Vitals | Week 1 | Full Service

Hey. How's it going? Happy New Year. Yes. It's

good to be back. Hey. New Year starting a new series about health and and and because that's, you know, the beginning of year, we start thinking about things like, hey, what's this year gonna be like? What do I need to change? What do I what do I hope for? What do I do? And so we listened to that and we thought, hey, let's lean into what the Bible says about health. And and, you know,

this is the time of year either right at the end of the year, usually go get blood work done, and I try to do it not right after Christmas. Right before. And then I do my follow-up and do a little physical. And I remember I just did it. I have one of my meeting my physical in a few weeks, but I do that every year. And and and I remember a couple years ago,

I went in to do the checkup. I'd already done the blood work, and the the doctor says, hey. Let's check your blood pressure first.

And she checked it. She's like, oh my gosh. That's high. And I'm like, yeah. It's alright, man. I say it's it's it's not that bad. I mean, I've been the last, like, four times over the last year I've been they've told me it's a little high. And what I had to ask them. They weren't gonna tell me. I go, how's my blood pressure? They go, it's a little high, but, you know, it's alright. You're at a doctor and you're sick or whatever. And they say they just factor. They they expect it to be high when you go to a doctor because you're stressed out. And so they just didn't think it was any big deal. So he goes, this is not that kind of high. This is like we gotta immediately treat this or I'm doing medical malpractice.

And I'm like, what? No, that can't be true. You know, it's like, it's like, I work out. I totally work out. I'm in good shape. I go, I I you know, maybe it's you know, could it be the the the cereal with heavy cream or the fact that I put salt

on my pizza? I mean, I I I don't know. Or maybe I'm a it's because I'm a Cardinals fan. Although this time of year should lower my blood pressure. I have no fear. They never go to the playoffs. So or or as Jonesy put it last week, he said, maybe it's all y'all leading a church. It's stressing me out. I I don't know. Or

you know, it's and and and she looks at She goes, well, it could be genetic too. It's it's like, but everything you just said, you probably need to do something about.

And and and and we talked to and realized when she told me that I got a little defensive. I wanted to minimize it. Because the reality is every time I was at the doctor before, they said it was a little high. And they said, don't it's usually because you're just sick or doc I knew that wasn't true.

Because it never does that. I grew up going to doctors. I don't stress out. I only went with that because I wanted it to be true. I didn't I felt fine. I didn't wanna be told I was unhealthy in some way.

And and the reality is as we talk for the next several weeks, we're gonna talk about what the Bible says about some things that we all face. Physical health, mental health, emotional health, spiritual health, financial health. We're gonna look at these things that the Bible talks about that we worry about, especially as we go into a new year. We're thinking about some of these things. Some of us make goals at times, and we look and go, what would be different if we learned and talked about this now that could change 2026

and on? And but today's topic is the one that if we don't get this, you're not gonna get as much out of the rest. I mean, you can get some change. You can get healthier in some ways. You can deal with some mental health issues. You can deal with some other health issues. But you're never gonna really get the full effects.

You're gonna get pieces of health. This might get a little better. That might go better. But what we wanna look at today is what does the bible say health is, period. What does it mean to be healthy?

And and what we're gonna see is is is for and this this is the kind of the theme for the whole series is that the big idea is this, is that the bible says wholeness is health.

Wholeness is health. You see, because we can't have like this spiritual whole life hypertension. You know, hypertension is the silent killer. You can feel fine, but you're not really healthy. And so we we can have these pieces that look good and feel fine. But if we don't deal with the whole, we're still not healthy.

So what does that look like? Well, we're gonna be in first Thessalonians five. Wow. What happened to my voice?

Don't talk for a couple weeks and look what happens. First Thessalonians. Now this is a letter that was written by the Apostle Paul about 8050, a couple years after he started this church in Thessalonica. Hence Thessalonians. And Thessalonica was a city in Macedonia.

It was very Roman. They they had a lot of issues. Their culture was was very, like, you know, materialistic, sexualized, you know, nothing like today. And so she was is is exactly like today.

And he's writing to encourage a church that, you know, they're all they're young. They're Gentile new believers. So they weren't Jews. They didn't grow up. So they grew up as a product of this culture and then got new life in Christ. And and they're experiencing a little bit of persecution like they're they're not,

you know, live in the culture. They're religiously being looked down upon. They're being treated different politically. They don't have the power. You know, all these things are happening.

And but the one thing he he writes to say, encourage him in that says, hey, when you're treated when you don't match with culture and and and culture thinks you're stupid, that's a good thing. That's pretty much what you should expect as a Christian.

And then it says but then he does challenge them in an encouraging way, which is what what I hope I do today is is he goes, but one of the things he needed to encourage them to is but what they were struggling with is coming out of this life. They now had this new life that was given to them by Christ,

but they were trying to stick to their old lifestyle. So we want the new life that God gives us, but our lifestyle is the same. And he had to say, that's not healthy. Because if Jesus died to give you a life, we should live out the healthy life he died to give us, not living in the unhealth,

even if you feel fine. And so that's why he's writing about this. And in this last chapter, in the final greetings, which a lot of people ignore the opening and the final they're like end credits in a movie. Like, alright. I got the contact. Now he's just saying goodbye or whatever. I'm gonna you know, that's it. It's But these are like the Marvel movies. They put important scenes in the end credits.

And what he does is he says a prayer. And in this prayer, he describes what he's really what God really wants for the Thessalonians, for all of us if we know Christ. And he describes what he wants is us to have wholeness. Because wholeness is where health comes from. You can't have true healthiness

if you don't have wholeness first. And so here's what he says. Now may the Lord may the God of peace make you holy in every way. And may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus comes again.

God will make this happen for he who calls you is faithful. So the first important the the second verse is really the setup. You understand that what he's saying about wholeness is something that God makes happen.

We just have to surrender to it. We just have to just trust it. But he's the one that makes it happen. Doesn't mean we don't do anything. And what does he make happen? He makes us whole

in every way. And then he says, spirit and soul and body. That's health. It's like your physical body, your spiritual health, your soul, your emotional, and your your mental health. All of that. God wants it to be healthy because he wants it to be whole.

The problem is, what does it mean whole? What is wholeness? What are we talking when he says, I want it to be whole? Well, we gotta look at the words there because these words were were were written in Greek. And there's two phrase here. The the whole

and God of peace. And even that every way. That's the same way as the same word with whole in in the Greek. And here's a weird what whole means in Greek it's you're gonna be blown away. Don't get upset. Don't be shocked. You know what whole means in Greek? The Greek word means? Whole.

Wow. That is profoundly deep. Took a lot of study to figure that out. But the funny thing is, well, what does that mean? The real definition of that, the whole that it means, is it means this. Complete. Lacking nothing. Whole in all of its parts. So what it's really talking about is every part belongs,

and every part is under the lordship of Christ. That's what it means. To be whole means to be completely total life transformation, not just partial change. It means that the wholeness that God gives, the love of God gives, the surrender to God will saturate and connect every part of your life. That's what it gives us.

But the truth is we still have God does that, but we still have to do something with that. We have to walk it out. We have to trust it. Because that's where that word, the God of peace. Who's gonna do it? He says the God of peace. As soon as he says the God of peace is gonna make this happen. That phrase God of peace

is is is comes from the word Shalom. And and and we think of it as God of peace is like peace. When we hear peace, oh, the God of tranquility. The God of calm. The God that'll bring calm around. You know, he's the one that brings calm around,

and so there's peace and tranquility. That's not what it means at all. Matter of fact, if that's what it meant, then you guys should have been really confused by Jonesy's sermon last week. Because if you listen, he took a passage out of Romans that said, the God of peace will do what?

Anyone remember? Hey, someone remembered. Last service, that 10:00 service. Wow. Nobody remembered last week. And it was like it says the God of peace will crush snakes' heads, the serpent's head, under our feet. So it's it says God does it, but you gotta take the step, and you gotta do the stomping.

But it's his power that does it. You just gotta go, okay. If that's supposed to happen, then I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna take the step. I'm gonna do it. And and it's interesting that the serpent saint. So that means does that mean if you gotta crush a snake's head, if there's an attack, if there's a lie, if there's a thing in your life, if there's a problem, if there's chaos around you,

the god of peace, he didn't take away the chaos. He used us to stomp through it. And and it's interesting how if god of peace means god of tranquility, that sentence makes absolutely no sense. The god of common tranquility will crush snakes' heads under your feet Cause he's the God of tranquility.

You know what? That God of peace, the peace word is shalom. You know what shalom means? Jews would say that. It goes back to the old testament, shalom, peace be with you. It really is peace be in you. It's not the word doesn't even mean calm. It doesn't even mean lack of chaos. It literally means not calm, but wholeness

in light of the chaos. It literally you're back to this wholeness again. Wholeness, right order, harmony. The God of wholeness will make us whole. And then we can live healthy in our body, mind, spirit. That's what it's saying. And that's what Paul's prayer for these believers are, in a culture that's radically different.

And that's what we have to understand. If we want health, we have to embrace the wholeness first. So what does that even look like? What does it mean? Well, I'm a preacher,

so I'm mandated by law to give you three points. The poem at the end is optional.

But there's actually it just came out that way. There's three things here that I think really does take this apart. You go, what does that look like? What does it mean? And the first thing we have to realize is this. You can't be whole without being wholly surrendered. Cause by the definition of what he's saying, is he's saying I'm praying that you all will surrender your body, your spirit, your mind. That it'll all be under the lordship of Christ. Under his love. Because he died to allow you to be healthy. So why not take the healthy choice?

So we need to be wholly surrendered. Now a lot of us are like, well, I've surrendered to Jesus' love, but I I am I wholly surrendered completely? And I go, but but it's like but most of us don't outright reject Jesus. Right?

Most of us are like, well, I'm not rejecting Jesus. Matter of fact, you probably wouldn't be here if you were rejecting Jesus.

I mean, you're here because you're here. You're hearing about Jesus. I mean, might be one or two of you that are here because you got dragged here and you don't like Jesus, you reject Jesus, you're mad, you don't like that I keep talking about Jesus and surrendering to Jesus, you're so angry, you're just mad at me, you don't wanna listen, you wanna fight me. Okay. I'll meet you outside, and when I beat you up, you're gonna surrender to Jesus. Okay?

And then I'm gonna go to the hospital because I'll probably pull a hammy or something. No. It's it's we don't reject Jesus, but you know what we often do, especially me.

This is the reason I know it. Here's what I do. I don't outright reject Jesus. I mean, I'm a pastor. Am I gonna go, I don't believe in Jesus. It's just a job. I mean, there probably are some guys that do that. Seriously. Not me. But you know what I do? Often do? And maybe you do too? I'll resist Jesus.

I'm not rejecting him. I know he loves me. I know he's God. I just want to resist him just a little. That's not that's not living in wholeness. Because resisting him is like like, yes. I trust you, God. You are the full authority in my life, except for this. Well,

if you look at someone and say, you're the absolute authority except for this, who's the absolute authority? You are. See, we restrict them. We give them access, but not authority. We wanna talk to God and give them responsibility.

God, please do this for you. Help me hear this. But no authority in our lives in certain areas. It's it it it's kinda like if you,

if you imagine your life, your heart that you're you're saying you have the authority. Lord, you are Lord of my life cause you love me so much. I've invited you into the home of my heart. You know, imagine like a house. And he comes to the house and go, this is you have full reign of this house,

except you have this one room over in the back that has this keep out sign. It's locked. And you go, well, except for that one. Can't go in there. And and and Jesus go, why? You afraid I'm gonna see what's in that top right hand drawer of the desk? What's under the bed and what's behind that box in the closet?

And and how messy it is too? And how you left the toilet seat up again. And you'd be like, woah, how does he already know what's in there? And he's like, because I'm God. I knew it was in there before you even existed. I'm already in that room right now.

It's funny how we try to resist Jesus and we think we're getting away. We think we're You can't hide something from Him. You know the only thing that happens is when we hide or hold something back from him?

He can't heal it.

God can't heal, or maybe better said, won't heal, what you hide or hold back.

And that's why we have to wholly surrender. Give them all the keys. That's really kind of this concept of what's the chapter 12 is saying. Mark 12 is where we get this the great commandment. It's where the mission of the church comes from. Love God, love others.

And this religious teacher came up to Jesus. Hey. Can you just summarize the whole testament? What's the most important commandment? What do I really need to understand the most?

And and and he's bay he says this in verse 29. Listen. The most important commandment is listen, o Israel. The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. That's the this is the Shema that he's reading out of the Old Testament. It's repeated.

And and and the Lord is one. That's not saying he's like, okay, there's one guy. He's saying there's nobody else but me. And it's almost in in essence to set yourself up to so don't try to be God yourself. I am God.

And he says, and if you know that and you know my love is basically he says in verse 30. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.

And the second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these. So we love God because he loved us. And as a result of his love, we can now love him back. And when we love him back, we will then go love others.

And when we read that, he tells us to give us all our heart, all our mind, all our strength. And here's the problem. A lot of us resist that because we just think I can't do that. And it just sounds crazy because that all thing and when the problem is we think of that word all there is this emotional

intensity thing. Like you hear that and almost sounds like a locker room speech

that's challenging us to go out there and get our acts together and play better in the second half. You know, it's like whatever they said to the Chicago Bears in in the locker room. And then, you know, whatever that was is what came out. You know, it's like it's like you better go get your act together. And and and so

and we think it's that. And we think so being all in. The love the Lord our God with all our mind, heart, soul, and strength is this is this is emotional intense stuff that you might not have. You think that it's God giving you this locker room speech. It's all on you. He's like, alright. You gotta get your act together, and you're gonna get out there in the second half. And you will love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength. And a matter of fact, you're gonna love your teammates too. Get out there and get it done.

And you're like, I don't feel that. I don't have emotional intensity like that. I don't wanna be like my crazy cat lady aunt with her bible and her cats. I don't be like that weird person that's obnoxious. I just

I'm not feeling it. And so I guess I just can't. I'm just I'm not all in because I don't feel it. You think that this is a call to emotional intensity to rally you to go make it right. You know what that word all there means? All means all, and that's all all means. No. It's actually the Greek word is halos.

You better halos.

Guess what means?

Whole. Once again, the God who wholly loved us just wants us. So it's not about intensity of emotion. This is a call for totality of surrender. It's different.

Surrender means I will do something. I'm going to do the obey. Because God says if you love me when he says, if you're gonna love me with all your heart, mind, soul, you'll do what I say.

Now he's not saying that as a threat. He's not saying that as a if you don't do this, I won't love you. He goes, if you love me. And it says we can love him because he first loved us. So if you know my love and you love me, then you'll do what I say.

He's not talking about an intense feeling. You don't have to build up this that's the worst. He's like, cause you keep thinking it's on you. Surrender. Holy surrender means, yes, I'll take the step towards health because I've surrendered to the fact that you wholly love me. And so I'm in my totality of surrender,

not the intensity of your emotion. And that's why a lot of us think you're You think you're healthy. Just like hypertension, I'm healthy. I come to church. I cry. I sing. I love the word. I get into it. It's awesome. But you have those rooms locked.

But you feel good. You feel the intensity. But we're still not healthy. It's still not healthy. So what do we do with that?

Oswald Chambers put it this way. You can be busy with God and distant from God. Active but not abiding. In other words, ask yourself this question. This is a tough one. This is the toughest question I ask. Thought I'd just get out of way up front. Where am I asking Jesus to help me but not rule me?

As you're going to this year, you're probably making goals. You probably have some concerns. You have some hopes and some dreams for 2026. It might be physical health issues. It might be spiritual issues, mental, emotional issues, financial issues. Are you right now actively pursuing a goal and praying to God for that goal

while right now ignoring what he said to do in those areas? Are you praying about a house, a car, a job, a fear of a lost job, hope for a better job, but you ignore what God says to do with your money? You know what the Bible says? It says you're wasting your time. God will not heal what you hold back and you hide.

He's not gonna help you in an area that you won't put under his lordship, that you won't surrender. And half the time, the struggle you're having with that money or that relationship is because you won't surrender to what the Bible says. Here's how it works.

That's why. He's like, well, isn't he giving me more money? Did give you Because he's putting you in a scenario to teach you to trust him. So trust him. That's what holy surrendered means. We struggle with that. What part is still off limits?

Because if I'm gonna be wholly surrendered, the next thing that means is what I'm asking that question for is surrender always leads to honesty.

And it only comes when once you're honest. It leads from and to honesty. Meaning we got to quit managing symptoms and admit need.

We come to church and we wanna hear God like, hey, know, I'm struggling with this. God, fix that. Give me the pill. Like when I talked to the doctor, well, was there a pill or something you gave me? Well, gotta give you a pill, but it's not because it's gonna solve your problem permanently. It's just gonna keep you from dying.

And I'm like, what? And they go, but we gotta make some other you gotta trust me some other ways, and that's gonna get you past this. And and so we pray, god, just give me the pill and help me keep living the way I'm living. I'm not gonna harm you with this, but I need you to fix this. I'm not gonna harm you with this, but I need you to fix this. That doesn't work. That's not healthy.

So we gotta get honest about that. We gotta be real because because because we will manage the symptom instead of admitting our need. And our need is we need him. We need his power. We need his strength. We need his love. We need to trust him.

Not because so he'll love us. That's the thing is when you hear, honor God with your money. Honor God with your time. Love others. Do what you hear if you're on a I'm in a control point of view, what you heard me just say is, do these things and then God will love you. No. It's because he loves you. Don't you think you should trust that these are the ways to live healthy?

That's how you get peace. See, wanting him to fix the problem on the outside when you're struggling and instead of giving you the calm on the inside, when you have the calm that comes from him on the inside, the health, the outside won't matter.

It's like two sailors going out to sea back in the day. One has been on the seas for thirty years. One is his first trip. Guess how they're gonna hack in a storm. Same storm. Nothing on the outside is different. But one knows. They have the calmness on the inside. That's what it means.

And we got to get honest about that and get real. I love Henry Cloud says this way, Reality is always your friend. I like to say that. Finally looked up and remembered where I got it from. And it's reality is always your friend. The Bible says reality is always your friend.

We always got to know that reality is our friend. And God starts in our heart. And the the place we need the most reality is with ourselves. Look what it says in in Psalms one thirty nine. Here. Psalms one thirty nine verse twenty three and twenty four. It says, search me, o God, and know my heart.

Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along a path of everlasting life.

See, he's realizing that we have an incredible power of self deception. We like to, like, minimize stuff like I was doing with blood pressure. We like to minimize. Well, I know that God says that, but this is the reason, you know, we we have our reasons why we don't, and we minimize. And he's saying, God, you point that out. Because we need God to help us point out because we have a hard time even being honest with ourselves.

That's why we should read God word. God's word. It's not a checklist. It's not something that makes you smarter and and and that. It it it allows God's word to go through us. God's word is where it's a mirror, and it allows us to look and go, where am I not checked in with reality?

Because when I don't see it realistically, if I don't see myself clearly, I won't see God clearly.

Because I need to see God clearly, then I can see myself clearly. And when I see that clearly, then I don't freak out about stuff. I don't run after stuff. And and we get caught. We're just not honest. We're not real. I mean and the the biggest problem we have in our culture is we have an instant gratification culture. So some of the stuff we hear God says to do is that's not gonna give me instant gratification.

That's actually gonna cost me gratification. And we freak out. Study after study now has proven like there is in our culture, there is an epidemic of health, emotional, and mental health problems with people that are younger. Anyone that grew up with social media and the Internet and all of that stuff is struggling.

And we keep identifying. We think, well, it's because the way this is, the way that is. Everything they're identifying has always been around. The problem they've now

kind of down to is our dopamine addiction. That's why even us older people are starting to have the problems because because it's a dopamine addiction. When you live in a land of plenty with freedom and we have instant access to food, instant access to everything, We have instant access to any kind of thing that we want to have a dopamine hit. Dopamine is a chemical in your brain that when you pursue something

and then get a reward for it, it gets this hit. You feel really good. And it's not just the reward. It's the pursuit that makes it. So the problem is when you can get so many hits instantly,

it it it it it your your life is like it's supposed to be a seesaw, kinda leveled out between, you know, back in the day. Hey, if I wanna eat, I gotta go hunt, or I gotta grow crops. Woo hoo. I found something to eat. Yes. And then you go, okay. Now I'm a but if you can just be like Uber Eats, Uber Eats, Uber Eats, Uber Eats, you're like Uber fat, Uber fat, Uber unhealthy.

But but it is like it's it's not as fun. Like, if you notice, when you can just order food all the time, going out to eat isn't as fun anymore. It it just it loses meaning. And so the problem is everything's instant. And the worst offender of this is the social media, the stuff like the TikTok

and and all of that. Because what it does is it's written by AI. I'm telling you young people, trust me on this. E, they are purposely getting you addicted.

They know how this works because it sells. They can watch ads. And what it does is, yes, it makes you feel good at first. You got the dopey. That was fun. I found this funny video. It was hilarious. Or whatever you like to watch. Look what I found. Well, then it starts to realize what you like. It starts throwing these things at you. And then what you do is like, that's great. That's oh, that was dumb. That was dumb. That was dumb. And then you see dumb ones into the pursuit. The doping hit doesn't come from one rewards. It from, oh, I didn't find one. Didn't find oh, I found one. I didn't find one. Oh, I found one. And next thing, no. You're scrolling forever. You're hitting forever. And, you know, Augustine talked about this two thousand years ago

when he said we get distracted by these things of the world and these things that draw us, they he didn't even know what dopamine was, but he knew that we get these fixes. He says we're distracted, and we love things we ought not to love more than we should,

And then we don't love the things we ought to love. And guess what it's proving? This dopamine hit. We're disconnecting. We don't have real relationships anymore, which we should love others, and we need others, but we disconnect. We have pseudo community that's not real.

And then and and and and here's the problem. It's addictive description of exactly what addictions do. It takes more and more to get less and less, and that consumes you.

And that's what's happening for all of us in our society. Our society of self gratification is consuming us with a dopamine addiction that is making us say, can't serve God. I don't have enough time for that. I gotta because I gotta do this and this and this and this and this. I'm pursuing all the dopamine hits, and I'm missing out. It's the basic. It's the whole reason that gambling is addictive.

Gambling is not addictive because you win big money. Because in the end, nobody wins big money. The house wins. You're like and it was somebody who's like, well, I remember that time I won a $100,000 when I was in Vegas Twenty years ago. I've spent a half 1,000,000 since then, but I won. No. You're losing. And and why?

When can I get that next win? When can I get that next win? When can I get Pornography does the same thing? I need that next hit. I need that next hit. And usually that's what distracts us. We don't have Reality is not our friend. We think reality is I can't be healthy. I can't

love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, mind, soul, strength. Can't love my body, my presence. Can't. And if God loved me so much, He knew I can't because I got all this other stuff. I don't have time. I don't have this. We have plenty of time, folks. We have plenty of resource. We have plenty of what we need

to trust God. We've bought into a lie. Reality has not been our friend.

We all have to be honest with that.

Otherwise, we never get to real surrender. Are you honest with God or just being polite?

I thought of that because I spent time with family over Christmas, like many of us. Like extended family too. And we have extended family. If some you really love, some you're like, we don't see things the same. And and, you know and so but you gotta make a decision. Whenever you go to those big family meetings, you're gonna be together for four or five days. You're like, how much honesty am I really gonna bring into these conversations?

Now, I'm usually like, a fight's fun. Why not? My wife, she'll gives me a list of what I can't say to certain people when we're there. And I'm like, why? It's necessary.

Maybe, but not when I'm around. Do that on a phone call with them if you really care that much. Or you just like to stir a pot when you're in a room. I go, okay. Maybe that's true. But but some of us, that's what the extended family of our church is. You come here. It's like, why don't we really you know, we're not around eleven. It's like, I'm just gonna come be polite in church. I'm gonna be polite before God. I'm gonna be polite in this moment and do my thing and then go on with my life.

Be real with that. Be honest. It doesn't matter if you come to church every week. If you haven't wholly surrendered, you are unhealthy.

Unhealthy. It doesn't matter how emotional you get. Unhealthy. I can get really emotional eating a pizza. I can ask God's help as I pray over a bag of Doritos. Bless this food to my body. And God's like, I can't do anything. Even my power has limits, and I cannot make those Doritos healthy.

What are you minimizing right now? What are you hiding? Because to be whole, you got to be wholly surrendered. To be wholly surrendered, you have to be honest. And if you're holy if you're honest, to be wholly surrendered, it says inward change always leads to outward obedience. Always.

So if you really have been changed on the inside, it will show on the outside. And if it's not, something's wrong. There's something wrong.

And I think that something is not that we're just rejecting Jesus again. What I've seen scripturally, what I've seen personally in my own life and in leading others is almost every time it's one of two things that keeps us from that outward obedience.

It's it's it's usually a lie we're listening to or a trap we've got caught in. It's usually a lie or a trap. Sometimes we're just resisting. We're just leaning in, and we know what we're doing. We're just apathetic. We're fearful. We just don't wanna let go, but that usually is a lie.

If you if you can't trust God because you're so afraid, you've listened to lie that you have to have this, and God doesn't really love you enough to take care of you. It's a lie that you're listening to. Or a trap, a habit, or a or an addiction, like I said, we fallen into that you need help over.

Because James says it this way. Look what he says.

James is a is a great book. It's really throat punchy, by the way. This was Jesus' half brother that didn't believe in Jesus the whole time he was alive. So he's gonna get really aggressive once he becomes a Christian. Because he spent his while Jesus was alive, going, there's no way my brother is God's gift to the world, and he's perfect. I understand that part.

Anybody have a brother? Anybody your brother was the one that mom thought was perfect and better than you? Would you have a hard time believing that he was that? Of course. So but afterwards, he goes all in.

And it's hard, but it's because he loves. And look what he says in verse 22. Don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. That sounds like a threat. But listen what he says. Otherwise, you're only fooling yourselves. What he's trying to say is you're not honest.

If you say you love God, if you say and you just listen to the teaching. You listen to pre oh, that was good. We love clarity. We love good sermons. Wait. Well, you guys come here. So you love adequate sermons, mediocrity, bad jokes. But anyways,

you you say that was good. But it doesn't matter if you liked it. It doesn't matter how it made you feel. Did something the Holy Spirit tell you, here is something you need to address and surrender to. Do you surrender to it, or do you walk out the door and say that was good and go back to your life?

He's saying if you don't surrender, it doesn't matter how much fun you had. It doesn't matter how good it made you feel. It doesn't matter how spiritual you felt because you're sitting in church. You are unhealthy. You're not living in wholeness.

That's what he's saying. He cares. I care. That's what I why I'm saying what I'm saying. You're stuck. Either a lie, I can't do this, or a trap. I'm stuck doing something else and I just can't get out of that loop. It's that dopamine loop in many ways. I had this dog. Buffy was her name. Way tougher than that sounds. But

she hated this cat in our neighborhood because this cat would walk along the top of our wall just out of her reach. And sometimes the cat would sit on the little top piece and let her tail go down just far enough to The dog would just run,

and then she'd pull it up right at the last second. So this dog was always wanting to chase this cat. We're outside, wanted to chase this cat.

Well, then one day, I'm gonna take the trash out. We have alleys, so I opened them, going to the alley. And then we caught the cat by surprise. It didn't hear us coming. It was too distracted or whatever. And it was literally right there. We opened. My dog's standing right there. Cat's, like, this far away. And they look at each other, and you just hear,

They're like,

And my dog's like,

Takes off. And then the the race is on. This dog's flying. This cat's, like, zigzagging. The cat finally tries to do this move where it jumps in the air to grab hold of a wooden power pole,

and it it flew at the wrong angle. So it's it's it's claws couldn't grab. And it goes, it spins out, hits a gate, smashes on the ground, and my dog's right on top of it. Caught it. You would think my dog would kill it. No.

My dog didn't have any interest. It didn't even know what to do. It caught it. It was like, well, this is boring. This isn't fun. The dopamine hit my dog got was the chasing. It always just liked to chase. So I sat there, and I was like, woah. Woah.

Woah. And then the cat's like, oh, okay. Guess we're doing this again. And he takes off running and took off running. And that's all it did. Maybe the obedience isn't following because you're caught in a trap,

a dopamine cycle track of something you're running after. As Augustine said, you're loving it too much because what you think it's gonna give you is give you something. But if you catch it, it doesn't really give you anything. And then you're back to chasing it again. Back to chasing it again. That's really

what's stopping you from trusting God. It's not what you think it is. You're only fooling yourself.

Why? Why is this true? Why do we have a problem? Why and what would happen? Why? It's because wholeness is found in Christ, not in control.

Every other thing is we're trying to control the narrative. We're trying to get We're trying to find the happiness. We're trying to fix this stuff. We're trying to do it. It's like we're all broken vessels. The Bible says we're broke. We're like a bull that's been smashed on the ground. That's what sin does.

And we've all broken we've all born into brokenness. We we we sin and it's broke. Now other people come and hurt us because we're all broken. So then our they stomp. Our our pieces get broke even further. But we originally broke it.

And then what we're trying to do is we did what I hope this sermon is not I hope you don't hear what I'm not saying. It's the actual opposite of what you've probably thought church is saying. The order of this list is important. Because legalism says, you obey with your outward obedience.

Then you can be honest before God. He'll see you that you're obey. You're being honest and obedient. And then he will make you whole and love you. That's not what it's saying. This is not saying put the pieces together. It's saying God puts the pieces together by his love. Now we can be filled with the obedience of health.

And that's what it's trying to do. It's what it's trying to say. But we get stuck. We go we we we because we try to control. I know this because this is what I do.

And what we think the answer is, all right, I'm struggling. You know what? I just got to get in control of this. I'll just manage better. I'll stay on top of things. I'll try harder.

But you can't do it. It didn't work. It didn't work for Jonathan Gannon. He's the Cardinals ex coach, by the way. I just got to do a better job. I just got to do a better job. Well, and he doesn't have a job now.

We can't coach our own lives and run it. We failed.

We've got to get rid of mythical souls. So when we surrender to His love and we realize He makes us whole, we can now hold stuff.

We can hold the love. We can hold the grace. We can hold the calling. We can hold the mission. We can hold We can then trust Him to live the healthy We can hold the healthy actions. We can start to have health in all areas of our life. And when we do that, it fills up. And then guess what? Mark chapter 12 comes true. Not only do we love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, we have been filled

with him and his power and his love. And then that spills out, and now we pour into others, and we go love others.

We can't love others when we're broken because what we're doing is we're trying to get a little bit of help. Here's one little shard that's folded up. Hey. There's some water here. It poured. It has a little bit. There's a little bit of financial. Oh, here's a here's a little piece of emotional.

Here's a little piece of that I've poured onto that. Now I'm trying to put it together, and it's not working. But I'm just barely surviving with what I got. And then you hear a message, hey. We should give. We should serve. We should point other people to Jesus. I don't have the ability. Of course you don't.

Because you're trying to make it work. And you think that I'm saying, put that together and do it, then you'll be old. No. It's understanding, embrace the wholeness and the love, then you'll see that you'll have the ability. God will pour what you need into you, and you can pour it out where he wants you to.

That's how it works. That's reality. What would happen? What would happen if 2,026 was the year that you just went all in? Well, when you said that next step obedient, that thing I've avoided, that part that I come to church, but there's one thing I know scripture says that I'm just ignoring it.

What if you just did it? You want the greatest dopamine hit ever? Bet on Jesus. Take your whole life. This is your life and go, here we go. All in. Middle of the table. All in. I'm gonna trust that Jesus is the winner on this.

I'm gonna trust him. I'm gonna put everything in. And you know what? Most of you that love gambling, love all the you love all the other dopamine hits. All of sudden, that's terrifying you. You know why? Because you're terrified of the one sure bet. But, man, it's scary. It is.

That will give you the ultimate dopamine hit. Because when you go all in and you do that this year, watch what happens. Your life can can ensue around you. And you will be surprised by the fact that you have a calm inside you.

The thing that we really want. Because it's not an outside in thing. It's an inside out thing.

Because the cross is not just where our sins are forgiven. It's where our life has been put back together. You know the greatest example? I wanna show you a picture here. You know what that is? Did somebody say Kitsugi? Kitsugi. Kitsugi. Man, one of the earlier services nobody knew that.

So good job. This must be the cultured service. Kitsugi, if you're not aware, is that was a bowl that was broken. Kitsugi is a Japanese art form where they take broken vessels, mainly bowls, and they put them back together using gold.

So the most beautiful part is where it was broken. It's all the cracks. It's all these places where it splintered and fell apart. And if you look at that bullet bowl, it was a decent looking bowl, but it's way cooler looking now with the cracks

and the gold. And you know what else it does when it makes it more beautiful? That gold makes it stronger. That is now a stronger bowl than it was before it got broken. It became more beautiful, broken. But the cracks are still there. The things still happened. There were still the problems. That's what the gospel is.

We're talking about health, and the bible says Jesus is the great physician. I like to think of it, Dreesus is the great kitsugi'er. He Kitsugis us. We are born into brokenness. We are all this room is a room full of broken bowls. But those of us that have accepted and surrendered the love of Christ,

that's what we are now. We are a broken bowl that's been put back together in a more beautiful, more powerful, stronger way. And it's only when you get that that now the things can be poured into you. And now you can be filled. And you can be filled to the point that it overflows, and you can pour in other people.

It's not go do those things to get whole. It's accept the wholeness and then trust God to pour in and to be able to pour out and do the things he's asked us to do. That's where life comes from. That's the beauty of it. And the beauty is the brokenness is still seen. We're honest. You're open. But it's covered by the gold.

It's covered by the blood of Jesus. See, I know this is true because I've seen it in my life. I've seen it so many people's lives, and I was just reminded really, when I see this, I think of a friend of mine who's older than me named Carol. I

met her because she came along. She was a good writer. And when we went back when we were first writing for small groups questions years ago for the sermons, She got involved. And so we'd meet and we'd talk through the sermons. And, man,

she was beautiful. She was broken in her life. But that's what brought this wisdom when it was when she got the wholeness. She would keep me so much good stuff on how to in a message that came from the broken parts that have been put back together.

And and she she she she got that because her life was chaotic. Was hard. She was born in no house that was abusive, which made her drive and believe a lie that, yeah, you're not worthy. You are broken. But the lie was the enemy took a truth, twisted. You're broken beyond repair and is hopeless, and no one loves you.

So her answer for a dopamine hit to to forget about that was alcohol. She became alcoholic. She tried to quit so many times she quit, ended up married, had a good marriage, and had these kids. But then she kept struggling with alcohol. Then her husband died. She goes back to alcohol again.

And then finally, she got an inheritance, and she took the money, and her family pleaded. Her kids pleaded with her. She went to rehab and tried a third time.

And the only thing that was different this time is that she sat at this rehab center. She sat there one night. She grew up going to church, but what she heard at church was what I asked you not to hear. She heard it the opposite.

I have to do. God's making me give. He's making me serve. He's making me jump through these hoops in order for me to for him to love me. She didn't understand that those things he asked us to do is the healthy way to live out of the love.

So she thought that. But she did hear the gospel that Jesus loves you, but it didn't compute. It didn't connect. And she sat there one night. She broke into tears. And she said, I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy. Which was always her issue. I'm broken beyond repair. But this time,

the Holy Spirit reminded her of some of the times she did hear who Jesus was. And the Holy Spirit used that recollection in that moment for her to respond in tears. It's right. I am not worthy. I am broken. But Jesus was worthy and is. And it finally hit her that the gospel, the cross, was Jesus. We're broken. He came

and was willing to be broken to put us back together. The gold in our vessel cracks is his blood, his sacrifice, his love.

And that changed everything. And that is why she went on to start pouring into women that were struggling from abuse and addiction and thousands of women. That she was able to be the first one to ever say, as another human being to her, I love you and you may be broken, but you are not invaluable. God loves you.

And if you trust his love, he will take those cracks, those broken pieces, and put a life together that's stronger and more beautiful than before. And it happened over and over and over again. And she helped me so many times

with a sermon, like how to end it, how to do this, how to do this. She always gave me good. And look what she's doing. She did it again today. Her story.

And the reason that story hit me so hard and I'm so blown away by how she did it again today is because I'm thinking about this. Because I heard all the stories from so many women in her life at her funeral on Friday. My friend Carol died. And she was a broken person that went through a lot. But she was

made beautifully whole by the love of Jesus, and it made a difference. And God filled her with that love to where it was overflowing, and she poured it into others. That's the gospel, and that's what Mark 12 is talking about. That's the mission. That's the life. That's health.

What would it be like? Don't you desperately want something like that? Instead of coming here and being polite and acting like you got it together, what if you just admitted I'm broken? And accept the wholeness of the love of Christ. So then you can have health lived out consistently

and fully in all the other things we're gonna talk about. But it starts with this. So what I wanna do is just take a moment to give you guys a moment to reflect, and then I'm gonna pray with some of you.

Now, if you already know Jesus, and this is a reminder that maybe you haven't rejected him, you know you've been made whole, but you've just been resisting the pouring in and the pouring out, talk to him about that. Make a commitment going into this year that this will be different. Go all in.

But there are some of you here that you needed to hear that just God loves you first, and that's where it starts. And maybe you've been coming to church a long time. Maybe you grew up in a church. Maybe you've had a lot of pain in your life, and it's just held you back. The lie is you can't be healed or you don't want to or you're just mad at God.

Maybe this is your moment like Carol had that moment. That sitting in this room, you can raise your hand and put your faith in Christ. Because I'm gonna pray with some of you. And you just think about that. Is this your moment? Are you ready for that surrender?

And if you've never done that, once you reflect, I'm gonna pray with us. I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand with your eyes closed to symbolically say, I'm handing you the broken pieces. I'm sick of trying to put them together myself.

And I finally realized that I don't have to put them together for you to love me. You love me enough to put them together, and then I can live from that love. But just think about that and reflect for just a moment.

It all.

If we just close our eyes, bow our heads. And like I said, I wanna pray with some of you that you've never put your faith in Jesus in this way. And if that's you and you're ready to pray with me, just pray the the words. Make it your own words. Surrender to his love.

But if you wanna pray with me, I am gonna ask you to do that symbolically. This is for you. It's for you to just make this real. Just hold your hand up while we pray. I see those hands going up. Hold them up nice and high. You're stretching out. And the only thing God wants you to do

is to hand them that. Hand them the sin. Hand them the pieces that are broken. Hand them the pain that other people have broken even further in your life. Hand them that. So with all these hands all over the room raised right now, just pray something like this. Jesus, thank you.

Thank you that I've broken my life and other people has broken it even more and their struggles and their fears, their sin. But right now, in the best way I know how with my hand raised, I'm handing you those pieces because I realized I've tried and tried and tried to fix it myself, and I can't.

So thank you for dying. Thank you for being broken so I can be whole. Take my pieces and make it beautifully whole. And then help me to pour health of obedience into that. And pour out that love for my neighbor into others. Thank you, Lord. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

It's amazing that we have a God who takes our brokenness when we surrender to him and he does something beautiful with it. Church, can we celebrate those who just gave their life to Jesus? Yeah.

From Christmas to last week and this weekend, we have literally seen hundreds of people give their life to Jesus. And if that's you, the next step of obedience is to get baptized.

And we have baptism weekend coming up here at Rock Point January twenty fourth and twenty fifth. You can sign up by taking your phone and hitting the icon on the seat in front of you. We hope to see you here. Jesus tells us once we give our life to him, the next step is to get baptized. So if that's you, we'd love to see you here not next weekend, but the following weekend. Otherwise, if you need prayer, we have a prayer room to my right, your left, and have a great weekend. We'll see you next weekend.

Thanks for joining us online today. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay up to date with everything happening here at Rock Point.