Coronavirus Killers // Ty Gibson

well hey welcome everybody whoever you are wherever you are in the world first a very enthusiastic shout out to the story liners the locals who usually worship here with us and and whoever else out there wherever you are in the world we've been getting responses from all over the place thank you for taking the time to tune in and to spend this time with us last week when we were together we heard from Kevin Alou Sheila and and he created for me an extremely vital distinction that that I was just so encouraged by you may remember if you were with us last week he said no no no we're not doing social distancing that's the wrong language he said we're doing physical distancing I like that distinction because we are social creatures and literally we begin to wither and to die without social contact so we're not doing social distancing we're doing physical distancing for the safety of ourselves and our families and anybody else that is vulnerable in our communities but listen that doesn't mean that we can't connect socially that we can't hear from one another that we can't reach out across the airwaves like we're doing right now on the internet and in texting and emails and phone calls I just want to encourage you again to take time during this pandemic crisis to connect with people perhaps on a deeper level than you have in years or maybe ever I've been hearing stories from people who are saying to me that this has put them in a position where now they can just take a deep breath and and back up and reassess their relationships are you reassessing your relationships are you reassessing the people that matter most in your life are you taking the time to pause and maybe to see them in ways you haven't seen them in a long time are you speaking words that need to be spoke right now we're in a crisis but this crisis can be leveraged in so many incredible ways as we back up take a deep breath and begin to connect with people in ways that we haven't in a really long time well today I want to explore with you a message that I'm going to be calling coronavirus killers we're going to be discovering what it is that we can do some specific things we can do and then one very very very specific thing we can do in order to fight the corona virus at the most foundational core level so I'm going to ask you to track with me grab a Bible wherever you are in the world wherever you are in your home grab a Bible so you can maybe look up some of what we're going to be exploring but I want to begin with one of the most remarkable studies in my opinion that has ever been conducted and this particular study was done by Alvaro Peck well Leon and this particular medical scientist his professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School now that sounds pretty prestigious it sounds like the guy knows what he's talking about he's firing on all cylinders he's got a frontal lobe and he's using it now he had a hunch and he said hey I want to explore whether my hunch is true and so what he did is he got together a large controlled study a group of people and he said listen all of you are going to learn this very simple song on a keyboard on a piano just learn this simple song so everybody in the group learned the song once that was done he then divided the group in order to controlled study there is the controlled group in the study now what he did was remarkable and his hunch turned out to be true as one group were engaged in a set of instructions and the other group engaged in another set of instructions something was revealed now the first group what their instructions were hey I want you to now practice this song that you basically learned very simply practice the song for two hours each day for five days straight so that was their assignment they practiced the song for two hours each day for five days and as they were practicing the song for two hours each day for five days well the doctor was mapping their their brain activity and as the brain activity was being mapped I mean everything was lighting up in the in the frontal lobe and they were they were engaging in a way that was evident on the neurological level on the biological level their brains were lighting up with the experience of actually engaging their physical body in playing the music for two hours a day but then the other group their assignment was to sit at the piano bench at the keyboard bench and not to put their fingers even on the keyboard this group they were to just sit there and imagine that they were playing the song just bring up the image of themselves playing the song just rehearse the song in their mind because they had learned it previously in the study but they didn't touch the keyboard they just imagined themselves doing it and the revelation was astounding because there were there was no difference in the brain scans so the point is that whether a human being is performing an action or imagining that they are performing an action the brain activity is precisely the same this is astounding now another neurological study another neural neurologist who is studying the brain dr. Eugene Cho he comes along and he says listen I've looked at the study that was done and the conclusion is that our brains do not know the difference between imagination and reality now that sounds a little spooked at first glance we sometimes refer to this as the placebo effect you can be told that you're going to have a particular effect from taking a certain pill for example and it can just be saline solution in the pill but you're told that it has curative properties and your body will respond to what you believe about the pill that you're taking well joy is telling us that the study that was done reveals that in fact the human brain doesn't know the difference between imagining or executing an action now he goes on because he's about to make a point he says your thoughts produce your feelings and in the article he goes on to explain how that not only do your thoughts produce your feelings but but get this and we all know this because we've experienced it your thoughts produce your feelings or your emotions but then we know something else that dr. Troy goes on to explain and that is that your thoughts producing feelings have a biological impact so so we've all experienced where a particular idea a concept of thought will produce an emotional state that you might feel somewhere in your body for example you could be told something negative about yourself by someone you love and feel the disappointment in the pit of your stomach you could encounter happy words from somebody that you have a high regard for somebody could look straight into your eyes and say you're very cool and I love you and I can't believe that I get to spend my life with you and you feel in your body a sense of lightness because there is a connection between what we think what we feel and then the biological imprint the impact that is made on the human being but more than biological impact the thoughts and the feelings produce behavioral reactions or responses now these behaviors these actions can occur at the chemical level of the body but they can also occur at the behavioral level so every one of us all the time we're experiencing this this this constant on-going process where our thoughts are producing our feelings which are then producing actions in our bodies biologically and in our behaviors in relation to others in other words we're extremely mental we are mental creatures we have bodies but we are minds and the mind is constantly in the process of dictating our emotional state which then impacts our biology ancient biblical wisdom was on to this where in Proverbs 23 and verse 7 we read these fascinating words that as a person thinks in his heart so is he this is a poetic way of saying that there is a direct relationship between what's going on in a person's thought life what's going on in their thinking process and what they experience so so so thinking produces real effects or we could say that our thoughts generate realities for us and this is why our thoughts are so important now dr. joy having laid that groundwork for us comes to his punchline in this time of corona virus pandemic the point of his article is this fear of the corona virus is deadlier than the virus itself now I have to be honest with you when I first read that I thought no no no don't don't don't go there dr. Cho I don't don't minimize my fear my fear is legitimate I mean I ought to be afraid if I'm not afraid then I'm not going to take the measures necessary in order to protect myself my family my community but dr. Choi is suggesting as you go on in the article that there is a better motive for social or physical distance and that motive is Impa the-- in other words rather than physical distancing for fear of coronavirus physical distancing can be engaged in more from the standpoint of a thought and feeling process of empathy I want to be good to my world to my family to my community to anybody who might be adversely impacted by the coronavirus and you might say that in that sense that there is a kind of legitimate fear that is in the form of empathy versus an illegitimate fear that cripples a human being and begins to produce adverse biological impact when you are in fear the doctor says a reactive part of your brain called the amygdala takes control of your actions this is profound this is essentially suggesting to us that fear can be a hard task master fear can dictate our actions and cause us to do things cause us to act in ways that are out of character for us we might begin to engage in a process of self-preservation that we've never seen in ourselves before because fear is driving us the doctor goes on and says that when you're living in fear you enter into a fight flight freeze response now it depends on who you are we're all wired differently but some people when they're afraid their immediate response is to start throwing punches to start being violent to fight other individuals are wired in such a way that they're just inclined to run from the trouble and others still because they're wired how they're wired are inclined to just freeze up to be crippled to not know what to do or where to go and they just become completely shut down well joy goes on and he says something fascinating and when you are in this reactive state you body starts producing a steroid called cortisol to help you handle the stress now this is just a biological chemical process that's going on in your body you experience the thoughts that produce the feelings of fear and your biology is impacted you begin to experience a elevation of your cortisol levels in your body and then Choi tells us the problem with cortisol going to high in the body and guess what cortisol does to your immune system Choi says it weakens it and the last thing that you need the last thing I need we don't need our immune systems to be weakened I mean our best defense against the corona virus right now is literally a strong immune system we've all read the news and we all know that the corona virus is most deadly to those who have a primary condition to which corona virus becomes a secondary condition that creates a level of problem that others who don't have a pre-existing condition will not be faced with so the immune system according to dr. Choi is extremely important for the corona virus being combated at the most basic level in the human body the last thing we need is the immune system weaken the immune system is a wonder it is an incredible thing here in this image what we see is some kind of antigen some kind of problem some kind of issue in the human body in the blue and what that issue might be it could be a cancer cell it could be a virus like corona virus and then what's happening here in the red this is what these are called killer T cells this is the part of your immune system that literally goes after any kind of foreign invading force that your body does not need and does not have the capacity to deal with and these killer T cells a part a vital part of your immune system literally begin to to eat up to consume whatever that foreign agent is that is a threat to you now we don't know this is going on we're not we're not living under a microscope all the time we're not looking at what's going on in our bodies but right now as I stand here before you as you sit there wherever you are your body is undergoing this process right now this very moment you have killer T cells in your body that are pursuing anything that might cause you harm and going to work to consume and to destroy them it's a remarkable thing going back to the Bible's ancient wisdom when we read from the book of Proverbs a merry heart a happy heart that is a positive frame of mind thoughts and feelings a merry heart does good like medicine like medicine but a broken spirit which is the opposite of a merry heart here a broken spirit it dries the bones now this is being written under inspiration of the Holy Spirit thousands of years ago when science had not done the incredible work of discovering that guess what that our killer T cells are literally produced in the marrow of our bones in that fatty tissue that is there within our bones that's where our immune system is built and strengthened and then moves out through the body to do its work it's remarkable that scripture in a poetic way not in a scientific way is saying to us listen your frame of mind the way you think in the way you feel has a direct impact on what's going on in your bones this is astounding so dr. Troy comes back and he says son we have bacterial viruses like coronavirus fungus and a whole array of foreign particles we are exposed to how often the doctor says every day but it's your immune system that prevents you from getting sick so he's saying that we are literally under attack all the time by by foreign agents that want to get into our bodies and make us sick but the immune systems job is to fight off sickness now dr. Troy goes on and a number of other people right now are telling us a lot of things that are obvious coronavirus killers or you could say immune system boosters if you like the positive language better are things like good food moderate exercise and sound sleep I'm not going to dwell on these because you can literally google this stuff and find out that you need to be eating highly nutritious food food that is dense with nutrition I literally have my counter in my house in the kitchen covered with bananas and oranges and grapefruits and apples and Kiwis and that's what I'm eating mostly because those foods have the effect of increasing your ability to build good both red and white cells in order to fight disease eat good food that's one line of defense against coronavirus moderate exercise it can be less than moderate if you like but moderate exercise is really all it takes just three or four days a week if you just now you know we're quarantine now we're we're physical distancing so you can go outside if you live in a place where where you can not come into contact with with people in any kind of threatening way but just going for a walk three or four days a week walking for 30-40 minutes that's all it takes really it does it doesn't require for you to run a marathon in order to bring your system up to par to be sufficient to face coronavirus sound sleep you need I mean come on we're at home now take a nap take two naps take three naps don't get bedsores but sleep sleep sleep as much as you can I don't even know if it's possible to catch up on sleep I've read some studies that indicate that once you've lost it you have have the negative impact and you can't really catch up on it but we need to be sleeping I'm not going to really build on any of these because you can find this information everywhere but building on the work of the study that was done by the Harvard physician and neuroscientists building on the work of dr. Choi I'm going to suggest to you that there is a psychological and emotional aspect to building the immune system that we mostly do not take in to consideration so good food moderate exercise sound sleep and I'm going to suggest to you that the human being is wired in such a way that the absolute most powerful thing that you can do for your immune system is to hear good news to hear good news in fact dr. Troy and his article says in one of his recommendations he says listen shut off the constant steady stream of bad news about the corona virus now he's balanced he's saying don't be ignorant and take the necessary steps but don't be constantly tracking with this stuff the numbers change continually you know enough to know that you need to physically distance shut down long enough in order for the curve be flattened you know that much that's really all you need to know but don't feed your mind on a constant cycle of negativity about this or anything else we need good news and the Apostle Paul was a master of communicating both the good news and the impact of the good news in his letter his second letter to Timothy in Chapter 1 the Apostle Paul begins in chapter 1 in the first few verses by saying hey the gospel is our thing the gospel which is as we're about to discover that means good news and then he says of this good news check this out you guys God through this good news has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind here is a I don't know a holy psychological Trinity if you will here we are invited in to a space of thinking and feeling through the gospel that will produce an energizing effect that will empower us on all levels it is a good news that will arouse inside of us a knowledge of and an experience with the love of God and it is a good news that produces sound mindedness sound thinking the scripture if we look at what Paul is saying here in verse 7 of 2nd Timothy 1 the scripture from a negative standpoint is telling us that fear depletes energy if you look at the grammar he's saying that he's saying listen listen fear has the impact of depleting your energy your mental energy your emotional energy your social relational energy and even your biological energy you will be whittled away on all levels of your humanity if you let fear dominate your thinking and feeling process so Paul comes along and he says listen I've got some good news for you and the good news reverses the adverse effects of fear but he also says that fear has the effect of compromising love and I'm being careful here with my language I think Paul was being careful with his language we're not going to say that that fear completely overturns or or negates love but we are going to say that when we are in a state of fear we're going to experience something that is extremely adverse what we're going to experience is a compromised sense of comfort in the love of God and the fear is going to override that sense of love but here's where dr. joy makes an extremely powerful point he says and guess what else happens when you stay in fight flight freeze mode now he's told us already what happens but he says something else happens when you're in that state of fear he says something occurs you're in a selfish or self protective state now I think we need to be careful and not accuse people that when they're in fear that they're being selfish but the doctor is basically saying to us that when you are in a fearful state your natural impulse is self-preservation and so there is a self concern that becomes inordinate it takes over selfishness sets in and he says that what happens is you literally lose the capability of thinking or having empathy fear compromises our capacity for empathizing with others it compromises our capacity to think clearly it has the effect of changing us on a very deep level God has not given us Paul says a spirit of fear whenever we're experiencing fear we can be certain of one thing according to the Apostle Paul and that is that God is not the author of that fear it's something that either the circumstances of life are imposing on us or it's something that we're generating inside of ourselves but God is not the one who's giving us fear God in fact is in the business of alleviating our fear by the grand truth of the gospel that then energizes or empowers us and restores love to our thinking and feeling process and brings soundness of mind now dr. Troy just said speaking scientifically definitely not quoting the Apostle Paul that this sound mind part is compromised with fear dr. Joyce says that when you're living in fear your capability of thinking is compromised you can't think clearly or we might summarize Paul by saying that fear creates mental distortion you begin to believe things either that are patently false or you begin to believe things that are an exaggeration of the situation and whether you're believing something that is completely false or something that is an exaggeration of the facts the effect is the same fear cripples our ability to think rationally logically clearly and so the Apostle Paul comes along and he says listen I've got some good news for you and this good news if you take it on board if you begin to believe this good news it will give you power and love and a sound mind and here's Paul preaching the good news God has saved us and called us to a holy life I want you to notice first of all that the Apostle Paul speaks of salvation as a past tense reality he doesn't say God is going to save you as if that salvation were dependent on you doing something in order to get it he speaks of salvation as a past tense reality God has past tense saved us God has saved us in the person of Jesus Christ the salvation of the human race is a done deal it's a finished product in Christ eases in his living and in his dying and in his resurrection and in his ascension to the right hand of the Father Jesus has accomplished as a historical fact the redemption of humanity in himself Paul goes on to explain that in the person of Jesus Christ a specimen of the human race is already there in the eternal kingdom with the father at the victory position at the right hand of the Father literally right now as we're spending this time together a member of the human race is enthroned at the right hand of the Father so hypothetically even if the whole human race were to reject God's offer of salvation it's already done a human being is there presently this moment already redeemed but that hypothetical situation is bad news it's not as if the human race is going to say no I've said yes you've said yes we know that God has in the person of Christ saved us and he's called us to a holy life to a special life to a set apart life to a life that is distinct from all the principles that the world is governed by we're not better than but we have chosen by the grace of God to create space between ourselves and the common patterns of fear that govern the world God has saved us and he's called us to a holy life now here's the key part not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace this language is crucial not because of anything we have done let your mind rest upon that take that on board the Apostle Paul is saying listen I'll tell you what the good news is the good news is that God has saved us saved you saved me and it's not because of anything we have done God's love according to the Apostle Paul can't be earned you can't merit it you can't get God to be any better than he already is God loves you full stop period end of concept end of idea there's nothing you can add after a comma in order to somehow produce in God's something that's not already there he already loves you he already in Christ has accomplished your salvation and you can't earn it it's not by virtue of anything you have done so then Paul says this this grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time this is profound Paul is saying that there is a sense in which that our salvation has always resided in the heart of God before Jesus even came to the world and was incarnate and lived his benevolent life of perfect love before Jesus died on the cross before Jesus was resurrected way back before the beginning of time salvation was enshrined if you will in the heart of God it is what Paul called in the previous verse God's purpose of grace God imagined our salvation before it was a reality God imagined our salvation sitting as it were at the keyboard before he ever played the song of salvation to our hearts God imagined our salvation before we ever even sinned which is simply to say that God's love supersedes anything that might happen to any of us as human beings this grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ so there is the the eternal reality of salvation enshrined in the heart of God if perchance they fall and God in his foreknowledge knew we would fall into sin God said I will never stop loving them I'm just gonna follow straight through being Who I am and I'm gonna keep loving them and loving them and loving them at any cost to myself and God in his heart in his foreknowledge knew that that would involve Jesus becoming a member of the human race he knew that that would involve the suffering and death of Christ at the cross God knew all of it before time began and then it happened then it happened God at the keyboard lifted his hands and began to play the song to engage in the acts of redemption God began to be present with us in the flesh real time right here on planet Earth and revealed to us what had always been in his heart in his imagination all along there is a sense in which God literally in His infinite wisdom and his infinite imagination already saw your eternity with him before it ever took place it's a cherished hope in the heart of God it is a cherished desire in the heart of God that you that I would be with him for all eternity future and Jesus is the prototypical human who went through the entire process of living the perfect life of benevolent love dying the death of perfect self-sacrificing love and then rising to new life and ascending to the right hand the father to the victory position Jesus is there as US as our representative he is there the second Adam Paul will say in another one of his letters Jesus has now appeared as our Savior real time in human history and salvation has been achieved in him and then Paul comes to his punchline which is that God's love you guys God's love is revealed in Christ with a level of clarity that overcomes our fear Paul makes the point that in Christ in Christ we witness that death has been destroyed and life and immortality have been brought to light through the gospel this is astounding Paul is telling us here that in the person of Jesus Christ everything necessary for our eternal life our immortality has already been achieved both life and immortality now the word life here is Zoe in the Greek 0e literally check this out you guys the Apostle Paul is saying that what Jesus accomplished on our behalf what Jesus accomplished for you and for me it gives us a quality of life here and now that is free of fear a life that is full of power and love and a sound mind that's here and now that's not eternity future that's not something you get at the end of this life when you die or at the second coming of Jesus that's the part that he describes as immortality yes there is eternity future but right now Jesus has destroyed death and he has brought both life zowie life present tense quality of life to us right now even as our bodies are waning with death and fighting off the virus is that this world imposes upon us even as we are in the process of fighting for our biological lives the Apostle Paul says listen you can have a quality of life in your thinking in your feeling process you can have Zoe life you can have present temporal life in Christ right here right now abiding in him in fellowship with him knowing his love for you letting your mind feast upon his love for you taking it on board and believing what he calls the gospel believing the gospel now the gospel is a word as I said that means good news but you could just as easily translate it as glad tidings or happy message literally the good news that we see in Christ is I'm going to modify this just a little bit for effect the gospel is the happiness inducing message it produces a frame of mind a state of heart or emotion in which happiness and gladness and goodness over takes everything that encroaches upon us the good news of the gospel summarized is simply and profoundly this God knows literally everything about you and still loves you God knows everything about me and still loves me the Apostle Paul has just told us that that he has saved us God has saved us in Christ not because of anything we have done and if it's not because of anything we have done listen it is the free gift of God's grace so that this temporal life right here right now and the quality of that life that we enjoy and immortal life in eternity future are both the gift of God and I'm telling you while our hearts hope for eternal life in the future we could sure use some quality of life right here and right now the good news of God's love is the most powerful force in the universe the corona virus is a threat to our physical well-being and the corona virus has an additional adverse effect that's even more potentially damaging and diabolical because it terrorizes us with fear we need to take a deep breath and inhale and take in the knowledge of God's grace and love and exhale all the anxiety and fear that wants to dominate us in this time of world wide crisis we are called into Christ because things have already been accomplished in him that for you and for me right now not just in eternity future but right now the gift of God in Christ to you to me right now is power and love and a sound mind that negates all fear hey thanks so much for watching we hope that message was a blessing to you God's Word is powerful it penetrates into our minds into our hearts brings about transformation in every aspect of our listen we don't want you to miss any content so again we want to encourage you to click on subscribe and track with the content that's going to be coming out week after week and if you'd like to partner with us in this global Ministry of taking the gospel of Christ to the whole world we want to 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Channel: Storyline Church

Views: 6,045

Keywords: storyline church, ty gibson, coronavirus

Id: hbfTeiaaYHc

Length: 42min 27sec (2547 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 04 2020