Listening to Yourself

We are in a series right now.

We're calling all ears and we're talking about listening.

And uh so let's just take a moment.

Let's turn to the Lord, prepare our hearts.

God, we come to you in Jesus' name.

God, I thank you for uh this church.

I thank you for these people.

Lord, I thank you for their hearts, their receptivity, uh Lord, to your word.

I pray, God, you would do here what only you can do, which is to cut through the noise of life, uh, to speak a word to all of us collectively, but then to customize to each individual.

Lord, I pray that you would help us to be challenged without feeling condemnation.

I pray, Lord, that you would help us to feel your grace, your love, and your power.

Uh, Lord, thank you that you love us as we are, but you don't leave us where we are.

And so we receive all of that today.

In Jesus' name, all God's people said, Amen.

Amen.

Uh as human beings, we have a desire, it's a reasonable desire, but it's a desire for certainty.

We want to know what's about to happen.

We want to know how things work.

And so we engineer or reverse engineer or deconstruct and try to figure things out so we can have a repeatable pattern.

Uh we try to for forecast and guess the markets and look at things based on the past of what the future is.

And and anybody who's confident ends up with a following because most of us feel like we're not sure what's next.

But when somebody gets up and really acts like they know, oftentimes people follow because we want to follow people who are certain.

And uh sometimes people believe they are certain, they're maybe delusional about it, and we end up following them.

But confident people tend to always have a following.

I think it's a disservice though, uh, sometimes and many times to oversimplify things just because we have a need for certainty.

Some things are black and white, but some things aren't.

Some things aren't.

Some things aren't cut and dry.

And I think in the Bible and in churches, oftentimes we get up here and because we want certainty, and we get up here and say things on behalf of God, or to say things in the Bible, and we really make it simple.

A plus B equals C.

And if you pray this prayer and you think this thought, then God will do this every time, and it's a repeatable pattern.

And uh there are some things that are cut and dry and black and white in the scripture, uh, but I would say beyond that, there are many things where you have to hold them and to wade into the tension.

And you gotta sit there and you gotta remain there for a while, and you gotta take some concepts and you gotta hold them and you gotta bring them to the Lord in every single season and not rush out of it too quickly.

When I first started preaching, I felt uh I would feel a need when I was preaching a sermon to button it up so clean that nobody at the end could say, but what about?

But but but what about yeah, I know you said that, but what about that?

And so I used to try to think of all of your but whatabouts before I preached so that I could answer all of them, and so that nobody could say, but what about?

But you know, I've actually changed on that because I think there's some things that we need to, like, like after today's message, you're gonna have a whole bunch of but whatabouts.

I don't know how many, maybe like 50 or more.

There might be more.

And I'm okay with that because I think part of your conversation with God and your my uh discipleship experience and your discipleship experience happen in holding lots of concepts together all at the same time and taking our but whatabouts to God.

We're talking about listening, and last week we talked about listening to God.

This week we're gonna talk about listening to ourselves.

Should I trust my thoughts?

Should I trust the voices in my head, what I've been thinking?

Should I trust that?

How trustworthy is that?

You know, you you've probably heard people talk about, or maybe you've even been a proponent of like, don't trust your feelings.

Right?

Feelings aren't trustworthy.

If you make your decisions based on feelings, you're gonna live a herky jerky life.

It's gonna be roller coaster, you know, because you're up one day and down the next.

So if you just go, well, I feel this way, so I'm gonna act this way and I'm gonna do this thing.

What happens when next week you feel different and you're like, dang, but I made that decision that week?

So so then you're gonna just keep making feelings decisions, and your feelings are unpredictable, and you your feelings sometimes will tell you lies, but they're real.

Sometimes they're not true, but sometimes they are true, right?

Which is why we you hear other things like trust your heart, man.

Trust your heart, what's your heart saying to you?

Trust your heart.

Well, what's the Lord saying?

I don't know.

Well, uh how do I know?

Well, sometimes the Lord speaks to you through impressions in your heart.

Well, that's a feeling, but you told me not to trust my feeling, but should I trust my feeling?

I don't really know.

My feeling's trustworthy.

Let's think about listening to yourself.

Self.

Let's think of some self-concepts.

Like um self-care, self-care, self-care, caring for yourself.

A me day, a you day.

I'm gonna do some things for myself, okay?

Self-care.

But then there's self-indulgent.

Self-indulgence with a cross-line, I'm over-indulging myself.

But have you have you ever not been sure what's up?

Like you're getting there, you're out there getting your manny petty, and and while you're getting your manny petty, there's a voice in your head going, you're so self-indulgent.

Well, you you could be doing this, you could be doing that.

Have you ever had somebody ask you for something you could have given, but you didn't, because you needed to save it?

And so you told somebody no, they asked you for some time or some energy or some money, and technically you had it, but but you you were feeling somewhat depleted, and so you decide to tell them no, and there's a part of you that's like, you selfish.

That's another self, selfish versus selfless, self-absorbed, self-aware.

Well, how do I become self-aware?

Well, if you're gonna become self-aware, you gotta go inside enough.

You gotta think about yourself enough.

You gotta go inside your own head and spend enough time with you, thinking about you, to where you can be self-aware, which everyone universally says is a good thing.

But then if you you're in your own head too much, you're self-absorbed, and all you do is think about yourself.

Self-centered bad thing.

But yet you should have a sense of self.

If you're so selfless, you know, they say, well, being selfless isn't thinking less of yourself is thinking of yourself less.

That's good.

But you can think of yourself so less that you lose a sense of who you are.

So we think that being not being self-centered means you put something else at the center and you orbit that, right?

Like you become a parent, and this little human shows up and they start exchanging oxytocin, you know, and you're right, all these brain chemicals, so I feel bonded and responsible.

So now my resources, my time, my energy, my money, they're at the center of my universe, and now I'm I'm orbiting my child.

I'm orbiting them.

Everything's about that because I don't want to be self-centered.

I've got my kid here, and so I'm taking care of them and saying no to me, and I wake up thinking about them and worrying about them and trying to help them, or maybe it's not your kid, maybe you fall in love with somebody and you want to be a good spouse, you want to be a good wife or a good husband, and so I put this other person at the center and I begin orbiting them because I don't want to be selfish, be self-sacrificing.

So I sacrifice me and I put them at the middle and I'm running around them, or maybe my career, because I've got great ambitions and dreams.

And so I wake up thinking about this, I get up early and I stay up late, and I want to be a good teammate, and I give them myself, and so I'm orbiting this, and then you show up at church, and the preacher's like, You got it all wrong.

Because anything you put at the center of your life, other than God, is an idol.

Your kids can be an idol, and your spouse could be an idol, and your career and your ambitions, and good things, when they become God things, they become idols, and so they say, But Jesus at the center.

Jesus, okay, and so Jesus is now at the center, and now I'm orbiting him.

And y'all, I've been around now for a minute.

I'm 42 years old.

I grew up in church, and I've seen good people come and take everything out, and put Jesus at the center, and I've seen them burn out too.

I've seen them burn out too because Jesus is outside of me, and I'm trying to serve for him, and I'm trying to do it all, and I'm orbiting him, and I realize that we have a fundamental misunderstanding about what actually happens when you come into relationship with Jesus.

Because this, by the way, is a when you read the Old Testament, what the nation did, and they did it actually, started out symbolically with the you had the tabernacle, which when they were mobile, they were homeless, they were nomads, they had a tabernacle which contained the presence of God, the Spirit of God, so they put the presence of God in the center of the tabernacle and everything was around it, everything revolved around it.

When they finally got a home, they built a temple.

Presence of God was there, and everything was around that, and they ran themselves ragged and they couldn't keep up, and they were trying to please God with by circling him and orbiting him, and they burn out.

And then what happens is Jesus comes and he dies on the cross for our sin and he forgives the debt that we couldn't pay, and then he sends his spirit to live inside of us.

And the apostle Paul says, hey guys, if you're still orbiting Jesus and you're thinking of him as outside of you, and and and you're running around him and running yourself ragged trying to please him and trying to earn his favor, and it does, you don't understand about what you shouldn't understand about his presence.

Okay, what he says in 1 Corinthians 3, he says, Don't you know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?

Dwells in you.

He says it in verse uh chapter 3, and then he reiterates it in chapter 6 in case you missed it the first time.

He said, Don't you realize your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God?

I want to give you three paradigm shifts.

The first two kind of fast, the third I'm gonna spend a little time on.

But the first paradigm shift when you come into relationship with Jesus is that I do things with God instead of for God.

That you are the temple, that the Spirit of God lives in you.

So a Jesus-centered life is not you taking other things uh out of the center and putting him in the center and running laps and orbiting him, it's that he lives at the center of you.

He is inside of you.

So everywhere you go and everything you do isn't to try to earn his life, uh his happiness for you or get him off your back or get him on your side.

He's not so he's not on your side, he's inside.

He's inside of you.

And so the first paradigm shift is that that we don't do things for him.

You can burn out doing things for him.

It's with God.

With God, with God.

It's in him we live, move, and have our being, but it's in us he lives, moves, and has his being.

It's in us.

So paradigm shift number one is I do things with God instead of for God.

The second is that the real me is righteous and holy.

When he lives inside of me and is at the core of me, is at the center of me, he's transformed me into his likeness and his image.

Paul says in Ephesians 4.24, he says, put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy.

That what's inside of you, at the core of you, has been redeemed, has been purified.

Galatians 2.20 says, For my old self was crucified with Christ, it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

I'm born again, I'm new.

Listen, if you were to commit a crime and become a criminal and become incarcerated and put behind bars, the crime led to now my identity as a criminal.

But if you were behind those bars and you had a transformational experience, you got in your right mind, you got clean, you got help, you saw the light, you meet Jesus, you're new, you might still be behind bars, but you're not a criminal anymore.

So at some point you got to stop thinking of yourself as a criminal.

I am not a criminal.

I did a crime one time.

That wasn't me.

The real me is truly righteous and holy because someday they're gonna open up those bars, God willing, they open up those bars, you go walking out.

You can't still think you're a criminal.

If I still think like a criminal, I'll go act like a criminal.

But I so I learned a couple things.

Number one, I'm not a criminal.

I did a crime one time, I'm not a criminal.

But number two, you're also wise enough and have enough respect for your flesh to know what your flesh is capable of.

I already proved it.

And I don't want to prove it again.

So I know that if that I still have to contend with my flesh.

So if I go back to the same behaviors and I go back to the same people and I go back to the same environments, I can fall right back into the same behaviors because my flesh is still here.

And so Paul says, I've been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

The center of me is truly righteous and holy.

He said, But I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

I still have to contend with this body, but but he said, I do it by trusting at what's at the center of me.

At some point in your life, you're going to have to stop thinking of yourself as tainted, ugly, dirty on the inside.

You're gonna have to change the way you think about that.

And I think churches sometimes confuse folks because they walk out going, you know, I don't know, man, if I'm God's masterpiece or if I'm disgusting.

I don't know if I'm made in the image of God.

Okay?

Am I fearfully and wonderfully made?

Or am I just a sinful, you know, nasty person?

Who am I?

And what you have to believe the truest thing about you, the deepest part of you, has been touched by the power of the Holy Spirit and has been transformed.

And it's not something, you don't need something that's outside of you, it's something that's inside of you that that ultimately needs to control your life.

And and uh paradigm shift number three, which then is okay, so how do we contend with our flesh?

I don't earn God's favor through legalism, but living free requires discipline.

I don't earn God's favor through legalism.

Legalism would be if I do all the right things and I do it better than I did.

The more good I am, the more I behave right, the happier God is.

That I can earn, no, you paid a debt you did not owe.

It's by grace you've been saved through faith.

It's not of yourselves.

It's not by works, no one can boast I could go on and on and on.

But in order for me to keep my flesh under wraps and under control, I do have to exercise and introduce discipline into my life.

So let's go back to the thoughts about self.

Self, what's the difference between self-care and self-indulge?

Well, you have to start with the fact that you are a bundle of appetites, and within your appetites, you have opportunities for fulfillment, for pleasure, and to have needs met.

So if you're doing something like if you don't get your needs met, you're gonna burn out.

So it's not selfless to just never think about your needs and to never have your needs met, and to just give out.

That is a recipe for disaster.

I was talking to a friend recently who's in a dating relationship, and he's concerned because he's trying to figure out should we go to the next level?

And his biggest concern is that there seems to be in their relationship, at least through his perspective, a lack of reciprocity.

She's not reciprocating.

So he's going, man, I feel like I'm giving, giving, giving, giving.

It's not coming back.

He's like, you know, and I want to be a team player, and I don't want to keep score and go, you know, but I did six and you only did three, and when are you gonna get on my level?

You don't want to do that, that's death.

But at the same time, you know, uh the ecosystem's circular.

The water goes up, goes, evaporates, comes out.

We got to keep replenishing energy.

So if all you do is give out, you know, your biology's trained for that, right?

You go run a marathon, and what's going on in your biology and your brain is like, how long are we gonna do this?

So your brain's going, how long, how long are you gonna do this?

Because we're burning calories right now, and we only have so many.

And if you don't start putting that gel stuff in your mouth, or you don't start stop and get a drink and do this, your body's going, hold on to these calories because we know God made it so awesome, your body's so awesome, that if you burn up calories and you don't replenish, you you're gonna die.

So it's gonna hold on to calories, it's gonna hold on to energy to try to survive.

And so my friend was sort of doing that emotionally.

He's like, you know, if I just keep doing this, I'm gonna run out of calories and be dead on the side of the road.

Is this gonna work?

Self-care is about making sure that your needs are met.

It's okay to have your emotional needs, your your physical needs, your spiritual needs, have these things met, but at some point, okay, I can't tell you where's that line.

You've got to sit in that tension.

You gotta think about that, and you gotta pray about that, and you gotta you've got to evaluate that.

Because within our appetites, God has made our appetites to in many ways bring us some of the greatest fulfillment that we have.

Let's run through a few of them real quick.

One first appetite comes to mind food.

Food's great.

Food's great.

I mean, food gives us, gives you an acute sense of being full.

It's a good feeling.

Everything you eat, you get full, you're like, oh, I feel good.

That's good.

God made it that way.

Also, God gave you taste buds.

What an idea.

It was brilliant, brilliant.

Good job, God.

Taste buds, like he wants you to taste that food, like, oh, that's good.

And to feel full.

Of course, we know like there, you there's a line.

You're about to mess it up at Thanksgiving.

You're gonna overdo it.

You sit there like, oh, it's like miserable, right?

But this is how appetites work.

You go to sleep, you wake up, and you're like, oh, let's go back in, you know, let's go back in.

Why?

Because it's fulfilled for a minute, but it's never fully and finally satisfied.

It's gonna need some more pretty soon.

So you gotta know that because you don't want to overdo it, but then you don't want to underdo it either, because it that's no good when you give your money to Panera and they give you a half sandwich, and like, like, soup's gone, you know, and you're like, okay, can I have a refill on this whole meal?

Um no shade, Panera.

Don't go suing your boy.

All right, it's a great place to be, okay?

We love Panera here.

Um, I'm seriously gonna get an email for that.

I'm really sorry.

Panera, I apologize.

Um what was I talking about?

Food, appetites.

There's some good to it, but you know as well as I do, you don't respect that appetite, you don't feed it right, it can get massive, and then you've got to do more just to feel normal, and you've got and it gets it gets out of control, and it can dominate your life, create impulsive behaviors, you can't stop thinking about it, and and and and you have no self-control around it.

Keep going down the line.

Sex would be another one created by God, climactic experience designed around intimacy and unity, and when it's done God's way, it's done in moderation and the right way with in a fully committed marriage, so death do his part.

So, like, even when I find out the not so good things about you, I'm not gonna leave you.

And so I do it, it's it's safety, it's pleasure, it's beautiful, it's brought to you, okay?

God's created that way, and then and then you know that that that appetite's replenished, and so you've never had an orgasm so good that you're like, I never need another one, you know.

You like pretty soon it's like, you know, hey, let's try that again.

You know, God made it just you keep having this experience, and and it's part of procreation.

It's just a really cool thing.

But if you introduce unhealthy things in there, that appetite can rob you.

I'm talking about jack you up bad.

Your entire life revolves around it, it can create so much pain, so much dysfunction, so much captivity.

It's an appetite, it can be great or can be terrible.

Let's keep going.

Uh power.

Power's not bad.

Power's good.

It's good to be able to pay for some stuff.

It's good to be able to accomplish some stuff, it's good to be able to fix some stuff.

It's good to be able to go in and and and to use your power for good.

Like that being powerful is a good feeling.

It's not a bad feeling, but if if it gets out of control, if that appetite takes over, if it's unhealthy, power can rob from you.

I it's just never enough.

I gotta have more power, more power.

It dominates every single thing you do.

Another one, success.

Success is good.

Success is so good.

Succeeding, you get the team together, everybody's got their role and their job, and we have our key performance indicators, and we have our goal and our deadline and our budget, and we got it done, and we got it on time under budget.

Come on, baby.

We did it.

We hit the goal, we're high five.

That's a good feeling, man.

Enjoy it.

You're supposed to enjoy it.

You did good work with good people, and we did our job and we got it done.

Praise the Lord.

That's pleasurable, that's fun, that's fulfilling.

You're supposed to feel that fulfillment.

Of course, the success appetite, if it gets out of control, can absolutely rob you blind because there's never enough success.

In fact, you can't even enjoy the deal you made because you always need another deal.

They're never big enough, it's never enough.

It's a monster in your life if it's not put in the right context.

Attention is an appetite.

Attention.

Attention, a need for attention is not completely superficial.

I was sharing this with uh this message, my wife and I were talking about it, and she sent me an article of uh about an orphanage about a hundred years ago.

I believe it was in England, if I'm not mistaken, where they had this orphanage and they had a bunch of orphan babies, and what they were doing is they were meeting their physical needs, so they were making sure they were fed.

Making sure they were clothed, you know, but at that time, because of bacteria, they wanted to make sure they didn't get them sick so they were they wore masks and they would barely touch the babies.

And they also didn't want to bond with them because they didn't want the baby to bond with a nurse, and then once they go to the adopted family, now they got to unbond.

So they they they neglected those emotional needs, and they're thinking, well, it's just an infant, we just gotta keep them alive until we get them adopted.

And the baby started dying, literally dying from unmet needs of attention, connection, and affection.

Dying.

Their brains were shriveling down, their brains started just sh shutting down and shutting off.

And at a hundred percent they were dying.

And so God has made you actually to need some affection and some attention and some affirmation and some connection.

That's not bad.

That's not bad.

But if you're if that appetite is in an unhealthy zone, what ends up happening is I need attention so bad.

I just can't get enough attention.

So I can't get in, I just can't get enough.

Whatever I do, I gotta be recognized, I've got to be seen, and I need more, and I need more, and I need more and I need more.

And so your entire life is this compulsion for attention.

It's an appetite.

Greg, what does this have to do with listening to myself?

It has everything to do with listening to yourself because here's the deal you got voices going on inside your head, you are a bundle of appetites.

Paul says, even though the truest, deepest thing about you is truly righteous and holy, you still have to contend with flesh.

And your flesh is a bundle of appetites that can either be really fulfilling in moderation or can get so big that they dominate your life, and when they get big, they get loud.

Loud.

And if the appetites and flesh get loud enough, I can't even hear myself think.

I can't even hear myself think.

My brain is so noisy.

I feel these compulsions.

And by the way, when my appetites and your appetites get bigger than they should, because I introduced whether it's sin or in some way unhealth, or maybe there was trauma that you didn't ask for, but in some way there is an unhealthy thing going on.

Those appetites get big, they will steal your voice and start talking to you in your voice.

And by the way, when they get big enough, you're the easiest sell ever.

You are so easy to sell.

Why?

Because I'm compelled.

It's a compulsion.

It's I I want it so bad.

I need it because now I don't know the difference between indulgence and need.

Because I need my need, what I think is a need is an overblown appetite.

And now I need more and more and more just to feel normal.

And and when the buzz wears off, I feel weird.

And so I gotta feed, feed, feed.

And I'm confused about my own needs.

Paul talks about this.

Same dude that talked about the other stuff talks about this.

He says in Romans 8, 5, and 6, those who live according to the flesh, okay, flesh, bundle of appetites, flesh, my flesh, he said they have their minds on what the flesh desires.

Those fleshly desires, what they perceive to be needs.

But the needs have gotten so big.

He said that that's what you think about all the time.

He said, Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

He said, I say in Galatians 5, 16 through 19, he said, I say, walk by the Spirit, and you'll not gratify the desires of your flesh.

Another way to say that in verse 16 is if you keep feeding and overfeeding and introducing unhealthy appetite, if that appetite gets too big, it will make you it will make you think that an overindulged appetite is actually just a need.

Because it needs so much to maintain and it's trying to get bigger.

So he said, man, if you fall into that, it will ultimately lead to death.

He said, but if you walk by the spirit, you'll keep those fleshly appetites and your flesh in check.

For the flesh desires what's contrary to the spirit, and the spirit contrary to the flesh, and they're in conflict with each other, so that you're not to do whatever you want.

Uh it's in the NLT it says if if you let the flesh, the flesh and the spirit, right, the deepest, truest part of you is in conflict with your flesh and your appetites, he said, and if you let the one get louder, you won't be free to carry out your good intentions, it says in the NLT.

So in other words, the deepest part of you has really good intentions.

If you don't, if you aren't wise and sober and disciplined around your flesh, it will be so loud you won't be able to hear that.

But if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law.

The acts of the flesh are obvious, and then he goes into talking uh about appetites.

So if you overindulge or introduce sin to your flesh, it gets so big it drowns out the real you.

What's the answer?

Have you ever been in a noisy environment and you think you heard something?

And you're with some folks, and you're like, did you hear that?

No, I didn't hear anything.

You swear you heard something.

What what what do you do when that happens?

You start really listening.

And you hear it again.

Did you hear that?

Have you ever had people two times not hear it?

And you're like, come on, guys.

And then you start thinking, am I crazy?

Like I might be crazy.

And then you're like, no, listen, listen, guys.

This is instinctive.

You start getting everybody, everybody listen now.

Did you hear that?

And they're like, yeah, yeah, we heard it, we heard it.

Now, what would you do if there was noise in the room?

You're trying to hear this, would you say, hey, turn down the TV?

Turn down the TV, turn down the noise, turn that down, turn that down.

And by the way, if you can barely hear it over the noise, if you turn the noise down, sometimes it gets really obvious.

No one can deny it.

There it is.

It's right there.

And so often, when we're trying to hear the right voice, if I have noise around appetites that have gotten big and loud, for we just talked about a few.

There's more, okay?

There's so okay, yeah, Lord, but what?

I'm just trying to give you something to pray about, the Lord to speak to you about, because yours might not fall in these categories.

But let's just say I had something about attention or success or power or sex or food or whatever.

Those appetites being so loud, I gotta turn that down so that I can hear.

This is where we talk about discipline being a part of my freedom.

Because what discipline, think of something like fasting.

Fasting.

Fasting has a lot of purposes attached to it, but one of the purposes of fasting is you would introduce that in an appetite that you really are having a hard time controlling, and your lack of control, it's getting loud and it's over talking.

In your mind, it's too loud.

So even by taking that and bringing it back, by saying no and not indulging there, you're bringing that appetite, the volume down, and now the spirit that's been trying to get a word in edgewise, you turn the TV down, all of a sudden now I can hear it clear as day what God's trying to say to me.

Okay?

We don't fast because God's like, you know, my favorite kids are the ones who fast, you know.

They're like, they're like my favorite ones.

This this isn't this isn't that.

This is I'm doing this, I want to hear God's voice better, and I got too much noise in my head.

So, you know, I'm gonna what are you gonna fast?

Good question.

Which appetite is out of control?

Which one, if you be honest, let the Holy Spirit bring revelation to your mind right now, which one has become a compulsion?

Which one you not let go of?

Which one?

Okay, I I saw that read this article the other day.

It says the average person touches their cell phone 2,000 times a day.

I'm right there with you.

I mean, honestly, there's I'm like, what's okay?

We can't be bored for two seconds for like compulsion.

You know, honestly, and I'm not trying to get weird, but it might be interesting if you shut that mug off for about two weeks.

You you you might find you feel a lot less uh that start to get under control.

You start to cut things off.

So I'm not here to go get all legalistic.

Everybody shows up next week, nobody's got a smartphone.

You know, it's like I ain't going to that church, you know.

I'll tell you what.

Um I'm not trying to get legalistic with you.

What I'm trying to do is a lot is give you a place to look.

Lord, show me what's the thing that's out of control.

I'm just I'm on this too much.

There's a place in scripture where Paul's talking, and he actually talks about food, and he's talking about it literally, but a bit metaphorically, because he says this, he says, Don't be mastered by anything.

And then he said, Well, you say, Well, food is made for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both.

Basically, what he's saying is, they're saying, Well, it's just food, who cares?

It's no big deal, it's just food.

And he's like, but no, don't be mastered by anything.

And then he starts to talk about other things, and so you just look at like it might be something around attention, power, success, sex, food, something, I don't know.

Maybe it's something totally different.

Let the Lord speak to you and to go in there.

Paul says this later on in the same conversation, 1 Corinthians 9 27, he said, I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should.

Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others, I myself might be disqualified.

A different translation, he said, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave, he says.

I strike a blow to my body because Paul knew that the flesh is no joke.

You gotta be sober about your flesh, and you gotta know where your weaknesses are, and you gotta know where you're prone to an appetite that overindulged will have needs that are that dominate your life.

And he said, Here's the sad thing that could happen.

He was sober about the fact that he said, This could happen.

I could, in helping everybody else, have a blind spot of something that creeps up on me and dominates my life, and so I have no freedom, and I can't tell the difference of the voices.

And so he said, What do I do?

He said, I take my training, my body, my appetites, I take them as seriously as an athlete would.

Because I want to have them under control.

I'll say this last thing, and then I want us to take a moment to pray and reflect.

Um, in our staff devotional this week, we had a guy in our church who was sharing his testimony, and he was talking about he was a drug addict.

And it was so interesting to hear him talk about him, his past, because he was talking about himself like it was somebody else.

Like, just even the way, like, because I've I've known this guy now for a while, and he is an amazing guy.

And but he was talking about, he goes, Man, he goes, I was so addicted to heroin and these other drugs.

He said, Um, I would steal from people that I love.

He goes, and the only person that would have anything to do with me, even my own family, he's like, was my aunt.

He goes, and she would only let me in her kitchen.

Because even though she loved him and he loved her, she knew if he he went past the kitchen, the voices in his head were so loud he'd steal or do something, right?

So I'll feed you and then you gotta go.

And he talked about that prayer, he talked about what kind of bondage he was in.

But at the time, those voices, he was listening to them, he was listening to them because they were they were they were the loudest ones.

And I was thinking about that, and of course, that makes so much sense when you think about crime or you think about a drug addiction or something, but I was thinking, man, like imagine uh a need for attention or success or power or something like that that becomes so big that you don't know you're an addict, and in some way you're like, well, it's just I'm it's work and it's me providing for my family and it's me doing good in the world.

But in so doing, once you got sober, if you did get sober, if you did get that appetite in control, you'd realize I robbed from my aunt, I stole from my kids, and I justified it.

At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought I was doing good.

The voices were telling me, work harder, do more.

Don't okay, you can't lose this.

You're you'll be a loser.

You gotta do that.

And the whole time I'm doing this, I am doing stuff.

I look back like I can't believe that I destroyed.

I made terrible trades, my values are out of whack.

It makes sense when you're in your right mind.

The real you is truly righteous and holy.

The Holy Spirit's trying to talk.

If you can hear that, turn stuff down.

Let that voice speak.

Get in your right mind.

So here's our action.

Here's what we're gonna take a moment to pray about.

First is evaluation.

Pray the prayer David did, Lord, search me.

Search me, cross-examine me, see if there'd be any wicked way in me.

Know my heart, Lord.

Help me see the blind spot.

Second is revelation.

God's gonna speak to you.

I believe God's gonna show you, and it might be a voice that you can kind of hear.

Do you hear that?

Do you hear that?

Turn the TV down.

And for some of you, it might be that's an appetite.

I know now I need to get in check.

I'm gonna get it in check.

I'm gonna I'm gonna fast that thing, or I'm gonna go in there, I'm gonna bring discipline around.

I'm gonna get some help in that area because it's too loud, and I can't even trust my own voice until I get that under control.

We do that, you introduce discipline in that area.

Here's what I want to encourage you to do.

Let's right now, let's get quiet.

I've asked uh our our team to play music, but nobody's singing, nobody talking out.

Let's allow God to begin to show us what he wants us to see.