to put to death what is earthly in you. He says, therefore, linking back to everything he just said, therefore, put this to death in you. Week one, we talked about knowing our hearts and knowing our greater story and how that's all connected and how that knowledge helps us in the change process. Last week, we looked at deep idols and functional saviors.

And all this is knowledge to help us understand the brokenness that's within us, the brokenness that's underneath the surface. And the scriptures say, now that you know this, you can see this, put it to death. Murder it. Bludgeon it to death. Strangle it. Snuff the life out of it.

It is, I mean, it's an aggressive approach. I mean, this isn't unique to Colossians. You can go to Galatians 5, 24, where it says, crucify the flesh with a similar list of sins. Crucify. We walk through the crucifixion regularly in our church and teaching to understand how awful that death was. The ripping apart of the flesh that Jesus went through.

The suffocating on the cross. The scriptures say, crucify. With that aggression, crucify the flesh. It's violent language. And the reason it's violent is because we are called to take sins seriously. The disease is serious.

We need to look to God and as we look to Him and He stirs in us a holy hatred of sin. We look back at our sin and say, oh no, it's got to die. And I've got to murder it and if I'm going to bring people in in my group to help me murder it, I will crucify this. I will kill this. I will end this. And then it gives a second metaphor.

The second action it says is put them all away. Put off. Now the language of that in the Greek has to do with clothing. that you would put off, put away bad clothing. He's saying, you have bad clothing. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene, talk from your mouth. He says, put it away.

Take it off. Get rid of that clothing. It's not good for you. There was a brief time when I was a kid that I pulled for Tennessee. And if you know me, I'm a huge Gamecock fan. But in the 90s, I saw Peyton Manning play and I went, oh man, that's a quarterback.

That's not a Tannehill. That is something different. And I fell in love with him. I was like, to this day, he was my childhood hero. I followed him to Colts. I'm a huge Colts fan.

I love Peyton Manning. And for a brief period of time, I also pulled for Tennessee. And then after he went to the NFL, I went to a Gamecock game where Tennessee was playing and I had a Gamecock shirt underneath and a Tennessee sweatshirt on. And about halftime, I looked around and I looked at myself and I was like, I look ridiculous. Why? Peyton's gone.

He's never coming back. I don't like this team. I look ridiculous. So I repented of my ways and I never wore anything Tennessee ever again. It was a bad look. And he's saying, it's a bad look.

These patterns that you were once enslaved to. Don't go back to them. Put it away. Pornography. Sexual sin. Masturbation.

This pursuit and gratification that comes from the flesh. He says, put it away. Get rid of it. You don't need to wear this anymore. He says, self-hatred. You can add cutting, disordered eating.

Did it ever bring you, did it ever fix anything in you? Did going after that ever actually bring you an ounce of joy? He says, put it away. Put it away. Greed. Materialism.

The worship of money. Did it ever satisfy? Did it ever bring you the true joy that Christ offers? He says, no, put it away. Don't wear it anymore. It's a bad wardrobe.

These two metaphors for approaching sin are helpful. We need to absorb this. Now, how do we take that, take a step back and apply that to what we've been learning about the last few weeks? How do we apply that to the complexities of our story, to our deep ideology, to our functional saviors? I think part of this is knowing what is earthly in you so that you can respond accordingly, aggressively. I think it's part of knowing your anxiety and some of the, not just some of the feeling of anxiety, but some of the unbelief that's attached to and within anxiety that you get to know yourself.

You get to understand yourself. And maybe as you study yourself and you study the anxiety in you, you start to understand that maybe for you, what's underneath the surface is some control idolatry, which we walked through last week. That you want to be like God and control everything and if you can't control everything, then what happens is you start to get anxious and as you know yourself and you know this deep idolatry and as you take a step back like we looked at in week one and start to know yourself and know your story, that maybe part of it is is that there are things that you do that add to, that fuel unhelpfully the anxiety in you. We talked about one of those things is if you're prone to anxiety, drinking coffee and caffeine can stir you up in a way that's unhealthy, that maybe some of these behavioral patterns, some of these physical aspects of yourself and some of the deep idolatry, when you know this and you can piece it all together, you say, okay, I know what I'm up against and I'm going to put it away.

I'm going to put it away. I'm going to take it off. I'm going to put it to death. You can do this with depression, that as you see some of the hurt that comes from depression, maybe you've identified some deep idolatry that's underneath the surface, that maybe there's some approval idolatry that's underneath this deep sadness in your life and that part of it is is that you are seeking the approval of others always and it's not working and you're never satisfied and it makes you very sad and then you look at some of your behavioral patterns we walked through in week one and you realize that you spend a lot of time on social media, on Instagram, on Facebook, over others of you, on the news and it makes you cynical and it makes you sad and comparing yourself to others makes you even more, I mean, you understand all of this.

You piece together your story, your idolatry, these functional saviors and you understand it and you say, okay, no, no, I'm going to put this away. I'm not going to wear this anymore. Maybe this is, for some of you, this might be unrighteous anger and you have these fits of unrighteous anger or you just stay angry all the time and maybe you identify that for you there's some power idolatry underneath the surface that there's this need for power and that when people at work make jokes at your expense that you see then you get angry and then you can also take a step back and look at your story and realize that, oh, when I was 12, I had brothers who used to flex their power over me. I had friends that used to flex their power over me and I made a decision a long time ago that nobody was ever going to outman, outgun me, that I was going to be the one in power and when you piece all of this together you understand it and you're like, no, this will be put away.

I will aggressively address this. Part of aggressively addressing your sin is knowing what you're up against. It's knowing the bad wardrobe that you have and once you know the bad wardrobe that you're wearing it's got to go. It's got to go like a Abercrombie polo flipped up, flipped up collar or Matt Freeman's goatee that he rocked in college which you can go back on Facebook. It's a bad look. It just is.

It's got to go. It didn't fit anymore. You've got something new that is better. We aggressively approach our sin and then we move into what he gives us in the third step that we get to put on something that is better. Here's the third step. Verse 12.

Put on then. Alright, that same language in the Greek for clothing. Alright, you put off, you put away and now you're putting on, you're replacing the wardrobe. Put on then as God's chosen ones holy and beloved. As God's redeemed people that he chose that he redeemed that he scooped up out of our sin and our brokenness and set us apart and that we get the righteousness of Christ applied to us. He says, put on then as chosen ones holy and beloved.

Here are the things you put on. Compassionate hearts. Kindness. humility. Humility. Meekness. Impatience.

Put these on. The spiritual fruit that comes from pursuing Christ. Put these on. Bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against one another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must, you also must forgive. As you're putting on this fruit that comes from Christ, it's not ultimately just good for you, it's for the good of one another.

It's for the good of your church family, for your brothers and sisters that you might bear with one another better, that you might forgive one another better. It says, put this on and above all, verse 14, put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Love. The love of Christ. It binds, it's the glue that holds us together. It binds us together.

So people ask sometimes when we talk about our elders, the four of us and how we work together, they're just like, man, how do y'all do this? How do y'all work together so well? And I'm like, man, it's a lot of heavy drinking. No. I'm like, no, honestly, it's love. We love one another.

We love one another deeply. We work through stuff. We fight through stuff. We fight for what is good and we argue, but we absolutely love one another. That binds us together. And I see our groups and I fight for this, that love binds them together in their healthy place.

They love one another. We're replacing what is earthly in us with this deep, abiding love of Christ. Verse 15, it says, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. As that, we should aim, we should, we should absolutely pursue that wholeheartedly. For those who feel turmoil in our souls, he says, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. You should pray for this.

You should seek this. One of your regular prayers, if you feel like there's turmoil in your soul because of sin, it should be, Lord, the peace of Christ rule and reign in me. Let your peace just flood over me and be in me and ruling in me. He says, rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly that we would continue as we look up and behold him in his word and prayers. We're looking at our sin and dealing aggressively as we're putting on the righteousness of Christ.

We are letting the word of God dwell in us richly. And then he keeps going. He says, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And y'all, that's what we do here every Sunday. Teaching and admonishing one another. Singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

Listen, part of your sanctification, part of you growing to be more like Christ, part of you changing is this, is being here on a Sunday morning. It's worshiping together. It's sitting on the authority of his word. It's reading scripture together. This matters. I'm thankful that we have really good group attendance week in, week out.

I want us to grow in this. To not just come once every couple weeks. To be here. To be present. To worship. And to sing praises.

And to be molded and shaped by his word. It is important in the process for change. And in 17, he says, And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. That it's all in the name of the Lord Jesus. The power comes from him. Clothing ourselves in righteousness, that comes as a gift from our God.

That he grants us this righteousness. That we get to grow in this as we have the righteous standing of Christ eternally. The fruit of that gets to well up in our lives. We get to display this fruit as we actively replace sinful patterns in our life with something better. Repentance is not just putting off, it is putting on. It's not just turning from things, it's turning to Christ.

That's what we're called to do over and over and over again. The direct application of this is what he said. Meekness, kindness, it's Galatians 5, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. It is this fruit that we put on. Kind of a next application from that is something that I do in counseling. It's called gospel replacement.

Gospel replacement is the idea that attached to sinful behavior, idolatry, attached to some of the sin and functional saviors that's beneath the surface is this these bad confessions, these bad narratives, these bad refrains, this bad liturgy, this negative talk that we cycle through over and over and over again. And we reinforce some of the brokenness within us by saying the same things to ourselves over and over again. And what this does in gospel replacement is it addresses that by replacing it with the gospel. it's similar to there's a therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy. It's one of the more popular therapies out there.

And cognitive behavioral therapy is the idea that if you have a bad behavior or something you want to change you introduce something that is different and good to address it and through every time you have a bad thought you replace that with a good thought that it ultimately changes your behavior that it can rewire synapses in your brain to be able to change behavior. And it's like that I understand that psychologically I understand that through observation but behavior modification doesn't bring about the change that we want. But when you take the gospel and you apply that to some of the deep idols to some of the functional saviors to the sin and broken and you replace some of the bad confessions with good ones then we're doing the work that God has called us to.

Deep Idols and Functional Saviors

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Deep Idols and Functional Saviors

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Excited to be with y'all this morning. Grab your Bibles and go to John chapter 4. We're in the second week of our Soul Care series.

We're going to spend four weeks looking at this idea. Last week we talked through, Spencer talked through, that the primary kind of core of who you are and how you approach life has to do with your view of God and your view of self. That's kind of the center of life and identity. And that our view of God affects our view of self. It's the primary thing that affects our view of self. Who you understand God to be, your understanding of Him or your lack of understanding affects who you are.

And so this view of God and view of self. And then he said there's complex kind of layers around that that we have to kind of understand to know our stories and to walk through this so that we can see who we really are and who God really is so that we might heal, so that we might repent, so that we might walk with Him. We talked a little bit about trying to figure out who you are and your story, and it's not self-discovery for the purpose of self-exaltation, which is what the U.S. is pumping out for you. Figure out who you are and then celebrate that and run with that and that only you can really know you.

It's this understanding our stories in light of who God is so that we might exalt Him and that we might be healed and we might be made right. And so we're going to look at that today, that we're looking kind of at that core element of who God is and how we relate to Him in worship. So we looked at kind of the stuff that gets in the way last week and the stuff that you have to think through. And hopefully as you've been thinking through that, we'll be able to look together today at who we are, who He is, and how we worship. And some of how our worship can go astray and how that affects us. We'll be looking at the concept of idolatry, which is worshiping something other than God.

But we're going to begin in John chapter 4. We're going to see this interpersonal relationship, this interaction between Jesus and this Samaritan woman. And we're going to see how He comes to this one individual person and kind of gets to the core heart level issues. And hopefully it'll help us to do the same. So let's pray, and then we'll start in John 4 together.

God, we pray that we would rightly and fully worship You so that we might be healed, that we might be satisfied, that we might be filled up. Thank You for Your grace. We pray that You'd help us to see this well this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. So we're going to read this story and talk through it a bit together.

It says, Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees, and that's kind of a ruling class of religious elites that were not His fans, when they had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus Himself did not baptize but only His disciples, He left Judea and departed again for Galilee, and He had to pass through Samaria. Okay, so Judea is down here. Galilee is up here. That's kind of His home base. Samaria was in the middle. A lot of times Jewish people would go over to the Jordan River and up so they didn't have to go through Samaria.

He goes straight through Samaria. So He had to pass through Samaria, verse 5. So He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as He was from His journey, because He's fully God and fully man, so He got tired, was sitting beside the well.

It was about the sixth hour. That's noon, middle of the day. It's hot. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

The Samaritan woman said to Him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? Whoa. That's an awkward response to that. Let's keep reading. It says, for Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. So Jesus says, give me a drink.

And she says, why are you talking to me? There's some tension here. The Jewish people didn't like the Samaritans. And so the Samaritans jumped right up and didn't like them back. It's like my sons. He started it and he started it.

And well, I did this because he did that. That's kind of what they were doing. What had happened was when the Jewish people had been taken into captivity, they had left some of the Jewish people there. There was a remnant that stayed in the land and they intermarried. And then when the Jewish people got out of captivity and came back, they weren't a big fan of this intermarriage. There was fist fights and beard pullings and all kinds of stuff.

You can read about it in Ezra and Nehemiah if you'd like. But they basically ran off that group of people and then they kind of grew next to each other and didn't like each other. If you're familiar with Harry Potter, the Jewish people thought the Samaritans were mudbloods. If you're not familiar with Harry Potter, the Jewish people were racist. That's really what they had going for. But the Samaritans were racist back.

And that's what's happening here. That in general, Jewish people didn't have any dealings with Samaritans. So when Jesus asked this question, it's so blatantly obvious that this is odd that she just says, what? A little bit of not a fan of you sitting on my well, but why are you talking to me? Now, I just want to point this out. I don't have much time.

It's not the main point of things. She says, how are you being a Jew? He was obviously Jewish. We know his birth lineage. We have that. He's a line of David all the way down.

But he also looked Jewish. So the next time you hear people arguing about we don't really know what he was and he might have been white or whatever. No, he was Jewish. He was very obviously Jewish. And that's fine. But that's in here.

So just don't do that and help other people when they do. Say, hey, open your Bible. Let's go. And then you get to talk about this next part, which is way better. You can walk through and say, it gets better from here. So anyway, Jesus answered her.

This is verse 10. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. This conversation was off to a rocky start. It gets a little weirder. I mean, Jesus can say stuff like this all he wants and he means it and it's true. But if you just met someone and they said this to you, you'd be a little bit like her because she's going to basically respond with what?

So he says, if you don't know, if you knew the gift of God and you knew who I was, you'd ask me and I'd give you living water. I'd give you flowing water, not well water, but water that lasts forever. Water that continually is refreshed. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father, Jacob?

He gave us the well and drank from it himself as did his sons and his livestock. It's hard to tell how genuine her response is, how coded with she thinks maybe he's messing with her or looking down on her because she says, do you think you're better than Jacob? Like she's, he's our father too, you know, us Samaritans also. And so she just kind of responds with what, what are you talking about? You don't even have a bucket. Where is this coming from?

Verse 13, Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water, the well will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Okay. Jesus is not talking about actual water. That's clear to us.

We know that Jesus talks about spiritual things, but he's not. He's not talking about actual water. That's why she was like, well, where's your bucket? And he just keeps on going. He's not talking about actual water. He's talking about some sort of spiritual water, some sort of eternal life, some sort of spiritual life that he would give those who would come to him.

And we understand this because we know the rest of the story that Jesus goes to the cross, that he dies, that he rises again, and that he offers salvation and hope and eternal life to all who would believe in him. And so he's basically saying, I'm the Christ. If you knew that, you would ask me for life. I'm thirsty right now in small part and need some water to sustain short-term life. But if you really knew who I was, you'd ask me for water and I'd give you eternal life.

So that's what he's setting up. That's the idea he's getting at. He can't just be talking about water because we still all have to drink water, even though we're Christians. For those of us who are Christians, you still have to drink water. You still have to get one of those little big jugs and then it says, get started and then like way to go and I'm proud of you or whatever. And you carry that half a gallon around with you everywhere.

So everybody knows you're super hydrated. We're proud of you. We're proud of you. As proud of your water bottle is of you, we're proud of you too. We still have to do that. So he's not talking about that.

He's talking about spiritual water, but let's see what happens. 15. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Okay, so if you're talking to someone and you're trying to help them see that they need Jesus, this is the moment you want. She says, okay, I'll bite. Give me that water then.

It feels like there's a little bit of a joke. That'd be great. Then I won't have to come back here with my bucket every day. Like some idiot who, you know, lives in this town and has to use this well. I'd love your super water that keeps me never thirsty again. That's what you want because then you go, well, I'm glad you, I'm glad you said that.

And then you get to explain it fully. Like that's the moment he's at. You're building a relationship with your neighbor. You're talking about stuff. You say, well, you know, as a Christian, I believe this. And they go, wait a second.

And then you're like, okay, here we are. I can help them see who Christ is. So he says, verse 16, Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. Not the response I was expecting. And then the woman answered, I have no husband. This has been one of the roughest conversations.

If you were just, you know, in a coffee shop and you were listening to this, you feel uncomfortable. Like it's fair to assume given the lady's age, and we find out a little bit more that helps us fill that in later. But given the lady's age and in this culture, you basically lived at your father's house. Then you got married. Pretty much all women were married. It was, it was, if someone was unmarried at the age she was, it's not like our culture where there was a way to be single and to live fully.

They didn't really have that set up in their culture. So immediately when she says, I have no husband, this is a sad story. We don't know how it's sad. We don't know how she got to this place. But we know that given the age she is, when she answers, I have no husband, it's a sad story.

Now, I do this in conversations. I ask questions and make things awkward. Hey, how's your, how's your boyfriend doing? We broke up. Oh, okay. Well, he was probably the worst anyway.

Hey, how's your dog? He's dead. All right, I'm going to go over here. Sorry, I brought that up. I do that, but Jesus doesn't do that. This isn't an accident.

His response is going to make that very evident in just a second. He did this on purpose. So we have to ask why, but let's see how he responds. He says this. She says, I have no husband. And Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband.

For you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. Okay. So he asked this question on purpose to press on this on purpose. And he did it right when she said, okay, I'll take some of that water you have. He's not talking about real water.

He's talking about worship. He's talking about what you run to to quench your thirst. And so when she says, I'll take that water, he says, let's talk about the real well you've been running to this whole time. Oh. Oh, she's run to this well over and over and over again. He says, the thing that you keep coming back to is not this water well in the center of town.

The thing that you keep coming back to. And that's why he says, go get your husband. She says, I don't have a husband. He says, you're right, you don't. You've had five. The one you have now is not your husband.

That's very uncomfortable, but extremely helpful that Jesus jumps right to the heart level issue. That stands in the way of her actually getting the living water that he has. And we know it's the heart level issue because she says this in verse 20. She says, or 29. Come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?

She immediately responds, I see that you're a prophet. Then she runs into town and says, he told me all that I ever did. So in her reckoning, that's her whole life story. It wasn't just a parlor trick to help her see that he knew things she didn't know. He tapped right into the core heart level. She said, he knows me.

He turned me inside out. Now, I have a feeling. We see Jesus do this in other times as well. It's not the only lady he does this to. He does the same thing to the rich young ruler. Ask a few questions, talk to the rich young ruler, and then he strikes on the exact thing that the rich young ruler has so dug his claws into to give him life and joy and hope and satisfaction.

The rich young ruler doesn't let it go. It seems like this lady does. But I have a feeling that all of us could play this out. We could meet Jesus at a well. We could have this conversation, and he could jump right to the thing, the thing, that you've run to over and over and over and over again and convinced yourself, if I can just have this, I'll be happy. If I can just have this, I'll be full.

Jump right to the heart level issues of worship for us. And this is the central issue of relating to the Lord, is this idea of worship, that we would have him in his right place, and that from him we would derive all that is good, all that is right, that our affection would be for him. This is in Exodus chapter 20, when God gives the Ten Commandments. The first two commandments are, you'll have no other God but me, and then he says, and you'll make no graven images. He doubles down on it. Not only am I the only God, but also you're not going to use anything to represent me.

You're not going to bow down to anything, up in heaven, down on earth, in the water, nothing. It's me and only me. And he says in that, that he's a jealous God. He's jealous for our affection. He's not jealous of us. He's jealous over us, that we're meant to have our hearts only beat fast, only love and cherish him above all else.

I've given this example before, but I think it captures this idea really well. That if I saw my wife, and she was talking to a strikingly handsome young man, and he was making jokes, and she was laughing, and he reached over and touched her elbow, I'd be having problems. I would be jealous, not of her. I wouldn't think, why doesn't that young lad touch my elbow? I'd be jealous over her, because I want her affections for me. I want her to think my jokes are funny, and your jokes are dumb.

I want her to viscerally react, if anyone touches her elbow. I want, like that's what I want. I want affection for me. And so God says, that you're meant to worship and love him, and him alone, and that he's jealous over you, that nothing else can clutter this up. And that we consistently clutter this up. We pick something else that we love, and cherish, and desire more than him.

We pick something else that we convince ourselves, if I could just have that, then I'd be happy. Then I'd be full. Then I'd be complete. So Martin Luther, is a German reformer, and he wrote a large catechism, and in his large catechism, he says this, when he's talking about the Ten Commandments, but he's also talking about idolatry. He says, a God means, that from which we are to expect all good, and to which we are to take refuge in all distress. He says, you want to start defining what a God is?

What do you expect to get good from? What's going to bless your life? What's going to give you hope? And then, he says, okay, what do you run to in distress? What's going to protect you? What's going to keep you safe?

He says this, so that to have a God, is nothing else, than to trust, and to believe him, from the heart. That, now I say, upon which you set your heart, so what you set your heart on, and put your trust in, is properly your God. So he says, we're able to take something, and begin to trust in it, begin to hope in it, begin to set our hearts on it, begin to trust, that it'll protect us, that it'll keep us safe, that it'll give us good, and that when we do that, we're idolaters. We're breaking the first two commandments. So Jesus is having this conversation, with this woman at the well, and he's talking about this idea, of thirst and worship.

And so Jeremiah 3, 11 to 13 says this, this is where Jeremiah's talking, about the same idea, and he's correcting the people of Israel. He says, has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory, for that which does not profit. Be appalled, oh heavens at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people, have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. That's what Jesus says he'd offer, living water, continual, forever, refreshing, satisfying life.

They've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that hold no water. A cistern is the worst way to get water, in an arid place. It's essentially, an above ground pool, or an in ground pool, that catches water, and you drink out of it. You catch rain water, you drink out of it. And you only do that, if you have no other way for water. So if you live next to a flowing river, or a spring of water, and then you drink out of a cistern, and a broken cistern at that, you're dumb.

And it doesn't work well. And that's what Jeremiah says the people of Israel are doing. And that's what Jesus is saying to this lady. Hey, can I talk to you about your broken cistern? Can I talk to you about the thing that you run back to over and over and over again, convincing yourself that this time it'll fill you up? Can you all imagine, before her first wedding, excitement, fear, hope, my life is beginning.

This is what, this will set me up, this is how, and just trying to figure out what that was gonna look like, and then, as it fell apart, we don't know how. And then going into the second one, this one will be better. Now I'll be okay again. And then going into the third one, and then going into the fourth one, going into the fifth one, how much was she continuing to hope? How much was she doubtful? How much was she wrestling with herself?

How much was she saying, this will be the right one? Till finally, when Jesus talks to her, she's had five husbands, and the guy she's with now, and her husband. It's gotten worse, and she's still going back. It's a broken cistern. That's why when she says, okay, give me this water, he says, okay, we gotta talk about where you've been getting water. That's, that's us.

That our primary issues, are worship issues, before they're anything else. That we've convinced ourselves, that something else will fill us up, make us happy, give us joy. So what I'm gonna do for the next little bit, is just try to help you identify, if you have somewhere, that you've begun to believe, that something's better than Jesus. And the reason I wanna help you do that, is because you're wrong. I don't know if you saw our colorful blue slide, Jesus is better than everything else. We want Jesus for you.

He wants Jesus for you. He's jealous for your affection, not just because he loves you, but because that's what's best for you. I have two sons. If one of them says, you're not my daddy, I'm not gonna hug you. You know what I do? Pick them up, and hug them.

Say, I am your daddy. When you get bigger, this will be harder. But you do love me, because the reality is, their life is better, if they have a good relationship with me. I love them, I desire them, but it's also good for them, and God in his goodness, wants what's best for you, which is him, because he's the best. And it would be silly, for him to point you to anything else, other to himself, and not only silly, but wrong, and harmful, for God to look at you, and go, you know what's really good? Money.

Because he'd be selling you short, on what's best, which is himself. So he wants himself for you, he actually is better, that's why Jesus says, if you knew who you were talking to, you'd ask me. So I want to help us, try to identify, give us some tools for this, some questions to ask, some things to look for, so that we can see, if we're doing this, because the reality is, even if you've placed your faith in Jesus, you can still functionally, run after other things. There are times, where Christians are very upset, and they're like, well Jesus is letting me down, and the reality is, you hadn't been running to him, for your joy, and your hope, and satisfaction.

You've been running, to something else, and hopefully, God in his grace, will let that fail miserably, so that you'll go somewhere, where you can actually, get some water. Let's talk a second, about the idea, of a functional savior. That you look at something, and say to it, you're going to make me whole. You're going to give me life. That this is the thing, that will get me to heaven. That's what a savior does.

A savior fixes your problems, gets you to heaven, so you look at a functional savior, it's something that promises, to fix you. I had a friend, who was a co-worker, and he was doing online dating, and every time, he would start interacting, and just chatting, some via text, or whatever, with some girl, he would get so excited, disproportionately excited. And it wasn't just, that it was nice for him, to have someone, he might go on a date with, it was what that person represent. They were going to save him. They were going to fix his life, and then, a week later, when they had quit talking, he would be despondent, he was broken, disproportionately broken.

It's like, you didn't even know this person, a week ago. But it was because they represented, they were a functional savior. They were making God level promises, and the reality is, there are things around you, in your life, that are making God level promises, to you. I'll fix you. I'll give you a future. I'll give you life.

I'll give you an identity. I'll give you hope. I'll give you joy. I'll give you satisfaction. If you could just have me, you'd be full. I'm never going to fail you.

I'm never going to give you up. I'm never going to let you down. I'm never going to run around, and desert you. But there's things that tell us nonsense, and we believe it. That we're willing to believe these lies, and so we trust them. And the reality is, usually these are pretty good things.

Relationships. Your children, you say, if my kids just turn out all right, I'll be okay. Then I'll know I'm okay. Then I'll know I'm fine. If I can just have a relationship, if I can just have someone who loves me, if I can just have a marriage, if I can just get out of this marriage and get to another one, if I can, my job, if I can just be paid enough, if I can just have a good enough Job. We just pick things that consistently, we tell ourselves, if I can have that, then I'll be okay.

Then I'll be complete. Then I'll be full. And it's a lie, because they can't provide it. That's a functional savior. The next thing I want to talk to you about is deep idols. Because functional saviors often just work to get you the thing you really want.

But you may have a functional savior and it's actually just showing you what you truly desire, what you're pursuing. So this is just the best tool you have at hand to get you there. I'm going to explain this and help you see this. We got this concept from Tim Keller. He's a pastor in New York. It's a concept.

It's not from the scriptures. It's just to help you. He says there's four deep idols. You could say there's six. You could say there's three. Fine.

The concept is helpful. So I'm going to show you these are the four that he lays out. He says comfort, control, approval, and power. So let me give you an example. And sometimes you have to work from one to the other. So you might say, I just love money.

That's my functional savior. That's good. We're on the right track. But the reality is you don't love money. You love what money offers you. You love what money promises you.

Nobody just loves money. None of you have Monopoly money in your pocket because it doesn't promise you anything. It does when you're playing Monopoly. So you care immensely about it for seven hours until someone flips over the table and ruins Christmas at grandma's. But all of us, when someone says, would you like a million dollars?

The answer is yes, please. Sounds great. But the reasons why we would want that are very, very different. So we're just going to run through this, try to help you understand how you could use money to chase after the thing you really want because money is just a really easy one to give examples. So comfort.

You believe the primary goal in life and what makes life good is being at ease, not having things bother you, being comfortable. Well, money is excellent for this, you guys. If you have enough money, things don't bother you. They don't get to you. You don't have to stress about stuff. You can have a nice couch and a big TV.

You can pay people to deliver you your food, cook it for you, bring it to you. You get rich enough, I think they'll cut it up and stick it in your mouth. But none of us are at that level. But maybe your primary amount of money goes to KFC and McDonald's and a couch and Netflix and that's the good life. It's just living comfortably. So your money just goes to that.

And if you got more money, that's where you'd want it to go. Control. Money's a good way to have control. You get enough money, you can help get political candidates in, you can help get things passed through, you can be in control of your circumstances, you can get arrested, it's not that big a deal. Most of us aren't there, but if you have enough, some of you, you just, a certain amount of money in the bank account lets me know I'm okay. I don't have to worry about the future.

You can get a flat tire. I saw somebody who was paying for, I was doing the premarital counseling, they're not a part of our church, they live somewhere else, but I was doing their premarital counseling and the mother-in-law, the mother of the bride, sorry, it would be mother-in-law to me, but that just depends on who you are. The mother of the bride was paying for most of the wedding, but because she was paying for most of the wedding, she was dictating how everything played out in the wedding. And then this carried on into newlywed life because she was helped a lot. She paid for a car, she paid for this.

Eventually, this couple had to say, look, we don't want your money because we don't want you to be in charge of our relationship. And we want to have a good relationship with you. And this is messing it all up. But the money all had strings attached. It's just a good way to be in control. Approval.

Get the nicest car. Nicest shoes. Nicest clothes. You can be the person who orders cheese dip for the table. That's a good way to get people to smile at you. You can be the person who covers costs for other people.

You can be the grandma who gives the best gifts. That's all generosity in some ways, but in other ways, it's just I want people to love me and this is one of the best ways I've found. Money lets me do that. It gives me approval. Power. I read recently that there was a billionaire who was building a house and he paid $16,000 in parking tickets.

Some of you are very glad. You don't think he pays enough taxes. That goes to the city. You're welcome. No? No?

All right. Paid $16,000 in parking tickets because he could park wherever he wanted. $16,000 isn't that much to him. I can't pay $16,000 in parking tickets. If I was going to get $16,000 in parking tickets, I wouldn't because I would park somewhere else. But he did that because it's just, it's a good way to be powerful.

You can be in charge of, in some ways, of who gets elected, of what gets pushed through. You can, you can, I mean, this shows up in other ways that you can try to be, have exert power. You could try to be the person who gave the most money to your local church and that way you get to help make decisions. I don't know if it worked. Give it a shot. Some of you don't have that kind of money, but you're arguing about where you're going to eat lunch and you say, I tell you what, come to the place I want to come.

I'll pay for you. It's $10 and power. But see, you can use money to get this. You could use other things. This is where it gets really scary. Some of you immediately are like, okay, I know, I know what my, my functional savior is.

This is the thing I've gone to over and over again. This is the thing I've run to over and over again to tell me I'll be okay. And some of you go, I don't know if I have one. But the reality is you can swap out functional saviors to chase after the thing you really want. That's where it gets scary. Let's say, somebody's going through high school, they really love power.

Best way in high school to have power is to lift weights and be good at sports. So they do that. They get to college and they're not as good at sports anymore because the other people are gooder at them. And so they realize the best way to get power is not to lift weights and to do sports. In the first couple years of college, they think the best way to be in power and have powerful positions is to chase girls and drink. Then they get to the back half of their college career and they think, this won't last very much longer.

So they start really studying. Mom's super happy they've turned their life around. Start really studying, working really hard, go get a good job. Maybe at some point they find religion. Because one of the best ways to be powerful is to be the only person who has the right answers to things. Now if you watch their life, we'd say, hey, they've gotten better.

The reality is they've been worshiping at the same altar their entire life. They've just found different things to get them there. This is the Pharisees. This is why Jesus had so much trouble with them. They consistently were very well-behaved people and their hearts were far from Him because what they loved was not the Lord but something else. This is one of the reasons why we consistently talk about heart level issues because the reality is you can be in a community group with someone who's walking blatantly into obvious sin and their heart is chasing after Jesus.

They keep failing. They keep repenting. And you sit over there with a heart that is stone cold towards Christ very well-behaved. And what you primarily love is how well-behaved you are and how people look up to you and you do not love Jesus. And that's terrifying. So we need to understand what are our functional saviors?

What are the things that we'd be chasing after? We need to be able to have some questions that help us see this. I'm going to give you a few questions as we finish this up. What is making God-level promises to you? What's telling you it will give you the good life? What's promising you a hope and a future and joy in life?

What do you turn to when you're stressed or scared? What do you run to when everything's hard and difficult to make yourself feel okay again or to feel safe? What do you believe the thing that you that's giving you God-level promises what do you believe it's going to provide for you? What do you hope it will give you? What do you if some of you say well this is the thing I'm chasing after it's like well what do you want it to give you? What do you think it's going to provide?

Some of you say this is the thing that I want it's like well what are you using to get there? What are you willing to sin to have? What are you willing to sin to keep? It's one of the best ways to discover what it is you really worship because when Jesus says don't do this and the thing you worship says in order to have me you're going to have to do that and you do it you love that thing more than Jesus and that's part of the reason why sin is such a problem it's not just that it's rules that you broke it's that every time it betrays the fact that you love something more than Jesus he does not have your affection and so if you consistently sin to have something or to keep something you have declared that it is your God and you are willing to serve it now Jesus says if you knew who he was you'd ask him and he'd fill you up he'd satisfy you let me tell you something we have longings and cravings and desires and empty spots in our souls look up quit running from thing to thing on earth quit getting your face down in a broken cistern over and over again that will not help you run to Jesus and tell him you promised to satisfy me satisfy me not in him I mean not in something else but in him not saying you said you'd satisfy me so give me the relationship I want I need you Jesus because you're big to serve my idol that's not how it works I need you Jesus because you're big to destroy my idol and fill me up with you that's the hope that we'd see what we worship so that we could worship something better Matt's gonna come up we're gonna sit for a moment and consider this I would beg you to ask the Holy Spirit to help you see this to see for a second just as the Holy Spirit through the power of Christ was sitting there and he was able to point right to the thing that they had run to over and over again that you might have this same thing happen in your soul and that you would not run from it as soon as the Holy Spirit starts pressing on those things one of our favorite things to do is to just shut that down and get away because we don't want to have to go through the pain it takes to be set free from something but I will promise you that Jesus is better so let's take a moment and to consider what is it that's making God's eyes promises to me what is it I believe it'll provide for me what am I willing to send to have and by God's grace may we go to him and say I need you I need you more than I need this I need you to forgive me I need you to give me a hope I need you to give me satisfaction I need you to forgive me and to fill me up let's pray God we ask right now that your Holy Spirit would be at work in this room for freedom and for life Lord that your Holy Spirit be at work to help us to see our sin and our false idols that are mute and deaf and helpless to save us and helpless to satisfy us and helpless to fix us and Lord we pray that by the power of your Spirit through the work of Christ that you would redeem and that you would forgive and that you would move to lead people to satisfaction and to salvation in you the fountain of living water in Jesus name Amen Amen Amen Amen

Soul Care and Story

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

Soul Care and Story

Spencer Cary

Transcript

So we have four pastors, we have four, we use elders as well as one of the biblical words that we use for the men who oversee this church. We had an elder retreat this week, we got to go away for a few days, pray, plan, and then come back. And it's reminding me of the things that we oversee and that actually be helpful for you to know who our different elders are and what they oversee. We have four elders who oversee four different sets of areas. Raz Bradley is one of our elders, he's the one with the Australian accent. He oversees basically everything hospitality.

So that's Connect, that's Events, that's our host team on Sunday mornings. Chet Phillips is one of our elders, he oversees community groups and basically anything that has to do with operations, executive leadership, all the things that kind of make our week go well. Matt Freeman, who was just leading worship, he oversees worship, basically anything that happens in this room on a Sunday morning. And he also oversees communications. And then I oversee teaching is one of the things that I oversee. I oversee missions, so our efforts with the connection with the Rockies in Honduras and our connections in Egypt.

I oversee spiritual formation, which is kind of our attempt to grow in knowing more of Christ together. It's some of the things we're doing like training weekend. And then I also oversee counseling and care. So that's one of the things that I oversee. And in counseling and care, I get to have a front row seat to watching Jesus heal people. And it is awesome.

I love being involved with and overseeing counseling and care. I get to see people that are struggling. I get to walk with someone who has been wrestling with pornography for over a decade. And they are feeling hopeless. And as we walk together, I get to see Jesus start to change their affections, that they would no longer be enslaved to sin, but they would behold Christ so much in His glory and His goodness that they would say, no, I don't want this anymore. I get to have a front row seat to watching Jesus heal people.

And it's incredible. I love it. I also have a front row seat to seeing people who are in pain, to seeing people who are struggling, to see people who are wrestling with sin and brokenness. I mean, there is a reason, y'all. Well, there are a thousand different ways to distract yourselves, right? You can distract yourself from reality on a thousand different ways.

Our culture offers so many things to escape reality. There's a reason why there's so many different substances that you can enjoy that will numb the pain of life. Because life is hard. It is incredibly difficult. And when I talk to people, they're in the midst of a sea of emotion and frustration and pain. Because they have sin and brokenness that they're struggling with.

And they can't pinpoint why. Sometimes it's anxiety. They're so overwhelmed with anxiety they can't begin to even pinpoint what causes it, what deepens it. Sometimes it's depression. And those who struggle with depression, even gathering the energy to begin to articulate how they feel when they are depressed is hard enough. Sometimes it's addiction to substances, to pornography, and the shame that comes with addiction.

Sometimes it's a cycle of cruel communication, an inability to resolve conflict in marriage that leaves couples at the end of their rope. There are a lot of different reasons for why I meet with people in our church family. But there's one common thread that you can stream throughout each of them. It's that there largely is an inability to understand our current struggles in light of our bigger story. It's a difficulty in understanding our sin and our brokenness in light of our story. So we are doing a four-week series where we're introducing this idea of soul care.

And in this week, what we're going to tackle is understanding our brokenness and our sin in light of our story. Soul care is exactly what it sounds like. It is caring for your soul and addressing the sin and brokenness that is within us. That is what we're going to be doing over the next four weeks. But it's very difficult to do this if we don't have a bigger picture on what's going on.

And we don't have a zoomed out picture of what's going on in our soul. So that's what we're going to do this morning. We talk a lot about the heart and we will get to that a little bit this morning. But more next week. But largely what we want to tackle is zooming out and understanding ourselves in light of our greater story.

We're going to be a little bit in Psalm 139 and different places of Psalm 139 today. As we see a Psalm that David wrote that kind of is this heart exposure before the Lord. And my hope for today and the next four weeks is that we would take steps towards healing. That we would see that we have a good shepherd in Christ who wants to lead us to joy in Him. That's the hope this morning. So let me pray.

And then we'll jump in. Lord, we love You. And I thank You that You care for our souls. That You care about all the sin and brokenness that we brought into this room this morning. God, I pray You'd help us understand this better this week and over the next four weeks. We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Alright, so. We're going to get to our bigger story in a moment. But I want to lay some foundations for soul care as we begin. At the core of understanding how to care for your soul is understanding our heart. Alright?

The Bible talks about this. This is key to understanding how to care for your soul. It's understanding the heart. Now that is not the physical, literal organ of your heart. Okay? It's not what our culture reduces the heart down to, which is mostly just love and emotions.

It's deeper than that. A biblical understanding of heart is your inner self. It is the core of who we are. The early church father, Basil of Caesarea, is quoted as saying that the heart is the internal court of the soul. The internal courtroom of the soul. The seat of judgment in your soul.

It is where you determine what is right and what is wrong. It is where you determine what is good from bad. It's where you determine what is beautiful and worth your pursuit. And what is ugly and worth your disdain. Your heart is the core of who you are. So if our souls are our immaterial self, right?

So we have a body, but we also have a soul. If our souls are our immaterial selves that exist for eternity, your soul, if you have placed faith in Jesus, will one day be united with Him in heaven for eternal fellowship. And if you have rejected Christ, it will be suffered judgment in hell. If our souls are our immaterial selves, our heart is at the center of our souls. It is the judgment seat. It is what directs us ultimately towards worship.

Our hearts direct us towards what we will worship, what we ultimately find to be good. So that's at the center of soul care is our heart. The central aspect is understanding what's happening in our hearts. Psalm 139 is bookended by this. If you read the whole, which we won't read all of Psalm 139 today, I'd encourage you to read it when you go home today. But it starts with this and it ends with this idea.

In verse 1 it says, O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar. Search me, verse 23, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any grievous way in me.

And lead me in the way of everlasting. David is saying, You know me. You know my heart. Down to the core of who I am. You know when I sit up, when I get down. You know my thoughts.

You know my heart. Search me. Expose me. Help me see the grievous ways in the inner court of my soul. Help me understand what's happening in here. He wants to know God and behold God for who He is.

But He also wants to know Himself. To understand what's happening within His soul. John Calvin at the beginning of the Institutes of Christian Religion says that wisdom, true wisdom, consists in two things. Knowledge of God and knowledge of self. That we would know God. And hear this.

Not just know about God. Alright? Not just know things. We'd actually know Him personally. And as we know God and behold Him, we'd see ourselves for who we are. In light of who God is.

That we know our true selves in light of God. Over the past few years, I've been battling some chronic back pain and back issues. And a few months back, I went to a rheumatologist. And when I met with a rheumatologist, he has a theory on what type of possible degenerative back disease it might be. He said, you know, you'll know this more. It'll set in more about the time that you're 40.

But what we can do is send you for an MRI so we can see what's happening in your spine to see if the disease has begun its work. So he said, but I don't want you to just go anywhere. He said, I want you to go to a machine called a 3T machine. And I was like, awesome. Where are they? He's like, there's not many of them.

There's a few in the state. Alright? But you're going to have to track one down. You need to get an MRI from this machine because this machine is so powerful, it's going to give you the most accurate picture of what's happening in your spine. And that's what the Lord does for us. That as we're exposed to who God is and all of His power and all of His infinite knowledge and His infinite wisdom, as we're exposed to God, He gives us an accurate picture of the brokenness and the disease of sin that's happening in our soul.

The psalmist is saying, David says, verse 4, even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay Your hand upon me. He said, You know, You're behind me, You're before me, You know all of this, Lord. Reveal what is broken within me. Thomas Merton, who's a Catholic monk in the 20th century, He said once, What can we gain, What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? He said, What can you gain by accomplishing all these things, by going to the moon?

If you can't actually cross the abyss, to actually know yourself, to know what's happening within you, we desperately need the Lord to help us cross that abyss, to help us know ourselves. Now, we make very clear what I'm not arguing out the gate as we walk through this. I am not saying that what the psalmist is saying here, what David is saying here, I'm not saying that he's advocating that we would know ourselves, search me, so that I can be the best version of me possible. That's not what he's arguing for. This isn't self-discovery for the sake of worshipping self. Much of the self-help movement, self-love movement, maybe you've heard self-care described on Facebook, much of the philosophical underlining of those movements is post-enlightenment, meaning after the enlightenment, we focused on ourselves.

We rejected God and we said, look at humanity, look how great we are. Much of that is, look and focus on yourself so that you can be a better version of yourself. And it's like, no, that's not what the psalmist, the Bible is not arguing for you to focus on yourself. John Calvin is not saying that true wisdom is self-knowledge for the sake of self-worship. It's not for you to focus on yourself. The goal here is to focus on God and as we focus on God, He reveals what's within us so that we might rightly worship Him.

So that is the goal of knowing ourselves. Alright, so, if you've been following Jesus for a bit, many of you know some of your sin and your brokenness and even your idolatry. Right? I know, I know the sin and brokenness. You don't have to tell me that I have a porn addiction. You don't have to tell me that I struggle with anger.

You don't have to tell me that I'm in the middle of anxiety or depression. I don't need a four-week series to tell me what I already know. What I want to explore is not what type of brokenness that you have, though I hope the Lord reveals some of the what. My hope is, is He reveals why. That's what we're getting at. That's the more complicated answer that we're searching for.

Is that we would expose our hearts before the Lord. We would, God would reveal what's happening in the inner court of our soul. But the reality is, is that it's, it's not the what sometimes that we need help with. It's the, it's the why. And part of that is not just examining our heart, but examining really some complex layers around the heart that involve our story. That involve kind of who we are in light of who God is.

Verse 3 says, You search out my path and my lying down and you are acquainted with all my ways. He says, God, you know all my ways. My question for us is do we? Are we acquainted with our ways? Are we acquainted with our story? That's what we're aiming for.

I was, a few months back, I was talking with, with an individual walking through some stuff. He gave me permission to share this, though I'm not going to share his name. And we're working through some of his, some of his sin and brokenness that he's trying to figure out. And we started to work through some of his story. And as we're working through his story, he started to, to talk a little bit about his upbringing. He talked about his stepdad.

And I was talking about his stepdad. He was, he was learning, we were talking about how, how some of the things he'd learned, some of the patterns that his stepdad modeled for him. And then over the next few months he started to make some connections. Some of the ways he operates as a husband and as a father can be traced back to his relationship with his stepdad. Some of the things that his stepdad did or didn't do. And when he started to make some of those connections, it colored in the picture and it gave him more of a why to help him understand the heart issues that we're within.

That's the kind of stuff that we're going for. That's the kind of stuff that we're asking God to reveal in us. We need to see this kind of stuff. And guys, I see some version of that story over and over and over again in counseling and care. We just, we don't know ourselves well enough. We don't understand these complex layers of our story and how that affects our heart and how that affects how we operate, how it affects how we view God, how we view ourselves in light of who God is.

We have an inability to understand our stories. So, I want to introduce you to something that I use in counseling. This is my attempt at showing how we get to the heart. And it's going to show up on the screen hopefully there. All right.

So, I know, first off, a couple things. I know you can't read that. All right. Also, I made this. This is my, this is my graphic that I use for counseling. So, if you look at that and go, oh, that needs some love in graphic design and you're gifted in graphic design, come see me because I really want this to look better and it would be helpful to have something that is easier to explain.

But I got a zoomed in version a little bit that you can see which is even more beautiful. But I have, what I'm trying to articulate and show here is that at the core of who we are is our heart. It's what I was just talking about. It's our view of God and our view of self in light of who God is. That's the core of who we are. Now, if you could just pinpoint what the problem is at your heart level, solve it and move on, then, I mean, we'd all be okay.

But the reality is we have these complex layers that surround us in our story. And as I work through this, there's different aspects of who we are and how God has made us in different parts of our story. There's a physical layer that we walk through, a mental layer, there's personality type, there's a behavioral layer, there's some family history, there's some relational history, there's some spiritual warfare that we work through. I work through these different layers not in any order. That when I meet with people, I'm not saying, all right, we're going to do this next, we're going to do this next, all right?

Also, there are other people that could parse this out differently, right? You could break this out into finer subjects, you could hit different layers of who we are. This is just what I use as to help us see that our stories are complicated, how we tick in light of who God is is complicated. So what I want to do this story, this morning, is walk through some of these layers to help us see how complicated we are and how this actually helps us understand our heart in light of who God is first. So, let me go through this first layer, you can pull it down, Brandon, and go to the first layer that we're going to talk about.

That is the physical layer. It's the physical layer. The reality is is that our souls reside in physical bodies. And you need to understand that your physical body can affect your view of yourself and your view of God. We're not just disembodied souls. We have bodies.

And I remember years ago, my wife and I, we moved to Louisville, Kentucky for seminary. We moved up there. I thought that we were going to church plant in Boston. And we spent one summer or one winter in Louisville and that totally killed that. Louisville is about six hours south of Canada. It is colder up there.

There is less light up there. The winters are darker. And we've come to find that my wife suffers from seasonal affect depression. And during the winter time, there is less sunlight. And when you have less sunlight, that can affect you. There's less vitamin D that you actually get.

And some people struggle with this with vitamin D deficiencies. And seasonal affect is somewhat connected to that. That's a physical reality. Unless you understand that, unless you know yourself, you might not realize that that's a part of your reality. One of the things that I see often is that people who are prone to anxiety, they have this persistent struggle with anxiety. One of the things that makes that so much worse, that it's like gasoline on fire, is caffeine.

It's coffee. And I tell people who struggle with anxiety that this is a daily battle. You probably should stop drinking coffee. Alright? You probably should stop drinking caffeine. And I'm dead serious about it.

I mean, the reality is it's gasoline on fire. For someone who struggles with anxiety and their thoughts are racing and racing and racing, you put caffeine on that, it amps it up even worse. And people who have stopped drinking coffee, who struggle with anxiety have gotten some freedom. It doesn't solve the problem. But it's a part of the reality.

So if you drink lots of coffee and you're prone to anxiety, you should start cutting back immediately. I mean, listen, I know, we're addicted, it's a drug, alright? I'm with you. But the reality is you've got to know yourself well enough to know that this is not good for your body. You've got to know that if you struggle with depression that actually working out is good for you, that exercising is good for you, that it releases endorphins into your body, if you struggle with depression, you need to start walking, you need to start running, you need to start doing things that are good for you. I mean, you should probably, if you're struggling, one of the things, I had a counseling pastor who said this, he said, one of the things I do with people when I meet with them, is sometimes I just go and tell them, you need to go get a physical.

You need to go see a doctor and let them test levels complete picture of who you are. We've got to understand that our bodies matter and we've got to have help with this. One of the things that Matt Freeman and I hold each other accountable to is that he knows I've got back problems and one of the ways to help treat that is exercise and stretching, so he holds me accountable and asks me about this on a regular basis and one of the things that I know about him is he has an unhealthy relationship with food historically and he's just said, hey, listen, hold me accountable on this, that I might have a right reproach to food and exercise. We do this with one another because we care about this, we understand this, we need this.

We have physical bodies and that's a part of understanding who you are and how God has made you in a fallen world. Alright, the next layer that I walk through sometimes is the mental layer. It's the mental layer. Now, this is probably one of the more debated layers out there, right, is mental health. I have been thankful that our culture and the American church has grown in awareness of mental health. Two decades ago, it was a taboo subject, even before that, even more so.

We didn't talk about these things. People ask, do mental disorders affect your view of God and view of self? Does it affect you? Are they real? And I would say absolutely yes. Absolutely.

There are things about the brain that are complex. There absolutely are mental disorders. Now, what happens is that culture and the church are a pendulum swing. This is what happens. Martin Luther says the church is like a drunk man on a horse. He's on one side and he gets up and he falls off onto the other.

This is what we do. So there's been this huge pendulum swing towards mental health and this celebration of mental health in a way that has been unhealthy at times. It says it's an immovable, unremovable label that you can't get rid of, that it defines exactly who you are. There are people that get really excited about the DSM-5, the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual for Mental Disorders. It's basically the Bible for psychology. They're like, yes, the DSM, absolutely.

And it's like, well, no, take it with a grain of salt. There are helpful disorders, between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, that absolutely are helpful to know. The DSM has a whole lot of terrible stuff in it too. I mean, if you really love the DSM, you need to know something. The DSM is made for insurance companies. It is made so insurance companies can have billing codes for disorders that they can cover.

It is not inerrant, not even close. So there's been this pendulum swing towards absolutely embracing and celebrating mental health. And it's like, no, we need to have some sobriety and some wisdom in how we approach this. Right? We need godly doctors and nurse practitioners and psychiatrists who can help. I mean, because the reality is that medicine can be incredibly helpful sometimes.

For people who take SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, Paxil, Zoloft, take certain drugs, it can be very helpful. It can actually help with the physical side of depression and anxiety. But a lot of times, these scripts are thrown out without thinking about it. I mean, it's very easy to get that stuff and it's very hard to manage it. If you talk to neuroscientists who approach this, the ones who have the most humble approach understand we don't exactly know how all these drugs work. It is a very complicated science.

So we need to have a sober approach to this, a humbling approach to this, and we need godly men and women in this field to be able to help navigate this. The last thing I'll say on the mental layer, I don't have a whole lot of time to spend on this, but there is a reality also in the mental layer that we have patterns of thoughts that absolutely can set us up for success or failure. Right? I would encourage you that if you want to understand how the way you think and the way you approach things can affect your reality, I would encourage you to go back and listen to the sermon from two weeks ago.

It was a sermon in Proverbs that Chet Phillips did. I think he did an unbelievable Job in helping explain how our attitude and our approach and our thought patterns help inform how we operate. And that's a part of this that sometimes I walk through as well. The next layer that I walk through in counseling sometimes is personality type. It's your personality type, how you were made. You were made differently.

There's something about you that's different from others. Psalm 139 says, 13 and 14 says, For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well.

I'm so thankful for passages like this. I mean, one of the ways this passage is helpful is it helps us see that God cares about the unborn, that in the womb he's knitting children together who have souls. I'm thankful for that aspect for us that helps us fight for the unborn. But one of the things that we miss in this is that God has made us fearfully and wonderfully made us and that we're uniquely designed in this image. We all reflect a different aspect of the image of God beautifully. And that means that we have different personalities.

So I encourage taking personality type tests, right? Those of you that are into Enneagram, Enneagram, Disc, Myers-Briggs, I think those things can be incredibly helpful. You can also go up the deep end, right? Like you can get on BuzzFeed or Facebook and figure out what character of friends you would be or what house of Hogwarts you'd be or if your spirit animal is a bear or a beaver and it's like, nah, like that, that's just weird. You should slow your roll a little bit. But the reality is that knowing your personality type is helpful.

I personally use Enneagram because Enneagram is a helpful kind of gauge on certain personalities. Now the caveat I give, because I know some of you are very excited about Enneagram, is that Enneagram is not inerrant, okay? In fact, Enneagram is based in some really weird mystic, like Kabbalah religion, weird stuff, like some psychology. A psychologist from the 90s grabbed a hold of it and made a test, all right? So those of you that get really excited about Enneagram, breathe, okay?

You're not defined by your number. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, that's okay too, all right? But the reality is that you need to know, here's why it's important for you to know your personality. It is important for you to know your personality and how you relate to other people. If you don't know yourself, you're not going to know how you relate to others. One of the things that I see over and over again is you might have a couple that's, the husband's introverted or the wife is extroverted or vice versa.

And when they get married, one is like all up in the other's business. And she's, you know, she's looking, I mean, she's fueled by other people and she wants to, you know, she's hanging out with her husband and wants to hang out with him. And he's like, I need some space. Like, I'm introverted. I need some time to myself because I'm not fueled by people. And all of a sudden, you've like, you've got some people who are upset with one another.

And it's like, you've got to know yourself. You know, you're designed a little bit differently. These things are helpful in knowing yourself and how God made you. To know yourself in life, who God is. Another thing that I walk through is the behavioral layer. I walk through behavioral layer with people.

This means that you have certain patterns of behavior that affect you in a way, affect your heart in ways you don't even begin to realize. How you act matters. I was listening to a counseling pastor once. And he was talking about a guy who he was meeting with. And this guy came in and he was having, he came in because he was struggling with sleeping. So he got really anxious right before bed and he couldn't go to sleep.

So he met with this guy for weeks and weeks trying to figure out. They're walking through his heart issues. They're walking through idolatry. They're trying to work through all this stuff. And then finally, weeks later, he just said, hey, what do you do right before you go to sleep? He said, well, actually, I like to watch scary movies.

And I watch scary and horror movies right before bed. And he said he felt so embarrassed because he's like, well, don't. You should stop and come see me any week. And shocker, he found better sleep when he stopped watching horror movies right before he went to sleep. And he was embarrassed because he's like, we should have, this should have been something that came up sooner. Right?

But that happens. We have these behavioral patterns that affect us in ways we don't realize. Some of you are tired and groggy and life feels hazy. But you stay up late every night playing video games or scrolling through your phone. And you're wondering why life is so difficult. Some of you struggle with anxiety and depression and discontentment.

And you just are so, you hate yourself. You constantly are saying, I hate myself. And you're preparing yourself to others. And then if I said, give me your phone. Let me see your screen time usage. Some of you would have hours on Instagram and Facebook.

And the reality is, is those places can be toxic if you compare yourself to others. Because everyone puts their best version of themselves on Facebook and Instagram. Their life is awesome. And I look at myself and my life and it's awful. And it's like, you should stop. You should cut this out of your life.

There is a distinct difference, y'all, between taking a book, a good book, going outside in the sunlight and reading. As opposed to being under your covers, scrolling through Twitter, just getting angry about our culture and angry at people. There's a difference there. And if you don't understand your behavioral patterns, if you don't understand how those affect you, you can't actually get to the heart and understand what's happening there. A lot of times it becomes very difficult. So behavioral patterns matter.

Also, your relational history matters. This is very much part of your story. Not just a romantic relationship, but this is friendships. This is relationships with coworkers. This also is romantic relationships. Some of you have a very difficult time opening up in group and trusting people.

And if you go back and you look at your friendships from the past, you might find some situations. Maybe you were in a church or a youth group or whatever in one time and you shared some stuff and it came back to bite you. You open up some people and it came back to, it got exposed and you felt embarrassed. That happened a decade ago. There might be a connection between your relational history, what's happened in the past, and why you have a difficult time trusting people now. Maybe there are some people that walk away from Jesus and it's actually become a kind of a popular thing to do now.

It's called deconstructing, which is so dumb. It happens on Instagram and people have to take a picture of themselves out in the mountains and say, I'm deconstructing. It's just like, oh gosh. Now the reason why Instagram's the worst. But when you hear their stories, a lot of times what they'll say is that some pastor or some ministry wrecked them and now they're walking away from Jesus and it breaks my heart because you put your faith in the wrong person.

Don't put your faith in a pastor. Put your faith in a ministry. Put your faith in a perfect savior. But the reality, that happens, y'all. And if you don't recognize that, if you don't recognize that your approach to church, to the people of God, to even to God, is affected by churches and pastors and ministries and Christians that have hurt you in the past, you won't actually understand yourself in light of who God is. Some of you struggle from relationship to relationship because you don't actually want to trust someone that you're dating.

But if you look in your past, you may have had someone that cheated on you, someone that lied to you, someone that hurt you in your past. And it affects your approach to dating and your approach to marriage. You have to know yourself. You have to know yourself in light of who God is. And a big one that shows up all the time is family history. When I counsel and care for people, one of the things that shows up the majority of the time is family history.

I mean, it shows up over and over and over again. The first 20 years of someone's life are absolutely foundational. And as a parent, it is sobering to realize how much of an effect you can have on your child. It took me until I was 30 to realize that some of the sin and idolatry and brokenness within me is traced back to the fact that I have a complicated relationship with my dad and my stepdad in between the two of them. And listen, I had a great childhood. I love all three of my parents.

But I came from a family of divorce and there were things that came out of that and there were experiences that came out of that. And when I was 30, it just hit me and I was like, oh man, I've got daddy issues. I never thought I'd ever realize this. But it matters to actually realize that's a part of your story. For those of you that had fathers that hurt you, for those of you that had fathers that weren't present or your father wasn't even a part of the picture. You don't think that affects your view of God as father?

There's an absolute connection there that happens over and over and over again. You have family members that hurt you, brothers or sisters or mothers that hurt you. You don't think that affects your approach to church, family, and the language that we use over and over again? This shows up time and time again. The way that we view God often is affected by the way we were raised, which as fathers should humble us immensely. You don't think that for those of you that struggle with approval, that struggle with striving to prove yourself, whether it's at work or in life that I'm struggling to prove myself.

I want to be, I want to be, I want accolades. I want recognition. I want satisfaction. A lot of times that can be connected to the way that you were raised. You grew up in a house where you had to have straight A's, or you had to be this, you had to be that. A lot of times it's not even, I mean, you have really good parents and that makes one or two comments and all of a sudden the enemy just twists it and becomes your reality and then you don't realize until you're 30 or 40 that so much of your striving and your ceaseless work is to prove yourself to God, to others.

When the God of the universe says, you don't have to prove yourself to me, that you're, you're, you're bought and paid for in Christ. When I see you, I see the perfect work of Jesus. You don't have to gain my approval. This matters over and over again. Maybe you're raised in a, in a home where your primary caregiver was angry or, or maybe you was an animated and excited household. That shows up, shows up in friendships, shows up in marriages, showed up in our marriage.

I grew up in a house. We're animated and we're intense, which you would never guess if you knew me. But I just, I would get animated. I would get intense and I would be like this. My wife would be like, why are you yelling? And I'm like, I'm not yelling because she came from a household.

That wasn't a reality. Our family history shapes us in ways we don't want to admit. And unless we start to begin to understand that aspect of us, a lot of us are going to have a very difficult time understanding the why behind what's happening deep in our souls. The final layer that I'll walk through is spiritual warfare. This is something that we as Western Americans are not a big fan of. We are rational thinkers.

We don't have a category for spiritual warfare. Right? And in other cultures, you can go to Africa or South America or East Asia, they're a lot more comfortable with the idea of the spiritual realm. That's something they're way more willing to accept. But as Western American thinkers, we don't have a category.

I know I struggle with this. And about four years ago, I was talking with Chet Phillips, and we're working through, I'm just talking through, man, I have this really, this negative feedback loop that shows up in my life over and over again. I was just, you're going to fail. You're going to wreck your marriage. You're going to wreck your ministry. And he just said, hey, you know, do you think that's you?

Or do you think that actually might be the enemy at work? And as a Western rational thinker, I said, no, I think it's probably me. And then we walked through this process called freedom in Christ, which is a process of structured prayer, where we walked through some of this. And I absolutely, after walking through that, realized that I had this negative feedback loop in my life that was the enemy speaking, that was reinforcing this over and over again. And since then, I found a credible amount of freedom to not hear this as much anymore. Have you considered this, that maybe the negative thoughts that enter your mind on a regular basis aren't just you talking?

That maybe your anxiety is spiked by lies from the enemy, or your depression is deepened by spiritual forces of evil, or your sexual temptation is made worsened by the evil one. We don't like to think like that, but the Bible is very blunt about this. Ephesians 6, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against cosmic powers of this present world, is an absolute reality. And I would argue that you can't actually address what's going on in your soul a lot of times until you actually work through some of this. These are just a few. You could add more layers that surround the heart.

But all this affects our heart, it affects our view of God and self. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Each of us have these complex layers that surround our heart, that affect our view of God and our view of self in light of who God is, that corrupt the inner court of our souls. We need to examine them. And we desperately need Christ to help us examine them.

We need Christ to help us walk through this. And the final paragraph of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, it's one of his greatest works. He's talking about basically this approach to life where you're focusing on yourself, where you're muscling through life all on your own. And he says this, he says, look for yourself. I mean, this is the focus on self.

Look for yourself and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay, depression, anxiety, sexual sin. Sound familiar? Look for yourself and you'll find these things. But he says, but look for Christ. Look for the Christ who had his blood spilt for our sins, who conquered death at the resurrection, who stands at the heavens and reigns as the sovereign king over all eternity. Look for Christ and you will find him.

And with him, everything else thrown in. And what he's getting at is, is you don't just find Christ. You find his goodness, his kindness, his faithfulness. You find peace, love, joy, goodness, gentleness, self-control. You find the riches of Christ. It all gets thrown in with it.

The reality is, if you try to bring change on your own, if you try to change yourself, if you try to do self-care or self-love and focus on yourself, it will not work and it will not last. It is behavioral modification at best. It does not solve the root issue. We need Christ to absolutely change our hearts. And hear this, it's not just exposing the grievous ways within us. It's not just exposing, as the psalmist says, look at the grievous nature of the things in my soul.

It's not just that. We need it to be replaced with something better. It's not just the grievous ways that we need to get rid of and the sin and brokenness. We need to shed and repent stuff. We need ways everlasting is how the Psalm ends. We need the everlasting ways.

We need eternal things that resound into eternity. The only things that Christ can give us. We need that to replace the grievous ways within us. Search me, oh God. Know my heart. Try and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting.

We need this. Jesus wants this for you. He wants to care for your soul. Believe that. That the God of the universe, he wants to reveal the grievous ways in the inner court of our soul so that he can begin to heal us and repair us. That's why he says in Matthew 11, 28, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Do you hear that? Do you hear your chief shepherd calling saying, come? Are you tired? Are you tired? Are you tired? Are you wrestling with sin?

Are you wrestling with brokenness? He says, come. Shepherd says, come to me. Psalm 55, 22 says, cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you. The God of the universe, the one who upholds everything, holds it all together, says, come. You have cares.

You have burdens. You have burdens. I'm here. I'm ready. I'm ready to take them. I'm ready to hear them.

I'm ready to replace them with everlasting ways. Psalm 34, 18 says, the Lord is near the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. You feel crushed. You feel like life is breaking you apart. He says, I'm here and I'm near. I'm ready to walk with you.

If you'll come to me, we can take the journey together. That is what our Savior offers you, if you're willing to take it. And I also would say, we are willing to walk this out with you. We have four different layers of care in our church. The first layer is community groups. We believe in our groups.

Our groups are where we get to live out the gospel together. It's where you get to come in your brokenness and your sin. And you get to share your burdens. Galatians 6, 1 says, bear one another's burdens. That's what we get to do together. Our groups are where we get to live this out.

If you're in a group and you're not trusting the people in your group, if you're not being honest and open, you're missing out. You're missing out on the gospel. The people get to share the gospel with you. As you share your brokenness, someone's going to come in and tell you how good Jesus is and how the Savior is going to meet you there.