Becoming a Healthy Seed: A Call to Identity, Wholeness, and Transformation

Well, good morning. I uh so appreciate your pastor. Uh yeah, it just gets better and better every year, actually. his compliments, they just man man I mean I’m sure you’ve received these compliments from him too. So we have we have fruit in common. Uh it really is a delight to be with you and only a couple of places in the world would I keep coming back for that kind of

01:28:44 [Applause] introduction. I am I wouldn’t consider myself prideful, but I’d consider myself smart. No, I really am so delighted to be with you. Thank you for allowing me the space today to share. I know how incredibly meaningful it is to share a platform and to allow someone else’s voice to be listened to and to have others receive from that voice. And it’s so so good to see so many faces that I recognize and a host of faces I’ve never ever laid eyes on before. So, we’re going to have a good time. We’re gonna have a good time.

01:29:25 Amen. First, I want to say a huge thank you to uh Pastor Jonathan and Pastor Shelley. Thank you for uh being incredible people and just what an amazing job you are doing. It is just such a privilege. Yeah. Right. Come on. Yeah. What an amazing job. I I don’t like to go backwards to go forward all the time, but I can remember the days when the idea of doing what Pastor Jonathan and Pastor Shelley are doing now felt not just out of reach, out of touch with the trajectory, particularly on Pastor Jonathan’s life.

01:30:05 And I remember thinking Pastor Jonathan was like, “That is not for me.” And when I first met uh Pastor Pat and Pastor Selene, who are also incredible people and who have transitioned so beautifully, they’re such an example of grace, such an example of making room. And I I so appreciate that about you. You’re a great example of what it means to be the floor. Uh let your ceiling be someone else’s floor. And uh that’s incredible about who you are. But the first time I met them, um we we we didn’t know each other at all. And

01:30:38 coming to the mountain felt felt very cultlike. Uh because it was like coming to the mountain. Uh it was the only place I’d ever been where that was what the terminology was at the moment. But then I came to the mountain and I realized, oh, there’s something really great on this mountain. This is an incredible mountain. And now I have not just fallen in love with them. I also so admire their tenacity to continue to believe for what I what I believe has always been a generational church. This is a generational church. It’s the only

01:31:13 church I ever spoke in for the first time that had four generations sitting in it at the same time. That was true. Most of the time you end up finding parents who love Jesus and children who’ve walked away. If you’ve been in church, you’re going to know this. Or you find children who love Jesus with parents that have gone astray, right? Or you have grandparents believing for both. So or you got children who are being dropped off. So, so to have a multiple generational transfer shows the depth of the

01:31:47 leadership that has come from this house and I celebrate that in all of the generations because it shows your courage but it also shows your tenacity to fight for the main thing. And so I love you. Thank you for giving me space today uh to share. I’ll do my best to say something worth following. Uh we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes. There’s no guarantees. There’s no guarantees. Uh but also I want to say a huge thank you. I never ever first of all I hardly ever get to travel with my husband. He uh he

01:32:18 makes my world go round. That is the truth. Uh I absolutely adore him and it it people think I’m putting on when I’m on a platform and say that but that is not true. I mean when when I walk into the coffee shop sometimes he’s there and I intentionally just like show who I am so that he can see me because I know that he’s been dreaming of that moment. I mean, I do it. You can ask anybody that’s in there. They will know I do that. But I I so am thankful for a husband who not only releases me in the

01:32:49 gifting and the call that’s upon my life uh and sharing that space with others, he’s also an incredible dad and an incredible husband, an incredible father, and he brings so much wisdom to the table. And so, it’s so nice to have you around, love of my life. So good to have you around. And then I’m almost done. I promise I’m almost done. But you know, it’s a special time too because we are I wasn’t really coming to preach the good news of the gospel in your congregation today. This was not the plan originally. It was

01:33:22 really because our team from the UK uh are here and we’re missing one couple who are Brazilian that we had some trouble with their immigration. But everything else uh everybody else is here who serves on our pastor’s team uh at our Mosaic Church campuses. And I am just floored by the fact these people want to follow me. I mean it’s a flooring reality to be honest with you. People ask me a lot like how did that go about? I I don’t want to write a book because it’s a really it’s really was so much risk. Uh,

01:33:55 I can remember sitting in front of a couple of them going, “So, um, not sure exactly how we’re going to get where we’re going, but I’d love for you to follow.” And they were like, “Are you are you serious?” Now, if you know anything about the British, the British normally like to have all their ducks in a row before their commitment. So, when I didn’t even bring a duck, there wasn’t even a duck. We were we were all chickens and and it was like, “This is it. It’s just chickens running around and they’re not going to

01:34:21 be in a row ever. And do you want to join this team?” Uh and they so graciously, many of them so graciously not only said yes at that moment four years ago, but they today are some of the best leaders on the planet. Truly, honestly, I I know you have great leaders here, but they truly are some of the best leaders on the planet. I’m incredibly gifted to be able to share space with them. I hope they outdo me by 10. I hope that one day when I look back, I go, “Look what the Lord has done with my little bit and their much.” And

01:34:52 so it’s a delight to have our pastor’s team with us today. Come on guys, would you stand up so people can see you and celebrate you being here today. Amen. They are fun. We’re enjoying some good times together. Well guys, I’ve come with what I hope I hope is I hope it’s meaningful to you. Um, sometimes I I don’t get the privilege of just preaching what I’m being stirred about and other times I do. And then sometimes I get to mix it up a little bit. And so I have really just been compelled by the

01:35:32 direction of the body of Christ. When you when you sit in the seat that God has allowed me and assigned to me, I I see so much in what God is doing. It it’s so beautiful to see first generation Christians saying yes to Jesus and and their entire family units coming to know him and to be baptized and and their lives being set free and hearing the testimonies today of drug addiction and other types of addictions just falling to the ground and people saying I have such a depth of wanting to know Christ that everything else is

01:36:07 meaningless in comparison. And I’ve been so blessed by that because not only are you seeing it here in California and other places in the United States, but we’re experiencing that in England at the moment. In England, I mean, there is just this radical space that we’re sharing and it’s weird. I mean, in some ways, it’s weird because you come into church and you’re like, they’re like, “Oh, I brought these 10 people.” You’re like, “Fantastic.” Uh and so you know, but none of them have context for what to do in church or

01:36:36 how to be in church and and you’re trying to remind them like this is a seat, you should sit in it because they are the hippie generation of today, so to speak. And and in many ways have have never ever been in that environment. And if anything today, I’m I’m more aware of why Paul wrote some of the letters the way he did because he was talking to a group group of people who had no idea about how to do this incredible thing that is now apprehended them. And in England, we’re experiencing this. Our church has probably almost

01:37:11 doubled since the beginning of the year, which is just bonkers if you ask me. I mean, I think I’m a fairly decent communicator, but and we have great leaders, but it’s just the hand of God. So, so we’re spending a lot of our time figuring out how to make sure not only how we are stewarding growth, but how we are incubating and ecosysteming growth because that’s the that’s the real key to whether or not it has sustainability. So, I want to talk today just for a few minutes. Are you okay? Can you give me some space just to talk

01:37:42 to you today? But I don’t really I want to talk to you in a way that challenges some pro maybe some ways that we think. And the reason I want to do that is because a lot of times when we hear someone say, “I’d like to transform my city. I’d like to see my city transformed or my town transformed.” That’s a big word, isn’t it? The word transformed. The word transformation, I mean, that is just so loaded. I mean, that is not a one definition word. It comes with so much to unpack and and I’m not going to take time to unpack all of

01:38:16 that. In fact, I’m going to narrow it down pretty simply that the way transformed cities are transformed is through healthy whole people. So, so I’m going to narrow it down because see, I think a lot of times we we put too much emphasis on transformational ideas and we forfeit the transformational process of a person’s life. And and before long, we have transformed the city, but not necessarily into anything healthier because it has still come from all of the dysfunction generationally that that

01:38:54 city and that region carried. Are are you going to follow me? Yeah. This is a talkback community. So So I want to kind of take us on a journey just for a few minutes because I I’m only here for this short amount of time, but I want to take us on a journey about what it really means to upset the world we’ve been called to by becoming the people we were always meant to be. Because the greatest tool in your toolkit to fight the enemy is your known identity. That is the greatest tool you possess to

01:39:33 fight the tactics of the enemy is that you have a known identity. You know who you are, why you are, where you are, who’s you are. And that definition of identity puts so many critical demons at bay because there is this this amazing strength that comes when you cannot be moved from something you now know. That’s why I didn’t use the word identity because the word identity alone is still a lost word. To have identity and to know your identity are two separate things. You have an identity whether you like it or not. There’s

01:40:19 people in this room that would identify with you based on some piece of criteria. But not all of that criteria is the known identity on how God relates to you. Because most of the time we become so are y’all okay so far? We become so I haven’t even got my notes yet but we’re going to get there. We become so used to becoming whatever the culture demands of us that our identity becomes so convoluted and constructed by the world around us that even when we’re introduced to Jesus, we read the Bible

01:40:52 through the identity we’ve brought to him, not allowing ourselves to be stripped of it so that he can reframe, rebuild, and honestly help us discover what was always the seed to begin with. So today, I want to just take a little bit of time to unpack what it really looks like to become a people that are healthy seeds. Can I talk about that? I I love to talk about farming at the moment, but that’s what I want to talk about. I want to talk about healthy seeds because you and I’s lives are seeds. Yeah. Can you get on board with

01:41:27 that? We’re a seed. We’re planted into a family. We’re planted into a community. We’re planted into a business. We’re planted into a community of faith. We’re planted into an idea. We are healthy seeds. But not every seed that’s being planted is healthy. And most of the time it’s unhealthy because it has allowed a demonstration of what health looks like to be defined by the world we live in instead of by the biblical scripture we have been called to apprehend and to believe in and to understand through the

01:42:01 word of God. And then of course to the spirit of God working it out in us. How many of you know just because the the Bible says that he who the son sets free is free indeed that you understand how to live in freedom. So so there is a two parts to that scripture. He who the son sets free is free. That’s fantastic news isn’t it? You and I are free. But how you steward and live in freedom is a development process. You have to learn how to be free. You say, “How do you know that?” Because when I was 16 years old, after the Iron

01:42:41 Curtain fell in Russia, I went to Russia and I remember walking around in Moscow in Russia. And during that time, there were still several protests asking for communist rule to return to the land because they preferred it. Because though they had freedom, they had no capacity to live in freedom. So they would rather been told what to do than live in the grace of coming to understand the God they serve. So, you know, as Christians, one of the worst things about religion is that it tends to be rulebased. And the reason it’s

01:43:24 rulebased is because people by nature want to rule. By nature, you want to know your boundary line. Today, if you went down to the city courthouse and you own land, you could find your land documents that say where your boundary line is. And I guarantee you that matters. Nobody wants to live with a little dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot down their boundary line. Whose is it? Who has the easeway? Why? Because freedom is free, but it is a development process. You and I have to learn to develop in it. So, as a result

01:43:59 of that, I want to start us off in Luke. Is that okay? Can we start off in Luke? I’m going to read out of the Passions translation. Now, if you would just do something with me because it is my tradition. I know it might not be yours, but it’s mine. Would you stand for the reading of the word? Thank you so much. Luke, this is the first time I have preached on this little computer, so you’re going have to give me some space to be fruitful. Luke chapter 6, starting in verse 43 to 46. This is what it says.

01:44:30 You’ll never find choice fruit hanging on a bad unhealthy tree. A rotten fruit doesn’t hang on a good, healthy tree. Every tree will be revealed by the quality of fruit that it produces. You will never pick figs or grapes from a thorn tree. People are known in the same way. Out of the virtues stored in their hearts, good and upright people will produce good fruit. Likewise, out of the evil hidden in their hearts, evil ones will produce what is evil. For the overflow of what has been stored in your

01:45:13 heart will be seen by your fruit and will be heard by your words. What good does it do for you to say, “I am your Lord and Master if you don’t put into practice what I teach you.” Lord, thank you for the ability to preach and teach today. I thank you that you will allow us to marinate in this word that we are a healthy seed. That our health matters in the body of Christ. That in order to transform our community and change the cities that we’ve been called to, we have to embrace the journey of growing

01:45:50 in health. We have to become a people who know who we are. So would you give us eyes to see and ears to hear today? You get all the glory and honor in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. I want to read you this quick little story just real quick and I I loved it. I read it several years ago, but this is Leonard Ravenhal Ravenhill which wrote several books. He once told us told a story in a book about a group of tourists visiting a pisc picturesque village. He walked in and an old man was sitting by a fence.

01:46:24 And in a rather patronizing way, one of the tourists asked, “Were any great men born in this village?” And the old man replied, “Nope, only babies.” I read that because Leonard makes a very important distinction. He says, “So often we come looking for greatness and God comes looking for seeds.” We believe everybody in a town is born into greatness. That one day the people like Michelangelo and others who have gone and have become great artists or or those like CS Lewis have become great writers. We see them in the

01:47:08 fullness of their seedfulness. But we never consider that the only way they started was in baby form. They’ve all been born into a world in which choice became a paramount to who they became. Their choices became part of the journey on whether or not they ever became anything further or just a wonderful poetry writer. I love going to Oxford. It’s only about 30 minutes from where I live. And I’ve been to the little small pub that they say they say that CS Lewis and Tolken used to sit in and exchange

01:47:45 ideas. And inside of the pub there is a a little small seat and over to the side a little tiny little crevice in the middle of the stone. And and they say that Tolken used to push in his ideas by the paper right there. And then when CS Lewis would come in in the afternoon after Tolken had left, he’d pull out the piece of paper and add on to the idea and stick it back in. And they would exchange ideas of how to share this amazing love story we call the gospel in ways that no one had ever heard. And

01:48:17 they did it from a pub in the middle of Oxford in the middle of a rock crevice. Why? Because their lives had become so apprehended that though they started as a baby, they could not remain in a place of just the seed. They wanted to make a difference. They wanted their life to matter. They wanted their world to be captivated in the same way their hearts had been captivated. But in order for you and I to live at that dimension, in order for us to see America, California, Towalamy County transformed

01:48:55 into a gospel place into a place where people come to experience the presence of the Lord. We have to come to a conclusion that it first begins with a choice. You have to choose to take care of the babies because no great man didn’t start there. So a lot of times in in our cities and in our structures, we love what it looks like to be mature and we hate going backwards to the baby face. Unless you are a grandparent and then you’re loving it and then you get to give them back and you’re loving it

01:49:34 more. Don’t lie. [Applause] You’re like, “Woo, how did that get? It could give me so much work.” But the truth is is that in order for us to live in a healthy seed position, we’re transforming our cultures and and seeing transformation in our lives and in our families, it’s going to take some effort to understand some foundational truths better than we have. Is that okay that I say that there’s some foundational things that we have been leaning on that need a little bit of a revisit and I’m going to take

01:50:11 time today to revisit them. Now, not all. I can’t do all. There’ll probably be lists you’ll come up with in your own devotional time, but I want to spend time today revisiting some spaces and places that if we’re going to become healthy seeds and we’re going to take care of the babies and we’re going to transform our culture, then we’ve got to go back and think about the way we’ve been doing and seeing some things so that we can see them different in order for us to live in a place of wholeness

01:50:41 and healing. Is that okay that we do that? So, if I was going to say to you, what does it look like for you and I to be healthy? What does it look like to be a healthy seed? The first thing I would want to tell you today is is that you understand you are a receiver before you are a giver. Now, this is a practical thing to say, but I need to say it because see, listen, this is what happens. We tend to not understand that our relationship with God. I loved it today how they shared just before now our relationship

01:51:16 with God was not initiated by you or I. We were not looking for God. Even if you ended up in a church, you were not looking for God. You don’t know what he looks like. You were looking for help. That’s not bad. Praise God. You came to church. That you thought church could be a place of help. That’s a wonderful thing to believe. But what I need to make sure you understand is that you didn’t find God. He was never lost. We receive what God has already positioned and done for us. Tim, come help me because you’re tall. I need a

01:52:09 tall person. Tim’s our youth pastor. God bless him. He’s on our worship. He’s so good on the guitar as well. I’m sure he was feeling the ministry of the Holy Spirit during those guitar sessions today. Weren’t you, Tim? Here, here’s what Can I just take a minute? Now, some of this you’re going to say, “Well, I know that already.” Some of you, though, this going to be brand new, so you need to pay attention. Here’s what happens. The book of Genesis says that God in his three parts of who he is in his three

01:52:35 persons says, “Let’s make man in our image. Let’s let’s make man.” Now, I want to make sure you understand that word. The word is let’s make. So, you have a maker. That maker has stamped you with an understanding that only he understands. That maker created humanity. This is my Godhead and my Godhead creates humanity. But according to first John, you can put it on the screen. According to first John 4:1 19, it says, “Love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment,

01:53:15 because as he is, so are we in this world.” Next verse. Next verse. There is no fear in love, but perfect love does what? Casts out fear. Because fear involves torment, but he who fears has not been made perfect in love. In other words, there’s something that’s important here we can’t miss. Verse 19, next verse. We love him because his creating you and I birthed out of love. You and I were not created by just a God who needed robotic interventions in a land called Earth. He wanted to carry out a love

01:54:10 story. And so he manifested it in humans. And he took what was an intangible love story that we could never read on our own because we have no context for and he made us. But here’s the thing, most people want to believe that they are the giver before they are the receiver. Because when people are the giver first, they don’t have to live in the vulnerability of needing anything. I have found that some of the reason people don’t say yes to Jesus is not because they don’t want Christ, it’s because they can’t admit they need

01:54:58 something. Because to say you need it is to have to receive something first. But the real context of health and identity and who God’s created us to be is that God himself created a love story in me. And through that love story, he gave me the capacity to respond. So your love doesn’t actually belong to you because you can only give back what has been given. Are are you following? I don’t have time to I got one sermon. This is it. You’re gonna have to get there. Now, why am I having Tim stand here? Because, see, this is what happens

01:55:47 with humanity. Humanity goes, “Oh my gosh, Jesus, thank you so much for getting my life. Thank you, Jesus. You You I’m I’ve received your love. Now, I’m giving you back love, but I ain’t giving it to that person over there, cuz we share it here. So the problem is is that you don’t steward your love. You steward his because you were the receiver. So what the question becomes is what do you do with what you’ve received? Let me tell you humanity’s greatest trouble out of Genesis is that what they received in love, they

01:56:32 separated themselves in ego. because I received the covering, but I’ll manage it myself. Are you following? So, God didn’t move. I always find it so interesting when people say, “God, God’s not with me.” Actually, God had to move ever. God doesn’t even need to move. He’s in everything. And people say, “Well, God’s in my future.” Actually, I want to help you there. That’s a bad theological statement. God is not in your future. God only lives in the present. It just happens to be that he’s also in a future

01:57:08 where his presence is, but just your future. He doesn’t live in the future. He lives in the present and happens to be your future. Y’all going to be okay. So what happens is is that God sum comes to us and he invites us into a love relationship and we get a choice on whether or not we reciprocate that love back towards him and as a result of back towards him back towards everything he loves. See, people talk about transforming their communities and then they write crazy posts on social media about the

01:57:50 cities they live in and then they wonder why they can’t transform anything. Because you aren’t demonstrating the love you receive, you’re demonstrating the love your ego has decided to manifest your way. Because when you say the things that God says, you will love people the way God loves them. Because you are a receiver before you are a giver. I cannot effectively love my husband just out of my capacity of love. Amen. And I love the honesty of the room because I am a receiver of love. And I love him. I love him back by loving him

01:58:40 back. I demonstrate it by loving everything he loves. So now everything he loves I also love. So that now I’m not actually trying to master my dichotomy between hate and love, right and wrong, because that’s the wrong philosophy. That’s the wrong foundation. The right foundation is are you known in his love or are you known in your works? And which one is the foundation you’re most secure on? Because our ego separates us out and creates in us these demigods and we lash out and we act out in illusions where

01:59:30 our mind has become captivated by all the things of what we think love is and we generate it from all the wrong places. Why do you think we have pornography as an issue and sex trafficking as an issue and divorce as an issue? Because people are trying to dysfunctionally get love because you were made to be a lover first. So you should not be discouraged by the sinner you’re around down the street and you go and say to your heart, “Ah, how can they do that?” Because they don’t know. They don’t know how to

02:00:17 receive and they don’t know it’s there. How do you get there? Because you’re searching for something through all the wrong mechanisms. And God is just simply doing the most amazing thing. Because Adam, he separates himself with an ego. Right? We all know the story. Genesis, we call it sin. It’s the egotistical side of who he is. Sin doesn’t just blind you. It makes you dead. I want to always make sure people understand that sin doesn’t make you bad. Sin makes you dead. And it makes you dead because the

02:01:00 one thing God is desperately after and that he’ll do anything at all lengths to do is to connect you to the life of love. And sin creates in you a place that cannot receive what you have been freely given because you have no touch and feel anymore. So what does Jesus do? Come on Tim, come do what Jesus does. We know this. He comes and steps in to my lack of love. And he does it through the visible example of the cross of Jesus. He settles the deceptions at the cross. He said, “Hold on. You’re dead in

02:01:51 this thing. You couldn’t love me if you wanted to. So, I’m going to create an avenue for you to feel again.” Because the greatest tragedy in the body of Christ is numbness. And do you know I’m not a harvester. I don’t know much about seeds. I got ways and less in here who got a garden and I’m always depending on them to give me some insight into gardening, which sometimes I remember, sometimes I don’t. But I will say this, there is a seed that if it grows numb to its environment, it goes sterile.

02:02:38 And it becomes numb because of the atmosphere that is around it. The shock of a frost when it wasn’t expected. Too much rain saturates it and it causes the seed that was planted to be go inward and only focus on itself. And before long it loses its purpose. And now, and now it’s sterile, incapable of producing because it started in numbness. So, do you think you want to know what I think prophetically God’s bringing back to the body of Christ? Feeling. I think he is pressing on emotion like never before.

02:03:28 He is desiring to bring the cross of who he is in full emotion. He’s desiring to bring his love in full emotion. He is desiring to bring his joy in full emotion. He’s desiring to bring even the times in which we are in sorrow in full emotion so that we do not live inongruent from the love relationship we were meant to steward those emotions in. People that lack the ability to be emotionally whole, it is not another teaching normally. It’s a revelation of love. There’s no revelation of love there. Thanks, Tim. So, here’s what

02:04:11 happens. Is this okay? Here’s what happens. When you and I want to live healthy, we’ve got to get into the posture of receiving before giving. So, here’s my questions for things like that. When was the last time you made a priority to receive out of your weekends at church over the giving of what it is you’ve been asked to do that weekend? What got more priority in your mind? At what point have you learned how to sit in the receiving of a compliment without saying back, “Oh no, not me.” When was the last time you could receive

02:04:55 someone saying to you, “I love you.” And you didn’t have to say it back. Because see, by nature, we like to be reciprocal because it it lowers the threshold that I have to be vulnerable in that space and it equalizes everything. You see, I’ve learned something. There’s a few times that I always want to say, “I love you, by the way.” But there’s been a few times that Jason has challenged me in this area, and I’ve said he said to me, “I I just love you.” And immediately, because I just love him, too. I just said, “I

02:05:43 just love you.” And then he said, “Why did you feel like you had to say that back? And I thought, well, because I do, but in my mind, I understood what he meant. That could you just sit in a space where you could be loved or did you have to equalize it? So, are y’all okay? Are y’all okay? It’s all the material I got. Sorry, Jonathan. That’s all I got. I I’m trying to help you here. See, I’m I’m trying to challenge your brain. That’s what I meant today. I’m coming to to challenge faulty foundation because

02:06:25 see, faulty foundation likes to build things like this. I love you, Lord, and I live my right. You do. That’s fantastic. But when was the last time that you had to silence yourself for the 60 seconds and let him say, “I love you, Amanda. You’re everything to me.” and you didn’t have to have a conversation. You say, “Why are you talking about this?” Because I believe this is the challenge of the generations we live in. Because we’ve some of us sitting in this room, you’re brand new to you’re first

02:07:03 generation follower of Christ. And it’s amazing. And I so celebrate you receiving love. You posturing your ego out of the way to receive what you could not give yourself. But I would say for those that have been in church or around Christianity for a while, they have tended to find themselves giving love and not receiving his love the same way. Now they are the givers and someone else is the receiver. But that’s not humanity’s relationship with God. There is no latter. Everyone is equal at the cross.

02:07:53 And in the garden, everyone had a place. All is made in the image of God to be both receivers. And then from what you receive, you carry the capacity to give. Which is why when it is something no one wants, you can keep on giving it because it is not based on you. You are giving what you have freely received. Here’s number two because I got to move along. I’m taking too much time on my own. Here’s number two. Actually, no. Let me read a verse first. I want to go backwards. Ephesians chapter 1. I want

02:08:34 to leave this with you as I move on. Ephesians chapter 1:es 3-6. How blessed is God and what a blessing he is. He’s the father of our master Jesus Christ and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. This is what I want you to settle on. Long before he laid the down the earth’s foundations, he had us in mind. He had settled on us as the focus of his love. But look at this next bit. To be made whole and holy by it. To be made whole and holy by it. So here’s what I know. You and I have a deep desire to

02:09:23 live whole. I do. I’m sure you do. Your wholeness is manifested by how much love you are willing to receive. So if you say I’m struggling in this area of my life, the question becomes why does that area keeping you from receiving love? What is the barrier to why you can’t receive love there? What is holding you back from the wholeness of his love in that area? Now number two, I’ll move on. Number two, if you want to live healthy, I would say this. Our heart and our head must be congruent. In other words, they must

02:10:18 work in harmony. Romans chapter 8 verse 6 says this, “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the spirit is life and peace.” Your brain and body, they were made for a government. You were made to have your mind governed by an authority. That is why you and I are easily influenced by anything that looks stronger than us because your mind was made to be governed. But here’s the key. It was made to be governed by an authority. But your mind only grows and expands by the relationship you’re

02:11:11 in. Because that verse says, “The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the spirit is life and peace.” In other words, it’s the relationship I carry that causes the governance of my mind to work in harmony with my heart. So, you know what I hate the most about what happens in the church? This is coming from being raised in it. Now, all my life I I probably was in church. my mother was pregnant. I was I’ve been in church all my life is when we compartmentalize God. And we do that by

02:11:52 compartmentalizing us. That in some way we should be working at a work life. We should be working at a home life. We should be working at a church life or a giving life or a marriage. And before long, we have allowed the categories of the earth to dictate compartments in our minds of how we function in each one of those areas. believing that our mind and our heart have the capacity to be separated because that is a deception the enemy loves to use to keep us from working in harmony with our whole self as it

02:12:39 is. Truth be told is that our hearts and our minds were meant to work in harmony together. And the One way we can know if we’re getting healthier and healthier is when the gap is getting smaller and smaller because our minds were be created to be governed but our hearts were created to be loved. I’m sure we got water somewhere in the name of Jesus. I believe that the Lord is good. His Thank you, Sam. All right. So, why does this matter to me today? Why am I even talking to you about it? Because I think that we have faked

02:13:29 ourselves out for a long time. Living so compartmentalized that we in some way thought we grow our spirit life to overtake our natural life one day. That’s not how it works. You don’t grow one and then just not feed the other because you’re just one person. You either grow or you don’t grow. Stewardship’s all about tending the garden God put inside of your life. How do you take care of the weeds that pop up naturally? You can have the most beautiful garden and it will still produce a weed. It’s an amazing thing.

02:14:14 You could have got them out there two days ago and a rain comes and two days later they’re coming up again. They don’t care that you have put Round Up out there. They want you to go back and put Round Up again. But what I find is is that people spend their whole energy trying to eliminate something bad instead of learning to live in goodness. How do I learn to live in the goodness of God, not remove the bad things that have surrounded me? I’m trying to help us here because there’s this congruency issue between

02:15:02 our minds and our hearts. Did you know that n this is true by Dr. Caroline Leaf has said this that 95% Can you give me five more minutes? Okay. 95% of your decision making is subconscious. 95%. And when I looked further, what is it based on outside of beliefs, which we could talk about, but we’re not going to today. I’m going to stick with the second one. It is the patterns of your life. Your mind has been created to recognize a pattern so that 95% of the time you don’t have to think about that decision

02:15:58 because the pattern has already told you what’s coming next. So you better know where the pattern is manifesting from. because you subconsciously respond out of the patterns of your life. So people wonder, “Why can’t I get set free from that constant tick or that one thing?” Most of the time, it’s not because you don’t love God. It’s because there’s no congruency between your heart and your mind and you’re living out of old patterns that have never become congruent with your heart. Because the only thing that motivates you to change

02:16:40 is your heart, not your mind. No one can educate you enough for deliverance. Your heart has to want it. It has to be willed to respond to it. Deliverance doesn’t come because you learned enough. It comes because your heart has decided, I no longer want to be infected. I no longer want disease. I no longer want to live under these barriers. And so your mind changes its pattern. And now my life does not have to have a Bible verse every day or 19 new prophetic words in order for me to do God’s will.

02:17:28 Because my subconscious is in alignment with his consciousness. And now I’m living out a new pattern. Romans chapter 6, I think you have a verse for me in the back. Romans chapter 6 is a great example when it says, this is Romans 8:6, but I think do you have Romans chapter 6? Maybe not. That’s okay. I’ll keep going. The Bible talks about the patterns. Paul, if you go back and you use that word pattern and you put it into the New Testament over and over and over again, you will see where the bo the Bible says over and over and

02:18:08 over again the patterns that have changed over your life. Romans 6:1 17 it says this, “But thanks be to the God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart.” I love this. the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. So you wonder, why do I come to church on a Sunday? To break and establish patterns. So see, listen, people talk to me all the time. They say, I want my whole family to know Jesus, and I want my children to walk with the Lord. Well,

02:18:48 then why don’t you get them up and bring them to church? Like this is quite this I’m not your pastor, so you don’t got to worry. But that’s something that I would say to my people. You you can’t talk to me about establishing a pattern you’re unwilling to demonstrate because that’s not how it works. Because eventually 95% of everything they’re deciding, they’re already deciding subconsciously because of the patterns that were taught to them. So if it was never in their psyche to do it, I love this verse.

02:19:20 You obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You know what that verse is? Heart and mind congruency. My heart doesn’t think the opposite of my mind. And my mind doesn’t get the final say of my heart because my patterns are coming from the teaching of things that are birthing in me the identity I was always created to have. Last last point and I’ll be out of your way and you know somebody smarter than me will come fix everything I said. Last point. People who really live

02:20:11 in thin places, people who really live healthy have learned to seek thin places. That’s number three. They’ve learned to seek thin places. See, when I moved to England four years ago, I went on a word from God. Nothing else. In fact, the city that I I live in today, I had never visited. I had never been in it. I had never never been in it. First time I walked down the city gates was after I sold everything I owned and moved there. And I remember thinking, how in the world, God, can you do something here? Like,

02:21:00 how are you going to do this? Now, I think we’re probably just in the beginnings of what God’s doing, but nonetheless, I can celebrate how far we’ve come. And at that time, I don’t know who’s coming. Scott, you want to help me? Yeah. Come on, Scott. Is it okay if Scott helps me? Says I got him. I don’t normally have them, so I’m going to use them. Make them work. Let’s celebrate Shad. Here’s the thing is that in my time coming into that into that period of my life, I was reminded about how to seek for a thin

02:21:45 place. It’s funny that Leslie today at breakfast said that very word and I didn’t even tell her. It was on my notes. But here’s what I’ve learned about healthy people. Healthy people are constantly looking to be closer to him. They are not looking for more usefulness. They’re not looking for another accolade or another accomplishment. They’re looking for the space that is so thin between heaven and earth that you almost can’t tell the difference. Do you know why? Because it’s those thin spaces that connect us the closest to

02:22:38 the love of God. that place where I am just me and God is just God. You say, “Well, what does a thin space look like and what does that what does that feel like?” Well, let me go ahead and tell you if you read your Bible right, it’s rarely in a church. And I’m a preacher and a pastor and do not discredit the house of God. But I believe it’s so vital. It carries an important authority. Yet in this instance, thin spaces and places according to the Bible, I’ll give you three just so that you can kind of

02:23:21 understand what I mean when I use the word a thin place. One is with a man named Jacob who found himself isolated from his family because of the decisions that he had made, not knowing who he really was in that moment. He comes to a place in Genesis 28 where the Bible says he had to lay his head against a rock as a pillow because it was so hard where he was at. I mean, when you have to start using rocks as pillows, things have gotten bad. When there’s no grass around, things are bad. But the Bible says in Genesis 28

02:24:00 that it was in that space that he saw the thin place. Yes. So it was a hard place for him, but it was an open place for God. Then you look at Jesus when the Bible says the spirit of God in Luke chapter 4 drove him out of the town and into the desert where for 40 days and 40 nights we read that as a temptation but I read it as a conversation with God where he interacted daily in the presence of the Lord in what we would consider a desert. [Music] So, so far the thin place is hard and it’s desert-like. See, I don’t know about

02:24:54 you, but I believe God’s tired of us asking to have a problem removed. I’ve said this for years, and I still believe it. He’s trying to teach us to be fruitful in the midst of what feels like a desert. He wants to be the streams of life in the midst of the desert. What good would it be if he gave you the ocean? You could not consume it all [Music] anyway. Look for the pockets of the thin place where only heaven could reveal himself as he really is. The last one I want to just share comes from Peter and Paul, but particularly

02:25:39 Paul when Paul is in prison and a thin place comes when heaven opens the prison doors. But see, here’s what makes that time so powerful in the book of Acts, that the prison doors open over in the thin place and no one wants to leave. [Music] Can you imagine the presence of God so thick, so tangible that what you naturally hoped would always happen happens and you can’t apprehend it because you can’t leave the space you’re in. See, let me tell you what I’m believing for. That type of life. I want prison doors to open certainly

02:26:42 just like you do. I want eyes to be unlocked. I want shackles to come off of people. I want powerful moments. But the health that’s going to transform the city is the one who can sit in the midst of the desert and find the stream. The one who’s in prison who when the doors open, they don’t move until everyone in the prison’s been saved. It’s the one who can say, “I have received love, so therefore I can give it. I don’t understand what you’ve been through. I’ve never been a drunk. I’ve never been addicted to anything. But I

02:27:14 can tell you this. The same love deficit that was in me is in you. And I will give you everything I got because I needed it just like you did. I know better because I was not addicted because I was still lost. I was still dead. I was still broken. I was still waiting. I was still hurting. Yes. So, I’m challenging you, challenging word of life. Have you found your thin places? And have you become settled that he’s with you in them? Not with you to get you through them, with you to meet [Music] you. Because listen to me. All three of

02:28:02 those stories, as soon as Jesus came back, cities were transformed. Soon as Jacob had that experience, he went and became Israel and took a mighty force of a nation and changed all of history. And Paul, Paul set every captive free in their heart because he stayed and found the thin place. So, I press upon you today. Would you stand with me? Who is it in the room? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s one. Perhaps it’s two. Perhaps it’s five. 10. I don’t know. But here’s where I’m at. If you’ll give me just five extra

02:28:45 minutes just to explore this with you. Is that okay? I’m asking you, do you need to receive love differently? Do you need to get congruent in your mind and in your heart? or do you need to find the thin place? And if it’s you and you say, “Man, I want to enter in with you. I want to steward this moment with you, Amanda. I want to just take a second and let God do what he can only do.” I want to invite you to the front to join me.