Crossing family. It is so good to be with each
and every single one of you. I am glad that you are with us
this weekend. I don't care where you're
joining from, whether you're joining from here at 48th
Street, one of our locations online or inside.
We just want you to know, God loves you.
This church loves you. And we believe that, every
single one of you can have an intimate personal relationship
with Jesus Christ, back by popular, demand after last
week's, incredible message. Is our friend, dr.
Wes Beavis. So would you put your hands
together and welcome him to the stage?
One more time, my man. Well, it's awesome to be at the
Crossing, and my name is dr. Wes Beavis.
I am a clinical psychologist, but more importantly than that,
I am a Jesus follower. I'm a living example to the fact
that you do not need to choose between faith and Science.
In fact, that is something that culture is trying to convince
you. That if you believe in God, then
your anti science and that is not the truth at all.
And I'm going to be sharing You today, some great things in the
context of what has already been shared in the weeds, in my
garden series on Mental Health. The last message I gave really
drove into the fact that God has wonderfully, made us with all
types of neurochemicals all types of hormones in our system
that can work towards us. Having good mental health.
And it's up to us, we're not at the mercy of those chemicals.
We actually have control over those chemicals.
If you didn't watch the message go back and have a watch over,
it will encourage you. But today I want to go real
practical on you. And can you see the number 5?
I want you to say it three times in a row.
Today I have three sections. Each section has five points and
the way this is going to roll out is the first section of Five
Points is going to happen very quickly.
It's like a sandwich. We're going to burn through that
side of the sandwich very quickly and that the back end
section is Five Points going to burn through that quickly, the
meat is in the middle. So let me start with the first
section here, how to become more anxious and depressed.
Five guaranteed ways that you can become more anxious and
depressed? Well, some of you might be here
thinking, you know, I'm kind of effervescing with too much joy.
At the moment, 98. I need a little more depression,
little more anxiety in my life and if that's you, you're in the
right place because I have five guaranteed ways to induce more
depression and anxiety in your life.
Number one, when you are feeling down, isolate yourself from
others, And avoid the Great Outdoors at all costs.
Make sure you're by yourself with your own thoughts at all
costs. Do Not Go In The Great Outdoors.
And for goodness sake do not allow any Sunshine onto your
skin because what that will do that will stimulate certain
neurochemical responses in your body and make you feel good and
you don't want to feel good. So make sure that when you are
feeling down you isolate yourself because social Elevates
our mood and we don't want to have moved to be elevated and
being in the Great Outdoors will Elevate our mood as well.
And we don't want that to happen.
If our goal is for you to become more anxious and depressed
number to spend as much time as you can being sedentary, just
lie around, do not exercise. Exercise will release a lot of
feel-good chemicals in you and it's very good for your mental
health, but if you want to increase depression and anxiety,
Be sedentary lay around be in a static state.
Number three. See, I told you we're going to
fly through these eat more UPF. You're going to dr.
West what is it? UPF.
It is an ultra processed food and our culture.
And our society is Full of it. Absolutely.
Lots of ultra-processed foods that give you the sense that
you're being nourished because you're eating, you're chewing or
swallowing, but in effect, these ultra-processed Foods offer very
little nutritional benefit. In fact, they will do the
opposite. They can inflame your system
which contributes to your negative mental state.
So, if you want to increase the pressure and anxiety in your
life, make sure you hit the ultra-processed foods.
Yes. Ice cream and dark chocolate.
Is my preferences here? And so I have to keep them under
good management because they do have an effect on my mental
health. Number for cooperate, with
whatever your depression or anxiety is telling you, because
what we've discovered in the social sciences is this,
whatever you concentrate on, whatever you focus on, whatever
you cooperate with you get more depression.
So if you cooperate with whatever you're depressed
feelings are telling You then you're just going to attract
more reasons to be depressed, anxiety, and, and social
anxiety. All that if you just cooperate
with what your feelings are telling you, you're going to get
more of the depressed and anxious States.
And number five, let your current disappointment shape,
your view of God. Because when we're disappointed,
when we are discourage, we tend to be in a place in our brain,
which is not as sophisticated. Vista cated as the prefrontal
cortex. And when we are discouraged and
we tend to make value judgments of about our life, about our
world in which we live, and about our future, they're not
the best value judgments and we can make judgments of God that
are so inaccurate, when we are depressed, discouraged and
anxious. So, but if you want more of
those things in your life, then yes, let your Are in
disappointment, influence, your view of God.
But I think I'm talking to people here who actually do not
want to elevate depression anxiety or any other challenging
mental States in your life. So we're heading into section
to. Can you say five fantastic
section 2 is Proven mental, health practices for you.
Let's get into it. Number one, build muscle.
Build muscle, and I'm not talking about build spiritual
muscle. I'm not talking in a, in a
metaphorical sense. I am, talking about build
muscle. We're talking biceps triceps.
Calf muscles. Any must your glutes?
Any build muscle. Okay.
Here's some scripture here and you shall love the Lord, your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
mind, and with all your strength, See where hombre we've
already dealt with the metaphorical in the sense let
the God with all your heart metaphorically speaking.
It's like the very core of your body, love the love with him,
the very core of who you are your soul.
What what existed before your human body, which will exist
after your human body and with your mind.
And that also goes on to say strength, love the Lord, your
God with your strength. Another Bible passage here for a
while. Body bodily training is of some
value. Godliness is a value in every
way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the
life to come. Now this is a trap that I've
fallen into and a lot of Believers, a lot of followers of
Jesus fall into this trap because we've read for our
Buddy. Lee training is of some value
godliness, is a much greater value and what we tend to do is
go, I'm just going to go with the godliness.
I want to be strong in God. Ugliness, I want to be, I just
want to be good and godly and and we forget the fact that the
Bible says bodily training is of some value.
And we tend to live in the, in the sense that well, you know,
bodily training is of no value. And I particularly believe that,
as followers of Jesus, we should have the best bodies.
If we're loving the Lord, Our God with all our heart, soul,
mind and strength. There is value.
Bodily training, I appeal to you, therefore, Brothers by the
mercies of God, to present your bodies as a Living Sacrifice,
holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship,
you know, sometimes and I've been guilty of this in my life
is that I actually ignore my body in pursuit of the higher
things of the Kingdom. In fact, I sacrifice my body for
Ministry. And while that sounds very Noble
at a surface level. We actually get to choose what
type of body we're going to offer to God as a Living
Sacrifice. Now, I remember when I was
planting a church, I got caught up in anxiety, and depression,
things weren't working out as I was hoping or my lofty goals and
my Noble desires. And so I gained 50 pounds And in
a sense, I was working really hard for Jesus really hard for
the church. But I was sacrificing my body.
And I was presenting my body as a Living Sacrifice, but it
wasn't the best version of my body.
And I think, as followers of Jesus, we have that option, I'm
going to offer my body as a Living Sacrifice, but what
version of your body are you offering as a Living Sacrifice?
Now, some of you are sitting there and understandably, so
going dr. Wes a, you know, you seem to be
giving a message on physical fitness.
What does this have to do? To with mental health, I will
tell you what it has to do with mental health.
Building muscle is associated. This is scientific Lee.
Proven data mental are building muscle, is associated with
improved mental Clarity, improved, cognitive processing,
improves mental function as you age.
And let me know that the things on talking about here is like
build muscle now, because there's going to come a time
where we will enter our marginal decade, you're asking.
Well, what's the marginal decade?
The marginal decade is the decade that we all have in
common. It's the last decade of our life
and every one of us in this room will enter their marginal decade
at some point. Now, the marginal decade is
called this because at that time, that's when we struggle
the most with physical health issues.
People in the imaginal decades, see the doctors more are in and
out of Hospital. More are struggling more with
issues of mobility and the capacity to be independent in
their living. And so, why I say build muscle,
it is playing into your future mental health, because it's
you've known what it is to be active and independent and
having the energy to give for all your previous decades.
And You enter a decade when you use struggling to get out of a
chair, that is depressing and that is anxiety-producing.
And so, I'm here to say Building muscle has a lot to do with your
mental health. Not only now, but in the future,
stressing muscle, that's when you get put, you know, a
dumbbell, some weights, whatever putting putting your muscle
under stress. So it has to strain releases
endorphins. That's a chemical that God has
put in our body for a specific purpose endorphins, Elevate
mood. Endorphins are a natural
analgesic, that means a painkiller endorphins soothe the
anxious brain and increase an optimistic outlook on life.
And if you don't believe me go and and subject yourself to an
exercise experience, either go to the gym, go for a walk.
Go do something and I can pretty well guarantee you that after
not during I mean when I'm at the gym, okay?
Oh my goodness. Why am I doing this?
This is so I'm not enjoying this, but afterwards, I feel
great. I experienced the the elevated
mood. You experience the mental
Clarity, you experienced so many things as soothing of the
anxious brain, I mean, if you're feeling anxiety in your life,
put some put some muscle training into your world and you
will experience. Your anxiety levels.
Decreasing muscle is the number one organ of Ling longevity.
You know, a lot of press is given to the heart muscle
because, you know, understandably the most deaths
in America occur as a result of cardiac problems followed by
cancer. But ultimately, it's it's the
muscle, atrophy or sarcopenia which ends up taking us out.
Because if we Cannot be mobile. Then we're going to be more
sedentary and our muscles will continue to atrophy.
If we can't get up and be mobile, if we can't move, if
we're going to struggle, if we're going to have the aches
and pains that's going to further increase our propensity
to be immobile and sedentary, and that's going to affect our
mental health. What I'm saying is be like the
Queen of England. Who two days, two days before
she died of natural causes she was, installing the new Prime
Minister of England, commissioning that next reign of
leadership, presiding over the country, isn't that what you
want? I know, that's what I want.
I want right up to two days before, the good Lord takes me
home. I am still officiating in
Ministry and doing powerful things in Ministry, and having
influence in Ministry. So, starting in your 40s, you
start to lose 1% of your muscle mass each year and that
corresponds with a one to three percent loss in strength.
So if you don't do anything to counteract your muscle, atrophy,
the sacopee, Pena. If you start to register higher
and higher on the Frailty index, then that is going to cause you
to become more depressed because you think you're going to think.
Wow. I could, you know, I used to be
able to pick up my grandchild and swing them around and I am
finding it really difficult to even lift them up.
And it's not because they're growing up more, it's just I'm
losing my strength and so you can counteract that If you
decide what version of my body, am I going to offer as a Living
Sacrifice? And some of you are thinking,
well, you know, dr. West, that, you know, I haven't
really been active in my life, too much up to now.
Wouldn't, you know, I feel very comfortable uncomfortable and on
the inside of a gym. I understand that, but it's
never too late to reverse it. I I have a conflicted
relationship with running and but I decided the age of 55 I
was going to run my first marathon.
And and I was able to do that and I've run several Marathon
since the last. Okay.
Before it before you upload me
before you floating the last marathon, I ran, I was beat, I
was beat by 45 minutes. By a guy who was 83.
I'm telling you what the human body is capable of.
The way God has were designed us with the resiliency factors, you
know? We I think we tend to give in to
the process of Aging unnecessarily.
Okay. So a couple of tips do it.
When your willpower is strongest, that means do it
first thing in the morning. Because as the day grinds on,
you're going to be losing psychological fuel as the gate
day gets on. So as Brian Tracy, Great sales
trainer said, if in the context of your day, you have to eat a
frog. Eat the Frog first, and so I
would encourage you to try and put it in quick, and of course,
because I'm a doctor of Clinical Psychology.
I work with what's happening in the brain and the emotions, and
the behavior, I'm not a medical doctor, although my son is check
with your medical doctor. That's my disclaimer because I
don't want you to sue me. All right.
Number two, good sleep, hygiene brace.
Scripture for this then he got into the boat that's Jesus and
his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up
upon the lake so that the waves swept over the boat.
But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him
saying. Lord save us, we're going to
drown. They were full of anxiety at
this point. Jesus replied, you of little
faith. Why are you so afraid?
Then he got up and rebuked the wind and the waves and it was
completely calm. The men were amazed and asked
what kind of man is This even the wind's and the waves obey
him. But implied in that context, is
this very important principle for us, you face storms better
when you are not sleep deprived, So get good at sleep.
Sleep medication is not the answer.
There are lots of components that go into sleep hygiene.
I won't take you through it now, but I am going to tell you that
when you are sleep deprived, it's so easy to get into
negative, mental States, in sleep, deprivation increases
cortisol, which is a stress hormone in your body, and it
makes you hungrier for all the wrong Foods.
I'm talking salty, crunchy, and sweet.
When you have had a lot of cortisol running through your
system, you are driven to just they're called Comfort foods for
a reason. So and your body repairs when
you sleep, you see, we spent the entirety of our day in flaming
our body, you know, subjecting our body to stress.
And some of that is is positive stress.
You know, going to the gym is positive stress, but we inflame
our body, every organ of our body, including our brain.
And when we're sleeping, That's when God does his powerful work
of repairing? All the the result of us
stressing the body, you don't build muscles in the gym.
You build your mother. Well, let me see say that your
muscles don't grow in the gym, your muscles actually get torn
in the gym. It's when you sleep that your
muscles start to rebuild. All right.
Number three evaluate sugar intake.
Now, I'm not going to stand here and say, you know, cut out all
sugar. You know, I'd be a hypocrite.
If I said that, you know, I love sugar sugar and I have a heavy.
We have an interesting relationship.
I am, I am a recovering sugar addict.
The Bible says this about sugar. It says it is not good to eat
too much. Honey, that's it.
The by the Bible doesn't talk about high glycemic
carbohydrates, Donuts, Bagels at it.
It just talks about it's not good to eat too much, honey.
That's because sugar has an interesting effect on your body.
Your brain needs a certain amount of it, but we tend to
really overdo it if you want more depression and anxiety in
your life, eat more sugar, it'll help you get there.
Sugar has been associated with elevated levels of depression
and anxiety. So, if you ever find yourself in
an anxious state or a depressed state, just check, check your
sugar intake. And here's why it causes
inflammation in your body, including your brain and
sometimes depression and anxiety is the brains way of saying I'm
inflamed. Did you know, in the 1700s The
average intake of sugar per person per day, was one teaspoon
in the 1700 s because they didn't have all the high refined
carbohydrates at foods that register higher on the high
glycemic index, then today, 2018, couple of years old, but I
think we're probably only gotten worse men take in an average of
19 teaspoons a day and women 15 teaspoons per day.
And there's a reason for that. Sugar is number one, it's highly
addictive and every food company knows it.
So they try to inject as much sugar into Foods because they
want you to keep coming back for more.
And so sugar is in everything. Especially your ultra-processed
Foods. So, the more sugar.
Here's a fun fact them, and try this out for an experiment.
The more sugar you eat, the more you will crave sugar, it causes
a dopaminergic reaction in your brain and brain.
Is that dopamine is that great feel-good chemical and we we
love it when we get it, so evaluate your sugar intake.
I'm not saying, you know, get rid of all.
Sure, I'm not going to be that mean I'm just going to say think
about it. All right.
Lovely vacate. That's a fancy word for make
sure you get some vacations and vacation is based on the word of
vacate the life that you're normally embroiled in.
Now here's here's what we think. Culture thinks that vacation the
recovery happens in the in the when you're at the destination
and sure you get maximum beneficial effect when you're on
vacation and we think that that after we come home from vacation
the Jewel benefits of that, go on for several weeks, maybe
several months, it's not the truth.
Scientific research says that we overestimate the benefits of
post vacation time, and we underestimate the benefits on
pre vacation time, this is actually how it looks.
You start to get the beneficial effect of a vacation from the
moment you book it. So if you book it to go away on
a vacation in three months time, you Start to get the benefits of
it. You just have that sense of
anticipation, you're looking forward to it.
You're subconsciously preparing for it and So that you don't
feel guilty after you come back from vacation.
Generally the drop off is very steep leading to that thought
of, oh my goodness, I feel so guilty.
I was just on vacation last week but it doesn't feel like I went
away on vacation at all. Has anybody ever felt that?
You know, and some of us even come back from a vacation
needing a vacation. So you've got to think about
what type of vacation you take. All right, number 5, pay to see
a Trained Christian clinician or a counselor.
Now, I put Christian in there because in the, in the
behavioral sciences psychologist marriage and family, therapist,
licensed clinical, social workers, they're not
representative of the larger cultural context.
Generally only not generally specifically, they did research
on this, only 40% of psychologists are people of
faith. And yet we have, you know,
seventy or eighty percent of the population at large that are
believing God. So why is they go to a
Christian? Clinician is your faith is an
important tool in your toolbox that a clinician can use.
So if you go to a clinician who doesn't understand Faith, that's
a big tool in your toolbox that they can't use because they
don't know how to use it. So I would encourage you go to
see a Christian Clinician. And why do I say pay?
Because it's human nature. You are more vested in that,
which you pay for You've got to have skin in the game if
somebody else is paying for it. Yeah, you'll go and and have a
lovely chat, but you're not going to be as motivated as
somebody who's putting money into this process.
So, who Bible says here in Proverbs, whoever trusts in his
own mind, is a fool, but he who walks in the wisdom walks in
wisdom will be delivered. See when we're in anxious or
depressed, or burnt out? Mental States.
We are not operating out of the best part of our brain. and so,
I love this saying that I use often in therapy.
It's it's hard to read the label when you're stuck inside the
bottle. And that's why it's good to go
and see somebody because as smart as you are as, as solid as
you are in your faith, sometimes you're so stuck in your
situation. It's hard to see what's going
on. All right.
That's my son. There he is a doctor of medicine
in the u.s. Navy when he was going through
pre-med. He played rugby and he broke his
arm called me up. Dead gone to the hospital.
I've broken my arm for Ellie and I go to the hospital, the
orthopedic surgeon comes into the room and sure.
I mean, that was really busted. You could see it.
It was like, oh and the orthopedic surgeon through some,
his X-ray up on the light box and he said, okay, this is what
we've got. It's Definitely broken.
There are three options here. Number one, we could just leave
it alone, the bones will eventually that's them.
Wonder if the human body, they've the bones.
The broken ends will eventually find themselves and they'll fuse
back together. The problem with that is, it'll
be very painful. It'll take a long time to heal
and the bones were probably heal in a way that's problematic over
a long distance of time. I said, okay, what's the second
object? We can, we can apply traction,
we can pull the bones apart and I to get them in line as much as
we can, and then put plaster in it'll be less painful, it'll
heal quicker and and it won't be.
So prone to problems down the line, and I said, well, what's
the third option? And he said well I can go in,
they can open him up, I can put a titanium plate and some screws
in there, I can get the bones exactly in alignment, it'll heal
the fastest of all, it'll be the least amount of pain, and you'll
have the least amount. The problems going forward.
And that is why that is what therapy is like, it's going to a
doctor, going to a licensed clinician, they can help you
heal faster, be less back pain, involved and heal in a way.
That's not problematic in future years.
And the other thing is, you won't burn out your friends.
Let your friends via friends. Do all your deep work with your
therapist. Okay?
So that's the meat in the middle build muscle, good sleep.
Hygiene evaluate sugar intake, proactively be cake and Peter,
see a trained clinician or counselor so that is five
practical steps that we could because the weeds in our garden.
Once we pull those weeds out, we got to replace them with good
behaviors. And so I've just given you five.
Okay? The last section.
Everybody say five, All right, is how you can help others.
The Bible says carry each other's burdens.
And in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ.
So, number one, normalize mental health experience, and I've
watched every message in this weeds in my garden series, that
you've done. And I want to tell you that,
your pastor, Clayton Hensley, has done an amazing job here is
well researched, what he has taught you.
And He's talked about the fact that we want to meant normalize
it everybody. It doesn't matter how how strong
and how capable you are as a leader.
Everybody will struggle from time to time with something
that's broken in their lives. So let's just normalize it
number to invite them to go for a sunshine.
Walk, remember Elijah when he was severely depressed after his
high experience of Mount Carmel, where that amazing miracle
happened, you know, a lot of and a lot of cortisol through the
system and what happens often when you go through an
experience like that, you can have a post project post
experience, slump or where did he find himself at the in the
back of a cave? No sunlight, no fresh air.
So one of the most beneficial things you can do with somebody
who's struggling, say, hey, come for a, walk with me and get into
the sunshine. Number three, help them.
Formulate, a personal crisis plan.
Now, Every year I have to do continuing education to keep up
my license as a clinical psychologist.
And so I do training with an organization that works with the
Navy Seals in San Diego and there is a higher rate of
suicide that happens with people in the armed forces.
And so they're very keenly aware of what to do and what they
train their clinicians to do is when they when they Patients are
in a good place put together a crisis plan, a personal crisis
plan, while their heads in a good place.
So that when they are struggling, they don't have to
rely upon their thinking because when you're struggling, you're
not operating out of the best part of your brain.
And so at that point, you don't trust your thinking, you take
out your crisis, personal crisis plan and you just do what's on
the list. Call a friend, get in the
outdoors, go for a walk, go to the gym and you don't don't
trust what your brain is thinking trust, what your tray,
personal crisis plan that you established when things were
well and establish with somebody else and work, the plan, don't
don't be led by your feelings but work the plan so help help.
People by getting them to have a crisis, personal crisis plan
ahead of time, number four, encourage Ministry and Mission
involvement because sometimes our mental health challenges,
and because we're spending too much time in our own heads
thinking about our own problems. That's why I love the crossing
is that you are so committed to missions and Ministry.
You provide, lots of opportunity for people to get outside of
their own heads. And number five, I've nudge them
towards Jesus. Jesus Christ is the solution to
every dilemma faced by man woman and child.
And so, we do the best thing by nudging people towards Jesus.
Because sometimes, when you get into that place of struggle, you
you start to doubt. Whether God loves you, you start
to doubt. Whether God is for you.
Thoughts like your God is so, so busy blessing, Clayton, Hansel
and Jerry Harris that he hasn't got time for me.
That's not reality. That's a lie that comes not from
heaven. And so, sometimes people just
need to be nudged back in the direction of Jesus.
Sometimes it needs. Sometimes people need a shove
depending upon their temperament temperament.
Can it whether it's a shove or a nudge?
That lead people back to Jesus. Right now, we're moving in to a
time of decision. That's actually where I want to
begin this invitation time. For those of us in this room or
you're watching online, I want to begin with a nudge and just
so, you know, if you don't know who I am, I am not opposed to a
shove. Like I will shove you and the
reason I will shove you because I care about you because I love
you too much. That if you came into this room
and you've been, you're looking for ways to try to figure out
life and the mess that you're walking in.
And you're just like, man, I'm so thankful, they just gave me
all these practical ways to do all these things, but if you
don't hear this, You gotta start with Jesus, you got to start
inside of that intimate personal relationship with him.
And I know just because I know this church and I know the
people who walk in here, who are watching online, there are some
of you you have not you've not made that decision to follow
him. You have not surrendered your
life to him. You're just like man, I got this
building muscle thing. I can go to the gym, I can eat
better. I don't think I can lower my
sugar intake. I can't do that one, but I can I
can do all these things. Listen, all those things are
really, really good and very helpful and it's a very
important step in your mental health but it all goes on the
foundation of knowing who Jesus is and applying that to your
life and making him Lord and savior of your life.
And so listen, if you're not there, I would love to come
alongside a few. I would love to have a
conversation with you in just a little bit.
When the music starts and we start singing, you may feel a
nudge on your heart to respond to get up.
And I would tell you that's not me.
That's not the person next to you.
That's the Holy Spirit saying, it's your time, get up.
Respond move, come to me. I invite you.
I want you to know me as your lord and your savior.
You are You are loved. You are mine.
I would encourage you to respond to that moment.
Come talk to me and you're like, hey, I felt the Holy Spirit.
I felt this nudge. I felt this shove and let's take
that step to make Jesus, Lord and Savior life.
And tonight, maybe that night, where you getting that water and
you declared Jesus, Lord. And Savior.
It'll be the best decision you can ever make.
It's how you build all the rest of decisions that you're going
to make in your life, you base it off of that.
Jesus is your firm foundation. So move tonight, and just a
little bit, Out of your seat, get out of your comfort zone.
For those of you in this room, you are Christians.
You've made that decision. You felt that nudge you
responded. You're walking in it.
Here you are. I wonder just like I was trying
to discern what hit you in that message.
What action do you feel like you may need to take?
What area are you lacking in? What what area do you not have
good Clarity in? And just a little bit, we're
going to have the time where you know if you come here every
single week these steps are open and you are invited to come
forward. But I want you to know this.
So we have a mission outside of knowing and loving Jesus.
Our mission is to make that known to the world to share our
faith to let the people around us in our workplaces, in our in
our schools that are wherever you may be whatever environment.
You may find yourself in that they are loved by Jesus and you
can't do that when you're not taking care of yourself.
I don't know what of those five practical ways that maybe you
need to respond to maybe it is changing your diet.
Maybe it is getting up and walking a little bit more into
the sun line, maybe it is sleeping, just a little bit more
or a little better. But I would just encourage you
man. If you don't know what it is,
still come up to the steps and just say, God speak to me, help
me make a decision. Listen, he said, move the very
best movement you could do is just get up out of your seats,
get out and front of your chairs, walk to the steps and
get into the very best position. As a Christian, you could
possibly get into and that is a humbled position before the
Lord. And just say, Here I Am use me
as a living. My body is a Living Sacrifice.
I want to turn this over to you and use me because I have a
mission. This mission is not just for me
as a pastor. It's not just for our staff.
It is your mission to carry the gospel, the good news to this
world and you need to be well to do it.
So I don't know what your step is.
But here's what I would encourage you when the music
starts and you hear this every single week and you may be like,
Yak or you're talking to that person over there.
You're talking to my wife, she needs to get up.
She's to go two steps. Talking all of Us.
Let's take a step of Faith tonight.
Let's take a step of humility tonight.
Let's get on our knees do business with the Lord.
Would you guys staying with me as you consider that Heavenly
Father God I give you, thanks and praise.
We come to this moment every single week.
God I pray that we don't take it for granted.
I pray that we don't ever take this moment for granted a chance
to respond. The chance to move a chance to
connect with you in a real and personal and intimate way God I
pray for every single person in here who's going through a
Battle. I pray.
Lord. The way that we go into battle
is with your strengths and not our own father.
I pray for those people in this room or watching online.
That is not following. You has not surrendered life to
you. God, I pray that you just give
them that nuts right now to respond to move and turn their
life to you. Jesus, we love you.
We praise you. And we want to glorify your name
to this time of worship and Jesus name I pray.
Amen.