Vitals | Week 3 | Full Service

Hey. How's it going? Yes. Hey, I wanna tell you as we get started here today a little bit different than I normally start is that, I always, as a pastor, don't wanna preach anything that hasn't preached to me first. I always do that. And and and and and this week's message throat punched me in the good way,

preached to me more than probably any other message I've ever preached,

and it challenged and transformed me and revealed some stuff to me in such a good, awesome way to surrender and understand how much God loves me, And it helped transform some things. So I'm just gonna challenge you to lean in and listen because the outline is a result. I had to set it aside and just let the scriptures speak to me for a long time before I put together the outline.

And I'm just telling you this, what we're gonna talk about really made a difference. Not like it I hope every week does, but this was really crazy. So just lean in, lean in, lean in because here's what we're doing today. The big idea is simply this. What fills your mind will shape your life.

And and that could be in a big way, but it's also subtle things.

And that's what I learned. It was just some subtle things. Because I everything I'm gonna preach and bring out, I already knew every one of these principles. I've taught them before. I've seen them before. It wasn't that I knew them. It's that there were some little things that that needed to go through me and reveal some stuff that I was gonna slowly

get off track. Because what you fill your mind with eventually comes out and shapes us. And, man, we live in a world that we fill our minds with a lot a lot of crud. We spend a lot of time. I could just look at the watching TV, social media, all these things, listening to other people. So many things we fill our mind with.

And that does shape our life because today we're in the series on health, and we've learned that the Bible says wholeness is health.

So you can run after all these individual pieces we're talking about, and we're given really practical stuff when it comes to to health. But if you take it as a one list at a time and you don't think of this health as a concept of wholeness, and by wholeness, the word means wholeness means all of its parts are in harmony on one to another. Meaning health is only healthy if it's all connected.

If you you if you you can you might get physically healthy, but if you're not spiritually healthy, according to scripture, you're not healthy. You you you it's all connected. And today, we're talking about mental health and how it connects

and what's happening in your mind. And as we as we look at mental health, there's first, I wanna give some definitions. I'll put it up on the screen here. Mental health versus mental illness. And mental health is emotional, psychological, social well-being. How we think, feel, handle, stress, relate, and choose.

And and and mental illness is conditions significantly affecting thinking, mood, behavior, like depression, anxiety, bipolar, PTSD. I think trauma. Things that have happened to us that often disrupt our daily life and our relationships.

So they're similar, but we can have mental health days that are bad. Like mental health, the way we think and feel right, it's it's been distorted, and we struggle with that. But some of us have fallen into what's mental illness,

which is which is even worse because it's kinda like in the physical world, it's like it's like making bad choices and eating so then you're tired, you're groggy, you don't have the energy, you have some things come up versus having diabetes.

If you have diabetes, you still have those symptoms and those problems, but now you're fighting. You can't just it's it's worse.

And that's what mental illness will do. And as a disclaimer, as we dive in this, we're looking at the biblical concept of this mental health, which we all need. It all comes back to it comes back to spiritual. Everything does.

But just know that some of the mentalists, some of the stuff God does know, we live in a physical world. We'll talk about that when we get to the physical health week. But the truth is some of us need more than just This message is not just if you just pray harder, it goes away. It's you might need some other steps

that help. But just know that even if you needed to see a doctor about something physically causing problems or talk to a counselor, I'm telling you, ultimately, you need what we're talking about today to get to the true source of what's really happening. And that is what we fill our minds shapes our lives, period.

And scripture's really clear on it. We're gonna unpackage this. And and if you don't think that that this is affecting you at all, one in five US adults has mental illness each year. Not just mental health days, mental illness.

In Maricopa County, one in five. Out here, where we have more money and and and have a little bit better lifestyle, it's it's more frequent than one in five. People that tend to have more have more mental health issues,

which goes against what you've probably filled your mind with is, I think the reason I'm struggling is because I don't have enough of this or I just need to get here. That's part of the problem, is we we have the wrong goal

in mind. And the truth is the stats show this, that everywhere there's people struggling. In this room, a lot of us are struggling at one level or another. It might be the level I was. I didn't even know I had anything going on, and I realized, oh, this is why I'm kind of reacting this way right now.

I had to let it dig into me and I had to realize it. So if you look around the room, there's a lot of us that struggle with this to some degree. I think all of us, at some level, have to struggle with this the biblical concept of mental health. But the truth is many of us are struggling even more,

and this room is filled with it.

And I just want you to know there's hope. And as we look at this and as we go into this and how we're gonna look at this is I'm gonna be looking at some scripture, but we're gonna walk through a case study from scripture from a character in the bible that unfortunately is the negative side of it.

It's the what could have been, and his name is King Saul. And if you're familiar, he was the first king of Israel.

They wanted a king. He got a king. And and a lot of people, if you know the story, you think, well, you know, God never really wanted Saul. He wanted David, who was the next king. It's not true. You can read the story that when he was called to be king, God loved him the same, anointed him the same, did not overlook him, and he not. But Saul, right from the beginning,

struggled with how he viewed God, which led to how he viewed himself, which led to how he lived and acted.

And we can see this before I dive in was A. Tozer has a great quote in the first chapter of his book, Knowledge of the Holy, which is all about a biblical study of the attributes of God. Who is God? What is he like, biblically?

And he says this, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move towards our mental image of God.

In other words, how you see God, you move towards it. And he goes on, but I didn't wanna read half the book to you, to say, and that mental image of God may determines how we view ourselves

and therefore how we view others. It really maps out our life. It really does. How you view God even if you don't believe in God, that's your view of God. He's not there. That's gonna affect everything else. And the truth is what you look at and what you see is what you move towards.

And that that we we know I mean, if you just ride a bike, you know that's true. I mean, if if you are riding a bike on a little trail next to the Grand Canyon, and you just keep looking at the Grand Canyon, where are you gonna end up? In the Grand Canyon.

Because you do that, and that's what he's saying. And so a lot of us, we are struggling. A lot of us, even as Christians, you are wrestling with the wrong view of God. So you are wrestling with the wrong view of yourself and what God is asking of you. And you're living from a false script in your head

that is either making you feel defeated and a failure or angry at God. It happens to you because it's happened to me.

And the reality is, how does this work? And we're gonna look at Saul, and we're gonna see the three things I wanna talk about. The source of that, the obstacle to that, and what real alignment is in that. What do we do about it? And starting with Saul. Saul was that first king. He started off

good. I mean, was he was, you know, called of God. He's anointed of God. God loved him. And and and and but he was an impressive guy. He was actually the bible says he's a foot taller than everyone else. It was emphasizing he was a great warrior, decent leader. He he start off, he would be the guy you'd pick. And and yet,

right when he gets called go back and read this in first Samuel nine ten. Not gonna read this part. Gonna jump into a different part. Is is when he gets called, he acts like, Why me? He says, I'm from the least of our tribes, the tribe of Benjamin, the 12 tribes, and my family's the least of that tribe.

You already know right off the bat, biblically, that's not true. Benjamin was the smallest, but it was not the least. It had a lot of influence and a lot of pop and power. And his family was not the least of the families. And he himself was the best warrior leader in the room. He was insecure right from the beginning.

And he got that from, you can tell his first actions are, he already doubted God's call.

And the reason he's insecure, because he didn't understand what it means. He says, I don't know if God really loves me. And then he lives out. They get I don't know. He he called me to something I can't do, which he misunderstood who God is. God says, I've called you to just trust me. I'm the one that does it.

He can never figure that out. And so if he felt overwhelmed in any situation, he let fear take over. He let jealousy take over. He let these things take over because his script was wrong in his head.

And so he so the first thing happened is this the source. What's really the source of this? What fills your mind will shape your life? And the source is this. The bible's clear. What you think on, you become. It's just like Tozer's Grove. What you think on the most, you become that.

And so here's Saul. He's become insecure, and he ended up going from insecurity to comparison to jealousy to paranoia to spiritual darkness to absolute destruction. All because the way he thought about things. And it started with his view of God

and the view of himself through the lens of what he thought God thought of him. And and and it just changed everything for the bad because he couldn't see it right.

And we're gonna jump in in first Samuel 18. It's the first place I wanna jump. He's been king. He's done some good things. But all of a sudden in 18, what's just happened is they ended up lined up against their enemy who God called him to be a king, and he's fighting the Philistines, which is their their arch nemesis.

And they're lined up for a battle, and they did something. What happened was a very common thing in this culture. A champion from the Philistines came forward and challenged a champion to come and fight him. This was a common thing back then. It actually saved lives. It was a combination of their view and their gods

in life. Like, God can choose. Like, whoever's warrior wins, their god must be more powerful. We should probably not mess with these people. And so they let two guys fight, one dies. Now you've decided to battle. Everyone else gets to go home. You don't have a bunch of death, battle disease. You don't have a bunch of families now dying because the the husband and the father and whatever is not coming home.

And and and you don't end up with as much horror. So it's a practical solution. So the Philistines brought down this war. The problem is they'd like to do it this way because they had a champion that was nine feet tall. Anyone know his name? Goliath.

So the Israelites saw him like, woah. Yeah. I'm not going. So nobody would step forward as a champion. Here's what's interesting is in this culture, if you don't have a champion step forward, you know who's supposed to go fight for you? Your king,

which is really crazy because Saul wouldn't do it. He started offering his daughter's hand in marriage, a great reward, all this stuff for someone else's effort. Why? Because he was insecure. He thought, there is no way. Why would God put me in this situation to go fight him? He's too big, which is kinda crazy because why does he want someone else to do it? We know Saul was the second largest,

best warrior in both of those armies. But he wouldn't see it that way. He would only just see he's bigger than me. And so his how his brain and his thoughts about who God is, who he is, he wouldn't step out and get into a fight that God wanted him to get into because he thought it was all on him.

He had no understanding that God says, I'm gonna win the battle. The battle's mine. All I want you to do is take who you are and what you have and throw it into that fight. So

this punk little shepherd boy bringing cheese and bread to his brothers sees what's going on. And the only he's smaller. He's never been in a war like Saul. He's not tall. He's not this big giant warrior. He's a shepherd that is a sling.

And he goes, what's going on here? Why doesn't someone just go kill that guy? And it wasn't because he was cocky. It's because they already knew. All of Israel knew that they're anointed. They're supposed to win this fight. But no one would step up.

And the only difference between David and Saul is David just said, it's not my battle. It's his. All God wants me to do is take my sling and my rock and throw it that direction. So he goes and he wins.

Sound familiar? Is there something in your life, my life? I know this. I will not go where God wants me to go when I think that God expects me to go do it on my own. God doesn't expect me to go win that battle. He just wants me to take my rocks and my sling and who I have and throw it at that.

What will you not take into the fight that God's asked you to have? It's usually because you're afraid that you already look on paper, I don't have enough to do that. And God said, It's not you that's going to make it work. It's me. But because the way he thought, he couldn't do it. That could be you right now.

And it's shaping your life. Not willing to step where God said trust me with this. Maybe it's your time. Maybe it's your money. Maybe it's it's it's a relationship. Maybe it's something. He says, just take what I've given you and go where I've asked you to go with it. And you're like, I can't.

Why? Because you're thinking like Saul. You don't understand that God wants to deal with the victory through you by just taking what you have and making it work. And so we miss the win. And then we get more insecure or you get angry. Why does God keep asking me to do something that's impossible?

And look what it did. So David goes out there and wins. And look what happens next. Here's where we know that it started to shape Paul's

Saul's life and how he acted. In chapter 18, they're leaving from this battle. It says when verse six. When the victorious Israelite army was returning home after David had killed the Philistine woman from from the the Philistine, women from all the towns of Israel came out to meet king Saul. That sounds pretty good. They're coming out to see him and celebrate. They sang and danced with joy and tambourines and symbols. This is like the end of Star Wars movie. The Ewoks are there. Everyone's singing and dancing. It's awesome.

And and it says, and this was their song. Saul has killed his thousands. See, they're singing praise to him. But then the next line, and David is 10 thousands.

Now we know where Saul's mind is. Because instead of even though he wouldn't go fight, you know what he could have done when David won? He could have thanked God saying, you know what? You sent a champion.

And we knew this was your battle and you protected your people. We've done what you've asked us to Sorry I didn't go do it, God, but thank you for having the grace to send someone that did it. He could've embraced him. Yeah. He he embraced him and gave him job because he was a hero, but we know where his heart really was. What did he really think about David? He hears that line and he goes, this made Saul very angry. What's this? He said, they credit David with 10 thousands and me with only thousands. Next, they'll be making him their king. So from that time on, Saul kept a jealous eye on David. He's mad.

His lack of trust in God because he just saw God incorrectly made him see himself insecurely

insecurely as king because God made him king, but he felt like, I don't have I'm not doing it to make it work, which he was never supposed to. Just trust him. And now when he didn't, this guy David steps up and does it. And instead of celebrating that David had the faithfulness and God did what he said he would do, and God had the grace to send David, he's now mad at Davis. Oh, David, David, he's like, must be nice.

You ever do that? You ever sit there and don't trust God and then someone like me gets up and here's what happens to each Well, it must be nice to be you. Yeah. Fine. Sure.

You know why you think you're mad at me or you're mad at God? It's because you think I'm the one that did it. I'm saying, you better suck it up and do the right thing because I can do it. I'm better than you. No. I didn't do anything. I'm just telling you, when I trust God, God does something.

But the insecurity because we see God incorrectly makes us miss the win. And not only miss the victory and the joy, it takes us down a road of now he's jealous, now he's angry, now he's frustrated.

And the reason is because he had voices in his head that weren't true. The false script.

When I grew up, my family was very different in how we handled debating, talking, getting through conflict. Very different than my wife's. Tragically different. Now the one thing I would share is my family was more effective at getting to resolution. The problem was the revolution of the process of how we got there.

Her family was not loud like my family. My family would get loud. I mean, we could be having fun talking, and you would think we're about to kill each other. I mean, it it got loud and loud. Like, I'm just tell I am not exaggerating. I'm the quiet one from my family. I'm the peaceful, more reflective, think first, talk second

in my family.

And and it could get loud. It would be crazy. She watched this happen, and then I brought it into our marriage. Like, tried to she would say something. We started to fighting, and then she just wanted to get quiet and leave it alone. And I'm like, we can't leave it alone. We need to finish this. Come out here and face me. You know, and it's like then I forced the issue, which I I'm just telling you guys, you're probably already smarter than this. If you force those issues

with your wife, it's like cornering a wolverine. You are gonna get bloodied, and it will always end poorly for you even if you're right.

And that's what it was like. I would do that. And and because she saw this, and here's what I learned growing up. It was like, we'd be talking. It'd be like that song. A little bit louder now. A little bit louder now. A little bit louder now. I mean, it was nuts. It was gets so loud, and and here's what I learned. In my life growing up, I learned that the loudest voice gets the floor.

The problem is the loudest voice isn't always right. And that's really a central theme in mental health. That's how I understand it. It's called these these obtrusive thoughts.

They they just they just get in there. Anybody have obtrusive thoughts? It's those thoughts that you just they're loud. It's a loud voice in your head, and they just get there. You know what an obtrusive I I bet you there's way more people in this room that have this than you'll admit to. Because all intrusive thought is is this thing you can't let go of. It just keeps going through your head. It's the one that likes to it always likes to show up when your body's tired and you wanna go to sleep, and you're ready to go to sleep, and your brain says, nope. Revelry,

time to get up. Your body may be tired, but we're gonna be up for a while, and we're gonna think about this dumb thing over and over. And no matter what you try to do, you try to reason with it, you try to say something, and all of sudden, it just gets louder and louder and louder and louder.

That's a mental health issue. The problem is we start listening to the loudest voice in our head, and that's how it shapes our life. We need to learn what to do with those loud voices. What's the loudest voice in your life? Because if you listen to the loudest voice, it creates a pattern in your life.

Right now when you think about how you've just been trying to deal with these things, what is your Groundhog Day right now? It's repeated over and over. What's the I Got You Babe song that's waking you're waking up to every day?

Because here's what the Bible says we should do. What we should think on. In Philippians four, verse four through eight. It says, All always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again, rejoice. Let everyone see that you are considerate in all that you do. Remember the Lord is coming soon.

Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Now what he's talking about here is being always with joy and honest. He's talking in the context when life doesn't feel joyful, when the things outside are scary, when you're going through tough things.

It's it's just that's what he's he's in the context then. He's not saying when it's good, do this. He's saying this is the answer to when it's not. This is the answer to loud voices. This is the answer to the noise out there and the noise in here. He says, be joyful, don't worry, instead pray about everything. You see, you gotta be going something worryingful to worry.

He says, but don't do that. What he doesn't mean is not don't feel worried. He says, don't do the act of worry.

You can feel worried. The act of worry is when you sit and focus on and think about it and just sit there and look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look at it. Look Look Look at it. And play all the what ifs and all the what ifs and all the He what says, don't do that.

He says, tell God what you need and thank him for all he's done. Meaning, look back at all the good things so, you know, you know, I can think I can trust him. He knows what I need now, and he'll take care of it however he takes care of it.

He says, then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. That means despite the circumstances. And peace means wholeness, not calmness. He says his peace will guard your hearts and your minds as you live in Christ. He's gonna guard our heart, our feelings, and our minds, our thoughts.

And then he says how to do that. And what's interesting is the way to do that, he doesn't even mention feelings. He doesn't tell you how to control feelings. You know why? You can't. Feelings are like hurting cats. You can't control them. It's like dealing with Seahawks fans, especially if they win the Super Bowl.

They're gonna be ridiculously cocky and obnoxious,

Which in some ways they might deserve. They have a good team this year. I'll be honest. I will give them that. Yeah. They I I know. I can't believe I admitted it, but that's true. Yeah. Are you cheering my willing to at least say something nice about a foe? Yeah.

You know I'm always just harassing you guys. I love inter inter conference rivals. I tip typically want my conference to win if we don't win. It means that we play in the best conference. So I want the Rams or the Seahawks to to to win. And I don't hate them. I just love to harass.

Seahawks fans are a different story, man. You guys can be obnoxious.

Just kidding. I'm like, it's me. I'm Saul, you guys are David. Why? Why did he win? See, now I've just distra this is what happens in this service. I always go late because you guys distract me.

No. He says how. He goes, now here's what you do. Not feelings. He says, and now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable

and right and pure and lovely and admirable. Think about these things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you've learned and received from me, everything you heard from me and saw from me doing. Then the God of peace, the God of wholeness, will be with you.

Notice how he says the way to fix this is through the thoughts. And I love how it says there that that word there think doesn't mean, oh, yeah, I know that. Think, that Greek word literally means to reckon, to deliberate, to dwell on, or it's actually an accounting term, to keep entering in the ledger.

It's the thing you write down. It's the thing that goes in that that should be written.

It's like it's like you're writing it in your ledger. Like, this is important. This is the part that I'm gonna write down. This is the part I'm gonna remember. I'm not I'm not gonna But what we tend to do is on our ledger, our dear diary of our mind, dear diary, once again, I feel like a failure. Once again, God wasn't there. Once again, this. Once again, that. Once again, this. What's he goes, don't write that stuff.

Go, dear God, I dear diary, I remember how God has come through even when I was scared. Go, blah, blah, blah, And I remember his goodness, his purity, his holiness. I remember those things. So

I'm gonna stay in faith and act it out on this. I'm gonna remember the good. And one the things he says in all he has done for you, you know what he did for us? The most critical thing the Bible repeats over and over again that we need to embrace? He died for you and me according to scripture when we were his enemies.

When we rebel and sin against him, we are actually standing against him as his enemy, and he died for us. And then in Romans, one of the passages I went through, it says, and in that moment, not only did he die for us, now he said, remember, if he died for you and me when he was our enemies,

what does that mean that he'll do for us now that we're his friends, Now that we're his child. Says he will do even more. Yet we get caught in this thinking of just the negative, which makes us think, either there's something wrong with me or there's something wrong with God, and we fixate on that.

And we get stuck with that thinking. We we dwell on the wrong thing. I've been watching this show with some of my buddies called The Pacific. It's about the war in the Pacific. It's a well known show. HBO put out years ago, follow-up to Band of Brothers.

And I've been watching that because I got to the age where men either care about barbecue or they get into World War two.

So that shows World War two. Actually, I've always been to that. My dad fought in the South Pacific in World War two, so it's an intriguing story to me. He was in the places where these stories are taking place.

And one of the characters was a Christian, a good man, and when he went, he started to see not just the horrors of battle, but the horrors of men and women, like how they acted. Like, the American soldiers started treating desecrating Japanese bodies. They were so they started going beyond, and it was like a moral challenge to him because as he watched it, at first, he judged it, and he was mad. Then he started to get so broken by battle when he see he was tempted to actually go, I'm gonna go rip some gold teeth out of a Japanese soldier's carcass

and just give in to some of these things. And then he was in combat, saw all these horrors, and he just got that thousand yards there. Like, he locked up. Like, he's just so fixated in all the horrible things that he's not doing anything in the battle. And his commanding officer looks at him, and he goes, hey.

You can't dwell on this stuff.

Now in modern problems, people say, did he just tell him to go into denial? No. My dad talked to me about this. He's not sent to denial. It's not not to, know it's there, not to feel it. You feel it and you know it. Don't dwell, meaning deliberate, fix. Don't keep writing that in your ledger. Don't get so fixed at it because it freezes you up. You get yourself and other people killed.

He said, remember the mission. Remember what you're training. Remember what you're supposed to do so you can move forward and get to victory.

I asked my dad about that. Hey. Did you ever freeze up and get really bothered by you see this stuff, but no. He goes my dad goes, I was blessed with this incredible gift of not thinking too much. And I go, what? He goes, well, I'm not stupid. But in those weird same when I played sports.

Some guys, when you get in a tough moment, you just think about all the ways you can lose. You remember all the times it didn't go right, and you panic and you lose. My dad says, never thought about that. I just thought, I'm gonna win this game, and this is the way to win. Battle?

That's terrible. But if I don't do something this direction, I die too. That's what he's saying. Some of the feelings we have are drawn up by the fact that we just keep staring at the failure and the problem. But Jesus died for all of that. And he goes, think about who he is. Think on these truthful things.

What are you writing in your ledger?

Lead to the obstacle, the real problem, polluted input, distorted output. Or we like to say garbage in, garbage out. When you keep writing the wrong things in the ledger, you move towards those things.

How does that look for mental health and how and what I'm talking about? It's when you sit there and you say, I'm so frustrated because I'm an anxious person. If you know Jesus, you're not an anxious person. You're a child of the king who is loved that's already been turned into a new living creature. You have a new life.

You're battling anxiety. You aren't anxiety. If you sit there and say, hey, I'm a drug addict. I'm I'm an alcoholic. I'm these things. You're not. You are someone that's been saved by the king and loved and and transformed into a new life who's just battling that thing. See how we we we we like to just we like to identify

and become and make our identity our struggle. Even when it's something that we didn't do to ourselves, victimhoods.

We like to live like we're the victim when we're not. We're the victor. Yes. We've been hurt. We've had bad things happen. But some of us, you can't get past that victimhood because you think that's who you are now. You're not a victim. You were victimized,

and you're battling it. But you are loved by a God who loves you and has recreated you, and he could take those hurt things and turn it into something for me. He didn't say it's good, but he says, I will make all things good. He could take the bad and make it something beautiful even though that was still bad.

But not if that's your identity. If you identify as that, you can't let God change it. Because you're like, don't. That's me. But that's not us. This is what hit me in this, is the thing I had to be reminded of over and over again when he said he will do even more now that we're his child.

Romans seven and eight, Paul's struggling with, why do I do the things I don't wanna do and and don't do the things I should do? And he's up on it he's talking, but thank God for Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

And he talks about put on the new life, the new clothing, he says. He called and describes it like clothes. It's like, we've been given a new life. Just like what baptism represents. You go into the water, death, burial, resurrection.

It doesn't go into the water, come back, and now Jesus wiped off, hey. This is forgiving waters. Now the same person comes out of the water, and you better go keep cleaning your act up. And that's what we get. The the false thing we get as Christians is you think that what God is, I died to give you heaven, but now you better get your act together. That's not what he's saying.

You're not the person that's sinning. This is the deeper thought. Think about it. Just think about it. This is so much deeper. You're gonna miss it. We put on the new clothes, but the old clothes are still in our closet. You know, like those clothes you hope to wear again someday? Or really, it's more like your fat pants.

I hope I never have to put those back on again, but sometimes I just wanna be comfy. So you go back and put them on. And he's like, why do you do that? That's not who you are. That's not who we are. When you're a new creature here's the thing.

If you are even battling against those unhealthy coping mechanisms, those sins, those lack of trust of God, you're just and you feel bad about it, you at least feel like, I I wanna get this right.

That tells me the Holy Spirit's in you. Now if you say you believe in Jesus and you don't even care what the word says, you're you're not even in a battle, you don't feel guilt or shame at all, you're just righteously, I don't care. I'm gonna live this way and I don't care what the Bible says, you're gonna pick and choose, I got some news for you. You're not a Christian.

You do not have the holy spirit, and you are what you're doing. You're an enemy of God that is not living in his love. But if you are truly believing in him, you at least want to want to.

And here's what the bible says really. I'm gonna tell this to you. You might feel like you keep doing the thing you don't wanna do like Paul said, and you keep failing. You feel like you're stuck and you can never get out. And you might even be mad at yourself, feel like a total failure, or you're now mad at God because you're like, why did God put me in a scenario I can't get out of?

That's the wrong way to think of it. You you're thinking like, I have to clean this up because that's who I am. I have to make this person not be that. That's not what the Bible says. You're a new person that still has the old clothes hanging around. The part of you if Jesus came back and took you home right now,

the part of you that wants to trust God with your life, wants to trust him with your money, your relationship, your time, wants to not walk in fear but walk boldly, the part of you that wants to live righteously, that wants to know his love deeply, the one that wants to do that, that's who goes with him.

And ask yourself, which one do you think you are? Or do you think there's only one of you? There's just the me that sometimes wants to do good, but then mainly the me wants to do bad, and I gotta get rid of the I gotta just stop. I gotta get this guy to stop wanting the bad.

That's not what the bible says. That's not even you anymore. We keep we keep living as the other person thinking and then feeling guilty about it. No.

You are, by the power and the love of God, the one that wants to serve him, that wants to trust him, that wants that life. If you know Jesus, that is your identity, and that's who you are. And you gotta quit listening to that loud voice of the zombie old self because that's not you.

And you gotta quit trying to force that person to be good. Put in your mind who you really are, and then just trust God. And how do you get victory? Lifts listening to him, stepping out in faith is not you earning something, but it is the effort he asks from the new you.

It's like going to the doctor. Well, I'm sick. I need to get better. Well, did you go to No. You make an appointment? No. I go, well, that's the problem. Your job is you gotta make the appointment and keep it. And then the doctor or if it's like sunlight, if you need sunlight.

I need some vitamin d. The doctor said, get some sunlight. I need vitamin alright. What really gives you the health? What gives you the vitamin d? The sunlight. Right? But what do we gotta do? Get out of the shadows. Step out of the shade and into the light. That's

what walking away from sin is. That's what trusting God is. That's not reforming the old self. That's just taking the new self and putting yourself in the presence of the light of God so he can then change you. But

if you listen to the old self, you listen to the fears, or you judge God, or you see God incorrectly, you're like, I have to be as big as Goliath to go fight Goliath. You can be as small as David and you can lop Goliath's head off. Because God already said you're gonna win that battle because it's my battle.

What in your life do you say, I can't trust God with that? Now I see in our culture a lot of it money. Christians will not trust God with their money.

You know why? Because you think it's on you.

All I have is this little rock and this sling. Take that little rock and throw it at what God told you to aim it at. And watch the victory you end up with.

Because that's who we are if you know Jesus. I'm not trying to rally people to stop, make the old self do right things. I'm not trying to train a dog. I'm trying to free a person to have the victory of the new life that you already are. That's the truth. And

that's what we have to get to. That's mental health according to scriptures. Because I am telling you, what fills your mind will shape your life, and that's an obstacle. And Saul, he failed in this because he went to the darker places, and he became the things that he was supposed to fight against. In one Samuel 22,

he he goes and he finds out David's been helped by a priest. Well, David is the king of the bodyguard. He's the king's bodyguard. He's his son-in-law. He's never done anything. He's had chances to kill Saul and he wouldn't do it.

And yet Saul's convinced. He has this different narrative in his head. It's not about me. It's about him. It's his fault. It's that fault. It's this. It's not him. It's that. And so he shows up and he says to this, to this head priest.

Why have you and the son of Jesse conspired against me? Saul demanded. Why did you give him food and a sword? Why have you consulted God for him? Why have you encouraged him to kill me as he's trying to do this very day? But sir, Ahimelech replied, is anyone among all your servants as faithful as David? Your son-in-law?

Why? He is the captain of your bodyguard and highly honored member of your household. This was certainly not the first time I had consulted God for him. May the king not accuse me and my family in this matter for I knew nothing at all of any plot against you.

He says, you will surely die, Ahimelech, along with your entire family, the king shouted. And he ordered his bodyguards, kill these priests of the Lord for their allies and conspirators with David. They knew he was running away from me, but they didn't tell me. But Saul's men refused to kill him. They knew, like, this isn't right.

David hasn't tried to kill you. Why in your head are you so convinced he's the problem? And he goes, then the king said to Doeg, do e g, dog? I don't know. Yo, dog. You do it. Or or wait. Maybe Doeg's an an acronym. It's Department of Efficient Government. I I I don't know. He says, So Doag,

the Edomite, turned on them, and this is where it gets dark, and killed them that day, 85 priests in all, still wearing their priestly garments. Then he went to Nob, the town of the priests, and killed the priests' families, men, women, children, babies, all the cattle, donkeys, sheep, and even their goats.

That went dark. It shaped his life to now he's killing priests and their whole families and even their goats. And you know what? That's what happens when we when we get trapped with the with the input that's wrong. The output starts to go dark.

And I know what you're thinking, the same thing I thought when I first read this. I was like, you know, that's for Saul. That's true. But I may have a problem and struggle, but I'm not killing anyone. Are we?

Are you frustrated with God because of something someone else, and it's not really a true well, if it wasn't for them, then, hey, if it wasn't for this. Or have you been mad and your narrative is, I'm just going to assassinate someone's character because I'm mad.

Or here's the real dark question that hit me. I'll share it with you. I was honest and I thought about this. I go, well, that's just I thought, you know, the only difference between me and Saul in this moment is he had the power to do it. He can order these guys to be killed and not go to jail.

He had the power and the resources to do that. And then I realized there's been times in my heart and my life that I would probably do some much darker things if I had the time, the money, the power, and I know I wouldn't go to jail.

Everyone thinks they're safe from that until you get that. That's why they say power corrupts. That's why a lot of times when people get power, go to really dark places.

Where is your life going dark and you're justifying it as the right thing to do? Because of a false narrative of listening to a loud voice that's not letting you see God correctly and by extension yourself correctly in light of who God is. And even your situation correctly in light of who God is.

That's the obstacle. But what we really need to do is get to alignment. Alignment, the Bible says, is it's a renewed mind leads to a transformed life. Saul would not let his mind be renewed. He just kept going down this road of letting these voices shape his life. And it ended poorly. In first Samuel 28, here's how it all ends.

For him, he's up against the Philistines again, and he's worried.

The prophet Samuel, who usually would talk to him, and sometimes he'd do what we do, he'd have these moments he'd feel guilty. Like, alright. I'm gonna get it right. I'm gonna get it right. And basically what we always do, I'll pray harder. I'll try harder. I'll do harder. And instead of just surrender more and under and really get his mind right, it was more like, I'll force myself to do the things that God wants me to do. And then you just have the wrong view of how it works.

And here's what happened. It says, The Philistines, in verse four, set up their camp at Shunamm, and Saul gathered all the army of Israel and camped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the vast Philistine army, he became frantic with fear.

He asked the Lord what he should do, but the Lord refused to answer him. Not because we know from all the context, it wasn't God was being petty. It was like, he doesn't listen. He's hard in his heart. He can't hear me anymore. And he goes, not even through all these other ways, by dreams or sacred lots or the prophets.

Saul then said to his adviser, alright, find a woman who is a medium so I can go and ask her what to do. His adviser replied, there's a medium at Endor. Endor, we're back in Star Wars again.

So he wanted a medium. Why did he want a medium? I think he felt like small was too little and large was too big. I don't know. That's not what it is. A medium is a sorceress, a witch.

Someone that just use it's it's it's his power of darkness to just look at stuff to get an answer that he wanted. Which is weird because he wanted to know from God, but he he he wouldn't listen to God. So now he says, I can't hear from God. And when he does hear from God, he doesn't like what God says. But he wants an answer from God anyways.

But he's not getting the answer he wants. So he goes to a medium. Now before we judge Saul again here on this, I think we all struggle with going to mediums all the time.

A medium is just anything outside the word of God. It's it's the worldly way answer. I'm gonna look for an answer that's in the world's ways. God says, don't be conformed to this world. We'll see that last. It's like, don't be don't be conformed to the ways of this world. We need to be of the ways of the word. And there are some things that if we don't like God's answer, we go somewhere else. Some of us, you you're getting more from the the medium of news,

government, scrolling, AI. I don't know. But you look for answers because I don't like God. Like I'll say, well, here's what God says. I mean, how many are looking for financial answers outside of honoring God with your money? Honestly. Well, I know what God says. I know what he says to do, but I can't do that.

But here's what I'm gonna do with my money. Here's what I'm gonna do with my time. I don't have time for that. I can't do that. Here's what he says on how to live in a relationship. Get married first, then you sleep together. You honor God. You love one another. Well, yeah. I get that, but it's you just don't understand.

We go to mediums all the time, and it is just as much you think, well, witchcraft, that's a pit of hell. That's right. The ways of the world is from the pit of hell.

You won't find what you're looking for down that road. But when we don't think rightly about who God really is and what He really has done for us and who I really am in Him, I won't trust His answers. And then you think He's not talking to you. He's like, I've talked to you all the time. You won't listen to me.

And we know so God you know what he did? He let Samuel actually rise from the dead. We know that because it freaked the medium out. She became extra large in her pants size when she saw what happened.

She screamed and was like, oh my God. She knew that was the Lord. And Samuel talks. And he goes, here's why God's not talking to you. You refuse to listen. You refuse to and you know what? Here's what's gonna happen. You know what's gonna happen? You're gonna die in that battle. And guess who's gonna die with you? Your loyal son who should've been the next king.

The guy who was the best friend of David. The guy that David would have supported as king. Self fulfilled prophecy, man, because you refused to trust God. The thing you were afraid of actually happened, and it affected those around you.

And here's what's weird. People say, wow, that's sad. God just killed him. No. It doesn't say anything about he said, if you follow me, Samuel just Saul just left. What if he would have stopped and said, you know, you're right. You're right. God is God, you are right.

I've blown it in every which way. I've realized I've thought about this wrong. I didn't understand who you are. If you want David to be king, I'll step up. Said, what do you want me to do? I will surrender to you and your love right now. But he didn't. He literally just said, fine,

and went out and died in battle. And you think that is so stupid, but some of you right now, there are some things that if you would just

see God correctly and understand why he's asking you to do the stuff he's doing and how much he really loves you. And what do do? You would not walk right out there and go right into your death battle again.

You know what we would do? We would do what the final answer here is. Romans.

Romans chapter 12,

verse one and two says this. And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because all he has done for you. And it's back to what he did for us. And give your bodies. What he's saying is heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and so give him. That's what it means to worship him. Not a piece at a time, but to fully, in wholeness, surrender to the wholeness of his love.

And he says, let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don't copy the behavior and the customs of this world. Don't go to the mediums. He goes, but let God transform you into a new person by the changing of the way you think.

How many of think he needs to change the way you feel before you're gonna follow him? It's you need to change the way you think. And that word for the way you think, you know what it literally means? To see from God's point of view. So what he's saying is, let him change you, transform you, empower you

by just choosing to see his point of view. This hit me. This was one the things that hit me in my story. Because I thought, do that, but then I thought, wait, how many of my prayers when I get into telling him what I need, like it said in the Philippians passage, that I don't just tell him what I need,

I I try to convince him from my point of view on why he should give me what I want? That I think my my prayers become trying to convince God to see my point of view. I'm crying out to God not to trust his love and see his point of view. I'm crying out to God to go, give me this,

and here's why. I become the greatest salesman. You know, it's like he's like, God, here's like let me give you the 13 reasons why I know I'm an idiot, but this is why you should do it this way. He says, stop that and surrender to his point of view.

Because he says when that happens, he says, then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. It doesn't that word for know God's will doesn't mean understand

intellectually and finally hear it. It says you already know it. You'll it says what you'll do when you choose his point of view, you'll walk where he told you to walk. You'll step out in faith. And guess what? You're gonna be surprised of all surprise. All those false beliefs, all those false ideas, all those fears that said, I can't trust God with this because of this, this, and this. You'll then trust him with this, this, and this, and you'll go, woah. That was good.

That was pleasing. That was perfect even if it wasn't always pleasant.

You'll taste of the Lord and see He's good, as scripture says.

We often wanna know what it tastes like before we'll take a bite. It doesn't work that way.

We need to let God transform us from that point of view.

So here's what I'm gonna ask. I'm gonna close-up with this. But part of what I went through in this is I came up with this thing. And I think the thing to be able to do that, I'm gonna help you with a little practical application. You can tap the with your phone, the whatever QR code on the back of the seat, and it'll take you to our our

rockpoint.io. And what we need is we need soap. This is the practicality. This can help you have the process I went through with this message. And what a SOAP is? Scripture observation application prayer. I mean, you start with a word

and then you observe it. Observe doesn't mean, alright, I see it. Observe means you dive in and you don't just randomly grab verses out of context to make it say what you want it to say. It means you study it and and you look at it and you go, what's the context? What is the word really saying? Just like I've been pointing out some stuff here. You find out what it's really talking about.

And once you've studied it and gone through it, you then apply it. And apply is you then meditate, you let it go through you. You lit the sit there and go, what does this mean for me? And on this topic,

where are my thoughts going? What voices in my head have I been listening to? What is really shaping my life? Where is my mental health according to scripture? Am I mentally healthy? Or am I mentally very unhealthy that's leading and shaping my life in the wrong way?

And then you pray about it. That gives you something to pray about. And in there, I actually put the scriptures, put some good questions. I even put a sample prayer on what you can start praying.

And I will challenge you to not just go, that was a decent message. I felt a few moments. There was a couple feels there and there, couple bad jokes I almost at. Actually, do this and see what happens to your mental health.

Because if you sit and just soak in all the bad,

you can't do that enough to get to good. You need God, by his love, to take you to the other place. And this is how. You know why? I know that. Because I just did it. And God has done this in my life a million times. Because here's the deal.

I was wrestling with the fact that why do I run towards my little unhealthy coping mechanisms? I've shared. I've several. I've called my little ladders to hell. I don't say that's what I am. It's something I battle. And I notice I run at them in in weird times. It's like I'm putting on the old clothes.

One of them I've shared. It's like I know the difference between just having been a youth pastor and liking to eat food and getting up at 1AM and having cereal with heavy cream for no apparent reason. It's because I am stressed, something's going on, and I choose to just this makes me feel good for a moment. But then it causes more problems later on.

It's the same with drinking alcohol. It's the same for me with avoiding. Sometimes one of my others is the bible calls it sloth. I'll do 50 things to avoid the one thing. Just because the one thing scares me. And I just don't wanna feel that way. But then God hit me when I was praying through these passages. I was like,

but why? I felt confused on some stuff. And I was trying to unpackage because he said to me, hey, you know what? You think that's the battle. Those are the symptoms. What's the source of the battle? And I had to sit there and really reflect.

And I realized that when I run, the times I run the most to these things is when I feel like I'm not comfortable and I deserve a reward. It felt like I've worked hard and now I'm not comfortable and I just wanna be comfortable for a few minutes.

And then God said to me, you know, have you ever thought that comfort is an idol for you? And this is what shocked me, guys. I would not describe my life as one that just chased comfort.

I feel like I could talk like Paul. If anyone is sacrificed for the sake of the kingdom of God and what he's asked me to do, I'm one of those guys.

My family motto, growing up my dad, taught me bushes do hard things. We run at things that people run away from, and I have been that type of guy. I am the type of guy that will chase, run, charge hell with a squirt gun that's only half full. And I've done it over and over and over in my life.

But that doesn't mean I still don't struggle with the wanting to be comfortable. So I got confused. Because I felt like in the last few years, going all the way back to my life, go, God is blessed.

What I when I've trusted him, he's turned it into blessing. I've seen him use me. I've seen him work around me. I've seen him bless me. I've seen all these things, but it seems like I always felt there's this one area of that God just why is it always behind? Why is you open a door of great blessing, but then the resource to to continue to do it doesn't keep up. Why does it feel like we get I get stopped in my life?

I feel like you said you'll give me what I need, and I feel like I'm always you're blessing it. It's going huge. But then why can't I go to the next why am I always why is it why do I feel stuck on that area? Why? And I was either and I kept going down two roads. Either why does God hold out on me or what's wrong with me on why God won't do this? Which are both the wrong way to think.

And as I was sitting there and all this stuff this week, it hit me. I was like, this is weird that I would have a comfort but yet I was confused. And then God said, do you ever thought they're both the same thing? And I was praying through one of the passages in Romans.

I just start I'll take a scripture that says truth, and I'll pray it. I'll pray the line of the scripture, and then I'll add my own words. I make it personalized. If it says we need to, I go, I did blah blah blah. And then I stop and I react to that. And I just say, God, you know what? I think about that. Here's where I have it. I'm

just unpackaging this thing. It's all about the love of God. That that's that passage where it says he will do even more now that we're his children, even though he already died for us when we were his enemy. And what does the more mean? It means the other passage where it says we will never truly be able to compliment just how high and wide and deep the love of God is.

And if we really embraced that, we wouldn't fight him on these silly little things he asked us to do. And so as I was praying it, was like, I was getting tear filled. I was feeling this hope. This

out loud and go, I immediately regret saying that out loud. I don't mean that. I don't want that part. It was weird. I go, how can I fully agree? But the second it said there'll be some basically, you're gonna get really uncomfortable with Christ too.

It's this weird dynamic. You can have a peace that surpasses all. You can be uncomfortable, but completely filled with joy. You could be uncomfortable, but have hope. You can be uncomfortable when you trust him. And I realized I didn't wanna pray that part. And then it hit me. I do struggle with comfort,

even though I've charged and done uncomfortable things. But then it hit me, and God says, hey. Have you ever thought that maybe you feel left out on this part? It's because your whole life, you do you you're willing to get uncomfortable, but it's really the reason or the resources,

you want me to give you the comfortable answer. And I've never given you the comfortable answer, but I've always taken care of you when you needed to. And the problem isn't with what I'm doing. The problem is how you view it. And

for me personally, as your pastor, what I realize is, I have no problem getting uncomfortable for Christ. But here's the problem. I have a control issue that puts him on a shot clock. There's a play clock. He has thirty seconds to get the playoff.

And I'll feel comfortable for a uncomfortable for a certain period of time, but I have a natural instinct in my head of, here's about the time it should get resolved. And my real frustration, my real confusion is when it doesn't get resolved as fast as I want it resolved.

And God says, maybe I've held out on this because I've been calling you to this moment because here's another area that makes me wanna make it about me and my failure or miss see God and say, God is failing and he's forgetting about me. How about you? Is there something that you keep dealing with that you keep feeling either you're the failure or you think God is overlooking you, God isn't loving you, and that ain't true.

And when I prayed that, I wasn't consumed with guilt and regret.

I didn't feel enslaved. I didn't feel God say get it together and figure this out. I started bawling because I felt free again. Because I felt the love of Christ saying this is why I died. This is why I died so you can walk away from this. You can let go of this, And you can experience my joy

and a peace that surpasses all understanding. A peace when you're uncomfortable.

The love we really need. The life Jesus died to give us.

What would happen if you do that? I invite you, just as Paul said, put into practice all the things you see me do and all the stuff he was talking about, when I followed the Lord correctly, I'm telling you here's how I got there. I'm inviting you to do the same because that's real mental health.

It's the peace of Christ, the wholeness of Christ. Father God, thank you, Lord. I thank you that you love me and everyone in this room more than we love ourselves. So Lord, I thank you that you've made me uncomfortable for the cause of helping me to understand your love and being able to help other people see it as well.

Thank you for that. And, God, I just pray for all of us in this room, including me, that we would continue to just soak and let you let you transform us by helping us change the way we think. Pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Hey. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Make sure to head to rockpoint.io

and our social media to stay up to date with everything happening here at Rock Point.