My name is Caleb. I'm the worship director here.
It's an honor to be here today to see all your faces.
I hope you're staying cool. And one thing about me in my
early 20s, I was at what I would say is probably a dead end job.
I and, and it was a dead end job mostly because of my own
motivation. It was in the healthcare
industry. I had no shout out to all our
healthcare workers, but that was not my passion.
I was not knowledgeable or gifted in that area and I I was
not getting paid that much. I wasn't having fulfillment.
I really had no mentorship or no upward mobility at the job.
And so it was a dead end job. I eventually went for a job in
telecommunications trying to get another job, change my field, up
my pay, up my vocational kind of equity and value.
It was a long shot. It was a job I had I knew
nothing about and and considering my demographic,
there wasn't many people that looked like me, talk like me,
sounded like me, were like me at this job that I was going for.
I got the job by God's grace. It was also probably through
some divine intervention. It was a friend of the church
who was also a vice president at the job who later alerted me
that the CEO had some not so good things to say about me
coming onto their team. But that's another story for a
different day. But I got the job.
I was so excited the the pay was double what I was making.
You get your own computer, your laptop, BlackBerry.
I know I'm aging myself, but for for those that don't know,
BlackBerry is kind of like an iPhone refrigerator kind of
thing that goes on your. I travelled a lot.
There was opportunity for upward mobility.
It was a very high profile job. It was selling contracts to the
government, selling telecommunications and
communications contracts to the government.
I was so grateful and very quickly I realized that I did
not know how to operate in an adult professional environment.
Like seriously. Now my parents, they taught me a
lot. I am so grateful for everything
that they have taught me and instilled in me.
But unfortunately, that wasn't many conversations we had had is
how to be an actual professional, how to advocate
for yourself vocationally. My jobs before that had been
working as a clerk in the medical records office, working
as a muffin man in a bakery, a couple camp counselor jobs.
And to be quite honest, it probably would be defined as a
profession. It was it was selling marijuana
around the neighborhood. And that was that was before,
that was before it was trendy and cool and there was
dispensaries everywhere. So it was actually frowned upon.
I actually tried to write a paper on that in college and
didn't do so well. But anyway, so I was grateful.
I was grateful for the job, but didn't know professional
etiquette. I didn't know the, the, the, the
lingo. I didn't know how to communicate
with people in the right way. I didn't know some of the, the,
the, the ways in which to run meetings.
And I was really weak in Google Suite and, and Microsoft Suite.
I was grateful, but I did not know how to operate.
And maybe some of y'all have felt like that, whether it be a
new job, a new relationship, a new city, a new marriage, a new
something that you're really grateful for.
Thank God I have this, but I don't really know how to
operate. I need instructions, I need
mentorship, I need discipleship. I don't know what I'm doing.
And this is kind of where we find ourselves in this passage
as Paul writes to the Ephesians, their newfound faith, they're
grateful for it. He talks about how Jesus died
and, and brings you into this new family where your sins are
forgiven, where you're where you're able to celebrate
diversity and you're able to be sanctified.
Just meaning that that God is sculpting you into the kind of
people that he wants you to be. They're grateful for it, but but
they don't really know how to do it.
And, and how many, you know, when you mix people that have
not been at probably at the most maturity and some entitlement
and and different levels of diversity, there could be
issues. Amen.
You wouldn't know nothing about that.
We can be grateful for it, but not know how to operate.
And so the next part of Paul, the first part of Paul's letter
is just defining the new job. But the next part is that
basically Paul's saying, I know you don't know how to operate,
so let me put you on. And that's where we find
ourselves when we talk about walking in the light.
An equally powerful metaphor is when Paul talks about taking off
our old selves and putting on our new selves in verses 22 and
24, Taking off our old selves and putting on our new selves.
How many sneaker any sneaker heads out here?
Any all right, we got some sneaker heads.
Well, regardless if you're a sneaker head or you know, the,
the sensation of putting on sneakers for the first time, you
might like the sneakers, right? But at first they, they don't
feel right sometimes, right, even when they they're actually
technically your size, right? They don't feel right.
You got to what? Break them in right And at the
same time, sometimes your old dusty, dirty tongue flapping,
you know, souls kind of scraping off.
Those are really comfortable, right?
I don't want to get rid of those sneakers.
This can be true with our lives. Amen.
We can want this new restorative mindset.
We can want success in every areas of our lives.
We can want a relationship with Jesus.
But when you first put on this new, it can feel uncomfortable
and it can feel like I'd, I'd, I'd so much rather go back to my
old dirty sneakers. They, they, they're fit to my
foot, right? They know that one leg is longer
than the other. Like, you know, I'm fitting to
them. This can be our lives.
And it's important to note that it's not just removing the old
as not just putting on the new. If I went to Foot Locker and was
just like, I want a pair of new sneakers and refuse to take off
my old sneakers, that would be a problem, right?
I'd be walking. I don't, I don't know.
At the same time, if I went to Foot Locker and said I'd like to
try on a pair of new sneakers, took off my old sneakers and
just walked out in my socks, that would be a dirty situation.
And so this duality of taking off our old self and putting on
our new selves, God is clothing us with newness.
He's giving us new mindsets, new giftings, but at the same time,
there's stuff in our lives that doesn't fit.
And this was true to with the Ephesians.
He's saying, take off your old selves, your old way of doing,
your old way of thinking, your old way of being in community.
Take it off as you get clothed with this new self.
But this metaphor is a little bit incomplete for a couple
reasons. One is the process is
continuous. It's not a one and done.
I take off my old sneakers and put on my new sneakers.
It's a daily responsibility, Amen.
And another way this metaphor is incomplete is that instead of
your foot or, or instead of the sneaker breaking into your foot,
Amen. Your foot is changing.
Amen. It's our hearts, our mindsets,
our desires that are changing to mold into this newness.
And that was Paul's word to the Ephesians.
Partner with the Lord Jesus as He makes you new.
And I know it's hard now. I know it's uncomfortable.
I know you got to look down every time you're afraid there's
a scuff sneaker. Here's what I'm talking about.
I know every, every time you like bend down, you got to like
to you know what I'm talking about when you got to do this so
it doesn't crease. Some of you're like, what is he
talking about? Some of you know what I'm
talking about. And so the way Paul talks about
how to focus, how to 0 in on that is saying restrain from the
wrong so you can focus on the right, restrain from the wrong
so you can focus on the right. John Olinger, I don't want to
mispronounce his name, but John Olinger, I think is the
pronunciation. He's a, he was a, a Nike
executive also did marketing for Kobe, the late great Kobe
Bryant. And I actually get the
opportunity to talk to him in a few days, which I'm excited
about as a, for another project. But he's a believer.
He's a Jesus follower and he, he talks about worthy wins.
He says define what your success is because everybody has a
different idea of what success looks like in their life.
Get clear on what success looks like in this case in the spirit
and the natural. Get clear on what success looks
like. And that way when you have to
shed things, when you have to not do, when you have to
restrain, when you have to forego, it doesn't seem that bad
because I have this goal in mind.
I know what I'm, I'm know what I'm fighting for.
So I saw several areas where Paul encourages us to take off
the old and put on the new. This is not exhaustive.
This is just what I extracted and what jumped out to me as the
text. And I know the magic number
usually is 3, but there's six of them.
So just bear with me, Church, All right?
I saw falsehood, anger, stealing, bad language, lust and
intoxication. Falsehood, anger, stealing, bad
language, lust and intoxication. You know, when I first came to
face, and probably many of you might think like this, when I
first came to faith, the Christian faith looked like a
list of do's and don't mostly don'ts actually.
And, and I've been blessed both culturally and and and and and
and in a lot of ways to have a pretty full life.
Some I'm proud of, some I'm not proud of.
But coming into the Christian faith just felt like it was like
I was trying to fit into this box of no, I can't.
No, I can't, no, I can't. Life kind of felt boring and
confusing and less attractive. I mean, and if that's the
paradigm that we're in, of course it feels like that,
right? Imagine somebody like you're
trying to evangelize to somebody.
You're like, hey, bro, hey sis, would you like to have a lot
less sex and not get drunk and never be able to express your
anger? It's just like, no, that's lame.
You're weird, but that was sometimes how I digested the
Christian faith, right? I love how Sho Baraka, who's I
think chief editor, he works at Christianity Today.
He's an author, he's a rapper. He's a really insightful guy.
I love how he puts it, he says. When I first came to faith, my
main concern was to abstain from sexual immorality, drug use and
fits a rage. I would soon learn that the
Christian faith is about so much more than avoiding sin.
As my brother Dottie said, I'll put it, Jesus didn't die for us
to avoid, just to avoid sin and fleet temptation.
He died for us to push back the darkness and be able to walk
amongst the grotesque. And he's not talking about
people, he's just talking about this.
Life gets hard. Amen.
He goes on to say. The truth is that God makes us
new. He gives us new joys and new
gifts that we should open and celebrate like a kid on
Christmas. The Gospel redeems and reforms
us, but it doesn't remove our compassion and awareness about
the darkness of this world. So you're not just fitting into
a weird box, you're actually becoming stronger and how to
engage the darkness in this world.
You're not pretending things don't exist.
You're not totally denying your full humanity of the person that
God's made you to be. So again, falsehood, anger,
stealing, bad language, lusted, intoxication.
Let's go through these quickly. And each one of these can be,
it's probably its own sermon, so I'm just going to unpack as it
relates to taking off the old, putting on the new.
But there's a lot more to be said about each one of these
areas. Falsehood, he said instead of
falsehood, speak truth and gratitude, speak truth instead
of falsehood. I started to think about the
metaphor of the body. You know, we often talk about
Christ's body. It's a body.
There's different functions, there's different ways of being.
There's different people with different gifts.
Falsehood, speak truth. One of the interesting things I
think about is an allergic reaction.
When an allergic reaction happens, the interesting thing
is it's not about the actual food that you're eating.
It is, but it's not. It's about the signal that your
body is sending, the false signal that your body is sending
to create that reaction in your body.
That's why some people can eat whatever almonds and some people
can. It's your own body that is lying
to another part of your body that is creating that allergic
reaction. It's not the content, it's the
fact that there's a falsehood in our body and we all, anybody who
struggle with health or or or or chronic issues knows the
difference between when your body's working correctly,
sending right signals, and when it's not so much more with our
lives and our interactions with each other.
Putting on a true self. A lot of us know how refreshing
it is to be able to be your true self around people and know how
stifling and exhausting it is when you have to fake the funk.
A lot of loneliness I feel like is not just about the volume of
people around us, but how well we're known and how well we know
others true selves. So speak truth, be your true
self. That doesn't mean remain in
toxic behaviors, but speak truth, be be, be, be transformed
as God molds us in our true selves.
Instead of anger, address it and view it as an invitation.
Now some of us on one extreme need to watch out for fits of
rage, ration on people, all of the above.
But then some of us on the other end of the spectrum need to
learn how to express our anger and advocate for ourselves and
be courageous. They both have in common is
learning how to address anger in healthy ways.
Anger can be an invitation. And I know they, we, we, we've
probably all heard like, don't let the sun go down on your
anger. It's funny, I read it.
It was some book that a couple was like, we tried that
literally early in our marriage and we didn't sleep for three
days. I don't think he's literally
saying don't get sleep because I don't know, Christina and I
might relate. Is, is trying to resolve anger
when you're low on sleep is usually counterproductive
anyway. And so, but what he's saying is
don't let it turn into bitterness.
Don't let it start to rot. You know the difference when
you're angry and you're working through it versus like it's just
sitting, it's sitting in the pit of your stomach.
And this anger is not doing me any good.
You ever, you ever, you ever pretended like something didn't
bother you, like, it ain't a big deal.
And then you get home. Morgan Freeman narration.
But it was a big deal. I'm glad y'all caught that.
Yeah. Learn how to advocate for your
anger without going into rage or to bitterness.
Anger can be an invitation. Later.
In, in, in, in, elsewhere in. I think Matthew Paul talks about
stories that you may win your brother over so that you may
deepen the relationship. I can't tell tell you how many
times conflict has been an invitation to deepen the
relationship. So we got anger, we have
falsehood. And he talks about stealing
instead of stealing, generosity so that folks would have
everything they need. So you can give to folks in need
and stealing. I'm sure he's talking about
several kinds, right? He's talking about petty thief,
which is, yes, don't take other people's stuff that doesn't
belong to you without their consent.
Yes, but also there was a contingent that was wealthy
here. And we know from in in Ephesus,
there was it was not all just poor people.
And we also know from Matthew in the story of Zacchaeus that they
were aware of not just stealing, as in like personal stealing,
but systems of stealing, systems that exploited poor people,
systems that exploited 1 ethnic group, systems that marginalized
people and left whole groups of people without what they needed.
And so we might look and say, well, I'm not a thief.
I'm not a petty thief. But he invites us to examine,
are we participating in systems that damage people?
And the goal here is so that everyone can have what they
need. The goal here is abundance.
Stop stealing. Check your heart so that
everyone can thrive. Bad language, which sounds kind
of weird. And, and I'll, I'll take a stab
here and say I do not think that Paul was talking about American
English curse words. Now, I'm not saying this gives
us the license to go curse somebody out, but this was
several thousand years ago when the paradigm of bad language is
a little bit different and not to mention American.
The English curse words actually have an interesting history that
can be a whole other rabbit trail.
But the point here is I think he's talking less about what you
say and more about why you say it.
Now, again, I'm not telling you to go to Pastor Josh.
You'd be like, yo, that was great.
I'm not saying all that, but it's less about what you say and
why you less about what you say, but why you say it.
You know, a lot of one of one of the checks and balances I use
for my language is intent and impact.
Intent and impact. What was my intention of saying
said thing? I can say a nice thing.
You, oh, you, you look, you look good today.
You know I can say a nice thing sonically, right?
What was my intention for saying that?
Where was my heart when I said that thing?
We can play each other all we want, but we can't play
ourselves in our own heart and what we meant when we said
something. And the impact.
You might have the best intentions, but take a second to
reflect. How was this going to land on
said people or person? What is the intent and what is
the impact? You can say the same thing with
different intentions and that can determine the morality of
it. I can say in vernacular to
somebody that understands me, like, oh man, you could tell a
funny joke and I'm like, oh, you stupid, you're funny, you're
wise, you're witty. Or I could be like, yo, you're
stupid. That's the same thing.
Different intent and probably different impact.
And so if your words are not landing the way that you want
them to, it's usually one of those two things or both.
You might want to check why you're saying the thing or you
might need better communication skills or knowledge of who
you're communicating to to have a better impact.
And now for everyone's favorite lust into self-control.
This obviously could be a whole nother sermon.
But what I will say is, you know, back back in this time,
obviously nothing like this time where somebody who comes into
power has a bunch of less powerful people at their beck
and call, starts to use them for sexual and labour and
exploitative needs. And and and and the feds raid
their mansion, I mean castle and and find a bunch of baby oil.
It's not so different as in powerful power that is not
checked. Objectification not checked
turns into lust that destroys things and people.
And nowadays you have to intentionally fight.
I, I know there's whole scores of conversation about the ethics
around Christian sexuality. But one thing I, I, I really
will stand on and I'll fight for at this time is the, the, the,
the saturation of, of, of sexuality in our faces all the
time. Just not even just our faults,
just the availability of the, the, the, the ability to be able
to see any and everything at any given notice.
I don't think that's healthy for him.
And there's complicated relationships.
We need the Internet, we need online.
And that's for all of us. I'm saying for a lot of us, it's
not even our fault. And for a lot of us, there are
things that we've been exposed to that didn't have our consent,
that we didn't even want to be exposed to.
And so I'm not saying this is a shame or a blame, but I'm saying
is if our goal is a healthy relationship with ourselves, a
healthy relationship with each other, and for those that desire
to be married or are married, a healthy relationship with our
spouse. Unchecked lust is darkness.
I've heard especially guys talking about like, I haven't
met the right one yet. I haven't met the right one.
And my question is always, are you the right one?
Have you become the right one? Unchecked lust makes it so hard
to love correctly. And then intoxication, he says
instead of intoxication, be filled with the Spirit and make
the most of every opportunity. Again, there's some nuance
around drinking. He says don't get drunk.
But we do know Jesus like to sip, sip every now and then.
And there's even more nuance nowadays with the legalization
of certain recreational drugs. Again, that could be a separate
conversation, but I will. What I will say is if you are
constantly inebriated, it is hard to make the most of every
opportunity. And that could be anything.
That could be back to lust, that could be to anger.
That could especially be with alcohol, with recreational
drugs, with hard drugs, with food.
It is hard to make the most of every opportunity.
I remember one time I used to go to the studio.
I still go to the studio a lot, but I used to get drunk and go
to the studio. I remember one time I was so
excited about going to the studio, about recording this new
song, and I was like, we should celebrate early before we go to
the studio. We celebrated way too hard.
I remember waking up listening to what we did in the studio and
I was like, why did the engineer ever let us record this?
This is terrible. My intoxication was not making
the most of that opportunity, especially when you're paying by
the hour. Make the most of every
opportunity, be filled with the spirit.
And you know, I've seen examples again, back to taking off the
old and and putting on the new. You know, there's kind of AI say
like a, a lane of, of masculinity now that there's a
lot of emphasizes abstaining, abstaining from could be lost,
abstaining from drugs, abstaining from food and, and
really beating your body into submission.
And I think parts of that's OK, but I know I have some people in
mind right now that have gotten really good at abstaining, but
it hasn't made them more kind, more wise, more loving, more
humble, more generous. And so I'm like, what are you?
What are you abstaining for? Take a drink, bro, Goodness
gracious. At the same time, I'd like to
shout out my brother who couldn't make it today.
He's coming up on two years of alcohol sobriety and he gave me
permission to to share this and I I love my brother.
I love him at one point and it's actually several points that
addiction or abuse had put him in some darkness and and and put
us as a the darkness has spread, right?
He was the darkness was affecting me.
He made the decision. I don't think it was the
attractiveness of not having alcohol, but it was him seeing
his new self and imagining with God what he could be.
And I think this example holds true because he's become he was
already a good father. He's become a great father, he's
become a better friend, he's become a better leader.
He's become more intentional, a better husband, more reliable.
There's so many things that doors that have opened up in his
life that we probably wouldn't even have related to alcohol.
But it's just part of taking off the the darkness and seeing
clearly and seeing and imagining with God what there could be for
you. And I don't want to idolize
just, again, I don't want to idolize abstaining.
Most of anybody that's been around recovery know it's a
daily thing. So you don't want to make the
abstaining the idol, right? But I'm proud to witness folks
that because of their abstinence, because of their
self-control, it has opened up beautiful possibilities for them
to draw closer to God and each other.
So now we get to this dark and light back in the day.
I'm a city kid. I was born and raised in
Dorchester Common Square. And although I've been to like
rural areas, when when I say dark, my concept usually is
like, yeah, I don't know, like the city when it's dark, there's
still lights. It's not dark dark.
Anybody grew up in rural America around here?
So y'all know what dark is, right?
I'm not talking spiritually, metaphorically I'm I'm but y'all
know y'all know dark dark, right?
Like our my concept of dark. It's hard to actually think
about what outside dark is because all throughout
Dorchester there's a light everywhere right now.
You go back 2000 years without electricity.
If you ain't brought your torch, it's dark.
And so when Paul gives his imagery of darkness, it's really
scary and dangerous. It's not just like, oh, let me
go over here and flick on a light switch, right?
When you're in the dark, you're none the wiser.
You're vulnerable. Somebody can attack you.
You don't know. I could go behind you and tell
you you're surrounded. And you have no way of verifying
that the darkness is a dangerous place, as Paul's talking about
it. In the darkness, you can't see
yourself clearly. You can't see others clearly.
You can't see your own. What's tripping you up very
clearly? How many of y'all have got up to
go to the bathroom in the night and just stubbed your toe?
Like, Oh my God, that's the darkness.
And Paul uses this language about being deceived, right?
He says deceived. He's not saying like all these
people are just terrible, rotten, disgraceful people.
He's talking about these people in the darkness.
You've been deceived. So, so the interesting thing is
some of us, including myself, sometimes we want these good
things for ourselves. We want to be able to have
healthy relationships, We want self-control, we want to be have
healthy marriages. We want, we want to be generous.
And so we have good intentions, but we're just missing it.
The word sin is an archery term that just means missing the
mark. So it's not even necessarily
saying that like all the time you're doing something bad
because you're bad and, and, and you should just be shamed.
It's saying you're actually just, you're missing it.
There's a vision problem, there's an accuracy problem.
J. Cole, really talented rapper, he
said. The good news is you came a long
way. The bad news is you went the
wrong way. You could be have the best
intentions, right and fight hard.
I heard another rapper. Was it, I don't even remember
who it was thinking saying who we were listening to.
We were listening to somebody. Oh, Toby, he said.
I know people that stood 10 toes down, meaning they stood solid
on sinking sand. We can have the best intentions,
but in the darkness, we don't always know.
Are we going toward the goal? Are we doing well?
Are we, are we loving people the way they should be loved?
Are we, are we succeeding? That's what the darkness does.
But in the light, Amen Church, in the lights, you can see
yourself. You can see yourself clearly,
you can see, you can see your own beauty.
You can see your imperfect. You know, I do a lot of video
work with a lot of videographers.
And you know, one of the things one of the guys said was like,
folks are mature, more seasoned Saints, right?
Older folks are just so beautiful to look at through
these high definition lenses, you can see the age, the wisdom,
you can see the beauty of people.
So I'm not just talking about like stereotypical
attractiveness, but seeing people, seeing the, the wrinkles
in their face, seeing their facial expressions, seeing their
eye color, right? And I'm not trying to be weird
or anything, but just seeing the beauty of people when it's
light, we can see ourselves, we can see each other.
I just got the the imagery of right for those of you that I
mean, most of us haven't gone to a nightclub because we are so
wholly and sanctified. But for those of you I could put
you on, if you've never been to a nightclub, there's always just
like funny mantra of like folks, we've been in the dark, we're
dancing, dancing, dancing and then the lights come on and we
all just look like zombies, right?
There's sweaty hair everywhere, there's makeup everywhere.
You can also see some of your imperfections of what you got to
deal with in the light. Amen.
I know y'all know about that. You can see obstacles and
opportunities in the light. You can see I trip.
You know what I tripped right there.
Let me hop over that next time. A lot of times you know I've
I've dealt with recovery in several areas of my life.
I've dealt with frustration and doing the same thing over and
over again. And sometimes I just want to be
in the dark. I want to ignore the problem,
but that actually makes me do it over and over and over and over
and over again. Sometimes it takes courage to
look at the problem and say, I've I've tripped up here and I
keep tripping right here. I have to look at it not from a
shameful perspective, but to know, God, what are you telling
me to do in this moment? That's what the light can do for
us. A lot of us are trying to to
dream and see and imagine what we look like as we become
restored. We're trying to imagine how
where God will take us. We're trying to imagine if as
what it would look like if we if we're whether it be married or
get that next job or just draw closer to Jesus, have closer
friendships. But but the darkness can make it
hard to even have those dreams. The darkness can make it hard to
even have that imagination in, in, in 317 in Ephesians, he says
exceedingly, abundantly beyond what we can ask or think.
I, I really think that's literal saying.
Like when you're in the darkness, it's hard to even
imagine what you could be doing in the light.
If you, there's some folks in here that have known me for some
years. If I had told you they were
coming to hear me preach, they would have, they would have not
believed me. They would have been like, say,
come on, man, let's go back to the studio, getting out of the
darkness. And it's not like a transaction
of reward, but it's just God opening our eyes, removing those
scales, saying, let me, let me let me open up your imagination
for what life looks like in the light.
And it's really hard. So some of us have been
discouraged because we're trying to like exactly plot the course
of exactly what I'll look like and what I'll do.
And sometimes God's like, hey, partner with me as I remove
these unhealthy things from your life and your imagination will
start to open. It's interesting.
He ends. He ends the verse talking about
singing. Be filled with the Spirit
addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody. To the Lord with your heart and
give thanks. You know, I've, I've served here
for a couple years. It's just been an honor to serve
with the worship team. It's been an honor to sing with
you all. It's been an honor to, to, to,
to, to, to curate and, and try to store it the, the, the little
place that God has me. And, and you've been a blessing
to work with every member of the worship team and those that have
that have partnered. And so I, I don't take that
lightly. I often tell the worship team
to, to drop out singing and let the congregation hear themselves
sing because it's something about when you hear your voice
saying these words to God. And, and I understand some of us
are able to make a joyful noise in others, no shade.
But there's something about hearing and seeing that and,
and, and, and digesting those words that you're saying.
This is why one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about hip
hop and Christian artistry, because we need, we need things
to come to our mind about forgiveness, about restoration,
about conflict resolution, about God's holiness.
We need these things to come to our mind.
I just so happens that some friends of mine, Jalen and and
Roy, we're here and we've and we've, we connected through
music, but it's gone so much deeper than that because there's
something, there's something special, there's something
intimate as you're creating songs and singing to the Lord.
And, and I think there's a couple extremes that we want to
avoid, right? I'm not saying like we, we
don't, we don't want to center a whole discipleship of formation
around music production. I don't think that's healthy.
And some churches fall that way. But I also don't think, I also
think we don't want to undermine the importance of singing songs
together. It's biblical people.
NT Wright, theologian, historian, says if you don't
want your garden to grow weeds, one of the best ways to keep it
well stocked with strong, sturdy flowers and shrubs.
If you is to keep it well stocked with strong, sturdy
flowers and shrubs. If you don't want your mind and
heart to go wandering off into the realms of darkness, one of
the best ways is to keep it stocked with wise and thankful
themes so that comfort, words of comfort, guidance, and good
judgement come bubbling up, unbidding from the memory and
the subconscious. We want to store these songs in
our hearts. So part of part of, I guess the
resource that we'll offer you to as a playlist, we're going to
send out a playlist in the next newsletter that has many of the
spiritual songs that we've been singing.
And so I hope it aids in your formation.
I hope that you can, you probably know a lot of these
songs already, but I hope it helps bring these things out of
your subconscious and helps in your spiritual walk.
I'm certainly familiar how it does it negatively.
I'm, I'm a millennial. I think the, the song and, and
phrase Yolo probably like was responsible for 70% of bad
decisions in the 2000 tens. Everything was Yolo, bad
decision. If I really dig in the crates
and for those that really like hip hop, see something hip hop
knock if you buck was thank you. I'm glad somebody laughed about
that. It's a song that really just
encourages fighting in the club and people took that literally
like and so music and songs and words have power.
I'm not talking about some new age spiritual manifestation, but
I'm saying that if you continually replay something in
your subconscious, that starts to shape your mindset.
So the invitation here is for all of us, no matter where we
find ourselves in the spiritual journey, it's to come out of the
darkness and to step into the light.
It's for everybody, whether it be we're thinking our lives
holistically or this area where you're like, I don't yet have an
imagination for this God. Are you asking me to reshape my
thinking? Are you asking me to remove
something from my life? Remember, God looks at the
heart. So even if these areas,
intoxication, lust, bad language, stealing, anger,
falsehood, even if on the surface you don't do these
things, all of us, all of us struggle with these things in
our heart on some level. And it's the continued process
of inviting God in to say, God, have your way with these areas
and let me step into your imagination as you show me what
healthy relationships look like, as you show me what self-control
and beauty looks like, as you, as you show me what generosity
looks like. So I invite you to ponder and to
pray. I invite you to ponder and to
pray. Ponder or pray.
Think about darkness and light. The goal here is not just to
step out the darkness. The goal here is not just to
take off the old self. The goal here is not just to
restrain and abstain. The goal here is to partner with
God in the beauty and the justice and the restoration and
the holiness that He is Co creating.
And so I invite you to ponder on that.
God, what's my part? What are the areas in which you
are removing from me? Not to hurt me, not to make me
bored, but to make my life more beautiful, To do exceedingly,
abundantly, be abundantly beyond what I can ask or think.
And then I invite you to pray, To pray that God would give you
a holy imagination of your true self in the light.
Not, not some like Christianese kind of version that you're
trying to conform to, that you may think it needs to be, but
what your true self looks like in the light.
Like I said, a lot of us, including myself, I need God to
give me that imagination. I would not have imagined the
weird daily stuff I do now. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have
dreamt it. I'm sure many of you could even
pray a prayer of gratitude of like where I might right now.
I wouldn't have imagined that. And so when God, we're always
growing, you might, there might. There is another level of
imagination now, my son, my daughter.
Now that we've done that, I'm inviting you to take off more
old and put on more new.