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[00:00:24] Speaker B: Well, good morning, everybody. This weekend we're beginning the next section of our Healthy series as we're talking about healthy hacks. Habits. Healthy habits. Now, habits are patterns, the routines. We are people who like patterns and like routines. I don't know if you've ever thought about yours or not. Probably most of you begin your day with some coffee, right? You can't have. You can't really start your day to have coffee. I don't know how many of you are morning people. You're just morning people. How many of you, not so much a morning person, you kind of get through, okay, about 50, 50. And typically, those morning people marry. Marry the not so morning people. Have you noticed that? And you just don't want to. You just don't want to hear from them, you don't want to see them. You don't want to be around them for a period of time, because that person jumps up and they're just with a song in their heart, you know, and they're just singing along with all that boundless energy. And so it just doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem fair. It's not even. I mean, the Bible says it's a curse to anyone who rises early in the morning and blesses their neighbor. You know, that's actually in the proverb. So there you are. For you people who aren't mourning people, you've got a verse there to hang on to. Throw it in their face, you know, use it however you will. But the point is, these routines that we all have are things that we develop over time. Now, there's some good routines that we have. Healthy routines. You get to brush your teeth, you shower, you dress, you prepare for your day, right? Healthy routines, exercise. That's a good thing. And so routines are something we're all familiar with. And it's hard when you get into a bad routine. It's actually hard to break a bad routine. Like, if you get out of the habit of working out for a period of time, and then you try to get back into working out for a period of time, that's a tough thing to get into. And I read an interesting study that said to break a bad habit and develop a good habit, it takes about eight weeks, about eight weeks before it actually feels natural or normal. So if you've, if you're trying to break a bad habit, the best way to break a bad habit is to try to put a good habit in its place. Do something positive. Positive or productive in place of that bad habit. There's a lady that we know who works pretty close to the gym where she works out. And when she has her smoke break, she'd have a smoke break instead of smoking. She would go to the gym and get on the treadmill instead of smoking. And that's how she began to break the habit of smoking. She said, when I had that craving for a cigarette, I would just run down the gyms about a half a mile from my house. And so she just pops in fully dressed to work, and she's working out for a while, that she's, you know, rushing back, hey, how are you? You know, I just took my smoke break. And so she broke a bad habit for her by installing a good habit. And so we're going to talk a little bit over the next couple of weeks about developing good habits that will affect our personal life, our family life, our business life, and our church life. And so when the Bible really begins to describe how we're made, we're made of three essential elements. In fact, if you look at the scripture I have for you is first Thessalonians 5,23, one of the Scriptures we have where Paul is writing. And he said, may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. Let me stop and explain what he means by that. Paul, if you read that context in First Thessalonians 5, he's talking about the soon return of Jesus to the earth one day. And he's saying that he's going to come again and receive his own to himself. And so as we prepare for the return of our Savior, here are some good things to do, here are some healthy habits to develop. And then he's kind of concluding that by this, with his salutation and this blessing over the people he's writing to, and he's saying again, he said, I. I pray that the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. Now what, what does sanctify you mean? Well, when you look in the Bible, there is a law that will help you interpret Scripture. It's called the Law of first mention. And when you look at a word in the Bible, find where it is first mentioned in Scripture and how it is used, what is the context and how it is used in that instant. And that will be a pretty consistent way to define the Word throughout all of Scripture. Well, the first time you read the word sanctify is in the book of Genesis, when God says concerning the seventh day. The Lord sanctified the seventh day and he blessed it, meaning that he made the seventh day different than any other days of the week. So when God says to sanctify, he means to set apart. He means to make unique. He means to make it different from all of the others. And Paul was saying, I'm praying that through the disciplines of your life and through the way in which you interact with one another, that people will see a difference in you, that it will set you apart from the normal, that you'll be able to swim upstream, if you will, and you'll look unique and you'll look different in the eyes of other people. So may the God of peace himself sanctify you, set you apart. May he do this completely, meaning in every aspect of life. And then notice this, this expression. And may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice how he defines us as spirit and soul and body. Now, in theological terms, we call that spirit and soul and body. We call that trichotomy. Trichotomy. It is the idea that Paul introduces here that we are made of three essential elements. You and I are bodies. Obviously, we are physical bodies. And we're gonna talk about that next week, how that we are to develop healthy habits in our bodies and we're to take care of these temples of ours. That's important, you know, that you try to stay in shape. You try to get yourself as healthy as possible. A little side note, Cindy and I, years ago, we tried that Jenny Craig diet. You ever try that Jenny Craig diet? And while we were on the Jenny Craig diet, we actually lost about 60 bucks, I think, on that one.
But the point is, you try to take care of your body. And we'll talk about that next week. But Paul said, so you take care of your body and your spirit and your soul. Now, some believe that the Bible interprets it a little different and puts the spirit and soul together, which is called dichotomy. Now, again, neither position is, you know, is not going to send you to hell if you have the wrong position on that. It's just a preference or it is an interpretation of sometimes you see the spirit and soul and they're spoken of synonymous or at the same point as being one. And that's okay when you break it apart. Pneuma and psuche, soul and spirit. Pneuma is a soul, and it deals more with the idea of emotions, of intellect, of mind.
And the soul speaks more of how we relate to one another. It's maybe the. You might think of that as a lower part of our being. How I relate to you, how you relate to me. Spirit, Pneuma is how we relate to God, how we relate to him. When Jesus was on the cross, he said, into thy hands I commend my spirit. It is finished. And so spirit and soul, it's okay if you think of them as one. Sometimes the Bible speaks of them as one. And it's okay, as in this instance when Paul separates them out so we can understand them a little more clearly as spirit and soul and body trichotomy. And so when you think about the soul, and that's the part I want to focus on this morning a little bit. And next week we'll talk about healthy bodies. And then the next week we'll talk about a healthy spirit. Then we'll move to Palm Sunday and Easter. But as we think about a healthy soul, we're thinking about a healthy mind, we're thinking about a healthy will, we're thinking about being healthy in our intellect and the way in which we react and act toward one another, and developing habits in our life that actually result in being healthy in our soul. And let me give you a second verse that really sets up what I want to talk to you about. This one is in third John, chapter one, and look at verses two and three. John writes, beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health. Note now, just as your soul prospers, in other words, as your mind and your intellect and your will, as it's healthy and it's prospering and flourishing, I pray that you'll flourish in every other area of your life. And he, he ties in kind of material physical prosperity or health to the soulless. Prosperity or health, meaning that as one is healthy, it affects the other. And remember, we talked about this before. If you're interested in being a healthy person, you have to be healthy in every area of your life.
And your soul is part of who you are. It's your intellect, your mind, and your will. And so to evaluate how healthy you are is kind of where I'm driving at today so that we can develop habits that will cause us to be healthier in that area. And then he said, as a result you'll prosper and you'll be in health as your soul prospers. And look at verse three. For I rejoice greatly when other people, when brothers and sisters, came and testified of the truth that is in you just as you walk in truth. In other words, Paul said, what really thrilled me as a pastor and as a teacher is to have other people come up to me to tell me what a difference your life had made in their lives. In other words, they testified to the truth of God that they saw in your life. I told you before, the greatest argument for Christianity is a Christian, and the greatest argument against Christianity is a Christian. And so he's saying that one of the most outstanding traits that sanctify us, as Paul would say in First Thessalonians 5, that sets us apart and makes us different from the average person is the disciplines of our life is the difference that our life makes in the life to the lives of other people, where people can look at us and see a difference or a distinction. And one of the ways whereby they say that they can see a difference is in the health of our soul. Again, the soul is my intellectual, the soul is my mind, how I think, the soul is my will, how I act. When they see a difference in how I react and respond, people see health and they see that that's that I'm different than how other people might respond in certain circumstances. So this healthy mind, this healthy intellect, this healthy will, if you will, is tied to a healthy soul. And to have a healthy soul, I think there are three essential habits that we have to develop. And these are going to be difficult because if you're not used to this and if you're not in a pattern of doing this, if it's not a routine of your life, it's going to take about eight weeks, remember, to be able to break some bad habits with some good ones. And the first thing we have to do, please hear my heart now, is you're going to have to get over some things. You're going to have to. Number one, you're going to have to learn to get over some things. There are some things in life you simply have to. To get over there. Listen, there are some things that are not fixable. There are some people who are not fixable. And I'm going to talk about that a little more. And there are some things in life, some experiences of life that you and I are going to have to learn to get over. Paul put it this way. In Philippians 3, verse 13, I have to forget what is behind. See, I do have to let some stuff go. I'm going to have to forget what is behind. I have to strain toward what is ahead. And I'm pressing toward the goal that Christ has called me toward. So in other words, Paul said, in order for me to move forward, in order for me to be healthy in area of life, there's some things that have happened to me in my past that I'm going to have to walk away from. I'm going to have to be able to move away from. I can't hold on to some things and still be healthy. As I said, there are some things that you and I have gone through in life that aren't fixable now. They're painful and they're difficult and they're burdensome. But we have to make an evaluation and we're going to have to make a decision at some point. Are those things we hold are holding onto making us healthy or unhealthy? Are they holding us back? Are they restricting the progress and the growth that is in our life? And if so, we're going to have to learn to let them go, to simply walk away.
In fact, I would say there are some people that we'll encounter in life, not just some things, but there are some people we'll encounter in life that are not fixable either. There's some people you just simply can't fix. Now, I've shared this with you a few months ago, but it just meant it fit perfect with where I was going this morning. And I want to share this again that the people who, in. Who are in your life that you can't fix would be the following. Number one would be people who don't think they need to be fixed. I mean, you can't fix someone who doesn't see the problem. It's impossible. You can't fix anyone in your life who just doesn't see it. I mean, they say that in the 12 step program, right? That the first step is owning it and acknowledging it. And sometimes the hardest thing to get anyone to see is their biggest problem. Because for most of us, we are our biggest problem. And until we actually see it, I mean, I've been a part of interventions, I've been a part of confrontations where families have met to try to get another family member to see the issue that was going on in their life. And a lot of them ended disastrously. I mean, just didn't. Just didn't work because the person could not see it. And only until that person came to terms with the thing and saw what everybody else was seeing. Only until that happened did there was any help on the way and did any help become available. And so the first people, the first person, the first type of people, I should say first, that really aren't fixable are people who just don't think they need it. Here's the second type of people who know they need it, but they just don't want it. And there are going to be people in your life who will admit to you, I know I need help, I just don't want it. And there is. That's a frustrating thing to deal with because they acknowledge the thing that is creating so much tension in the relationship. Maybe it's someone you work with, maybe it's someone you're supervising on the job and they know that they have an issue, they know they have a problem, but they just don't want the help. I worked with a guy one time, and he had just a unique ability. Don't try to figure out who he is now. This was back at the grocery store, so.
But he had this unique ability. I've never worked with anyone that had this gift. I told him one time when I was trying to help him because he and I never had problems, but he had problems with everybody else on the staff, church members, everybody. I said, I've never met anybody that has the gift you have. You have such a unique gift. You can walk through the lobby and not speak to a person and make everyone in that lobby mad.
It's a gift.
I've never seen anybody like you. You're remarkable. I mean, you just walk through and people get hacked off. And I'm getting emails going, who is this guy and why do you have him? Right? And you know what he said to me when I told him that? He said, my wife tells me that all the time.
Some people you. I never fixed him. I never fixed him. I had to send him packing. I mean, it's just. I couldn't fix him because he was a guy that acknowledged. My wife told me that he know he. But he didn't want it. Here's the third type. The people who know they need help, but they don't want it yet. They don't want it yet. They say, I know I need help, I'm going to get help. Just not now. Just not now. And let me tell you, if you're going to begin the process of breaking a bad habit, you're going to be in the process of getting healthy. There's no better time than the present. Can I remind you, the only time you and I are promised is the present. That's why the Bible says now is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation. Don't put off those things that you should do. You and I aren't promised tomorrow, we're not promised the next hour. We're only promised the here and now. We're in the moment. And that's why I tell you all the time, the best plan for your life is not necessarily your five minute, your five year plan, but your five minute plan. I mean, the battle is won or lost in the next five minutes. The decisions you make in the now, not the decisions you make going forward. Because you make good decisions in five minutes, you will make good decisions in five years. You get the point. So there are people who just don't want it. They don't or know they need it, rather they just don't want it yet. Here's a fourth type. The people who don't want it don't want help from you.
They just don't want you to be the person to help them. And there are some people that you just, if they still want it from you, they'll say, I know I need help, I know I'm not healthy, I know this and I really don't want it yet. And when the time comes, I don't want that from you. Right. That's a person you can't fix. You have to realize you can't fix. And then the last one I would give you are people who are not willing to do what it takes to get help. There's some people that aren't willing to do the hard work. And it is hard work. Any area of your life. We all have unhealthy areas in our life. I'm not picking on anybody. I'm saying all of us have areas in our life we need help in. We all have areas in our life we need improvement in. That's part of our soul, our intellect, our will, all that we are the essence of who we are. We have unhealthiness because we're born in an unhealthy world. That's why David said, in sin, my mother conceive me, we're born with a sinful nature. And just because you have Jesus, it doesn't eradicate the sin that's in your life. We have a propensity towards sin. We have the old nature. It's the two natures that battle each other all the time. That's why I tell you all the time, if you knew how to roll a Joint before you met Jesus. You still know how to roll a joint.
You still have that nature. It's still there. You know how to do it. It's just that the disciplines that we have in life are the disciplines that keep us on the straight and narrow. And so I'm just suggesting to you as we go forward this morning in the message, that there are some people that know they need help, but they're just not willing to do the hard work in order to get healthy. So what happens as a result of that is those patterns, those routines of life dictate and determine who they become.
What you believe about yourself determines how you behave, and that ultimately determines who you come. Your character. My character is shaped by my core beliefs. My character is shaped by what I do about those core beliefs, how I act, my mind, my will, my emotion. It's in the soul of a person that the character is formed. So we have to be healthy in our soul if we're going to be healthy in our. In our character. In fact, when the Apostle Paul was writing about this, he said in Philippians 1:12 to pick up where he went from Philippians 3 where he said, forget. He said in Philippians 1:12, he said, I've determined the things that happened to me. I just let them fall out for the furtherance of the gospel. Now what do you mean by that? Furtherance of the gospel represented his life's calling in order. Let's apply that to your life. In order for you to be effective in your life, there's some things you have to let go of. There's some things, some people, and there's some things you have to let go. I'm kind of circling back to where I started. I understand that, but let me. Let me define a few of those things. You have to let go of. You have to let go of some past grief.
There's some heartache and hardship and some hard times in life that you're going to have to find a way.
You don't necessarily ever get over them, but you get through them. And sometimes grief is more like a wound that you carry. I'm convinced of that. I think I'm living that. You don't ever get over losing someone. You learn to live with the loss. You learn to move through the loss. And you get. You don't get past it. You just get on with it. And even in the word, wound is a good word because wound denotes something that never fully heals right. If you have a wound, it means I have something that is not fully healed. That's why it's called a wound. And so there's some wounds in our soul or some things we've been through and we've gone through and we're going through that will never really fully heal. So we have. We have to. We have to learn to somehow get through those experiences and we have to walk through those experiences. So there's some grief there, there's some guilt there. I mean, there's some people who've made mistakes that they can't seem to forgive themselves of those mistakes. And they keep bringing those things up over and over again.
Can I give this to you? Once God has forgiven you, forgive yourself.
Because you are now bringing up things in your life that God doesn't even see because he's forgiven you of them. You see, there's a reason why the enemy is called the accuser. The accuser, the Holy Spirit is the convictor. Now, what's the difference? The Holy Spirit of God will convict us of sins we've never confessed. The Holy Spirit will convict us of rights. I'm sorry. Of wrongs we've never made right.
If I wrong someone and I don't go make that right, I don't seek restitution and restoration with that person, then that remains a problem that that's not reconciled. But once I've done everything I can possibly do to make things right between me and my God and make things right between me and the person that I've hurt, once I've done that, honestly, openly I've done that, I've got to move past that. You cannot allow the grief or the guilt of your past to affect your future because it is a way whereby your soul will never be healthy if you're holding on to. To that guilt. Here's another one. You have to get past grudges.
I mean, I'm telling you, man, there's going to be people in your life that will do you wrong. And you're going to have to learn to let them go and to let that go. There's some things that will not be made right, as I said. But the people you can't fix, some of you are relating to that. You're thinking about somebody, that you're in your world right now, something that's hurt you that you can't fix. You've tried to reconcile with them. They won't own their stuff, and there's nothing you can do about that. Sometimes you just have to move on past it, realizing that, man, God alone is the only one that's able to Break that person and to break that habit and to break that pattern in that routine. So there are some things I'm suggesting in order for us to be healthy, we have to get over. And that's not easy. Here's the second thing we have to do. And this is where the power lies. Not only get over some things, we have to get under it. What do I mean by that? We have to get in control of the right influence. You have to get under control of the right. And what am I referring to when I'm talking about the control of the Holy Spirit?
There are three dominant spirits, and we talk about this three dominant spirits that affect everybody. First of all, you have a human spirit. A human spirit. Proverbs says the spirit of a person will affect their outlook on life. The spirit of a person will sustain them in adversity. I think you could Google it and find it that way. Philippi of in Proverbs so there's a human spirit.
Medical professionals see it all the time. They say, man, this person, they may say a word like this, they have a strong constitution. I've heard that term, man, they're tough. They don't quit. They don't, man, they're fighting through their illness. That's the spirit of a person. And so there's a human spirit, right? We have that spirit. And then there is a Holy Spirit. That's the Spirit that when you receive Jesus as Savior, the Holy Spirit comes into your life. He indwells you, he seals you with the spirit of promise. There's a Holy Spirit and then there's a hellish spirit. There's an evil spirit that's in the world and all three of those spirits are fighting for control. That's why you have to get under the influence of the right one or the wrong one will dominate. And the one you nurture is the one that will determine your nature. If you nurture only your human spirit as a Christ follower and neglect the Holy Spirit, then you'll be doing the things that you should do without seeking his wisdom and his counsel.
That's why when the Bible refers to worldliness, that's what it means for a child of God. It means we would use a different word. We would use the word secularist. That's a person who doesn't include God in their thinking. They're secular, secularist in their thinking. And if I don't include God in my daily life, then I'm living as though I don't know Him. I'm living as a, you might even say a Practical atheist. I'm just living like there's no God. A theoretic atheist is one who believes there's no God. A practical atheist is just one that lives like there's no God. And you can live an atheistic life, though you're a Christian, by simply not involving God in your daily habits. And so you're not under the control of the Holy Spirit. And so it's important that we get under the right influence, that we yield to his control in our life. The Bible says in John 16, verse 13, when the Spirit of truth comes, notice what he'll do. He will guide you in all truth. In other words, how do I know what decision to make? How do I know which direction to take? I allow, on the promptings and the direction of the Holy Spirit, allow God to lead me. That's why I tell you, in life, don't find yourself in a position where you feel pressured to make a decision.
God doesn't pressure you. He leads you. That's why we're called sheep and not cattle.
There's nothing wrong with cattle. I love cattle. They're delicious.
But we're not called cattle.
As I've told you, to move cattle, you have to push them. You have to drive cattle.
If you try to do that to sheep, they'll scatter. You get behind sheep and try to push them, they'll scatter. How does a shepherd lead? He leads the sheep. He gets in front of them and leads them. And that's the idea of how holy. How does the Holy Spirit, how does he work? He leads us. In Isaiah, he said he gently leads those who are with young. So I'm saying, practically just breaking this down to where we live today, on Sunday, how do I know if what I'm about to decide is the right call? Well, ask yourself, do I feel pressured to make this decision or do I feel at peace to make this decision? And I would tell you, regardless of the decision, don't make a decision until you have peace. And by the way, to check yourself against that. Check yourself against God's word. God will never lead you to do anything that goes against what his written word has said. He won't lead you against his word. He's not duplicitous. He's not divided. And so if I need to check myself before I wreck myself, then if I'm feeling led or I'm feeling peace, I'll look back at the scripture and go, well, I'm violating a biblical principle here. So it must not be God. Must be pepperoni Too late at night or whatever. So in other words, you have to be careful. You know, how you make these decisions, make sure you're being led and not being pressured. Because the Spirit of God, he says, will lead us if we're under his influence. That's why he picks it up again in Ephesians 5, he says in verse 18, don't be drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. Be ye being filled, literally, as worded in the Greek, be constantly being filled with the Holy Spirit. How does the Spirit of God fill you? He fills us as we yield to him. Now, when you receive Jesus as Savior, you're bought with the price. First Corinthians 3, we're bought with the price. We're to glorify God in our body and our spirit and our soul, which belong to God. Think about it this way. When you receive Jesus as Savior, he got the house, but he didn't get access to all the rooms. And the way this works is when I am filled with the Spirit, I'm giving him access to every room in my life. You know, when you bring people, they come over to your house, you have a room that you didn't get to before they got there, and you kind of, hey, the door's closed. Don't go back there. Don't go in there. And you only let them in the rooms, you know, that are approved because you don't embarrass yourself. I'll get to that room eventually. It's been five years, but we're going to get to it eventually. Right? But the point is, when you have the fullness of the Holy Spirit, you let him have access to every room in your heart. To the attic, to the basement, if you have one, to the garage. There's not an area of life that he can't have access to. Be ye being filled. And it's important because we tend to close the doors off and close rooms off and take areas back of our life and control them again, the human spirit, instead of being filled with the Holy Spirit, which is allowing him access in all the areas of the life. So it involves submitting every day to his spirit. Submitting to his spirit. Remember the prayer Jesus prayed in the garden? He said, not my will, but thine be done. In Luke 22. Sometimes that's a good way to begin your day if you want a good habit to begin praying, Lord, not my will today, but thine be done. Help me to be sensitive to why you've given me life on a beautiful day. Help me to understand what I'm supposed to do with this and help me to be sensitive and yield to the control of your Holy Spirit in my life. Let me give you two quick thoughts on how the Spirit of God will work. He works through what I'll call the restraint of his Spirit and he works through what I'll call the release of his Spirit. And both of these examples are in Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16, verses 6 and 7.
You see the restraint of the Holy Spirit where Paul and his team were wanting to go into an area to minister to and God didn't let them go. He said, hold on now, wait a minute. Wasn't ministering what they were about? Wasn't sharing the gospel what they were supposed to do? Yes, but it wasn't time. It was a good thing. It was the right thing. It was the wrong time. And sometimes the Spirit of God will restrain you from doing the right thing, even a good thing, because it might be the wrong time. So when you're sensitive to the Holy Spirit, you see the restraint of the Holy Spirit and that's important. You ever teach one of your kids how to drive? Remember those days? Oh, a lot of groans I heard. Right? Then teach me how to. Let me say, when you get, when you get them behind the wheel of that car, what is the first thing you point out to them? The accelerator or the brake?
Brake. They can find that accelerator. They know how to go, they don't know how to stop.
Back in the day, we did it, I think in Model A's when I was in driver's Edge, I got it behind a wheel of driver's ed. And this is crazy. My parents were a little crazy. I drove myself to driver's ed. I know that's wrong. I should not have done that. I parked way back behind the school. You know, we did it at the high school and I parked back there. But I drove me and two or three friends to driver's ed. My mother let me do that. I don't know, she's in heaven. Take it up with her.
I was the best driver in our group, but when I got in the little driver's ed car, it was crazy because there was a brake pedal on the side of the instructor. I don't know if you guys ever remember that, if you took drive over there, but there wasn't an accelerator. And you know, in my 15 year old mind, I just asked the driver's ed instructor, I said, hey, I see you have a brake pedal. You don't have an accelerator. You Know what he said? Never needed it.
Never needed that, man. I just needed that brake pedal. And I went to OD White High School to get my, my.
My driver's ed stuff done. But that was funny. Drove myself to driver's ed, but that was it. The restraint of the Spirit is the brake pedal. And then if you'll continue in Acts 16 and you go down in verse 10, he releases them to go. Now they're going to the same place. He said, don't go. He just said, don't go yet. Now he said, it's time to go, so go. So I'm saying as an illustration there in Acts 16, you find leadership from the Holy Spirit. When you're under his influence, he will tell you when to do, what to do, when not to do, even the thing you should do. He will tell you it's not yet time. And you'll feel that sense of release and you'll feel that sense of restraint when you're operating under his control. Here's a third thought, and we'll go home. Not only to get you get over it and get under it, but number three, get through it. There's some things, guys, if you're going to have a healthy soul, you have to just fight through it. And this goes back a little bit to what I was talking about. When it comes to grief, there are some things that you're going to have to work through. They never go away. They're always there. Some of you have gone through betrayal, some of you have gone through some very deep hurt. And you're wounded. You have an experience in soul that isn't healing and may not heal, but you have to learn how to navigate and just get through it. And the best advice I can give you is in Galatians 5:16, walk in the Spirit. Again under the influence of the Spirit. But then you walk. That means develop disciplines and habits and routines of life. Walk is something that indicates something I do every day. He didn't say run in the Spirit or sit in the Spirit. He said, walk in the Spirit. He's connecting something that we do every day. We walk, walk in the Spirit. And then he said, if you do that, you will not fulfill the lust or the desires of the flesh.
So in other words, if we can get under the control of the Holy Spirit and we just get through that day by day, we develop habits and routines and disciplines of, and we continue on in these healthy mannerisms, then we can get through anything. Anything that we're going through. I'm reminded in 2nd Corinthians 12, when Paul prayed that the thorn in his flesh could be removed. God didn't remove the thorn from his flesh. As far as we know, Paul died with that malady, whatever it was. Some people thought it, but think it might have been bad eyesight, because in one place Paul said, you see how I've written this letter to you in such large print? So the idea is maybe he was losing his eyesight. I don't know. Maybe it was just a deep hurt or harm or something that he had gone through in life, that. That he. It was bothering him to the extent that he prayed multiple times that God would take it away. And God didn't take it away. He just said, my grace Paul will be sufficient for you. What is he saying? Get through it. Certain things you're going to go through in life, you just got to. They're not going away. You just have to learn how to deal with them, and you have to get through it. And that was the case with the Apostle Paul.
Let me share this with you, and we'll go home. 1871. There was an attorney named Horatio Spafford. He was in Chicago, and on one occasion, he sent his wife and four daughters by ship over to England. And his plans were, as soon as he could, was to join them there.
And so in the middle of that voyage over to London, the ship encountered some terrible tragedy, some collision at sea. And the ship went down, and there was just a handful of people that survived. And among the people who survived was Mr. Spafford's wife. She telegrammed him back from London and said, I'm saved, but I'm alone. And their four girls drown in that terrible tragedy. So as quickly as he could collect himself, he made his plans to go across the ocean and join his wife. And there they would collect those bodies of their girls and they would bring them home. You can imagine how shattered he was and how shattered she was. And as he was going across the Atlantic toward London, he asked the ship's captain, he said, when we come into the area where that ship went down and where my children perished, he said, would you make me aware if it's in the middle of the night? Make me. Wake me up. I want to be. I just want to walk the ship, the deck of the ship. I just want to be awake and alert when we go through the area where they all perished. And sure enough, the middle of the night, they woke him up, and he went. And he sat out on the. On the deck of that vessel, and all of a sudden, he was thinking about the condition of his soul and his spirit in that moment. And these words came to him and he wrote them down so he wouldn't forget. And the words were, when peace like a river attended my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll. Whatever my lot thou has taught me to say, it is well. It is well with my soul. That's a healthy soul. A healthy soul is not the soul free of trials. The healthy soul is not the soul free of grief. The healthy soul is not the soul that always has the best things in life. Sometimes the healthy soul is the soul that is torn and broken and devastated. And you really don't know how strong you are or how healthy your soul really is until you go through something like that. So I'm suggesting to you this morning that one of the ways whereby we develop health in all areas of our body is to make sure that our soul is healthy, that our soul is right with him. Let's pray.
Father, I thank you this morning that your word, it penetrates our minds and thoughts and hearts. And none of us really can ever hear your word without seeing areas of our life that need correction.
We're not perfect people. We're here this morning not just to worship you, but to acknowledge the fact that we need you in our life.
As we receive communion. We're remembering, Father, the price you paid so that we might know you. And now that we know you, Lord, we desire to be healthy. We desire for our lives to be effective.
And so, Father, I pray for the health of all of those in this room at this moment, those watching online, and those that will hear later through a podcast. Father, I pray, pray for the health of their soul. And, Lord, if there's one here today, or one listening or one watching who never have trusted you as Savior, I pray this might be the moment where they humble their heart and they say, lord Jesus, with everything I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you. Come into my heart. Forgive my sin, and I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.
