Fixing Fragmented Faith

I'm really excited about this message today. I think it can reveal something to you. It can be really helpful for you, but I'm going to dive right in. If you have not been here for the past couple of weeks, you can go check out the last 2 weeks sermons: , we talked about the Bible. I don't know So much.

Again, We talked about the Bible. We've been in Genesis, We've been in Romans, We've been in a couple different places in the Bible. I called the series AI and the Christian witness because AI has been a question I've received over the last couple of months. People have opinions on it And- and I think the Bible has an opinion on this as well, And so what I talked about a couple weeks ago was just this introduction to a series about AI. Last week, we chatted about our fears, how we're supposed to fear God rather than fearing man or fearing creation in general, And this week what I want to do it's, If you don't know this, I'm not even going to teach you, It's just It'd take too long for me to teach you, But I am building this series out, kind of.

It's a Greek term, It's called a chiasm, So chi looks like an X, And so what I'm doing is I've been building this case from the Scriptures about where we are with regard to the Lord and with regard to creation. God has called us, as humanity, to rule and have authority over creation. The problem, though, was that, when sin came into the garden, we allowed a serpent, a created thing, to tell us what to do. Romans, chapter 1, tells us we worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator. That's our problem with everything: That we allowed creation to rule and have authority over us.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

When we're called to allow God to have full reign and rule over our lives, And we're called to rule over the rest of creation, Taking every thought captive and obeying Christ Jesus, That's what we're called to do, And so, whether it's AI, technology, relationships or anything under the sun, the problem of sin is that we allowed it to have more authority over our lives than it deserves, And we have allowed God- or not allowed God, rather- to have his rightful place as our full authority. And so this week, I said: chiasm, right, A chiasm is where you start at one place, build to a place, and then you start going backward. The reality is, I have to explain what sin is and how it drew us away from God, What you were supposed to be in comparison to what we are, And I've built this case. At this point, This week will be kind of the capstone to that case, And then the next 2 weeks I'm going to talk about. What does our life need to look like now that we understand it at a deeper level?

So this is a very important sermon for me, And I'm going to start with a brief illustration, because I think God has called us. I don't think I know this. I've read the Scriptures. God has called us to be fully integrated in our faith. Now I don't want you to think I'm going to play guitar and keys like I did last week.

Someone called me a showboat or I was showing off, and I'm like: I need you to know I was just teaching an illustration. I was trying to show you, not showcase my talent. I thought it was a good illustration. I thought it was helpful. Everybody tell me what is this Guitar?

Yeah, it's very good. How many strings are on a guitar? Six, Good job, Do you? Do you all play guitar? Some of us, You play guitar.

Oh, okay, She said all of us. I'm like: okay, So here's the thing. You hear that, You hear that. Does that sound good or bad? Just tell me Sounded bad, right, It is so good.

It's so good, It's terrible, right? Here's why Let's see if I can do this. Oh, I don't know, I can't do it. Live like this. We're going to do this, right, You're going to hear it when it comes in.

All right, Someone left the guitar out of tune. Here's my point. Maybe the music in the cool air did it. My point is: there was supposed to only be one string out of tune.

Cold air will do that sometimes. Sometimes cold air gets us out of attunement with God too Difficult environments. Anyway, the problem is, God's called us to be fully integrated, And when we're fully integrated, at the proper level, what happens is we feel like we're in this flow of the spirit and then our lives overflow when we encounter other people. We feel connected with God. We love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength.

We are connected with him and we find fulfillment, satisfaction and the peace that surpasses all understanding. But, just like I was trying to show you, if there's, there's six strings And I need you to know. In your life there are so many different components that go into your walk with God, And God has not called us to offer him part of our lives. He's called us to offer all of our lives. Therefore, by the mercies of God, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

He says: "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God". He says: that's your reasonable act of worship. Our reasonable act of worship is to give God part All, [sighs], And. And. As you see, with that like, if one string is off, if one area of our life is not given fully over to God, then when we live our lives we're going to be out of tune in our walk with God.

I know this sounds harsh and what I'm not saying to you is that if you've confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you've been saved by Jesus and you're going to spend eternity with God, I'm not saying that if you've done that yet you haven't given him your whole life, that that means you're going to spend eternity in hell. I mean that's ultimately between you and God and you're called to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. But what I can tell you is if every aspect of your life is not handed to God, every [clears throat] aspect of your life is not handed to God, then you're going to feel this dissonance in your life. You could be doing five of the six things You could hand him, five of the six aspects he wants you to hand hands him. Yet if that one area is still yours and it's not been handed to him, you're living out of tune in your walk with God.

And it really does. As I say it out loud, it feels different, even in here, than it did in the first service. It feels intense and harsh, But the Scriptures are fairly consistent, aren't they? We're called to give everything to God. Now, here's the beauty: God doesn't ask for everything from us because he's a greedy God.

He asks for everything from us because he's a gracious God. He says: "You know what? The only way that they're going to live in the way that they feel ultimately fulfilled and they get to spend eternity with me and have abundance in this present life, the only way is if every aspect of their life comes to me, If they keep in one small part to themselves, yet giving everything to me. There's going to be a disjointedness in their walk, and not only are they going to look confusing to everybody else, they're going to sound out of tune and it's going to be obvious to every single person around, but in their own spirit they're going to feel that disjointedness and they're going to spend their entire life seeking me partially and still feel like they aren't able to apprehend the peace that I'm offering, And I don't want that for you. In fact, there are a lot of people who tried religion and it didn't work for them, and I would propose to you that it's because in some area of their life they were unwilling to hand it to God fully.

And I want to encourage you, as you come in here for the first time- or you've been coming in here for a while- hand it to him fully. Your life will be better that way. I'm not saying that because it's my job. It's my job because I believe that And I just don't want you to be out of sync any longer, And I'll tell it, for I'll tell you the tell you this because we've been talking about the image of God quite a bit. You don't even have to know music to hear that that one string got the guitar way out of tune.

It sounded bad. And I'll just tell you this: if there's a part of your life that's not been handed over, not only are you personally unfulfilled, but to those of us who follow God, it is painfully obvious. And so I say that not to make you feel exposed. I say that to you because I don't want you to try to hide. There's no point.

Hiding part of your life leaves you in a lesser state than you think it will. So give your all to God. I, I am. I. I think God doesn't like to be compartmentalized.

Anyways, I wouldn't like to be compartmentalized If my wife compartmentalized me into a small portion of her life, and then it wouldn't work out very well, would it? But this is what we try to do with God. We give him a Sunday or we give him a day, or we give him a part of our morning, but we don't integrate every other aspect of our lives. It's just not helpful for us. He wants all of you.

He wants your mind, He wants your heart, He wants your hands, He wants every aspect of you. I have a few quotes that I pulled from the church fathers, from like, near to the death of Jesus and resurrection, all the way to the present day. I'm just going to give you some of them. Martin Luther, you know Martin Luther. He says this: "A religion that gives nothing costs nothing and suffers nothing is worth nothing".

Saint Augustine in, the 5th century. He says this: "You have made us, You have made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you". Andrew Murray, I've been reading this book called Humility by him. He says this: "God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to him". Dietrich Bonhoeffer- and I've given you this quote, but I love Dietrich Bonhoeffer, You got to read Cost of Discipleship.

If you want to grow in your faith, You don't have to, but you should, It's totally good, It's good. "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die". Die to himself, Maybe, die physically, just depends on where you live. AW Tozer in the 1900s says this: "God will not accept a divided heart". Charles, CS Lewis says: "Give me all.

I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you". Charles Spurgeon: "The Lord Jesus will have all of you or none of you". Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verse 5, to go all the way back: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might". From Deuteronomy all the way to the life that bears a cross, Jesus called us to live that life.

Deuteronomy 6:5

All the way to Paul saying: "I pour myself out daily as a drink, offering in service of God". All the way through the Scriptures. It is so consistent I don't know why we're missing it. Give everything to God and God will return back to you a life of your dreams. The dreams are going to change.

I'm just going to throw that out there. I mean just things change, but you'll. You'll be so fulfilled in your life. Let me close. Let me not close, Let me.

Let me finalize my intro. I'm still on my intro With this: if the heart loves God, if your heart loves God, it frees your mind to interact with creation properly, to explore creation, and it conditions your hands to take that creation and bend it to the will of God. A fully integrated, A fully integrated person of faith. What they're going to do is they're going to love God with their heart. They're going to integrate that into all of their thoughts And then, whatever they encounter in their activities, they are now able to take those thoughts and those activities captive and force it to submit to the will of God.

And you wonder why life has gotten away from you. It could be that your faith is not fully integrated. You might wonder why you've been in church for years and the thing that we keep promising from stage hasn't happened for you. It might be that your faith isn't fully integrated. Head, hands, heart.

God wants all of you And if he doesn't get all of you, it's not that God is not excited about what he's received from you. It's that he knows, unless he gets all of you, there's still a part of you that doesn't trust him, And that part of you that doesn't trust him will lead you in all the wrong places. And in your interactions he's still going to show his grace and love towards you. It is his loving kindness that continues to lead you to repentance. He sent his Holy Spirit to dwell in you so that he would actually have all of you.

And the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin and it compels you toward a life of faithfulness to God. He knows it's not going to happen in one moment. But unless you get to this place where it's all laid on the altar and you're like: "Whatever your will, I'm doing it". "Whatever your will, I'm thinking about it. Whatever your will, I'm going to be passionate in that direction", I, I, Unless you get to that point where you've offered everything, you're going to try to keep something to the side.

And I'll tell you, with God, it's the same as a normal relationship. Hannah, if I had a side chick, it wouldn't be a good situation, would it? So why do you think your life with a 5% side chick, spiritually, is going to be beneficial? It's always with It's always with our relationship with God that that we think it's different. But in a normal relationship, it don't matter whether it's 1% or 99%.

If you got a side hustle or a side chick, your boss or your boss your spouse is going to, is not going to be happy with it. And with God, if there's someone on the side or something on the side, you are wholly missing out on the life that he's called you to. Off my soapbox, we got to jump into the text here. We get to jump into the text. We're going to be in Colossians, chapter 3.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

If you have your Bibles and I need a volunteer to help us decide which translation we're going to use today, Can I get a volunteer? Just raise your hand. All right, Ryan, NASB. Oh, no, no, no, No, you don't. You don't know the question.

You got to pick a style. Sing it to Jesus. No, I can't. Goofy movie song. Goofy movie song.

Okay, So before you play it, I just need you to know. Before you get up and walk out, I've been listening to like 60, 60 chapters of Scripture this week, over and over and over, and I put it to different styles of music, and I need you to know. There's nothing better than getting a bop stuck in your head. That is literally straight Scripture. So here's what we're going to do is I'm just going to play the Scripture for you using the goofy.

You know that song in Goofy Movie that was like way too good for the movie. It was one at the end: Ba, ba, ba, ba ba, . Ba ba. You know that one That was such a good You should go watch it just for the song. It's so good.

They don't play music like that anymore. Anyways, we're going to go through the Scriptures. I'm not going to make you stand for the reading of God's word, but you can stand if you're. You don't, Don't stand, Okay, All right, cool, Go ahead and play it for me. Hey, I feel so awkward.

Up here There's always an intro to a song. Like this. I mean, it's going to be like I would have done rock, except it was like 2-minute-long intros. It was crazy. Yeah, We must have a different translation.

My bad, It's my fault. Yeah, I know y'all weren't into it. It's okay, I appreciate that you were into it. Whoever just said that I was into it? You know what?

There ain't nothing better. I got like James 2, and I don't listen to Chris Brown, but I like the style and so I put James 2 in that style and it's like it's, it's a bop. It's stuck in my head. I got all of Ephesians in John Mayer's style. It's Dude.

I, I been Y'all, Y'all sitting here listening to secular music and you know I'm listening to Scripture. What's up? No, I, I, I wanted to go through that because it's been a series called AI in the Christian witness and some people are so scared or they're so consumed with technology with all this other stuff, Like both are bad. In one case, God's called you to give all to him. I mean all cases.

God's called you to give all to him. And when you give all to him, what that means is your fears need to subside in the name of Jesus, and what you do is you take every thought captive and you bend it to your will. So, rather than being scared of AI, I said I'm going to use it as a tool, and now I'm spending so much more time in the Scripture than I have. I mean 60 Scripture songs that we've got. It was all I was.

I was like cleaning the grout in my house yesterday and it went through like three times. It was great. I've got Scripture in my brain and I called it. It's Awana, Like you know, Awana, where you memorize Scriptures. It's AI-wana.

Yeah, that's what? Anyways, that's not funny, as I thought it was going to be. These dad jokes don't work very well. I'm going to read it for you again, just in case you felt like that was sacrilegious. It wasn't.

The reality is, most of you who think that's sacrilegious probably don't read your. Never mind, I didn't. Okay, let the peace of Christ rule in your heart, since, as members of one body, you were called to peace and be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom through- Oh wait- Psalms, hymns and songs from the spirit Singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the Father.

Through him- And I know if you might be thinking something about the AI song or whatever. If you want to walk out, just remember the word of God was sung before it was written down. I'm just going to throw that out there for you. It was sung before it was printed. It was chanted in monasteries way before it was preached in churches.

So I think we've got a good historic, rich tradition to take a tool and utilize it so that we get the words of Christ in our heart. And so what I want to do is I want to walk you through what it looks like because many of us haven't given our all to Jesus. What does it look like to fix your fragmented faith, Because God wants you integrated in your faith? - and I'm going to break this down as quickly as I possibly can- There are three areas that, if I could just condense it down to three areas that I would say we tend to give the Lord some of, but not all of. The first is the heart, The second is our mind, or the brain or our head, And the third is our hands.

Some of us do one of those, but not all three. But God's called you to do all three: heart, mind and soul. I think this is found right here in Colossians, chapter 3, right here in these Scriptures. And what I want to do is I'm going to walk you through some of the problems with giving God heart only, head only or hands only, And then I'm going to try to, I'm going to try to let you leave this place today with some action, steps or pathways to get into a fully integrated faith that not only will help you revolve every aspect of your life around Jesus, but will ultimately lead you to fulfillment in your walk with God. But there are some problems we got to deal with today.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

The first one or type of person is the one who hasn't given the Lord everything, but they've given him their heart. Now, when I say heart, I think it wouldn't be a hop skip, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that the heart is. Maybe the way they understood in the ancient world is: you've got your, your heart and your gut Right. The way we divide it today is we've got our heart, the seat of the emotions, which is not actually our heart, that's the blood flow thing and it's actually our amygdala. And then we've got our prefrontal cortex, which is the seat of our reasoning.

Both of those are good. One is more emotional driven, the other is logical. And then the third aspect is our hands. What does our brain, what do our emotions tell our body to do? It's all three: head, hands, heart, And when we give God one of them, there's a huge problem.

For example, if you give the Lord your heart only, you're going to land into a certain type of faith that is very problematic. In my personal opinion. This is a faith that is mostly felt but never fully formed: Mostly felt but never fully formed. This is a person who has a lot of passions, but they haven't developed the patterns necessary to get through life effectively or to be fully formed in their faith. This is the person who has sincerity, that you really believe that Jesus died on the cross 2,000 years ago and you really believe that he's called you to live in a particular way, But because of the lack of consistency and pattern development, you have no stability.

You're the person that is on the shifting sand and you love Jesus, but you look at him from far off because you never develop systems to consistently bring you closer and closer to Jesus. This is the emotional person who never moves over into the logical reasoning and never steps into actual action, steps in their faith. I don't want to be too harsh- Y'all are very quiet in this place, but here's what the Scripture says: This is the person without, real endurance because they're consumed in their emotions. Verse 15. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, Since, as members of one body, you were called to peace and be thankful.

Now I'm not going to re-preach my entire message from last week, but when it says: let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. My whole sermon last week was how to get to the peace of Christ. The way you get there is not by fearing man and creation or being stuck only in the seat of the emotions. It is moving to a place where you actually have memory stores that, because of the neuroplasticity in your brain, it forms habits, it forms memories, it forms stability. And what you have to do is you have to let the peace of Christ that you apprehend through meditation, the peace of Christ that you apprehend through reading God's word, the peace of Christ that comes when you daily offer your entire body as a living sacrifice.

You have to let it rule and have authority, rather than the fleeting, fading emotion that just popped up because your kid did something, Rather than the fleeting, fading emotion of that tiredness you feel when your alarm rings the first time on a Sunday morning, Just being honest, And it's like you have to let Christ rule. And when you choose to let Christ rule over your heart, that means your emotions, no matter what they are, have to bow at the feet of Jesus. This is the problem. If you offer him your heart but you never offer him your whole is, you're going to live a faith of being extremely emotional. You're going to shout from the rooftops that Jesus is Lord, But in your private life you're going to live inconsistently.

You're going to, You're going to, You're going to shout it, but you won't even have his words hidden in your heart. And again, when that, when that string is out of tune, it's noticeable. These are the people and I want you up here all the time. If everyone could be up here at the altar every week, I'd be ecstatic. But I've noticed over the years that there are some people who are so good at emotionally engaging And then I get to know them as a pastor and their life is completely disjointed from what it looks like.

It never makes sense to me that you would worship at a high level of emotion. Well, it makes sense, But it's it's a struggle for me that you would worship God at a high level of emotion. But when you get back to the house and that emotion isn't visceral and the music's not playing, you're sitting here, living in an inconsistent way. I've been in this long enough to see people who are worshipping on their knees, yet I find out about their private life, that they're cheating on their spouse, And I'm sitting here like that is not full integration. I don't think You're emotionally engaged with it here, but when you get back home you're allowing your emotions to draw you back into creation and temptation in the world.

We've got to resolve that heart only type of faith. That's why he says: let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. This is my instruction to you, who maybe default to that heart, faith that's not fully integrated. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and don't confuse being moved with becoming mature. Maturity and movement are different things.

You can be coming here every single week, you can be raising your hands, you can be, talking about it, you can be inviting people to church. Those are all amazing things. But if it never makes it into your brain and if it never makes it into the deepest levels of your activities, then you're going to be living inconsistently, and anyone who lives inconsistent with the values they claim is frustrated, in the midst of dysfunction and unfulfilled. So don't [snorts] confuse being moved with being mature. Don't confuse affection for God with walking with God.

I've talked about this before so I won't belabor the point too much. But my relationship with my wife looked a little bit different when we first started hanging out. Now, sweetie, I still get butterflies, But it's not like it was when we first started dating. It was new, It was exciting, It was emotional. I had so much affection for you.

We held hands. It was crazy, I know. I know what y'all are thinking. We, We were that Christian. You know that was not.

Y'all got to help me out. I'll continue if you laugh. I always tell the staff I say if you're quiet, it's going longer than you think it's going to go. If you engage, it's going to go way quicker. Yeah, I appreciate that.

That's so good, but it changes when you become married. You have to move from this, this emotional affection, to a mature relationship, And that mature relationship looks a little more boring than you think it will if you're new to, if you're new to that type of relationship. Stability is what people ask for, but it's not what they, it's not what they dream for. I need stability, but those people and yeah, it's just, it's tough. Don't, don't confuse inspiration for discipleship.

Just because it feels good in a sermon doesn't mean that's going to immediately apply into the rest of your life. That's why you go home after a sermon that wrecked you or after a, a song that made you cry, and then you live the same way you did, and then you wonder why it didn't have its impact. It's because you confused inspiration with discipleship. Discipleship is offering yourself up daily, picking up your cross daily. It's a costly faith that requires everything from you.

That's heart only. Then there's mind or head only. These are the people who have a faith that's mostly known but never fully experienced, Meaning you know about God, but your relationship with God is a little bit suspect. These are the people who know the doctrine but they don't regularly delight in the Lord. I've known people like that and it's a real struggle for me, guys.

I've been in that place Because it's cool to read the Bible and start to learn about God. But unless you kind of get back to the place where you have an affection for the Lord, or if that that knowledge makes its way into your actions and love toward one another like it, that disjointedness causes you to have a faith that looks pompous and unattractive And it's actually not that fulfilling. You can read history books all day, but it's not going to. It's not going to save you, It's not going to give you abundant life, And that's how a lot of people read the Bible, when they don't put their whole heart into it and they don't serve in the way that God called them to do. These are the people who desire clarity, but they don't have a connection with God.

It's like I want to know what God says. Well, do you want to see how he lived and follow suit. Do you have an affection for the way that he lived? Because even the demons know about God and they tremble, Even the demons. This is what James is talking about when he says faith without works is dead.

He's like cool, You're emotionally invested, You know about God, So do the things that live in hell. You got to be fully integrated, affectionate toward God, aligning your thoughts to his thoughts and living your life wholly following Jesus. So, people who have knowledge but they're not inspired by the Holy Spirit, we can tell the difference. We can tell the difference. Verse 16 says: let the message, the words, the teachings of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through Psalms, hymns and songs from the spirit singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Paul says it. I quote it all the time: Think on these things and the peace of God will be with you. You've got to put God's messaging in your brain if you're ever going to live out the stable life that he's called you to live. If you want to live on the rock, you can't do it just based on your feels.

If you want to live on the rock. You have to move it over to your cortex and start storing that information in your mind. Why am I so excited about all of these different songs that I'm? I'm hearing the Scriptures. Why?

Because when, when I wake up in the morning, now that's what that's the Bob that's sitting in my head and it's Scripture and it changes my morning. All because I can put on goofy movie style jams to 2 Thessalonians. It's dope and I love it. I, I love it Getting God's word to dwell in my brain richly. And if you want that type of life, don't be confused.

Don't confuse being right about stuff with being transformed by God. Those are two different things. One requires a daily lifestyle. The other requires you to learn some information. Don't confuse knowing about God with truly knowing God.

Anyone in the room ever been hike, hike a mountain before? Yeah, Anyone ever hiked a 14er or above? There's certain words I shouldn't say. Being from Arkansas, A 14er is not the one I should say. There's a difference between planning a hike and going on a hike, And what God wants from you is to actually experience the very thing that you've studied before.

So don't confuse study with true surrender. Knowing about God is a portion of it, And there are a lot of people who don't know anything about God. But you surrendered your life. You need to learn about God. He's worth it.

He is worth that energy and time. But don't just learn about God. Live that life out. Then there's a hands-only type faith. I think this might be one of the most dangerous ones because it looks right, but it lives.

The same as the other two. A hands-only type faith is mostly active, but it's not actually rooted deeply. I think maybe I say this is the worst one because this is the one that I experienced with the people I know the most. This is the one where you can offer your entire body up to the Lord. You can serve You, you, you can.

Just you could go overseas and be a missionary, You could do all of the stuff that he calls you to do, But you can also do that without being fully invested when it comes to your heart and when it comes to your mind. [snorts]. These are the people who like to do for God more than they like to be with God.

. [clears throat]. That's such a dangerous way to live. Christ wants us to do, because that's He wants us to be where He is.

He don't want us to do for Him, He want us us to do with him. That type of faith is more about emotion than it is developing a thought, life and a heart posture toward God that's actually mature. This is why you can see people who have been coming to church their entire life and you, you hear them and you're like Yo, that's, doesn't sound like you've been reading that thing. And maybe you've been reading it, You've been showing up, You've been sitting under the teaching, but your lifestyle- still, I like your, your mind and your heart does not match what you're doing. That's so confusing to me and it's dangerous.

Here's why There's a story in Scripture- and I'm so scared to speak this, but I think this is a adequate interpretation- There's a story in Scripture, about a group of people called Ananias and Sapphira in the early church. It's early on in the book of Acts and the church is building its culture. Everyone is giving all that they have to the Lord, but there's a group of people, Ananias and Sapphira, who sold all their land and they gave a huge portion of that land to the church. But they lied to the leaders and they had kept something to themselves, And you know, I don't think the issue in that case was that they kept it, kept some of it to themselves. It was that they were hiding something from the Lord and the people who were serving in that capacity and something really bad occurred for them.

Now, this is as far as I can take that story without having to preach a whole message on it, but what I'll tell you is this: I have seen this in people here at the church and at every church I've been a part of, And what I see is people who have given their all, it seems like, to the Lord, but there's still a small portion that is held back to themselves, in their heart and in their mind, And it's tough to describe because the first response will be: Don't you see how often I'm there, pastor? Don't, don't you notice what I've done here? I, I'm fully invested. That's It's hard conversation for me to have, because I'm like. I know it, I love it, I like I.

I love how committed you are to the church. I love how much you've been doing here. I love that you've been inviting people to the church. I love all of it. But I can tell that the string is out of tune in another area, And- and it breaks my heart for you to know that your thought life is not matching up with your activity life.

And if your thought life doesn't match up, then when the wind and waves of difficult situations come into your life, you're going to find yourself sitting there, empty and frustrated, like Martha, who was frustrated at the death of Lazarus, but Mary over here, who spent time with Jesus and really concerned herself more with consuming his presence than working for Jesus. Martha's frustrated, but Mary's trusting. [snorts], . And I just need you to know that you can donate your entire life, physically, to God, but if you don't give him all of your thoughts and all of your heart, if you're keeping something back from him, where you're frustrated with God, Frustrated with the life that you spent at church, wondering why it didn't do what we said it would do, You're going to be like one of those people that call themselves exvangelicals, because they literally led worship for people for years. Yeah, because their root was not deep, their thought life didn't take them through the most difficult parts of life, Because they weren't connected and affectionate enough in their relationship with God.

Then. Now, though, they were singing and leading people in worship for years. They're there on Tik Tok saying: I've been to this church's entire ministry process and they're just. It's just a business. And I'm here to tell you it's only a business if you don't give God your all.

It's only a business because you were doing but you weren't thinking or loving on God in the way that he's called you to. For me, there was a day where I said: "Take my life and do with it what you will". I'm not saying: don't ever have me days. I tell the young adults this all the time. But I think your version of a me day is different than my version of a me day.

Your version of a me day is: I'm going to stop doing what God called me to do because I'm tired. My version of a me day- and I don't do this all the time perfectly- is: I'm exhausted, But, but this I'm not going to take a break for me, I'm going to, I'm going to take time with God. For me, See, my rest is time with God, because I know he's who fills me. The me day thing is I need to take a break from the very thing that gives me fulfillment. If you need those all the time.

I might suggest you read a couple books. I have to read books in order to get closer to God. I might suggest that you check your heart and start talking to God about the desires of your heart and say: "Lord, align my thoughts and my desires to your thoughts and desires", Because if you don't do that, you will find yourself just like these people who are all hands but their mind and their heart is not in it. Don't confuse doing for versus being with. Don't confuse the gifts that you have as the giver himself.

Don't confuse efficiency and doing with actual faithfulness. Just because you're efficient, just because we put it up in an hour and a half, just because you learned your instrument, just because we've got slides in the back, just because you're efficient, does not make you faithful. Faithful is fully integrated. Here's what fully integrated faith actually looks like. It's where peace rules and panic submits.

It's where knowledge actually turns to wisdom and discernment. It's where obedience becomes your default Rather than something you have to check yourself to get to. It's where habits actually start strengthening your faith rather than being you feel like you're forced to do in order to be spiritual. It's where overflow- your time with God- actually overflows into other people's lives consistently, Rather than by force. It's where creation is under your feet.

It's where you can bend things to your will because you're so connected with God. It is where Christ becomes visible in you in the eyes of others. It's where your witness actually gains credibility. Fully integrated faith is noticeable. Hey, I don't know what key you're in.

What key are you in? Will you play a B flat for me? . It sounds. It sounds What's?

I don't even know what the word is. It sounds right, Grounded, Grounded It sounds. It sounds stable. It. It sounds consonant, It sounds harmonic, It sounds like it should.

And the whole goal of this message is to help get you to where you need to be. And the way you get to where you need to be starts with turning to Christ Jesus. And when you turn to Christ Jesus, it's not offering him your words, It's offering him your whole life. So if everybody could bow their heads, close their eyes. We're going to pray a prayer, Because there's some people in here.

You haven't offered your whole life. You haven't offered any. Some of you, . I want to encourage you to consider what it looks like to offer your whole life. So go ahead and repeat after me, as we pray, this: Say: "God, I believe that Jesus is your son.

I believe you died on the cross and rose from the grave. Forgive me of my sin, Make me new. I offer my whole life to you.