Psychology or Sin | Pastor Josh Thomas | United City Church

United City, how we doing?

Feeling good?

Can we just give it up for that worship team?

Oh my goodness, that was absolutely incredible.

Well, as Dave mentioned, my name is Josh Thomas.

Some people call me JT.

I have the absolute privilege of being the young adult pastor here at United City.

And I'm so thankful that you guys uh chose to take just a little bit of your Sunday morning to be with us today.

We're gonna be in Psalm chapter 13.

Psalms 13 · chapter mention

So if you want to go ahead and get there, that would be amazing.

And while you're doing that, I just want to say good morning to all of our men and women joining us at our correctional facilities, as well as everyone joining us online.

Thank you so much for being a part of our online fam.

We love you so much.

Dave mentioned it very briefly, but uh yeah, this is my two-year anniversary, kind of my two-year anniversary weekend.

So there's a lot of reflecting going on right now.

Uh, and number one thing that I would tell you is this God is faithful.

Like God is faithful.

Like, all you gotta do is just take a step.

I don't know if you're considering uh, you know, a career change, or maybe there's something going on in life.

What I can tell you is this two years ago I packed up the only things that could fit my car and drove to Houston, Texas.

I only knew two families here.

Uh, but now God has just been so good to me personally, uh, he's been good to me uh spiritually, he's been good to me professionally.

Uh, and I'm just so thankful for what God has done in the short time that I've been here.

Uh, and so maybe the only thing you need to do is say yes.

Say yes to God and go fully in with him because he's looking for people that are choosing and willing to go fully in with him.

Speaking of which, uh, you ever been fully in or fully out on something?

So, November 14th, 2012, one of the largest petitions of the modern age was signed.

This petition urged our White House to secure funding and resources to build by 2016, mind you, a no joke, fully functioning and completely real Death Star from Star Wars.

Yeah, you didn't know you were gonna be talking about Star Wars today in church, right?

Exactly.

Yeah, it's a little funny, but here's what's crazy.

Y'all, this petition gained over 34,435 signatures.

It gained the attention of Paul Schocross, the chief of the science and space branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

And Paul basically explained, we can't do this.

It would cost$850 quadrillion dollars to build a real Death Star.

And so the administration had to respectfully decline this request because they thought it would be a waste of time, energy, and resources.

All right, let's have a moment in the room.

Show of hands.

How many people here love Star Wars?

Come on, let's see it.

Yeah, you just can't wait to ride the rise of the resistance at Disneyland.

Like that's like like you all about it.

You know everything about Star Wars.

Every year you go, you get you a collector's lightsaber, you know, the whole deal, and you all about it.

You can tell me about the Mandalorian, you could tell me about everything, every fact there is in the Star Wars realm, you could probably tell me about it because that's your thing.

All right, show of hands.

How many of y'all are like Josh?

I don't really care much for Star Wars.

I've never seen it.

I don't care to see.

Yeah, tell the truth, Shane the devil, you're in church.

Come on, let's see it.

Right, right.

You couldn't care less about a petition to build a Death Star.

Like, I don't really, I didn't even know what the Death Star was, Josh, until you told me.

Because to you, you're probably thinking the same thing that I am.

This is a waste of time and energy and resources, and our attention could honestly be going to so many other important things.

No hate to my Star Wars fans, though.

Now, why'd I tell you that story?

See, we're in a series right now called Taboo, where we're basically talking about things in church that you just don't talk about.

Going places that you usually just don't go.

We've talked about abortion, we've talked about finances, we've talked about same-sex, we've talked about can the Bible be trusted?

But today, the topic we're talking about for some of you may be the same way that I feel about a petition for a death star.

Today we're talking about mental health.

You know, for some of us in the room, our family and friends have battled with mental health, and it's an ongoing thing even right now, and there are fresh wounds, and we know everything about it.

We could tell you everything about it.

We can tell you the ins and outs, we could tell you the stats, we could tell you the facts.

We're 100% in support of advocating for this and raising awareness for it.

And honestly, we're willing to give every ounce of time, resources, and attention to it.

But maybe there are some of us in the room that you fall into the other category, and it's not necessarily that you're cruel or inconsiderate.

You just don't get it.

Like you don't understand why we should give this attention.

Like, Josh, why does this get a sermon slot in our teaching schedule?

Like that might be some people's things, but that's not like an everybody thing, right?

Like, can't they just kind of figure it out on their own?

And let's be so for real.

We have all heard what the culture has to say about this, right?

Like they go, oh, well, the older generation is just ignorant and incompetent and inconsiderate, and they just need to get with the times.

Or maybe you've heard, man, the younger generation is just soft and just sensitive and just selfish.

And so nobody wants to bring this topic up.

Maybe for you, it was the church that actually dismissed your legitimate mental health concerns.

Maybe you were told, man, just cheer up.

If you battled or mentioned anything about depression, just don't be anxious if there was something mentally or psychologically off about your wiring.

Just don't think that.

If you had any sort of crippling or self-harming thought, man, just pray about it.

Followed by some and you know, someone believing they got to pray the demons out of you, right?

And you're in a place today where you don't want to listen to everything that the culture is saying about mental health because the culture would tell you that your mental health is everything, it's the most important thing about you.

So worship it.

Obsess over it.

Your mental struggle is who you are, and it's all you're capable of being.

And you're here today and you know that the spiritual is real, but you also know that your mental or psychological things are real as well.

And you're asking yourself the question: man, is there anywhere that I can go for answers on how to manage my mental health in a way that lines up with my personal beliefs?

Doesn't make me out to be the hero of my story, but it does validate the legitimate mental health struggles or concerns that I might have.

Here's the hard part.

While the Bible has some stories about some individuals, or may suggest that some individuals are struggling with mental health, there's limited, explicit discussion on how to approach battling mental health.

And I think that's the part where us in church we get really, really, really taboo about it.

Because we start asking questions like this.

I mean, am I forsaking or neglecting the power of the Holy Spirit if I go see a counselor?

You start asking questions like this Have I become so spiritual that I am now villainizing the psychological, or maybe you fall on the other end of the spectrum where you're like, no, I believe fully in counselors, I don't believe in Christian counselors, and I just believe that it's just a mental thing straight up and that the spiritual realm has nothing to do with it.

The church has forgotten that our mental health still falls under the attention and the care of God.

The culture is hijacked how we should handle mental health, but the good news today, church, is that there is a biblical approach to engaging with our mental health.

And so this morning, in the time that we have together, I'd like for us to take a look at Psalm 13 and consider what I'm calling the ABCs of managing the mental.

The ABCs of managing the mental.

The first thing is this: you gotta acknowledge it.

You have to acknowledge it.

In the first four verses of this psalm, we read the words of what seems to be an incredibly depressed and an anguished King David.

As a matter of fact, Charles Persian actually once called this psalm the howling psalm due to the level of despair that we hear in David's writing.

But notice this, even then, what we see is that King David acknowledges the mental anguish that he's experiencing.

He doesn't act as if his mental well-being has no effect on his emotional or physical well-being.

In Romans 8 23, Paul says this, and not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our bodies.

See, in one verse, Paul notes that believers are composed of a spiritual component, the first fruits.

He then mentions that believers are composed of a physical component, our bodies.

But did you catch it?

He also says that there is this inward groaning, that there's this anguish that he feels.

That's a mental thing, guys.

You know what he's saying?

We also have this mental component.

So in one verse, Paul says that just like creation desires restoration, so do humans.

They just desire restoration of the physical, of the spiritual, and don't miss it, and of the mental.

Rick Warren, the former elite pastor at Saddleback Church in California, actually lost his son to a 27-year mental health battle with depression, and it's famously quoted for saying this.

If your liver stops working and you take a pill, there's no stigma.

If your heart stops working and you take a pill, again, there's no stigma.

So why then is it that if your brain stops working and you take a pill, there's a stigma?

There I say today in church, it's not a sin to be sick.

Mental health is intricately linked to the human experience that God's created for all of us.

Because within all of us exists this physical and mental and spiritual component in church.

If we're not careful, we'll view these areas as distinct instead of intertwined.

And I think this is where we become very, very vulnerable to temptation and attack.

Let me explain what I mean.

Some of y'all in this room get real hangry.

And if I don't get you out of here, the second Baptist crew is gonna beat you to Chewies, and you're gonna be all mad and upset about it, right?

You get hangry.

What is that?

That's hunger and anger.

That's a physical component mixed with what?

An emotional component.

Why else do you become so so susceptible to temptation when you're hungry, or when you're lonely, or when you're stressed, or when you're angry, or when you're tired.

It's because it's all connected, church.

It's all connected.

So no, it is not a sin to be sick, but it is wise to be proactive in the pursuit of your own healing and restoration.

Which leads me to the second point.

Not only do you need to acknowledge it, but you need to be proactive, not passive.

Like love them.

Like everything in the aviation world.

I love it.

Uh not saying that I was making a hasty decision and coming to United City because I did pray about it, but the ice cream on the cake was the fact that we are in a flight path for Bush.

And so usually when I'm leaving church, there's like some six o'clock planes, five, five o'clock, six o'clock planes flying over.

And I was like, ah, it's a sign from the Lord.

This is where I'm meant to be, right?

Because of that, I've actually grown pretty close to a few pilots in our church, one of them being uh Dave Harvey.

Dave and I, uh, we try to go to Chew Is at least once a month, and uh Dave usually tells me like all these like plain facts, and I absolutely love it.

He's been flying planes uh for about 35 years, he told me.

And a few weeks ago, he actually sent me a text uh to me and some guys in the church of just like these flight facts.

And I love when he does this, but I want you guys to take a look at the one he sent us a few weeks ago.

He said this.

He said, When I do pre-flight inspections before flight, one of the things we're looking for is foreign object damage, fodd, if you guys know what that means.

Items on the ground.

This was from my first flight this morning.

All of those zippers and locks can cause damage to the engines and to jets or just big vacuums.

And if unchecked, they can cause catastrophic failure.

I like that term.

FOD.

Simply put, it's things with the potential to get into places they shouldn't be, that if gone unchecked, have the ability to cause catastrophic malfunction and failure.

Now, why'd I tell you guys that story?

Well, hopefully, so that you fly united and pray that Dave Harvey is your pilot, because that man ain't letting nothing happen on his watch.

That's what I'm telling you, right?

No, what I'm what I'm saying is this if the human heart and mind function as vacuums that are prone to collecting foreign object damage, if we allow them to go unchecked, they have the ability to cause catastrophic malfunction and failure in our lives.

See, not only did David acknowledge that something was off, but he was proactive in getting clarity and care.

He was proactive in clearing his heart and his mind of the foreign object damage that was inside.

And so I want to talk about two ways that you can be proactive in the room today.

Here's just a sub point of point two.

Obviously, be proactive.

The first group of people I'd like to speak to is you need to be proactive about your psychological health.

Your psychological health.

Many years ago now, and I'm not that old, but a few years ago, um, I started my mental health journey.

My childhood was fine, but there were just some things in my life that didn't make a whole ton of sense to me that kind of affected the way that I engaged with myself and how I engage with people.

Uh, and a trusted uh pastor a few years ago at the church I worked at before this, uh, we had a very honest conversation and he encouraged me to go to counseling.

Y'all, can I tell you something?

I was so scared.

Whoo!

I was like, man, if I say something that's just a little too crazy, just a little too off, I'm getting shipped off.

They send me to a mental institution, I'll be in a straight jacket.

That's it.

No more Josh.

And I remember early on in my early counseling sessions, I remember talking with my counselor Stephanie.

I remember prefacing everything I said with this.

Now, Stephanie, this might sound a little weird, or this may sound a little crazy.

And finally, one day she just got sick of it and she said, Josh, stop.

She said, That's not crazy.

That's human.

She said, That's not weird.

That's human.

Why do I tell you that?

Because statistics actually show that 30% of young adults, for uh not young adults, uh, uh of adults from age 18 up will experience some sort of anxiety disorder during their life.

And so there's no need to be ashamed about this.

It's going to be okay.

You're not alone in this.

Some of you may say, Well, Josh, I don't want to go to counseling.

I don't want to go get things checked out because I actually don't think there's anything wrong with me.

And I would say, man, there's probably some pride there that you got to step aside and like actually go and get some things checked out because maybe there is something going on, and maybe you're not the man or maybe you're not the woman that God intends for you to be in this season.

For some of you, it's not that you don't think there's anything wrong, you don't want to know what's wrong, and so you don't go out of shame.

So I would say, hey, that's okay.

Just take a step in faith and trust that God's gonna walk alongside you in it.

Either way, I know this for myself, because of my counseling journey over the past seven or eight years, I am the man that God has created me to be, and I feel more Josh Thomas today than I ever have.

And not only that, but I am the Josh Thomas that my friends need, I'm the Josh Thomas that Lily needs, I'm the Josh Thomas that my church family needs, and that my friends need, and that my family needs, because I took a step in faith, knowing that like the power of prayer is important, but also is going to see a trusted licensed professional who actually got a degree because they wanted to understand the way that God desired the human brain.

But I'm not a licensed professions counselor, and so I really can't get too much into that with you, but what I can do is Pastor and Shepherd Judah scan this QR code.

The most pastoral thing I'll do today is just say to scan a QR code, right?

And what this QR code is gonna do is it's gonna give you a list of resources that our church has compiled together.

Uh, this has uh documents, uh, this has books, this has uh, I think there's a few TED talks in there that we've uh found, there's a few um counseling directories in there because our church believes not only in the power of prayer, but we believe in the value of counseling because all of this falls under the cure of God.

And so if you want more resources, uh, because I cannot cover the spectrum that is mental health today, please scan that QR code and we would love to do some follow-up with you after this.

But all I'm saying is that if you have some psychological mental miswirings, that's what I call them, that's what my counselor and I have decided to call them, just some miswirings, then don't be ashamed to go see a counselor.

There's nothing wrong with that.

You need to be proactive about your psychological health.

Second group of people, you need to be proactive about your spiritual health.

They really can't take the mic from me now because I'm I'm already up here, so I guess I'm gonna go ahead and say it.

I know when you get anxious, you get mad when people tell you to pray about it.

But maybe that is exactly what you legitimately need to do.

Like you need to pray about it.

And I don't think they're telling you to pray about it because you pray too much, they're telling you to pray about it because you actually pray too little.

Like, now hear me.

I'm not saying that if you have this recognized clinical mental diagnosis to simply dismiss medicine and pray.

It's not what I'm saying.

But I am convinced that much, not all, of the anxiety that many of us face is self-induced.

Here's why.

Because it doesn't come, this kind of anxiety, it doesn't come from your wiring, it comes from your worry.

You're worried.

You desire control and self-sufficiency, and honestly, you know you'll never completely have it.

And that makes you anxious.

We play the comparison game on social media.

We consume the anger and fear we hear from the news and from the debates.

We live with secret sins that we never bring to light.

And honestly, if we would just pray, confess, repent, maybe seek the Father's face and take some proactive steps towards spiritual health.

Can I be honest?

You just might be okay.

You just might be okay.

So let's go there for a second, United City.

Some of y'all are anxious because you put it all on your shoulders and the Bible would call you prideful.

Like your anxiety stems from pride.

Because you want to be in control.

You don't have a mental issue, you got a heart issue.

And in Matthew chapter 6, verse 34, Jesus actually says that the remedy to that kind of anxiety is not to seek a counselor, it's actually to seek the kingdom.

Matthew 6:34

Knowing that if you seek the kingdom first, seek first the kingdom of God, then all of these things will be added to you.

And so you might be asking me today, well, Josh, what does that look like?

Can I tell you something?

It looks like this hey, check uh check in with your father before you check your social media feeds.

Before you check your finances, check in with your father.

Before you check the news, check in with your father.

For some of y'all, maybe your next step is to be consistent in God's word and in prayer.

The reason that you don't know what God says about you is because you're not reading what God says about you, and that makes you vulnerable to believe what you say about you and what the enemy says about you.

For some of you, it might be meeting with a counselor, but also meeting in biblical community.

Because right now, the only people speaking into your life are you, the world, and the enemy.

And hopefully, on a good day, one of the three of them will speak positive things about you, just tearing you up.

But maybe if you meet in a life group, other men and women can pour and speak life into you.

And I need you to understand, I'm not saying to expect your biblical small group to be or life group to be a two hour therapy session for you, but I do believe that the body has the ability to build up the body because the Holy Spirit has given us all different gifts to edify and build up one another.

Here's the reality, and this ain't everybody, but it Reality.

There are those who struggle with mental health.

And they're more passive than they are proactive in the pursuit of their own healing.

And it's fascinating.

But not really when you get down to the bottom of it.

See, they're more passive than proactive because we have been encouraged to focus more on the fact that we're victims instead of the fact that Jesus is the victor.

And he's conquered all physical, mental, and spiritual territory.

I'm reminded of Matthew 28, where he says, For all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Now, without getting too theologically sound with you, let me tell you what the man is saying.

What he's saying is this all authority in the seen and the unseen realm must now bow to me.

That's what he's saying.

King David says, Answer me.

Unless I sleep the sleep of death.

Can I break that down in the JT translation for just a moment?

David said, God, if you don't answer me, I might die from the mental anguish I'm experiencing.

That's how severe it was.

Which is why David cried out to God because he knew that God was more than able than bringing him relief in his mental anguish.

But he also knew that if he did not take steps in knowing that God would draw near to him, there would be problems.

So what does he do?

He draws near to God because he knows that God would draw near to him.

You need to acknowledge it.

Acknowledge something's going on.

You need to be proactive, not passive in the pursuit of your own healing.

And here's the last thing, here's the seed.

You need to cling to grace.

You need to cling to grace.

In verse 5, David says, But I have trusted in your steadfast love, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.

There was a man in the uh New Testament, a very fluent guy, and probably affluent guy, was known in many different circles.

Uh more than likely was known as one of the wisest guys, not sarcastically, but literally, uh one of the wisest guys in the known world at the time.

Uh but there was something up with him.

Uh, he actually persecuted Christians for a really long time.

He actually persecuted uh and opposed God for a really long time until he had an encounter with God.

And God actually used him as some of the number one instruments to advance the kingdom message throughout the known world.

And what we know about this man's life, obviously after his conversion to faith, is that it was full of incredible highs.

He planted significant in several churches across the known world.

But what we also know is that he had some incredible lows.

Which in my opinion, I think, is the Christian life.

And we get a lot of this man's story, but we get to this, we get to this point where uh without getting too much into the weeds of it, he he tells us in 2 Corinthians 12 that he he has this vision of being taken up to the third level of heaven.

And essentially what that would boil down to is that my boy is on a spiritual high.

Things are great, things are amazing.

He's witnessing the grandeur and he's witnessing the majesty and the splendor and the power of God.

But for some reason, just a few short verses later, he starts mentioning this thorn.

The thorn that plagues his side.

And here's what we don't know.

We don't know if this was literal or metaphorical.

We don't know.

But what we know is that this thorn crippled him, what we know is that this thorn plagued him, what we know is that this thorn was something that he didn't want.

And if we're going by the ABCs of managing what I would call mental health, not saying that this was exactly mental health struggle, he acknowledged that there was a thorn in his side.

He acknowledged it.

He was even proactive to get it out.

He said, Three times I pleaded with God to take this thing away from me.

Three times I asked God to remove this thorn from my side that was plaguing me, and God said no.

Can you identify with that story?

That maybe you have acknowledged your mental health struggle, maybe you have acknowledged the struggles going on in your life.

But not only have you acknowledged them, but you've actually been proactive and not passive in the pursuit of healing.

But and the truth is that you've gone to see counselors, you've gone to people, you've let people lay hands on you, you've let you've come to prayer meetings, you've done all the things, you've taken medication, you've done all the things, but for some reason this thing is still plaguing your side, this thing is still plaguing you, and you've probably even prayed and said, God, I am begging you, I am begging you to take this thing away from me.

Please.

Because God, if you don't take it away from me, then I might have to take things into my own hands.

And I'm afraid what might happen when I do that.

Because God said no.

Why would He say no?

I'm sure many of you in this room have asked that question why would you say no when I just want some help?

Why would you say no when I just want some peace?

Why would you say no when I just need some relief?

Why, God, why would you say no?

Is it because you hate me?

Is it because you just want me to beg and plead and ask you for all this stuff?

Is it because you're an egomaniac?

Like, why?

Why, God, would you say no?

God in his grace actually gives this man an answer.

And in 2 Corinthians 12, 9, this is what he says.

He says, But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you.

For my power is made perfect in weakness, therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with hardships, with persecutions and calamities.

Why?

For when I am weak, then I am strong.

The word sufficient there means to cover.

It means to take care of, it means to cover up, it means to absorb.

Can I tell you something, church?

The sufficiency of God has already accounted for your mental miswiring.

The sufficiency of God has already accounted for your broken heart.

The sufficiency of God has already accounted for the mental disorder you may be experiencing.

The sufficiency of God has already accounted for your fickle heart, knowing that you will put your trust in anything other than him.

The sufficiency of God has covered the human experience.

And he's calling you deeper into himself because his grace is sufficient for you.

See, some of you have become so consumed by your mental health that you've claimed it as your identity and it's all you're capable of being, and it's left you feeling defeated and hopeless and helpless, discouraged.

But don't miss how David ends this psalm.

See, David ends this psalm very differently than he started it.

He begins this psalm with pain and sorrow and anguish, but he ends this song with praise and trust and gratitude.

What has to happen in six verses for somebody to move from pain to praise?

It's because David remembers that the love and the grace that God has afforded him is bountiful and abundant.

I'm gonna be honest with y'all.

None of us know the duration of our mental health battles.

For some of us, it may be seasons, for others, it's something that we're gonna have to trust God to walk with us alongside us until we actually see Him face to face.

But just like David, just like David, you can be confident this morning that God truly has dealt bountifully with you, He's dealt an abundance with you because not only does God care about the state of your mental health, God cares about the state of your spiritual health.

See in Ephesians chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, Paul actually describes what our life was like before Christ, and this is what he says he says, You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and do you catch it, church, the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind, but God, praise God for a but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

For by grace you have been saved and raised up with him and seated with us and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, you can do this.

No, it is a gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no man may boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Church, God has had incredible mercy on your life, He loves you, He's made you alive together with Christ, He's raised you with Christ, and He's seated you with Him in the heavenly places.

God has shown you immeasurable riches in His grace and kindness.

Can I tell you something, church, when it comes to mental health?

You don't need to say face because God's already extended you grace.

No matter what it is, you might be facing.

And while I know this to be true in my own life, he might not always calm the storm.

What I've seen time and time again is that he's always in the boat, he's always right there in the middle of the storm with me, and his presence is enough, his grace is enough.

And before you can worry about your psychological or mental health, maybe you need to just focus on your spiritual health and know that right now you are dead.

That right now you have subjected yourself, as I said on Tuesday night, when three young adults gave their life to the Lord because of what I'm about to say.

You have subjected your life, your mind, and your physical life to a life of chaos and disorder.

And if you were to tell me today in a conversation across coffee what your life would be described as, that's exactly what you would say.

That my life is chaotic, it is in disorder, and it's in disarray.

I don't feel in control of me, I feel like things are happening to me, and I have no control of anything.

I don't have a mental health struggle, a mental health struggle has me.

And today, the first step you need to take is to actually surrender your life not to chaos and to disorder, but to peace and to order.

For some of you in the room, you have trusted in Jesus, but somewhere along the way, you started focusing more on the fact that you're a victim instead of the fact that your heavenly father is a victor.

And today you need to shift your perspective to know that King Jesus reigns over all anxiety, and if you would just turn your eyes upon Jesus and look full in his wonderful face, then the things, oh, I'm preaching now, then the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

Come on, what do you need to do?

Because his grace is sufficient for you, it covers all of it.

You need to acknowledge it, you need to be proactive, you need to clean the grace.

What is it you need to do, church?

So I want to give you a moment to think about this because this isn't just something that you can brush off.

If the spiritual is real and the physical is will real, then the mental has to be real too.

And so, right now, wherever you are, will you just bow your heads with me?

There are some of you in the room that heard something I said today for the first time for real with open ears, and you found yourself subject to chaos and disorder, and you know it's because you have not truly and fully put your trust in Jesus.

And before you can be proactive about your psychological state, you need to be proactive about your spiritual state, and you need to surrender your life to the Lord today.

Hey, eyes are closed.

If that's you and you actually want to talk about what it looks like to begin a relationship with Jesus or to submit your life to Him for the first time for real, just raise your hand.

No one's looking.

Just raise your hand, make a decision for yourself today.

If that's you, I see him.

See the hands?

I see him.

For some of you, you've actually trusted in Jesus, and today you just need to pray with somebody.

Maybe you've got a loved one that's going through a mental health battle, and you don't know how you guys are gonna overcome it as a family.

Maybe you're experiencing something right now and you don't know how you're gonna overcome it.

Maybe you want to pray with somebody, maybe you want to pray by yourself.

Hey, here's the invitation that I'm extending to you, even right now while hours are closed.

If that's you and you just want to come up here and get on your knees at this altar, we want to make space for that.

We want to make time for that.

And so, right now, if that's what you feel like you need to do with you and your family, maybe just you, you need to come forward and just get on your knees and pray.

We're inviting you to do that now.

For the rest of us in this room, here's the invitation I'm extending to you.

Be proactive no matter what it is.

There is a God that is stepping towards you as you step toward him.

And so, if you decided to give your life to the Lord today and you are interested in having a conversation with one of our pastors that are up front, we would love for you to come forward and do that.

Again, there's no reason to say face when God's extended you grace.

There's no reason to do it.

If you know you need to do it, just go ahead and get up and do it.

Come on, there is a God that loves you and is for you, and though he was God, he did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped.

Yet instead he humbled himself to the form of a human servant and he became obedient, obedient to the point of death, so that he could die a sinner's death and be exalted on the cross so that because we could not come to him, he chose to come to us, and that's good news for you in the room, church.

And so, if that is you and you need to talk about a relationship with Jesus, let me call you to do it.

Let me invite you to do it now.

For some of you, you need to be proactive about your spiritual health, and what that looks like is you just need to get baptized.

You've given your life to the Lord, but you haven't taken a step of baptism.

You've acknowledged the fact that that's your next step, but you haven't been proactive about it.

And today you need to do that.

Can I also invite you to come forward?

I'm going to pray for us, and then I'm gonna stand, and then we're gonna stand.

And when we stand up, you step out and you come grab one of these people to come up here with your family, you pray at this altar, and you find some healing today that passes all understanding.

A peace that only God can give that surpasses human understanding.

And so, King Jesus, we exalt your name in this place.

King Jesus, we speak your name over all fear and anxiety.

Jesus, we speak your name over depression.

Jesus, we speak your name over addiction.

Jesus, we speak your name over the anxiety disorders that may plague this room.

Jesus, we speak your name into the dark.

We speak your name over all anxiety, Jesus.

We speak your name over disease.

Jesus, we speak your name with hope and confidence that you are God that loves us.

That you loved us so much that you came to us so that we could come to you, that you experience everything that we experience so that we would know that we could come to you so that we could draw near to what you call your throne of grace for us, King Jesus.

And so we ask you now to protect our hearts, protect our minds, protect our lives.

And it's in your name that we pray, amen.

Church, will you stand with me and will you respond in the way that you need to?

If you need to pray, come on, don't hesitate.

Now's the time.

Come on, God is calling out to you in this moment.

Don't miss it.

But God, being rich with the great love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved, and this was not your own doing, but it is a gift from God that he may show you the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards you in Christ Jesus.

Church, that's the truth that I want you to live in today.

My hope today is that you've got either some handles on how to manage mental health or you found some hope in the midst of your mental health struggle.

But what I can tell you is this we're still up here.

We love to pray with you.

If you have questions, like I said, many of many folks on our staff have actually been through counseling or gone through counseling, and we would love to have a conversation with you.

If you guys can find me, I would love to kind of talk to you what my counseling journey has looked like.

If you're considering that for yourself, kind of take it one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I believe that it could be do the same thing for you and make you feel and live as the man and woman that God has created you to be, that your friends and family also desire for you to be.

This has been an incredible service at 10 o'clock.

Thank you so much for spending some time with us on this Sunday morning.

If you are interested in what it looks like to become a member of this house as we continue to grow, we want to invite you to Pro Track that happens every Sunday morning at 10 o'clock in the ProTrack Room.

Uh, four sessions, we love to answer any questions you have about that.

And as always, uh, if you are a young adult in the area and you're looking for biblical community, a fun time to connect with other like-minded young adults in this area, I would love to point you to Tuesday nights here at United City Church for our United City Young Adult Ministry.

God has been incredibly kind to us for the past two years, and we are so confident that he has so much more in store for us.

Hey, we love you guys.

Be mindful of the construction on your way out.

We'll see you next Sunday.

Thank you so much.