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8-Minute MindShift Wk 39 · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning everybody.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I'm a little uh even more scattered than normal today.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on the road, if you can't tell.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uh I'm actually over in Alfaretta, north of Atlanta.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh just kind of making some new friends, meeting some new folks, and uh it's it's it's good stuff, man.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm honored.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm honored by you guys.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: You guys that check in every day or every week, I should say, forgive me.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um I'm just uh I'm honored by your by your uh interest and attention.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And those of you that come back and uh catch it later, uh you're just a blessing to me personally, and I appreciate it.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you guys that are here on Wednesday live, you're just uh you're just superstars in my book, man.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so last week we were talking about a bumper sticker.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Christians aren't perfect just for giving.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And again, just to make the point that um you and I are more than we give ourselves credit for.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're we're there's more going on in this thing called Christianity than um the church seems to be um understanding, enjoying, living.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I just like to I just like to push it, man.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I like to push the envelope and uh get us to think.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um as we as we look at what we're gonna look at today, let me let me mention a kind of a thought principle, whatever you want to call it.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between um uh a truth that's that's real and true, and a truth that you've experienced as real and true.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, there's things we know in the Bible.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like we we believe, you know, Jesus was born of a virgin, and we believe certain things.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: We might even believe God loves us.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: We might believe that we're forgiven for all our sins.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: But have we experienced um what comes with that?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Have we experienced the peace and joy that comes from the burden of our sins uh coming off of our shoulders?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Have we have we have we had a moment in the embrace of God where we just melted in in just childlike joy that to the degree it's almost painful because God loves us so much.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So my point is like you could say it this way, and some people would say it this way, that there's a there's truths that are legally true but not experientially true.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're the truth, but what affects our life is is truth that we've experienced is real.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to just walk through this whole thing about, we've been kind of talking about this whole thing about the new birth and what what you know what happened when does eternal life, what is that all about?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we've been talking about the fact that eternal life uh doesn't start when you die or doesn't start when Jesus returns or doesn't start when you go to heaven, but eternal life uh starts the moment you say, God, uh I I think I messed up.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think I I can't get it straight by myself, and I'm gonna need your help.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that Jesus died uh a death he didn't deserve.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I believe he died in my place for my sin.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I receive his forgiveness, but I also receive him and his life into me.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And um I I want to I want to try to live in union with him.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want to try to live linked together, yoked together with him for the rest of my life.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when that happens, you're born again.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, as John 1.12 says, that as many as received him, he gave the right to become children of God.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to look at an interesting passage to just make you think a little bit about what is what is going on when we've made the change from uh living our own way, uh independent, uh disconnected from God.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite passages of Ephesians 2, Ephesians chapter 2, and 10 verses 1 through 10.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna just kind of walk through them uh not too quickly, but not too slowly either.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna stop and make a few thoughts.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to catch, I love this stretch, Ephesians 2, 1 through 10, because it beautifully describes our state prior to becoming a Christian, prior to surrendering and bowing our knee to Jesus and agreeing with him about our state and our need.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then it goes into several cool things that have happened, uh have happened past tense because of our decision to follow Jesus.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So Ephesians 2, 1 through 10, uh we're gonna be reading and talking about for a minute.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So Ephesians 2, verse 1 says this, and you were dead in your trespasses and sin.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now just let that sink on you for a minute.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was dead.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was dead.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: You were dead.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: That means, wait a minute, dude, you're talking to people that were dead.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was dead in my trespasses and sin.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was uh I played with the word dead, and it means to fall out of correspondence with.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: It means to no longer be able to connect, contact, interact, um, have fellowship, whatever you want to call it.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So what he's saying is you were out of correspondence with God.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: You were dead in your trespasses and sin.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I sure was.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, I sure was.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you were dead, we were dead.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: You, me, we were dead in our trespasses and sins.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important for you to that's I don't think it's uh metaphorical, I don't think it's ill illustrative, I think it's literal that we were dead in the sense of separated from the source of all life.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formally walked according to the course of the world.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, when I was separated from God, when you were separated from God, all I had to go by is the world around me and whatever sense I could make of it.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I formally walked according to the courts of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, interestingly, the Bible would say that if we're being uh led by and in accordance with the world around us, uh John 5.19 says the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, the culture around us, the thought processes around us, the way people think and live around us is not anchored, rooted in God and his love and wisdom.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, according to the power, Prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, what an interesting phrase is and they're beyond what most of us need to really break down.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just interesting how how Scripture puts our posture outside of Christ, outside of a relationship with God through the substitution and identification of Jesus.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So verse 3, among them, in other words, among all those people out there that are living this way, we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desire of the flesh of the mind, and were by nature.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I look that word up, it means by birth and by habit.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: We were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: We were by nature, by birth and by habit, we were just like everybody else.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: We were just living in a way that was not pleasing.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's the next two words are just incredible.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you get this description: you're dead, you're living according to the principle of the air, you're living by the lust of your flesh.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then it says in verse 4, but God.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: But God.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: But God.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Jesus, thank you, sir.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: But God being rich, wealthy, abounding in mercy.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Mercy is when you don't get what you do deserve, and you do get what you don't deserve.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how many of you know you deserve bad, but you don't get that?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't deserve the kindness and goodness of God, but you get that.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But God being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, because of his love.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, what did he do?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: He made us alive.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: We were dead out of correspondence, he made us alive together with Christ.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus was raised from the dead, we were raised with him out of uh sin and separation from God.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Made us alive together with Christ and raised us up.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: He made us alive, he raised us up, and he seated us with him in heavenly places.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it doesn't say he's going to, it doesn't say, you know, he's thinking about it.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: It says he has already done it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: So legally, you're made alive, forgiven of all your sin, you're raised to newness of life, just like Jesus was, and you're seated with him in heavenly places.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I I I don't know where you're at in your growth, I don't know where you're at in your understanding of things, but set your goal, your quest, your your ambition spiritually, that you're gonna un you're gonna get to where you understand what that means, that you've been made alive, you've been raised up, and you've been seated with him in heavenly places.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um you're sitting legally, you you you share a you share a seat with Jesus in in heavenly places, and from there you can pray different prayers, you can think different thoughts, make different choices, see life from a different perspective.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I just I'm trying in these few minutes that we have each week to just kind of stir the dirt, you might say, and get you to look deeper.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: That what happened to you when you said, Jesus, will you please save me?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: is so much bigger than the church typically portrays and understands.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it it's gonna take you a while to get it, to understand it, to live it, to enjoy it.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: But it's there waiting for you.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: So uh thanks for hanging with me and uh look forward to talking to you next week.