Speaking of Health - Part 1 - It's All Connected

all right good morning everyone good morning good morning good morning and happy friends and family day it's great to see so many people I know it's a rainy day out there today but I'm glad to see that the rain didn't stop you from coming here today we're starting a new series called speaking of speaking of health okay and I am super duper excited about this series not just because I think it's gonna be a powerful series and it's really has the power to help us see our lives and our futures in a new light but the reason that I'm really excited is because this series specifically I will be sharing and speaking from a place of personal experience and I want to share about that so what I'm preaching to you here in this series is not something that I read somewhere in a book only but something that I experienced in my own life and I saw the difference that it made so I'm so excited to share this message with you guys over the coming four weeks the series is titled speaking of health and as Joe said earlier we're gonna be talking about all kinds of different health now you're sitting there and thinking to yourself okay wait a minute you gonna sit here and talk about physical health and you can talk about how we shouldn't eat this and we should exercise this and you gonna just another make us feel guilty about the things that we do they take pleasure in life or is he gonna speak to us about emotional health as you can get all you know feeling and kumbaya on us and all that kind of stuff someone you know you may have heard when I when I mentioned this before that we're gonna address the topic of mental health and you say wait a minute what in the world does that have to do with me we're a church so probably spiritual health is somewhere in there but we kind of know those things our problem isn't that we don't know problems we can't do what kind of health is that we're gonna talk about here what I'm gonna tell you is we're actually not going to talk about any of those I'm not here to talk to you about spiritual health or physical health or emotional health or mental health I'm here to talk to you about your health not any part of you but you as a person and I want to start off from the very beginning here and give you the key thought every time we do a series there's like a key thought for this series now I want to give it to you right up front because this is what we want to focus on over the coming four weeks each one of us let's say this all together okay like class participation on friends and family day let's say together I am one person no one's saying with me I all together ready one two three I am one person made up of many parts all of which are connected and all of which belonged to God that's our key thought for this series is that I'm not here talking about your physical health your spiritual your emotional health your mental health your relational health I'm talking about your health I'm not trying to divide you and me into different parts I am a person and so are you and if there's any part of me that is unhealthy then all of me is unhealthy logic nobody walks around and says yeah my lungs have cancer but I'm doing great no one walks around say yeah I broke my back and my neck is I tore a disk or a spine or every but you know what thank God that my cold is gone if there's any part of me that's broken any part of me that's sick then all of me is broken and all of me is sick but we're gonna talk about here in this series is based on something like I said that I experienced personally let's go back a few years the year was roughly 2010 some somewhere near 2010 2011 somewhere around there and I was not in the best health I was working okay a lot of hours okay as often times this this job often entails a lot of hours priests don't just work Sunday contrary to popular belief okay I was working a lot of hours a lot of stress physically I was not in good shape alright I was probably about 15 pounds heavier than I am right now which is probably okay when I always go back to like my wedding wait that's what I feel like I was in prime shape okay the day I got married so I was probably about 20 25 pounds heavier than the day that I got married I was not sleeping well I was exercising because I'd like to exercise I like competition things like that but whatever I was doing an exercising was far outweighed by my eating habits I used to eat like nobody's business like I can maintain like the college lifestyle of eating all the way through probably like my mid 30s which was basically you open the fridge the seafood diet you know that one right the seafood you eat the food right okay I was at the point where I'm not joking and I used to eat dessert after every meal that I died ice cream after brick like I ate just about anything that I wanted to eat spiritual I was doing okay like I was still doing everything on the outside that I needed to be doing like I was serving as priest in the church church is growing I'm preaching I'm teaching prayer meetings meetings whatever it may be I'm doing all the right stuff on the outside but somes not right on the inside something is just off when sleeping is good carrying a lot more stress my mind okay I've always been someone who enjoys reading okay and I feel that reading is something that that that that's important for my growth but at this point in time I found myself I was only reading to like prepare for a sermon which is the death sentence of any priest right when you only pray for the sermon that you're gonna preach or we only pray in public or you only read for the sermon that you're gonna preach like even I remember on vacation that year vacations always a time where I take like a ton of books and I catch up but this year vacation it was mainly vegging out in front of the TV and just doing nothing of value so I did what any spiritual person would do I said the problem is a spiritual problem spiritual problem discipline is what I need be to wake up earlier I don't need more sleep I'd even less tea buddy to be more disciplined I need more willpower I need to pray more I need to fast more I need to just force myself do a better job of being the person that I know that I need to be and then I found this verse when I show you this verse at first you may say I don't really understand it but this is one of those verses that when you when you when you we understand it it's very powerful but give it a minute to sink in second Timothy chapter 2 verse 20 21 but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay some for honor and some for dishonor therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter the dishonor ones he will be a vessel for honor sanctified and useful for the master prepared for every good work useful for the master is a phrase that kind of struck me because I feel kind of like I shared who those are here in the liturgy this morning I shared about this is that I feel that God has like a mission for me and God wants to accomplish stuff through me I don't think I'm here just to exist I don't think anyone's here just to exist I think if you're here with no mission that means our God is like a random God and just kind of does stuff cuz he's bored I don't believe in that I believe that God wants to do great stuff through me and God has a mission for me but what I found at this point time my life I was not as useful for the master my usefulness if I'm a tool in the hands of the great carpenter or the great master tool craftsman builder whatever the tool was not as effective the tool mentally okay God prepared me to be able to preach and he wants me preached with power I preached with passion and preached with energy but it wasn't this sharp the tool wasn't as sharp as it needed to be God wanted me to do stuff okay not just you know eight hours a day maybe nine hours maybe but my body didn't have the energy that I needed to keep up with what I felt God wanted me to do and I felt that my usefulness to the master was deteriorating and that's when it hit me that's when it hit me that everything want God wants to accomplish through me God wants to accomplish lots or meeting a lot through I hope you believe that that's the most important thing you have to know that God wants to do great stuff through you anything God wants to do through me is gonna be in this body this is if you are on a long trip and you get a rental car at the beginning of the trip this is the only one that you get so you better take care of it because if the rental car if the tires you may have a great engine you may have that sucker full of gas but if a tire blows you're not gonna make it to your destination and I began to view my body all of my body my mind my body all of me I began to view it as a tool to serve the purpose of God before this I like many other people view it as like yeah you don't need to worry about like my body I need to worry about my mind I need to worry about that like that stuff is the non spiritual stuff but then what I came to the conclusion is that my body is an essential part of the ministry that God has called me to and if I don't keep this thing in shape how can I serve him always tired how can I preach if my mind is in sharp how can I pray if my mind is always if I'm always stressed out and have 10,000 things on my mind all the things that God wants to through me I have to do in this body I have to do with this brain so I need to start take care of this thing not in a a materialistic or in a narcissistic way but in a I want to be useful for the master kind of way 1st Corinthians chapter 6 verse 20 for you were bought at a price therefore glorify God in your what's that say in your body and in your spirit which are gods and your body and in your spirit which are gods what I realized is that neglecting my body was a sin neglecting my body was a sin because not my body I didn't make the rental car I was given the rental car by God and I needed to take better care of it so then when I returned it and he did the inspection you know on the outside when they do the inspection there's no insurance on this thing you pay for whatever damage okay I needed to make sure that I was returning it back to him in decent shape so what I discovered in this verse and what I hope you'll discover here today is that God cares for my physical body just as much as my spiritual body cares for my mental health just as much as he cares my spiritual health one is not more spiritual in the other I know it sounds that way like we should have care only about Bible we should care only about prayer we should care only about like sin and things like that and we shouldn't care about these these earthly these fleshly these worldly things but that's not what the scripture says right there says that God cares just as much in my body as he cares about my spirit and I feared let me tell you some of the things that I fear and let's see if it if it hits a if it you know rings a bell with you guys I fear that God is gonna tell me I gave you a mission and I gave you a mission to serve me for 80 90 years on this earth and you ran out of gas after 60 and you only accomplished 2/3 of what I wanted you to do because you didn't take care of your body and God says to me I had a message to preach to the ends of the earth through you but you let your mind go to mush because you didn't feed it you killed it by the way you treated your brain by the way you didn't take care of your emotional health and the message that I wanted to preach with power you never never reached more than 70% because you fail to take care of your body tell you the next one I'm saying as honestly and as bluntly but I say it with all love say this was all love and be as honest and blunt as possible did you know what my heart of hearts wants to say so many times but I'm scared to say because I'm kind of a coward is that many of the problems today that we think are spiritual have nothing to do with spiritual many of the problems in your life which you label as I need to pray morning too fast morning more discipling need more willpower need more self-control many of the problems that you say are spiritual aren't spiritual at all did you know let's play a little game but did you know please eat just random did you know that visceral fat fat around this area especially in males is connected with increased anger and temper did you know that did you know that there are certain people's brains certain brains if they've now been able to study and see that are less able to control impulses than others which would make them more prone to addiction that they have less ability than an average person to resist temptation and that's why they fall and maybe into so maybe the addiction isn't just spiritual maybe it's not just try harder maybe the temper isn't just you're a bad person maybe there's more to the story than you may realize is going on can I say the one that I really want to say with all my heart that I tell my wife all the time marriage problems I believe the many of today's marriage problems are not marriage problems at all I believe they are undiagnosed mental health problems and I say that you say it's easy what I'm saying is if you have obsessive-compulsive tendencies if you have paranoia you have anxiety if you have depression like if you have these things which is no shame in it okay that just means a part of your brain isn't functioning look if I'm born and a part of my elbow my elbow doesn't Bend there's no shame in that I'm born with an elbow that doesn't bend the right way if I'm born with flat feet there's no shame in that so if I'm born with a part of my brain that tends to obsess or be more obsessive-compulsive there's no shame in that but the point is it's not a spiritual problem and you can fast and pray all day and all night and you can read all the spiritual books that you want but not all problems are just spiritual not all problems are just fast and pray and many of the problems that we face today I believe are undiagnosed mental physical emotional problems which we just put under spiritual and we leave it that way not all problems are just spiritual you know why because I am one person I am one person made of many parts every one of those parts is connected and every one of those parts belongs to God and he cares about it so if I got a problem spiritual he cares if I got a problem physical he cares I got a problem mental he cares laid upon me emotional relational he cares because all those things belong to him and they're all connected if you suffer and one of them it's gonna affect the health of the overall so I'm not here to talk to you about specific kinds of Hell I'm here talking about your health and what it takes for you to get healthy when I made this realization several years back I took specific steps I started on a yearly basis to set goals for myself first of all physical I set physical goals that's why I started I said I wanted to run a 5k then I want to run a 10k couple years ago I ran a half marathon not because I want to be and anything but this is the way I have to force myself because I'm kind of a competitive person so I have to set a goal and try to compete so like getting shape done do much for me but but challenge myself to run a half marathon drop me down to actually three pounds below my wedding weight okay what that dropped me but that was a while ago okay I started to set mental goals for myself as well terms of a certain number of books that I will read every single year okay and already this year I set my highest goal at summary twenty books by the end of the year and I'm already surpassed that goal I'm riding halfway through the year not because the books not because the information but because I need to keep this thing as sharp as possible I put myself on a meal plan okay those who see me eat no okay those especially those in the office see I eat the exact same thing every single day the exact same thing for breakfast exact same thing for morning snack at 10:30 exact same thing for lunch at 12:30 exact same thing for my afternoon snack at 2:30 and 3:30 and then dinner whatever marrying inputs in the plate and the reason why I did that is not because look all this is not about look look I wear a black robe doesn't matter what I am actually physical shape okay it looks the same and no matter what but this is not about how I look this about how I feel and more importantly about what God wants to do through me and this is the only body that I get to do it so if I don't take care of this body I'm not gonna be able to do but God wants me to do like I said mentally I started to set the goals for the reading because what I realized is that one activity TV kills my brain and one activity reading enriches my brain and makes it stronger I believe in the copycat principle okay I believe that you find someone who has reached a place that you want to get to and do what they do this is why I like to go eat at Panera when I like to eat out because I look in Panera see everyone is thinning in shape so I want to eat at the same place I don't know what they're eating but I like to eat where they eat okay so I go to the places so I know that anybody who has achieved any form of success in just about any field ask them if they read more books or watch more TV and 98% of them will tell you that that the people who are leading the world and leading the change and making a difference don't sit on the couch and binge watch on the Netflix what they do is they open a book and I want to be like them the result of all this change being very honest the result of all this change people come to me and today and they tell me and I believe it's true because I'm people tell me that I look great no people tell me you know what I saw a picture you ten years ago I agree I look today better they look 10 years ago but it's not because of the physical only is because of the overall health I believe today people say you must work so hard you would you know what I'll be hundred percent honest I work less hours today than I ever did before my priesthood but I believe I work much more efficiently and much more effectively and much more smartly before I was round the clock and I was and I was and I was and I was and I was and now I work much less but I believe I work much more effectively because I began to care about all of me not just my spirit Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1 let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us let us run with endurance the race that is set before us I ask you what is the weight that may be weighing you down could be physical weight could be a mental weight there'd be emotional weight what is the weight that is slowing you down from running with endurance not a sprint but endurance the race the guts to run through you for the next 10 20 30 40 better how are you 50 60 to your age 80 till age 90 like there's no slowdown there's no retirement in God's plan like we retire from work so that we can be more committed to the work of God we don't retire from God what is it that is weighing me down well has the potential to weigh me down from running this race my prayer for this series that we can all be honest we can all take a look in the mirror we can all look up at God and say God where am I not investing in my health but I'm falling short of what you want me to do now let's take a step back and I say me I said I am one person many parties let's discuss what those many parts are there are three parts to you and obviously different people can have different interpretation of this but I'm going to keep it simple because I'm not that smart guy so I'm gonna keep it very simple there is essentially three parts to you you have a body you have a soul the soul can also be called mind I'll explain that in a second and you have a spirit you have a body that's the easy part that's the physical part you have a soul the soul would be the emotional part the mental part the intellectual part okay they say that your soul all right is your will your intellect and your emotions another word for all that is your mind I'm going to use those two terms interchangeably your soul and your mind and then you have a spirit which is that piece of the image of God inside you where God Himself resides can God resides inside your spirit the Holy Spirit lives inside of us in our spirit if you were body with no soul you would be a vegetable your body with no soul with no mind you'd be a vegetable okay if you were soul with no body you would be Siri you can be a robot you'd be a computer program you'd be nothing if you were body in a soul without a spirit you would be I'm getting trouble for this one an animal and I know I'm little scruffy like he's got the your dog your cat yes he's the greatest and he's whatever okay what makes us as human beings different than the rest of God's creation is we were created in the image of God and that image of God is that spirit inside of us so this is not like an animal patron kind of a thing like I love scruffy and you love spot and whatever it may be but what makes us as human beings image of God is that spirit inside of us it takes all three of these components to be what's called a person you have to have a body you have to have a soul and you have to have a spirit and like I said a minute ago we were made in the image of God God is three in one is he not God is Trinity Father Son and Holy Spirit and the three are one inseparable but distinct the father is not the son the son is not the spirit yet the three are one and that's how we are as well and like in the Godhead the Trinity is meant to function even though distinct as one they function as one person we are meant to function as one person - so for example if my body doesn't obey my mind if my mind says move my left arm up and my left arm doesn't move up if my mind says move my right arm out and my mom won't move and I have a sickness in the body something is off okay this is not healthy if my body is not listening to my mind in a sphere virtual sense my mind we hope is subject to my spirit that's the difference like you have free choice you can in your mind you can say in your mind you can say I obey God I choose to live a godly life and I choose to subject my mind to my spirit which is the Spirit of God I choose to do that when I do that that's great when I don't do that that's called sin and another word for sin is sickness but sickness of the Spirit if the three are not working together as one package there's something wrong in the person that's why Jesus himself said didn't he say that the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak he's saying they have to be working together in one cohesion let's get a couple biblical references to what I'm talking about here 1st Thessalonians 5 turn 3 and I'll go through these quick causes a couple of them now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit your soul and your body this gives us the three right there be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ Hebrews chapter four verse 12 the Word of God is living in sharper living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the division of soul and spirit he doesn't mention body but obviously that's a given and had the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart and both of these verses we see this hierarchy right here that there's a body which is subject to a mind which should be subject in a perfect setting to the spirit the spirit spiritual health we hear about this all the time that's 99% of time when we go to church this is what we talk about how to stay spiritually healthy physical health you don't need me to tell you about that you just open up the internet you open up anywhere you go and talk about physical health the kind of health that I want to focus on over the coming weeks is that middle layer is the health of our soul / mind when was the last time that you went to church you heard a sermon on the health of your mind on the health of your soul we're gonna focus on that in this coming series and specifically okay I told you earlier that the soul is will intellect and emotions okay I'm generalizing obviously but specifically intellect and emotions we're gonna focus on those two because you know what I believe I believe that those two when the intellect and the emotions are not functioning properly this is the cause of all of the problems that we have in life and what sabotages our happiness and our satisfaction like more than anything else is when our intellect and our emotions have a problem inside them and are not functioning according to God's Spirit so yes ladies and gents him were gonna talk about mental health we're talking about emotional health and you say wait a minute we don't have we don't need and the problem we have today is you here mental health anytime you hear mental health we automatically our minds go to the people who commit the the school shootings and the people who are the terrorists and the people who automatically go to the extremes of the people who are struggling with their mental health but what I will say looking at our diagram here is with it comes to your physical health is it just either you're physically healthy or unhealthy or they're shades on the spectrum in between spiritually is it that some people are spiritually good and other people are spiritually bad or is it that there's degrees on the spectrum well I say the same thing as true mentally I say you may not be the school shooter guy but that doesn't mean that you're in perfect shape medically and I would say as your body as your spirit as your mind all of us need to improve our health and all three of these areas because the principle is the same in all three if any of these three you don't invest in if any of the three you don't invest in it goes down it rots you don't invest in your physical it deteriorates you don't invest in your spiritual down the toilet and you don't invest in your mental and I promise you you will see the effects of it you may never realize what the root of it is but I promise you it will be there the beautiful thing for us living in the year 2018 is science has given to us a wealth of information these days on the effects of everything in life on our minds the effects of just simply aging what it does to our mind the effects of the food that we eat on our mind the effect of our relationships the effect of prayer and meditation and reading on how it does to our mind so we have a wealth of information and I'm not to sit here and pretend to be an expert on any of this but I know just enough to be dangerous and what I want to do just today the few minutes that we have remaining is I want to share just one small thing in the area of your mind and your soul and will expand more over the comings will go into more detail we'll have a lot of fun with this but I always say one piece of information but you may not have realized before but if you realize this it's a game changer and that is did your mind is not your brain your mind is not your brain it's supposed to control it your mind is not your brain to aim it think of it this way think of your brain as a computer software or a computer program that can do all kinds of cool stuff compute stuff you know factorial stuff you know square root stuff whatever kinds of stuff you can do all these incredible things but a computer program need someone to push go or need someone to give it data it needs someone to put it into motion your brain is a tool and it's a tool given to you by God but your mind your soul needs to control it and guide it and your mind can make it better or worse your mind can give it good data or bad data your mind can feed it medicine or feed it poison it kills it if I take my brain out of my head and I put it there on the table you say wow what an incredible brain what can that brain do nothing because the brain is just a tool it's of no value outside of the hands of the mind this has huge implications for us so who cares was this mean let me tell you what this means and forgive me I'm gonna go through some scientific nerdy stuff right here but I I personally find this stuff fascinating so I hope you do too if not I'll just go through it quickly we live in a time where they discover stuff about the brain every single day and every single day we're learning stuff that we never knew before we are learning today what we know today is that your brain is the most complex / important organ ever created nothing functions like your brain did you know that your brain occupies only 2% of your current body weight some of us bigger maybe less okay but 2% of your body weight is your brain but did you know that the number of calories that you consume that goes to your brain is between 25 to 30% so your brain weighs 2% of your body but all the food that you intake almost 1/3 of it goes to your brain to keep it functioning and keep it healthy and keep it doing what it's supposed to be doing did you know that in the average human brain there are more than 100 billion nerve cells 100 billion nerve cells and all these cells are connected but here's the fascinating thing they're not connected like this not a cell to a cell to a cell to a cell they're connected in multiplicity meaning that it could be one cell that's connected to up to 10,000 other cells think of it like a tree okay one cell is like a tree that can be connected which means that in your brain right now you have more connections in your brain than there are stars in the sky how incredible is that information in your brain moves at the speed of more than 268 miles per hour unless you're drunk then it goes considerably lower which should be no shock to anybody did you know that your brain governs so much more of your life than you realize not just your intellect but it governs how you think how you feel how you relate to others it governs your relationships it governs your ability to make good judgment your character your personality your ability to say no to temptation all of this can be traced back to certain functions in the brain and like I said a minute ago the brain is working properly we work properly if the brain is not working properly we have a sickness that we need to address a beautiful thing up until the late 19th or mid 19th early to mid-1990s people Lister how we grew up we were told that your brain develops from childhood and then it stops at a certain age I remember the age that told us it stopped developing hey we were told 25 but we were told sometimes in males ago still 28 okay okay not because we're very smart but because we're delayed that's that's what we were told is that but then after that the brain stops developing so if you had a traumatic brain injury or if there was alcoholism or if there was other things that hurt your brain you just basically like you just had to suck it up and just deal with it as best you could but you couldn't actually do anything about it but today y'all know this is that now we realize that the brain is constantly growing and constantly changing that's the word neuroplasticity you've heard this word before right neuro meaning brain plastic meaning changeable moldable and we know that up until the day that we die we can affect our brain that we can grow we know for sure that the brain is losing they say like 85,000 cells a day the brain is losing but we also know now that we can grow new cells in our brain we can make new connections in our brain but only when the brain is under the control of the mind and treated in such a way one of the guys one of my man crushes in life okay is a guy named dr. Daniel Eamon and you never heard of him it's actually based not too far away okay he actually some people someone from our church actually works in his office which is I think it's in Maryland or somewhere rest which is close to Maryland probably this guy's a stud okay and this guy is kind of one of the leading guys who's leading the technology and the science behind brains and brain imaging and he came up with some kind of technology to be able to take a picture of people's brains and through the picture which calls brain specs they can see which parts of the brain are functioning at a good level which parts are underperforming and which parts are over performing a case of someone who has hyperactivity in certain areas of the brain they can identify these area of the brains when they're hyper leads to this and when these brain these areas are lower activity will lead to us okay judgment all the impulse control things like that and he's been able to take pictures of people's brains and help explain to people what is going on inside their heads here for example is a picture of a healthy brain you can right under their father Anthony's brain okay now I'm just joking and what you see right here is what a healthy brain and this image looks like it's it's it's fully formed okay it's symmetrical on both sides right brain left brain and there's no gaps and no holes don't worry about the color of it cuz you're gonna see some different pictures right now would show different colors the color doesn't mean anything but look more at the texture of the brain here's someone with Alzheimer's disease and you see that a person with Alzheimer's we understand this has deficiencies in their brain which is going to impact how they behave in life and we don't judge them for it because we realize they have a problem in their brain like I said some people bore the problem in their knee problem in their elbow this guy may be born or through whatever set of circumstances has this problem in his brain and he can't function at the optimal level here's someone from a traumatic brain injury which is a motorcycle accident take note of it those wear your helmets if you do or be smart get a car but it's a tube okay and you see that a healthy brain now has Olson has gaps in it from the brain injury here's a brain that used marijuana for several years and you see the impact of marijuana on that person's brain you want to see what's worse than marijuana now this is not a person who had one drink okay this is a person who drank I think it was someone who drank just on weekends but over the course of many many years what I'll say is this I'll say for all those who will argue the value of alcohol for your heart alcohol no one will tell you the alcohols good for your brain that's up to you and so on this is fascinating stuff we're gonna go with no all day on this but we're gonna stop right here what I want to show you here is that what this technology is teaching us is there are many things in life that are clear that hurt our brains smoking hurts your brain when it can swing that the constriction of the blood it hurts your brain stress hurts your brain sleeping eating relationships these things affect our brain and what we're realizing is is that these things can cause damage now here's the beautiful part of it as I said a minute ago is that we're realizing that the same way that we know we can kill our brain we can regrow our brain we can help our brains and the same way that eating certain foods can kill brain cells that eating other foods and grow brain cells and there are certain habits in life that if I continue them I'm going down the toilet with my brain health but there's other habits that if I start them I can rebuild areas that are fallen and we're gonna start talking about this next week about a lot of things that you may not realize a lot of things like the thoughts you choose to believe has an impact on your brain and I'm going to show you next week some stuff about people who struggle with anxiety and depression and you're gonna be shocked you'd say that's the alcoholic brain right or that's the marijuana brain right now to say no that's a person who every single date chooses to believe negative thoughts about themselves and choose to believe negative things and I must say that effect that has on your brain you'll see that stuff next week but the good news is is that we can exercise control over our mental health we can exercise control so let me throw this out to you as we start this series what if I could do something about my anxiety what if I wasn't do to be anxious for the rest of my life what if I could do something about the fear the constant state of fear that I live in the depression what if I can do something about those things and amount of slaves or those feelings anymore what if I can train my brain to think positive not negative what if I can train my brain to think positive not negative to see good not see bad what if I can train my brain to be stronger against the temptations but I think I'm addicted and I think I can't stop it and I think there's no hope what if there's things that I can do mental health wise that allow me to stand stronger against the temptations after Daniel a man believes there is yes you are not stuck with the brain you have you can make it better you're not stuck with the temper that you have you can't exercise control you're not stuck with the obsession over money that you have and I don't know what I can do about it I'm just always thinking about money money money you're not stuck with that there are things that you can do about that you are not stuck to a doom to a life where I can't focus when I pray I can't focus when I go to church I have no willpower to fast I have no discipline to not yell at my kids I'm never a patient person no there are things that we can do about it and that is the goal of what we're gonna discuss here in this series or we're gonna talk about is how we need to stop fighting harder more discipline more fasting more prayer maybe we need to fight smarter maybe we need to work on the things that can help us have success is supposed to just try harder and scripture is clear about the role of our mind when it comes to our life 2nd Corinthians 10:5 just casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ but this verse is saying is your brain is part of your body your brain is part of your body and we need between the spirit and the mind to control the thoughts that go in there and we need between the spirit and the mind to say every thought is captive the obedience of Christ in other words you can change the way you think and thereby change your life starting next week hopefully I've got you excited about this series I am starting next week we're gonna talk about ways that we can invest in our entire health you know the spiritual we know all too well the physical we're gonna talk about the soul level we're talking about things that we can do to invest in our mental and emotional health where I talk very practical things and you may be surprised to hear some of the things that you never realized are killing your brain and are putting you at a significant disadvantage to accomplishing what you want to accomplish in life and it's not that that you can't ever but is that maybe some things need to change some habits need to change and then maybe you'll realize the success that you desire so badly and that God desires for you there's a verse that even put up on the screen that says that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds that's what we want to focus on in this series because as the King Solomon the wise said as a man thinks in his heart so is he if we can change the way we think then we can change our lives my goal this series to give you hope you are made in the image of God and you are made healthy and yes there may be certain deficiencies in your body we can work on it there may be deficiencies in your soul we can work on it deficiencies in your spirit we can work on it and we need to work on it to get to that point because I know that I'm one person made up of many parts all of which are connected all of which belong to God we say this every time we pray the Divine Liturgy when we say make us all worthy or master to partake of your Holies unto the purification of our what of our souls our bodies and our spirits this is where we're going with this series any part of these three is unhealthy and I am NOT healthy and we need to invest to make sure that we can be useful to the mastered healthy tools into masters hands for his purpose for our lives let's stand together for a prayer in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one God amen Heavenly Father we thank you thank you Lord that you have made us in your image and that you haven't left us as like doomed to our biology thank you that you've given us all this information in all this science and through it you teach us how we can get healthy in body and mind and in spirit I pray Lord therefore any one of us who may be struggling in areas that we don't even realize that things that are going on inside of his Lord that we don't even know that they're affecting us are you'd help us to all be honest look ourselves in the mirror lord and take the seat our health seriously that we can be useful tools in your mighty right hand pray these things in the name of your son the prayers of all of your saints here says we pray thankfully our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not a temptation but deliver us an evil one in Christ Jesus our Lord for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever amen

Channel: STSA Church

Views: 9,898

Rating: 4.9379845 out of 5

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Id: yt5LcbkcRIM

Length: 43min 23sec (2603 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 04 2018