"The Face of God" // Your Brain in Your Bible

Welcome to the Movement Church podcast. We want you to know that God is

for you, and so are we. You're about to hear a sermon from

one of our weekend services in Palmer Lake, Colorado. We pray that your

faith is provoked, your mind is renewed, and your heart is awakened as

you engage the Word of God. Stay tuned after the message for ways to

get connected with us. God bless you. Thanks for tuning in. So

we're kicking off this new series called Your Brain in Your Bible. And I'll

tell you the moment that I started announcing this series sometime around last December.

The moment I started talking about this series, you started asking me questions about

this series. People were coming up to me and saying things like, Hey,

why do you want to do a series on mental health? Or aren't

you worried that you won't have sufficient answers for these significant questions? That's a

good question. Or how about this one, Hey, Fike, what do

you know about mental health? Great question? And I'll say from the very

beginning, I am not a licensed professional counselor in any way, but I

will say that I have been immersing myself in this topic. In this subject

in this idea because it's a major, major topic for us to cover.

So during this series, we're going to cover three of what kind of are

the major mental anguish mental illness categories, depression, burnout, and anxiety.

Next week is depression, and no, we didn't plan for it to be

on Mother's Day. It just happened that way, I promise. And so

next week is depression, then we'll have burnout, and then we'll talk about

anxiety. And we're going to cover these issues for five big reasons. The

first one is that in the state of Colorado, mental health is not doing

well. I'm going to give you some statistics about that in a moment.

The second one is that the church, and maybe you've felt this in your

life, but the church is largely muted on this subject. We haven't had

a lot to say as a big sea church about this subject. There's some

reasons why we'll talk about number three. As your pastor, it is my

responsibility to equip and to mobilize you and to make sure that we grow in

maturity. That's what Ephesians four tells us. Number four. The church,

this place, this culture, this environment should be the absolute safest place in

the world for us to talk about any and everything. Nothing should be off

limits. We should be able to talk about everything in the church. Amen

and number five. And I believe this is so important and so powerful.

Science is catching up to how much this subject has always mattered to God,

and so we're going to talk about that. In fact, the Bible,

from Genesis to Revelation, has an immense treasure worth of information about your brain.

About your mind, your brain and its formation is a subject that's woven

from the beginning to the end of the Bible. So let's talk about Colorado

for a moment. I'm going to give you some stats. According to twenty

twenty three State of Mental Health in America report, Colorado ranked forty fifth out

of fifty one. That's not good for adult mental health. There are only

fifty states and we rate forty five out of fifty one. I'm not sure

how that works. Puerto Rico, I guess, is a part of it.

We have some of the highest prevalence of mental illness and some of the

lowest rates to access to care. This is a major problem. It's not

all bad news, though, because in twenty twenty two we ranked fifty first

so we're moving up in the world. Come on, let's give Colorado.

I am come one. We're moving up in the world. But listen to

this statistic. One in five Coloradins experience mental illness in the course of a

calendar year. So if we were not going to do this, but if

we were to all stand and then every fifth person were to stay standing,

we would get a feel for this room. We would get a feel for

what it's like. One in five Coloradins are experiencing mental health. That means,

by the way, that there are people in this room right now who

are experiencing some level of mental anguish, mental illness. And here is here's

what that looks like. Nine hundred and twenty four thousand people. That's one

out of five in the state of Colorado, roughly seventy times the population of

Monument, Colorado, which is about thirteen thousand. A staggering six percent of

Colorado adults are having serious thoughts of suicide on a yearly basis. Six percent.

And this may be what I think is the saddest statistic that I'll share

with you, that thirty four percent of Colorado adults with mental illness are unable

to receive the care that they need, whether it's because of cost, or

unavailability of appointments, or even provider incompetence. This is not me saying this,

This is a scientific study saying this. So the state of mental health

in the state of Colorado is in a bad place. Let's talk about the

church for a moment, because for a long time, the church has had

this underlying sentiment that mental health is really just a scientific answer to a spiritual

problem. And so we've kind of diminished it, we've kind of reduced it,

we've kind of looked down our nose at it as a big C church.

And what that does is this kind of sentiment. It creates an environment

of hiding. It makes it so that people who are experiencing real trauma,

real trouble don't feel like they can lift their hand and say, like the

bumper says, I need help. So people feel like they have to perform

like good Christians. Maybe you've felt that way in your life at some point,

like if I'm going to be a part of that church, I'm going

to have to behave I'm going to have to perform. A way to say

that is you're going to have to behave if you want to belong. And

so we kind of shake our fingers at people and we say, if you're

going to fit here, you're going to have to look the part. Another

way to say that is you're going to have to pretend in order to participate.

You can't be with us unless you're a shiny, happy Christian. And

what does that do? It creates an environment where all of us are afraid

to lift our hand and say I need help. All of us are broken.

Every single one of us in this room is a broken and needy person

on some level or another. We're aware of it on other level or another.

We kind of convince ourself that we're not. But the truth is we

desperately need God. We desperately need health. Jesus said this about that.

He said, healthy people don't need a doctor. Right, Healthy people don't

need a doctor. Sick people do. I have come to call not those

who think they are righteous, but those who know that they are sinners.

What Jesus is saying is, do you know what mental unhealth is? Mental

unhealth is I'm doing great, I got no problems at all, I'm totally

righteous. Me and God are good. That's mentally unstable. That's mentally unhealthy.

Jesus is saying those of us that go Jesus, I don't have any

answers. I need you, I need help. That's mental health. Amen.

And so you know about a year ago this time our church got together

and had a retreat. We're going to have another one in a few weeks

with our leaders and our staff, and the Lord gave us this little kind

of pithy you know, Quippi quote that we have used, and we have

really owned and believed in that this is what is going to distinguish the Movement

Church from other churches, because we believe that our job is to say to

this community. God is for you, and so are we. God's not

against you. God's not indifferent, He's not looking the other way. He

is in it with you. God is for you. And listen, that

has to be more than just a snappy catchphrase. It has to be something

that we live out. You ought to say. Amen. As pastors.

We can get name envy for some other churches. I have massive name envy,

just a little bit for this church in Baton Rouge. It's the church

where I met Dana Fike. She wasn't Dana Fhike. Then she was Dana

Joy Cotton. But it's a church called healing place. Phrase is a healing

place for a hurting world. I love that. I want more of that.

We need to do more of that, to be more of that.

I want in the next five years for there to be not a single person

in the Trilakes area who doesn't have an opinion about the Movement Church. I

want there to be not a single agnostic person in regards to who we are

because we have loved this community so well, that's what the series is about.

So the church has been muted. But that's not the only problem,

because sometimes we speak up, and boy can we say some dumb things.

We can say some dumb and insensitive and damaging things. As Christians just trying

to say the right thing, we say dumb things, you know. So

sometimes the trite, oversimplified and underwhelming so called solutions that Christians tend to give

for these very real, very disturbing, very debilitating, very scourage and mental

anguish. Sometimes we can just say dumb things. But guess what, they're

all rooted in scripture, but it's just the way we say them. You

know what, you got mental problems? Okay, you need to pray more

and worry less. Okay, how you know what, You just need to

put your trust in Jesus. Okay, that's not wrong, that's true.

But when a person is going through mental anguish, that doesn't help choose happiness.

H thanks for that. Thanks for that piece of advice. This week,

I heard from one of the luminaries in the Christian universe, this guy

named John MacArthur, and he made these statements this week this week that absolutely,

especially in light of this sermon series, like ticked me off Kendrick Lamar

levels of angry. Okay, like mental illness is not real. This is

what he said. He said, There's no such thing as PTSD. I'm

thinking about putting together a distrack. I'm not going to do it, but

we must do better. We've got to do better as Christians. Because surely

the God who created the universe and everything and everyone in it, and who

knows us inside and out, who provided for us a love letter about the

life that he wants for us, not from us, Surely that God has

better and more significant counsel for us than these pithy platitudes. Surely he has

more to say. What kind of pastor would I be if I ignored the

culture around us? What if I just never talked about the real issues in

our culture? What what kind of advocate for the Gospel would I be if

I decided to cover my ears and plug my eyes? I did that backwards,

but you get it. What kind of a pastor would I be?

Blind? Apparently? And death right? And what kind of disciple makers would

we be? What kind of disciple makers would we be if we lived our

lives like that, muted or silent? Now we can't do that. This

series is not just for the mentally ill. It's not just for the people

that are struggling with mental anguish. The series is for all of us.

I want to equip us to be better at speaking with people who are going

through hard times. I want everyone from our church to be well equipped to

have healthy, mature conversations about this issue. I want us to be able

to assess our own mental health. I want us to be able to see

the warning signs and our friends, and our spouses and ourselves. And I

want us to learn the value of taking every thought captive. We're going to

talk a lot about that in week four. I want us to give God

due credit for making us the way that he did intricately. The Bible says

that I was woven in my mother's womb by the hands of the Lord.

He made us the way he made us. Let's give him credit because he

made some amazing creations. Let's talk about the human brain. The human brain.

Okay, so this is a little prophesural is that? Okay, can

we have a little prophessoral moment in church? Let's talk about the human brain.

It is an intricate, amazing, powerful and purposeful organ in your body.

It is doing incredible amounts of work for you all day, all the

time. Neuroscientists describe the brain as a dual powered supercomputer split into two sides,

left and right. Now, for most of my life and maybe you

felt this way too. I've heard people talk about the left side of the

brain and the right side of the brain, and they say things like,

well, Bob is left brained, and fight is right brain. Right.

Left brain is analytical, scientific, pragmatic. Right brain is like squirrel.

Right, that's how it works. Right like artistic, choleric, in touch

with my emotions, sometimes to a ridiculous degree. So we've thought of people

as left brained or right brain. And I bet at some point in your

mind you made a decision. I am a right brainer or I am a

left brainer. But the fact is that all of us operate with all of

this, All of this is happening inside of our brains. All of us

are both sides dominant. Now this is news to me. This is some

of the things that I've learned from reading in ne neuroscientist journals about this issue.

I learned a phrase that I never thought I would use in a sermon.

I never thought I would talk about this phrase, but we're going to

talk a lot about it today. Here's the phrase, the right orbital prefrontal

cortex. How you doing the right orbital prefrontal cortex. We all have one,

and it's situated right behind our right eye socket. Okay, so right

behind our right eye socket is the right orbital prefrontal cortex, and it is

doing an incredible amount of work for you, even right now, in this

moment, For the first eighteen months of your life, the right orbital prefrontal

cortex is going through a process called miliination. Millenation. Is it has to

do with our synapses and what's happening inside of our brain and the attachments that

are forming with the people around us. It starts happening almost as soon as

we're introduced into the world. It's basically the ceiling of our personhood through the

solidifying of our neural pathways, and it has outsized impact on the rest of

your life, on your identity, your character, and your sense of belonging.

So for the time you're born, the right orbital prefrontal cortex is quarterbacking

the millination process. Okay, babies are bonding with and forming loving attachments to

their parents subconsciously. They don't know that it's happening, but it's happening all

the time before they can speak or think, react, or assert. Babies

are hardwired to identify the people that they belong to. They're learning who they

are and whose they are. Okay, the process of identifying their people and

attaching to them, that's called millination. It's profound. The baby's subconscious sense

of identity is for me, the first way children attached is through smell.

In fact, babies are born with a full on sense of smell. It's

working from day one. It's the sense that they're using the most for their

first six weeks smell and temperature. This is why I think we're seeing this

trend on Facebook, and I want it to stop. Of dads who are

taking their shirts off and holding baby against their chest and taking a picture of

it for me to have to look at. Listen. I think it's fine

for you to do that in bond with your baby, but I don't need

to see that. I'm glad that that trend missed me. You don't want

to see this chest A promise you don't, Okay. So anyway, this

is how nation is happening, and so it's interesting. At six weeks,

the touch sensors begin to millenate. Before six weeks, babies don't know who's

touching them or why. They don't even know what touch is. But around

six weeks they start going, oh, I get what's happening. That person

is touching me, and it's a loving touch, and so they're attaching to

the loving touch. From three to twelve months of age, babies start looking

for faces. Babies are looking for faces. They're looking for the faces of

the people in their life, and they're connecting with them. They're connecting with

them. The right orbital prefrontal cortex is telling them to look for joy,

to look for delight, to look for enjoyment, to look for people who

are happy to be with them. They're looking for the look of someone who's

pleased to see them. Babies and parents will spend eight hours a day smiling

at each other, and this is part of the millination process. It's part

of how God wired our brains. I don't know if you know this or

not, but I love babies. I love babies, and this is Cicily

Depsky. We just dedicated her a few weeks ago. Cicily was born in

October of twenty twenty three, right around the time that the Movement Church was

born, and so I'm always going to have an attachment to Sicily because she's

the same age as our church. My goal and my desire, and I

hope I can fulfill this for the rest of my pastoral career, is to

be the first person to visit your family when you have a baby, besides

people that are in your family, like before your best friend gets there.

I want to be waiting to see that baby. I want to lovingly attach

to that baby as soon as possible, because I love babies. Now,

usually babies really like me, They really really like me because I'm a heavy

breather and so when I hold them, they're like, oh, I feel

like I'm in the ocean right now. Like babies really love me, but

some babies don't like this baby here. This is This is Ruby McKenzie.

And let me tell you something, Ruby McKenzie's a special child. She's a

miracle baby. Mom and dad, Chuck and Mary did not know that they

were going to have another baby. They prayed they wanted to, and then

the Lord blessed them with this little mean mugger and here she is. And

I have worked so hard to build a connection with Ruby, and she just

makes me work for it, man. And so finally one day she was

at her house and I took a bunch of selfies and she was just giving

me this space. And finally I got her to give me just the smallest

little smile. Let me tell you that lit my life up to see that

little smile. This is our son Judah. When he was a baby,

Judah was the smilingest baby you've ever seen. I was like, why are

you so happy all the time? And that's him with my grandpa, my

namesake, Thomas Fike, who served in World War two. These two guys

when they got together, they loved hanging out with each other, and they

didn't say anything. Grandpa would just hold him and smile at him and delight

in him. And Judas somehow knew this guy is one of my people.

We are we're family together. It's beautiful. At twelve months of age,

baby's brains are developing the sense of sound. Babies know something at twelve months

that all wives know. They know that it's not what you say, it's

how you say it. Babies know this instinctively, and so they're listening for

joy and delight in our voices, and it's helping to form who they are.

Listen to this from neurologist Jim Wilder. He said this. He said,

crusty neurologists have gone so far as to say that what is essential to

a child's development is that they be the sparkle of someone's eye. Isn't that

powerful? He said? The best term that they've been able to use for

this sensation is joy. They've looked for other words, they can't find a

better word than joy. This joy is the only thing that motivates a child

to do anything on their own. It's the only thing that they are actively

seeking. It's what they're looking for. Joy, it's what they're scanning for.

It's what they're observing for. It's what they're listening for. It's what

they're feeling for. Joy, the delight that their people take in them.

That's what's happening in the right orbital prefrontal cortex. Okay, what's happening is

that baby is forming its identity, its character, and its sense of belonging.

The data that they process will determine their development. Joy becomes the fuel

that the infant brain is living off of, more than mother's milk. It's

joy that's feeding this child. Who's happy to be with me? Who shares

my distress? Who is it that I can count on? The baby's looking

for joy? And because the brain chemistry of the child and the parents are

matched in the millienation process, a child's brain develops largely based upon the faces,

the faces that are looking at them. And so if a face that

they're looking at is connected to joy, then that sense of joy is hardwired

into that baby's brain. And likewise, if the face that they're looking with

is connected to depression or anxiety or fear, depression, anxiety and fear becomes

hardwired into that child's brain. Milleniation. Now, this little guy, maybe

you've seen this guy, has become a bit of an Internet sensation, and

he's all over the socials because he is going to represent for us this idea,

this process of attachment, this process of milliination. He's gonna show us

in real time what it looks like. I want you to watch his eyes

as his mother sings to him, watch this my good, goodbad too,

you last too, you are, It's too you are, and I love

by you. It's too am, it's too am, it's too lame.

You are pappaficting all the wast You are papa ficting all of your ways.

You are pappaficting all the ways too. You're a good, good, bad

too. You are to you all, to you all how by It goes

on and on, but it's beautiful to see this little guy. What his

mom is doing is he's showing this child who he is, whose he is,

and whose we are as a family. That millienation is happening, that

process of attachment is happening in real time. He became an Internet sensation.

But I think his mom is the hero because she is infusing into him the

right values and standards to understand who God is from an early age. Powerful.

Powerful. This little guy's right orbital prefrontal cortex is feasting in this moment.

It's processing information six times per second. Think about that, six times

per second. It's processing information, and how it grows is directly related to

the kind of stimulation it gets or lack thereof. Babies who are starved of

joy from their people develop detachment issues or desperate clinging tendencies towards anyone who will

give them attention. Many cases, not all, but many cases of mental

illness can be attributed to a deficit of joy fuel in the right orbital prefrontal

cortex. You're getting the picture of how powerful this is, how important this

is. This part of your brain has several growth spurts throughout your life.

It's growing. By the time you get to eighteen months, it's the full

size that it's ever going to be. It takes up about thirty five percent

of the size of your brain, and it's constantly telling the left side of

your brain how to feel, how to understand, how to attach, how

to know who you are, who you are, and where you belong.

Around three to five years of age, there's another growth spurt. Children are

beginning to take care of themselves a little bit more. They tie in their

own shoes, maybe cutting their own chicken nuggets or something, right, And

at this point in their life, it's really important that they start to attach

more to dad, that they start to understand who is this man? Who's

that guy? I know who she is because she feeds me, but who's

he? Right, And so they start to kind of understand subconsciously, I

need to connect to him. Sometime around fifteen years old, all of us

had a massive crush on somebody, right, and the moment that they looked

at us and reciprocated how we felt about them. Man, that right orbital

prove frontal cortex is on fire. Okay, And what neuroscientists say is that

moment for a fifteen year old is the exact same experience that a twelvemonth old

is having. It's beginning to understand itself in a broader sense. We're beginning

to understand who we are, whose we are, where we belong, who

are our people who delights in us? It's powerful. All of this is

happening subconsciously and into adult life. The right orbital prefrontal cortex is giving any

information about how your body is doing its first experienced in that part of your

brain. So like if you're having chest pains, the right orbital prefrontal cortex

is like danger, danger, danger. If you're having knee pain, stop

playing tennis, okay. It is the control access of the brain, the

command post, the quarterback. It has the ability to connect with all the

other parts of the brain. It will grow and develop your serotonin receptors.

If you experience joy throughout your development, you'll have ample supply of serotonin to

combat depressing situations. But if that area doesn't grow properly, you will be

easily susceptible to depression. The gas tank of the most powerful engine inside of

your brain was designed to be fueled by joy formed by faces. It develops

your identity, your character, you're belonging, and the only way to get

the joy it needs is through the face of your people. Kind of a

Christian way to think about this is to say it like this, we become

who we behold, We become who we behold. That's your brain. Let's

talk about your Bible. Your Bible is filled stock full of all kinds of

incredible truth about your mind, your thoughts, your brain. I'll show you

a few of them, and some of them kind of go along with those

Quippi phrases that some of us Christians inappropriately use to tell people how to get

better. Look at this, Philippians Force says, don't worry about anything.

Instead, pray about everything, tell God what you need, and thank him

for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds

anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and your minds as

you live in Christ. Jesus, God had a lot to say about your

mind. And so yes, it's true, pray more, worry less is

true. But it's not what you say, it's how you say it,

right, Okay, So look at this one first, Peter says, therefore,

preparing your minds for action. Peter was all about action. He was

a doer, not a beer He was more Martha than Mary. Right.

He's constantly at work, and so he's thinking, how do I get your

minds clear so that you will go out and live the great commission? He

says, you need to be sober minded, So set your hope fully on

the graves that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And this is a powerful verse. Two verses in one Peter five, he

says this, casting all your anxieties, how much of your anxiety, all

of your anxieties on him, on Jesus. Why, because he cares,

He cares for you. You're not alone, You're not living on an island

somewhere. Be sober minded, be watchful. Why because your adversary, the

devil, prows around like a roaring lion seeking someone devour. Now think about

how these two verses are back to back. First, cast all your anxieties

on Jesus. Make sure your mind is clear. Why. Because the enemy

wants to attack you from the inside out, and he's good at it.

So be sober minded, powerful. I love the Bible because you know,

one of the things that gives me great confidence in the Bible is how flawed

so many of the Bible characters really are. In fact, all of them

are flawed except for Jesus. All of them have massive problems and issues.

All of them demonstrate for us the flawed nature of humanity. If it were

me and I were writing a book for the Bible about me, I would

have made myself look real good, like I really would have bigged myself up.

But instead these guys were like, Nope, we were total knuckleheads.

We totally struggled, We couldn't figure things out, and we were emotionally distraught.

We see things like stress and torment and despair and angst and fear,

isolation and burnout, anxiety. We see all of these things now. Bible

nerds who loved the Bible like me will tell you that the word depression is

nowhere in your Bible. It's not a word that's found in the Bible,

but you know it is deep abiding sadness aka depression. They may not have

had a word for it then, but we do now. It's in the

Bible. Some of the greatest characters, some of the luminaries of the Bible,

experienced some of the darkest days of the soul. Listen to what David

said. This is a guy who was a man after God's own art.

He said, darkness has become my only companion. My man needs a licensed

professional counselor. He says, I am weary with my moaning. Every night

I fled. How many nights every night, I flood my bed with tears.

I drenched my couch with weeping. There's a guy named Jeremiah in the

Old Testament. His nickname was the weeping Prophet. And he said this,

Why was I ever born? Anybody ever feel like this? Why was I

ever born? My entire life has been filled with trouble and sorrow and shame.

This guy needs a licensed professional Christian counselor. Isaiah talked about one of

the great heroes, in fact, the greatest hero of the Bible. He

said this about that hero. He said, he was despised and rejected.

He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. Who is he

talking about. He's talking about Jesus. Jesus was acquainted with deepest grief.

It's powerful. Paul, the greatest evangelist in the New Testament, wrote half

the New Testament, said this, for we do not want you to be

unaware. You need to know about this. We don't want you to be

unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that

we were burdened excessively beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life.

Can't be sure that he's talking about suicidal at ideation, but the man

would rather die than live. Danger warning signs. This is your Bible.

Your brain is prominently featured and intentionally formed and reformed and formed and reformed in

the pages of your Bible. Now, if there's one thing that I want

us to take away from this series, if literally you know how preachers say,

if you don't hear anything else, I say, hear this, that's

this moment. Okay. We tend all of us to think of mental health

as a me problem, like full on Taylor swift right, it's me,

Hi, I'm the problem. It's me right, that's what we think.

That's how we think about mental health. Or worse, we tend to think

it sounds like a you problem. You got some stuff to figure out.

The fact is that mental health is a we problem. If these neuroscientists are

right about the right orbital prefrontal core, then what's happening to us inside of

our mind didn't happen on our own. It happened and it was shaped by

the faces that form us and as we continue in our life, mental unhealth

is a we problem, and it can't be solved with a me solution.

If you're here today and you've struggled with mental health. Even now in this

moment, you go, man, I'm walking through a dark cloud. You're

not going to be able to fix it on your own. It's just not

going to work. You're not going to be able to will yourself to mental

health. That's not how it works. Mental health is not a me problem.

It's a we problem. So I started thinking about this a lot,

and I thought, you know, I'm fascinated by the neuroscience. I think

that's so cool to see how the brain works, and like to know that

there's this part of our brain that does this super unique thing that shapes us

and for the rest of our lives. It's like quarterback in the way that

we understand ourselves. I think that's cool. But there's got to be more

to the story than this. There must be a reason that we're formed by

the faces to whom we belong. There must be a reason for that.

And started thinking about this phrase, the face of God. Started thinking about

the idea that we could be formed by the face of God, that if

we would put our attention on the face of God, that we would feed

that right orbital prefrontal cortex in a way that it's never been fed by the

best mother, the best father, the best uncle, the best friend,

the best girlfriend, the best boyfriend. It's never been fed like this,

It's never been formed like this. And then I started thinking about how that

phrase the face of God is a narrative that flows from Genesis to Revelation,

and how powerful it is to think about this idea. In the Garden of

Eden, Adam and Eve are walking face to face with God. There's nothing

in between them, full on relationship and communion with a holy God. And

then Eve turns her face to see a different face, the one that Peter

said was looking to devour her. She looks to that face and he lies

to her. She believes him. They eat the apple, and from that

moment on, sin is introduced into the world. And immediately immediately after they

do this, Adam and Eve hide their faces from God. I don't want

you to see me and guess what. We still do this today. We

still hide ourselves from God today. That's part of how we live. I'll

give you only so much of my heart God. The rest of it,

I don't want you to deal with this part. They hid their faces from

God. Maybe it's because they didn't want to see that look in his eyes.

You know how, like when you were a kid, you would rather

your mom and dad yell at you than to say, I'm very disappointed and

you right. I found two memes on the internet. I don't know which

one I like better. That little cat on the left is very disappointed in

us. They didn't want to see that face. They didn't want to see

that in God, so they hid from God, and he was hidden from

humanity for a long time after that. And then God does this amazing thing

in Numbers chapter six. Look at this he speaks to Moses. He says

to Moses, look, I want you to tell Aaron to pray this prayer

over the people. He says, thus shall bless the people of Israel.

You shall say to them, you've heard this prayer before. Think about the

significance of this prayer in light of what I've just told you. The Lord

bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you,

and be gracious to you that his face would form you. That's what

God said to Moses. I want you to tell Aaron to pray this over

the people. The Lord lift his countenance upon you and give you peace powerful

that we would be formed by the face of God. And that God knows

this from the beginning. And so Moses said, hey, I like that

prayer. I'd like to see your face. God, will you let me

see your face? And God says to Moses, unfortunately, it would be

too much for you. You would die if you were to see my face.

And so then you know. Later down the road, Isaiah goes into

the throne room of God and he sees God's face, and it's too much

for him. The words that come out of Isaiah's mouth when he sees the

holiness of God. You remember what he said. He said, woe unto

me. I don't belong here. I'm a man of unclean lips, and

I live in a land of unclean lips. I don't belong in this place

with this holy God whoa unto me. It went on that way for a

long time, hundreds of years. There was a promise that one day we

would see the face of God in flesh and blood in Messiah. And then

at Christmas it happened. Jesus Christ came into the world, and we got

Immanuel God with us, and the wise men and the shepherds. They didn't

come at the same time. Okay, that your nativity is seen, is

alive. But they came separately, and when they saw his face, they

bowed and worshiped a baby. That's how significant the face of God was.

Everyone that saw the face of Jesus had an opinion about their experience. Nobody

was agnostic about Jesus. Everybody either loved him or hated him. They loved

him because he saw them for who they were. Some people like that.

Some people didn't, right, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they didn't like

that Jesus saw right through them, some of the worst sinners on the planet,

some of the people that everybody else had no time for. Jesus stopped

and looked at them face to face, and it changed them forever. We

know this because it's all throughout the Gospels. Now, just to be clear,

we don't really know what Jesus looked like. We know that he wasn't

blonde hair and blue eyes. He was Jewish. These are some of the

different depictions that we have of the face of Jesus. I don't know which

of Jesus accurate. It really doesn't matter what he looked like. What matters

is when he looked at you, it changed you. It changed you.

And we know this because his disciples, these twelve knuckleheads that he put together

to build the most significant movement that's ever happened on planet Earth. These guys

were tax collectors and fishermen. His own brother. Who would pick your brother

to be a part of the greatest movement in the history of the world.

Jesus did. And these guys, these disciples, everywhere they went people said,

man, there's something about him. One of my favorite verses in the

Bible is in Acts chapter four, where the disciples Peter and John are standing

before the very people that put Jesus to death in a council filled with the

high priest and this Sadducees and the Pharisees, and look at this, It

says. The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of

Peter and John, for they could see that these were ordinary men with no

special training in the scriptures. They weren't learned, they had no pedigree.

And I love this. They also recognized them as men who had been with

Jesus. Oh man, can people say that about you do people say that

about you. Look, I don't know anything about anything, but that guy

right there has been with Jesus. Powerful. One of the greatest enemies of

Christianity turned into one of the greatest heroes. A guy named Saul, who

was murdering Christians left and right, had a moment where he saw the face

of God. The Bible says that he was blinded by the light. The

experience of seeing Jesus was so significant that it literally blinded him. And from

that moment on, Paul was a different man. Everything about his orientation changed.

He became a great hero of faith. And he wrote this. And

I would say that this is maybe the most significant scripture that I'll read today,

because I want you to think about it, really, really seriously.

Look at this. It says in two Corinthians three eighteen, all of us,

all of us who have had the veil removed. I once was lost,

but now I'm fine, Or now I'm found. I'm not fine.

I once was lost, but now I'm found. I once was blind,

but now I see, He says, all of us who've had that veil

removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord and the Lord who is

the Spirit makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His

glorious image. The last scene of the Bible Revelation twenty two, The very

last words of the Bible are amazing. The elders and the saints and the

angels are all surrounded by God. Are They're surrounding the throne room. They're

looking at Jesus. And this is what it says. No longer will there

be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be

in it, and his servants will worship him and look at this. This

is the last scene of the Bible. They will see his face, and

his name will be on their foreheads, and night will be no more.

They will need no light or lamp or sun, for the Lord God will

be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. Eternity is an

all you can eat feast for the right orbital prefrontal cortex. All we're seeing

is the face of the one who tells us about our identity, our character,

and our sense of belonging powerful. And that's when we'll finally understand the

psalm that we sang this morning. The joy of the Lord is my strength.

Neemiah said, grieve not because the joy of the Lord is your strength.

And I would ask you today, is the joy of the Lord your

strength? Not the joy of your husband, not the joy of your kids,

not the joy of your parents, not the joy of your friend group.

Is the joy of the Lord your strength? That is mental health.

That is what God is aspiring for us to live like, for us to

understand that if we would be fueled by the joy of the Lord. Are

you making space and time to experience the delight of the Lord? Do you

know where our face usually is most times in America? You know where our

face is right there? How can I find the joy of the Lord?

If this is what I'm looking at? How much time are you spending looking

at this device versus the people in your life? You know what that idea

that Paul mentioned that we can see and reflect the glory of God. Here's

what that means. It means that if you're looking at Jesus, you might

be the only Jesus that the people in your life will ever see. If

you're looking at him, you are reflecting His glory on the people in your

purview, your family, your friends, the people at your work, the

people on your tennis team. Right, you are reflecting the glory of the

Lord. Do you know that there's nothing that you can do, not a

single thing, not a single thing one of you can do, to make

God love you anymore, any less than he already does. You do not

have to perform to participate, You do not have to behave to belong.

God loves you deeply. God is for you deeply, and he looks at

you with incredible delight in his eyes. He is so pleased with you,

not all of your actions, but with you. Okay, he loves you.

David, the guy who had to buy a new couch because he kept

crying all over it, he said this, He said, you make known

to me the path of life. In your presence, there is fullness of

joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Man, that's so

powerful. If you want to know who God says you are, who God

says you're supposed to be, and where you belong in this world, spend

time in the presence of the Lord. Fike, how do I do that?

Read the Bible first? I know that's so elementary. We all have

that when it's like, yeah, take your vitamins right, but seriously read

your Bible. He wrote you a love letter to tell you what he thinks

of you, what he's dreaming for you. Spend time in the Word,

ask him to show you his face. God made us to find our identity,

our character, and our belonging in Him, and the way for us

to experience that kind of life is to fix our eyes on the face of

our God, to let how he feels about us shape how we understand ourselves,

our world and our place in it. And listen. I don't want

to be at all reductive about mental illness because all of the things I'm saying

are true biblically, and sometimes the synapses in people's brains are not functioning properly.

If a person walked into this church and they said, fight, I

think I tore my acl what do you think ought to do? The first

thing I would do is say, hey, man, let's pray. I

believe that God is a healer. I don't think he's quit the healing business.

Anybody want to say, amen, I believe that he's still the great

physician. I believe that that's who Jesus is, that's what the Holy Spirit

can do. I believe that God can heal you. And here's the number

of an orthopedic specialist. Right, go see this guy because he can look

into your knee and figure out what's really going on and help you. So,

if you walk into our church and you say, man, I think

I'm seriously dealing with clinical depression, what do you think ought to do?

First thing I would do is pray for you, because I believe that Jesus

is still the great physician and that he can still heal you. And here's

the number of a great licensed professional Christian counselor that can help you make sense

of what's really going on in your life. It's not either or, okay.

Mental health is not a meat problem. It's a we problem and we

solutions are required. So what I want to say to you is this the

statistic to bother me. The most of all the stats I shared, and

I'll close with this is the statistic that thirty five percent of people in Colorado

with mental health conditions can't either afford help. They can't afford counseling or medication,

or there's not enough help around. And so we as a wisdom table,

our elders and our leaders, we got together and we talked about this,

and we decided that we want to help. We don't just want to

talk about it. We want to be about it. So if you're here

today, or if you're watching on YouTube or listening on the podcast, and

you live in this area and you say, man, I need help and

I can't afford it, our church is going to pay for five free sessions

with some of the licensed professional counselors that we have relationship with that we trust.

We will connect you with those people, and we will pay for the

first five of your sessions because we want to tell you. We don't just

want to tell you and approve to you that God is for you and so

are we. Now, if when you heard me say that, you go,

that's me. I need that help. Please come and talk to me

or email me. If you're watching this online, email me and we'll connect

you. And if you heard me say that, and you're the kind of

person that isn't mentally unwell, that you feel like you're doing fine, you

don't need counseling, but you've got a little extra money, I would encourage

you to think about investing in scholarshiping some of these people, some of these

folks that are going to lift their hand and say I need help. You

can be a part of helping them. If when you write your check to

the Movement Church, you want to put in the memo line this is on

top of whatever your normal giving is. But if you want to put in

the memo line mental health, we will know where to put that money,

and we will help people find the help that they need. We'll talk about

this every week, and you're going to hear in great depth after each of

these services. We're going to be filming upstairs a long form interview with myself

and two people every week about the specific subjects. I'm certain that the things

that I've said today are not nearly comprehensive enough, even though I've preached for

quite a long time today, and so we're going to talk more about that,

and we'll release it on the YouTube channel as its own thing. We'll

release it on the podcast channel as its own thing. This is the deal.

Mental health is not a me problem. It's a WEE problem, and

it belongs to a we solution. We're going to talk a lot more about

those we solutions in the weeks to come, but for now I would just

encourage you. Will you find time this week to look to the face of

God. Will you find time this week to spend quality, intentional time with

him and ask him what he thinks about you. Ask him to share with

you what it is, what his opinion of you is, how he feels

about you, because I promise you he loves you deeply. If we can

do that, if we can figure that out, then we will be well

on our way to understand in your Bible, Amen, let me pray for

us Jesus, thank you so much for all of the ways that you reveal

to us your master plan for humanity, the beautiful ways in which you inform

us, the beautiful ways in which you made us, the intricate ways in

which you wove us together. Lord, if there's anyone within the sound of

my voice, watching on YouTube or listening on a podcast that struggles with any

sort of mental unwellness, any sort of mental anguish, I pray you would

give them the courage to lift their hand and say I need help, because

I believe Lord that that's what you want to do. You want to help

those people. You are near to the broken hearted. You never leave us,

you never forsake us. You're a good, good Father. That's who

you are. And so Lord, we worship you, we love you,

we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Before we get into

communion, I want to introduce you to Elise Jacobson. Give it up for

a lease, Okay. So I asked the lease to give us kind of

like a little teaser today of what we're going to talk about in the long

form conversation. So, Alis, you heard my sermon. We've talked a

lot even leading up to the sermon. So when I told her, we're

going to go like three to four minutes on this part. Okay, so

it's not going to be super long, but at least tell us a little

bit about what you do, why you do it, and what I got

wrong. Go for it. I'm a licensed professional counselor. I have worked

with teenagers and adults for about twenty years. I ended up coming into the

counseling field at because of my Christian faith. I was a youth group leader

at a church of Minnesota, and in my small group, I had teen

girls. One of them was struggling with self harm. Uh the other one,

one of the other ones, had lost her older brother in a tragic

accident and I walked with them, I saw them, I heard them,

I listened. But I felt like God was calling me to go to graduate

school and get more practical tools so I could sit with people and their pain

and then their struggle, but also give them tools and ideas of how they

could move through some of those struggles. So I work off of Northgate at

Heart Matters. In private practice. I also work with teenagers and young adults

in the juvenile justice in the criminal justice field, walking with them as they're

going through some of the scariest times of their lives. Wow. And so

talk to us about how you integrate your Christianity into what you do, like,

how does that affect the way that you counsel. I pray for my

clients in between sessions. I ask the Holy Spirit to guide me in each

of my sessions, whether I'm working with a believer or a non Christian.

There are times where his Spirit says, be quiet when I want to say

something. You never know how God is going to use you, but He

is definitely integral in my work. I also I see humans fearfully and wonderfully

made. We all have strengths, but then we all have struggles. We

all have pain and things that we try to fix or cope with ourselves,

and sometimes the ways that we cope leads to more problems. So I think

it informs kind of how I see each human that I encounter, how I

see myself with humility. I'm on the journey as well, and I have

strengths and struggles as well. But then also like God wants us to have

peace and freedom, he wants us to thrive and not just survive in this

life. Amen, that's awesome. So we're going to talk in great depth

upstairs, and also Rebecca Guzman will be with us, So we're going to

do that after the service. You guys, if you want to stay around

after you can huddle around that table up there and listen to it, or

you can just wait for it to come out on YouTube. If you have

any thoughts or questions about anything that I've said today, that you go I

want to hear more about this. I want to hear you talk more about

this. Then come talk to me between now and the time that we go

up and film it and we'll talk about it together. Okay, So listen,

we're going to go into a time of communion, and this is a

moment where we remember the Man of sorrows. We remember the man that was

acquainted with our grief, the man that walked in our shoes, that walked

on our planet, that experienced all that humanity is. He was confronted with

every sin, every temptation that we are on a daily basis. And yet

he lived a sinless life and died for us on the cross so that we

could truly live to live abundantly. And so we take this time. We

go over to the tables. If you're new with us, get your elements

and come back to the seats, and then I'll lead us through a time

of remembering what Jesus did for us. Okay, God bless you guys.

So what's God leading you to do next? And how can we help?

Would you send us an email to info at Movement Church dot co and tell

us how we can pray for you and help you take the next step in

your spiritual journey. If you'd like to contribute financially to our ministry, text

the amount you'd like to give to the number eight four three two one,

or look us up online at Movementchurch dot c. You can find the Movement

Church on all social media platforms, and we hope that you'll give us a

follow God bless you, and remember God is for you, and so are we