Formed For Your Future | Emotionally Healthy Spirituality - Part One | Sunday Service

Well, good morning, church.

I mean you guys recognize the presence of the Lord is here today.

Before we get into the word, I do have a public service announcement that I would like to give.

Um, hey guys, y'all know what happens later part of this week, right?

Saturday is Valentine's Day.

Thank you, Charlie.

Thank you, thank you.

Yeah, hey, fellas, y'all know what Saturday is.

It's Valentine's Day.

How many how many of you guys have received what the Bible says is a good thing from the Lord?

Some of y'all need to read your Bible more.

That's exactly right.

How many of you guys have received favor from the Lord?

I just I don't feel like you're responding.

Thank you, Charlie.

Thank you, thank you, Tim.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you.

Um, some of you other guys need to take some cues from these guys.

Um Saturday is Valentine's Day.

Uh sometime this week you need to do something special with your spouse.

Somebody say amen.

And since it is Valentine's Day, I have some Valentine's Dad jokes for you this morning.

Here's the first one.

Did you hear about the girlfriend who wanted a fairy tale relationship?

The girlfriend who wanted a fairy tale relationship.

So her boyfriend left her in the forest with a loaf of bread.

That's pretty funny.

Uh where all of my Star Wars fans at Star Wars, Star Wars, what did Han Solo say to Princess Leia on Valentine's Day?

What did he say on Valentine's Day?

He said, well, Yoda won for me.

It's pretty good.

I got one more, and everybody say thank you, Jesus.

Why was the ghost, why was the ghost sad?

He was so sad on Valentine's Day.

Well, he didn't have a boo.

That's pretty good.

I'll be here all day.

Some people are getting up and leaving on that one.

That's fine, Charlese.

You don't have to leave on the bad dad jump.

Last week, Pastor Noah brought our Dream Again series to a conclusion, and he did an absolute fantastic job.

Where he is around now.

But can you put your hands together and honor him and his ministry and his leadership here at Christian Life Church?

He does a phenomenal, phenomenal job on our team.

The Dream Begin series was all about stirring our hearts for the vision and the call that God has for our lives.

We learn together that God gives us dreams so that He can develop us towards our destiny.

Today I'm kicking off a new series entitled Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

That's a mouthful, I know.

I want you to say that after me this morning.

Emotionally, healthy spirituality.

Say that one more time.

Emotionally, healthy spirituality.

And this series is all about allowing the Lord to form us on the inside so that the destiny on the outside doesn't destroy us.

That there's things on the inside of us that God wants to form and God wants to shape, and he wants our character to be made ready for the destiny that he has for our lives.

See, see, if we really believe that God has a great destiny, then there's also a great work on the inside that he needs to do to prepare us for it.

And so my whole heart and hope for this series is that God over the next several weeks will begin to form us for the future He has for us.

As a matter of fact, we may need to say that.

God formed me.

Say that after me.

God formed me.

For the future you have for me.

Listen to that one more time.

God formed me.

For the future you have for me.

Guys, I want you to know I know that it's 11.06 and God's already been moving this morning.

But I have a message that I think is going to launch us over the next several weeks towards a transformational encounter with Jesus that is the foundation for the future that He has for you.

Here's what I know.

I can't stay the same.

I've got to change.

If I keep doing what I've always done, I'm going to keep getting what I've always done.

So there's some things in me that probably need to change.

God stirred our hearts for amazing dreams last month.

Now it's time for that heart that has been stirred to be formed for the future that God has for us.

Let me ask you a question.

Have you ever met this person before?

Or maybe you you have been this person before?

You're on fire for God.

You're reading your Bible, you're praying, you're at church whenever the doors are open.

On the outside, everything looks good.

And you're you're you're you're really on fire for God, but but you're easily angered.

You're easily frustrated.

You're easily offended.

You have a hard time receiving instruction or correction.

On the surface, it looks spiritual, but when you pull back the onion just a little book and look into the heart, there's some emotionally immature things going on.

And what I have found in my life is that you can't be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.

And the church is really good at doing all the spiritual things, but over the next several weeks, we're going to look in the heart and the emotions of our lives.

Because the Bible's clear in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verses 23 and 24 says, May the God of peace sanctify you through and through.

1 Thessalonians 5:23

Everybody say through and through.

And may your whole spirit, soul, and body, spirit, soul, and body.

Can I tell you, God's not concerned just with one part of you, He's concerned with every part of you.

And He wants to bring wholeness, not just to our spirit, man, but to our mind, our will, and our emotions.

He wants to bring wholeness to our body.

He wants to form it all for the future that he has for us.

And we're going to begin today in Matthew chapter 23.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

You can turn there if you have your Bible and look at a story with Jesus.

Before we read it, let me set the context for you for just a moment.

Matthew 23, this is the last week of Jesus' life before his crucifixion.

He rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey to shouts of Hosanna in the highest.

The city is in a tizzy about Jesus' arrival.

And over several days, the religious leaders, the scribes and the Pharisees, the high priests, have this contentious exchange with Jesus.

They are firing every question that they can possibly imagine at him in order to trip him up, in order to discredit him.

And in Matthew 23, we get to really Jesus' final message before his crucifixion.

And here in these verses, he gives God's verdict over the faith of the religious leaders in Jerusalem.

And before we read it, I need you to look at me.

We have to be very, very careful about writing these religious leaders off as villains in the story.

Because when we do, we miss that they're actually a mirror for our lives.

The religious leaders of Jesus' day, let me say it this way, we're the best church people of today.

Starting in verse 23.

He says, Woe to you, leaders, teachers of the law, and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin.

But you have neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former.

You blind guides, you strain at a gnat, but swallow a camel.

That'd be tough, wouldn't it?

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You you clean the outside of the cup and dish.

Everybody say outside?

But the inside, everybody say inside, they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

Blind Pharisees.

First first, everybody say first.

First clean the inside.

Everybody say inside.

First clean the inside of the cup.

And then the outside will also be clean.

Can I tell you right now from the get-go?

There's two ways you can approach your faith, and they end in very different destinations.

You can approach your faith from the outside in, or you can approach it from the inside out.

If you approach it from the outside in, you have a works-based faith.

But if you approach it from the inside out, you have a faith in the work of Jesus-based faith.

Those destinations are completely different.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you're like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of bones, of dead men's bones, and everything unclean.

In the same way, on the outside you appear to be people as righteousness, but on the inside, you're full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

Church, this is God's word, and the title of my message this morning is this formed for your future.

Everybody say that after me this morning.

Formed for your future.

Turn to your neighbor and say, you are being formed for your future.

Turn to the other neighbor and say, you are being formed for your future.

Turn around the person behind you and say, you are being formed for your future.

Lord, we thank you for your word this morning.

It is a lamp unto our feet and a light into our path.

Shows us the way to go and how to arrive there safely.

And I pray this morning we wouldn't just be hearers of your word, but we would be doers of it.

In Jesus' mighty name, everybody said, Amen.

Thank you, Caleb.

Have you ever trusted in something?

I mean, like really trusted in something that on the outside it looked good.

It gave you every indication that it was trustworthy.

You had no reason to doubt it's trustworthiness.

You ever trusted in something on the outside only to discover later?

It was corroded.

It was rotten.

And it was feeble only in the end.

Anybody ever done that this morning?

I did that once many years ago.

And I almost got snake in.

I'm not speaking figuratively to you this morning.

Literally.

I almost got snake bit.

Let me tell you that story.

Years ago when I was a senior at the University of Alabama.

You're welcome.

We will keep moving.

I was a senior at the University of Alabama, and I was discipling a freshman.

It was our first his first semester at the university, and he'd gotten involved in our college ministry, and so we had this program where seniors would disciple freshmen.

And so I'm discipling this guy, and and one morning we make the decision that we're going to get up very, very early and we're going to go out to Lake Tuscaloosa.

Lake Tuscaloosa is only about 20 minutes from the campus of the University of Alabama.

And there's some places there that are right on the shore that are rock outcroppings that are beautiful.

They face east.

And so if you get there at the right time in the morning, you can have a cup of coffee and your Bible and do a devotional and see the sunrise over the trees and then hit upon the lake and you feel like you're in the presence of Jesus.

Some of you are thinking, if it's that early, God's not there.

But for some of us who like to get up early and don't mind that, it's a wonderful experience.

So I take this freshman to this place that I've been to a number of times, and and I get him situated.

I have his devotional for him.

He has his Bible, and we kind of have a prayer thing that we're working through.

And I leave him in in one little place, and I go probably 30 or 40 yards down uh the lake from him, and and I find a little spot that looks perfect.

It's this perfect little rock face with the water is probably about three or four inches before below the lip, and I and I'm facing east, and I I can already kind of begin to see the sun shining through the trees, and I've got my coffee and I got my Bible, and and I and I sit down crisscross applesauce.

I'm just there.

Jesus, you're here.

And I open, begin to pray and close my eyes, and then I open my eyes, and out of the periphery of my left vision, I see something swimming towards me in the water in this shape.

Was that a snake?

I don't know if that was a snake, but it sure looked like a snake that moved like a snake.

I don't think that was a fish.

I think that was a snake.

Anyone know anybody anybody agree with me that your prayer has just been shifted?

And I'm like, what was that?

And as God is my witness, it disappeared.

And then like I'm like, you gotta get this.

I'm I'm right here.

That's the edge of the water.

Right directly in front of me.

The snake pops up its head and stares me in the face.

That was pretty aggressive, but I'm gonna tell you, I'm forty-nine now.

Back then, I levitated.

I mean, there was no scrounging around, and my hips are hurting just from doing that a second ago.

And I just levitated.

And and then in those moments, you know how your mind just starts going a thousand, like you're thinking a thousand salts, a thousand thoughts a millisecond.

And I remembered seeing something on the Discovery Channel about snakes feeling vibration when you're walking on the ground.

I start breakdancing like nobody's business.

I mean, I am.

I mean, as they say in Pinnacle, I call it the Holy Ghost, and I mean I'm getting it.

It's gonna feel the vibrations of my presence.

Then I remembered like, okay, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta have something.

I gotta, I gotta, I'm all I have is this.

And I don't think this is gonna help me defend the snake, right?

So I'm like, what do I do?

What do I do?

And then I remembered watching Steve Irwin.

The crocodile hunter.

Anybody know who I'm talking about?

Crockey.

He said, You gotta have a stick.

I saw him on some crazy adventure, and he's hunting a snake, and and then he just goes and grabs a stick.

And so I'm like, where's the stick?

I gotta have a stick, where's the stick?

I gotta have where's the stick, and I go over and I find what I think is gonna work, and I reach down to grab it.

And as I'm reaching, I hear the Holy Spirit say, Do you trust me?

Heck no.

Are you serious right now?

What I trust is this stick to protect me from that snake.

Is it okay if I can be that honest?

Don't you know you'd be that way too?

How many of you guys would have said the same thing?

Yeah, yeah.

A lot of y'all go into hell because you're lying right now.

No, I I mean, I literally, no, are you serious right now?

I grabbed the stick.

And then, you know, I'm I'm pacing around, and and after about 10 minutes, it doesn't look like it's gone.

And so I finally settle back in to have some semblance of a prayer time.

The freshman has no idea what's happening, and and so I get back away from, you know, I don't stay as close to the shoreline.

I get back, I put the stick down beside me, I start reading.

While I'm reading my Bible, I keep hearing this weird buzzing sound.

Like weird, and it's not strong.

It's it's very, very faint.

And I don't, I don't know, but the time comes for us to wrap up.

And so I've got to walk back through the woods now.

So I go to grab my stick because if you've seen one snake, you might as well have seen a thousand of them.

And then obviously they're I'm being small.

Rounded.

And so I grab the stick and I get up and I'm and I grab the stick, the sound that I the buzzing sound gets louder.

I'm like, what in the world?

So I pull the stick up to my ear, and all I hear are are bugs like going crazy on the inside of this stick.

And then I do just a little like that, and it snaps in two.

It was rotten from the inside out.

It looked good on the outside.

It gave me every indication from how it looked on the outside that it had the ability to protect me from what I was facing.

Only to find out what I had placed my trust in would have failed me if I'd had to use it.

This is the message that Jesus is communicating to the religious people of his day in Matthew chapter 23.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

You've placed your trust into something that will fail you.

It wasn't that Jesus despised their work and their activity for him.

It's that they had placed their faith in their works for him more than their relationship with him.

And there's an important spiritual truth that we have to understand in our relationship with God.

And its spiritual activity does not equal spiritual maturity.

If we're not real careful, we'll be just like the Pharisees who are trying to follow the letter of the law.

We're trying to do everything that is right, and we focus on a few things and we miss the greater things.

And we think in the process that if I can dot every I and I can cross every T and if I can walk out the letter of the law, then I have a saving faith.

And Jesus emphatically in Matthew chapter 23 says, This is not the case.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

Your activity does not equal maturity.

Your works can't save you.

We're saved by faith in Christ alone, not by works, so that no man can boast.

And the religious people of Jesus' day had missed.

Can I tell you how focused they were on their works?

That they missed him when he was standing right in front of them.

Church, we can do the same thing today if we're not careful.

Many of us confuse busyness for Jesus with intimacy with Jesus.

Can I tell you that your busyness for Jesus does not equal intimacy with him?

And we can be like the religious people of Jesus' day.

We're going to tithe, we're going to serve, we're going to do all the things on the outside, but not allow him to deal with the inside.

And when we do that, we are living a works-based faith just like the Pharisees and the religious people of Jesus' day were doing.

I want to do an exercise together to kind of help illustrate this.

I want you to turn to your neighbor right now and say, I'm sorry, I was wrong.

Please forgive me.

I want the other person now to say, I know you were, thank you.

I forgive you.

How many of you have been waiting to hear those words for years?

You're welcome.

Your pastor loves you.

I'm here to serve you.

Here's my real question.

How hard, how hard, how hard was it to say, I'm sorry, I made a mistake.

Please forgive me.

It's a great window into our emotional maturity.

See, emotionally mature people don't have a problem saying, I'm sorry, I was wrong, please forgive me.

You know why?

They know their works aren't connected to their worth.

And far too many people today connect their works with their worth.

So if I say I'm sorry, I was wrong, please forgive me, that means that my identity and my worth is taking a hit when I connect it to my works.

See, spiritually mature people don't just operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

They don't just have outward signs of God's presence.

No, they have a heart that is so connected with the King, they know their identity cannot be wavered.

I'm gonna give you an illustration of this.

And she doesn't know that I'm gonna do this, but I'm gonna do it because I'm a pastor and I got the microphone.

So Miss Emily, could you come here for a second?

I know it's okay.

You're good.

Come here.

So this lady, here's the Lord.

Can somebody say amen to that?

And if you didn't know her well and just looked at the outward sign, you would think spiritual maturity, and she is.

But let me tell you what you don't see that I see that I get to experience that cements her spiritual maturity.

It hasn't happened many times, but on a few occasions, she's come to me and said, Pastor, I didn't quite say that the right way, or I missed that.

She's one of the quickest people to repent and say, I'm sorry, will you forgive me of any person that I know?

She's wonderful.

She doesn't have to do that very often.

If I didn't know she operated in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and all I experienced from her was, I'm sorry, I missed it.

Please forgive me.

That's all that I would need to know that she is spiritually mature and emotionally secure.

Thank you for being you.

I love you.

I say that because I want you to get an image of spiritual maturity.

Church, we live in a world today where people are emotionally insecure.

So much so that you can't receive coaching, you can't receive instruction, that you, God forbid, somebody says something in a cross way to you, and all of a sudden you're easily offended.

When that happens, it's a window into somebody's identity that is placed in something other than Jesus.

If your identity is in anything other than Jesus, you will be emotionally insecure.

Because it, it being your identity, is set in something that is shifting, that is uncertain, that can be tossed to and fro by the waves and the winds of life.

Church, here's a key truth that we have to understand.

The Bible teaches us that our worth is connected to our relationship with Jesus, not our works for Jesus.

If you don't get anything else out of this message, you need to understand your worth is based on one thing: your relationship with Jesus.

The Bible says that before the foundations of the world, He chose you.

So you're not here because of the decision of a man or a woman.

You're here because the creator of the universe saw down through the time and space of eternity and decided you needed to exist in this place at this time.

I'm so thankful, church, that my worth isn't based on my perfection.

It's not based on my works, it's based on my relationship with Jesus.

As a matter of fact, Aaron, go to this verse, and I'm gonna jump ahead.

And in John chapter 14, something that we need to understand is that is that works, works don't lead to a relationship, they follow it.

John 14 · chapter mention

John chapter 14, look at this verse.

John 14 · chapter mention

Jesus says, if you love me, if you love me, notice the order here.

If you love me, keep my commands.

If you love me, if you're in a relationship with me, then you'll keep my commands.

But unfortunately, far too many people don't read this verse the way it's written.

They actually invert the verse.

They read the verse this way: keep my commands if you love me.

The focus is incredibly different.

The focus of if you love me, you'll keep my commands, is on relationship that leads to works, not works that lead to relationship.

And the problem that Jesus had with the religious people of his day, and it's the same problem that he has with religious people today that have a mindset of works, is that you think your works are earning you favor.

Your works are earning you blessing.

Your works are earning your healing, your works are earning your promotion, your works are earning that marriage, that kid, that life.

I want you to hear me this morning.

It's your relationship with Jesus that produces everything else in your life.

It's not by works so that no man can boast.

And I want to challenge you over the next several weeks to go with me on a journey as we move from the outside to the inside.

And we give God permission to begin to do a transformational work in our hearts so that our destiny doesn't outrun our character, so that we can be formed for the future that God has for us.

How many of you guys are ready to go on a journey of healing and transformation in your life today?

Even what we experienced earlier is about this with fear and love.

I believe over the next several weeks, there is going to be a deep work that God does in every one of us, and it's preparing us for the future that He has for us.

We can't stay the same and walk in the destiny that he has for our lives.

We have to change.

Who's ready to change with me?

You stand with me where you are this morning.

Before Pastor Noah comes and closes our service, I just want to do a prayer declaration, an invitation over you this morning.

I want to invite you to pray this prayer over the next several days.

And the prayer is very, very simple.

And it's simply this: Lord, show me, Lord, show me what's going on inside me today.

Lord, show me.

Lord, Lord, show me.

God, I'm giving you permission.

It's what David declared in Psalms 51.

God, search me and see if there's any wicked or offensive way in me.

And so, over this series, on a daily basis, I want to invite you to pray this prayer.

Lord, show me what's going on inside of me today.

Show me what's hurt.

Show me what's wounded.

Show me what's not right.

Show me what you want to form in me so I'm ready for the future you have for me.

And then after asking the Lord to show you, I want you to declare this.

God, I invite you to heal me from the inside out.

God, heal me from the inside out.

God, heal me from the inside out.

God, heal me from the inside out.

I want you to say that after me this morning.

God, heal me from the inside out.

Inside out.

There's some things in us that got to go so that we can go with God towards the future He has for us.

Father, over your people this morning, I pray your favor, I pray your blessing.

I pray your goodness.

I pray, Lord, that you would pour out your spirit upon every person that is here this morning.

And God, that you would form us into the future that you have for us in Jesus' mighty name.

And everybody said.