Take Heart | Jared Nieman | City Light Church

let's pray father we honor you god we glorify you we thank you for who you are and what you do i just believe lord as we sang this morning that you are more than enough god you are more than enough if people came in here sick today i believe you are their healer if people came in here troubled today lord i believe that you are giving them peace if there's people in here that are broken lord you are their restoration if there's people in here that are confused lord i believe they're leaving here with clarity and wisdom maybe there's people that feel like there is no way for them but you are the way and you make a way where there seems to be no way so jesus i pray that you will be exactly who every person in this room needs you to be for them not that i would determine it for them you be who they need you to be because you are more than enough that is not a song we sing that is who you are in jesus name we pray amen all right so we're in a hot one series and uh uh pastor jaben and shannon had you all submit questions and things you were thinking about things you're facing and many of the questions were about anxiety depression overburden over stress suicide and as you know all of that kind of gets bald together in one okay i went on a three-year study a few years ago about the peace of god i personally for many years in my life struggled significantly with anxiety with insomnia borderline fell into depression at times very negative thinking and it frustrated me plus i'm a pastor and so i talk to a lot of people i counsel people and many of them would come to me with anxiety depression and i didn't know how to help them and there's nothing wrong there's nothing worse than being asked for help and you don't know how to give it and part of the frustration as us christians who deal with anxiety and depression and as you know anxiety and depression has skyrocketed in the last 18 months 80 percent of americans now say that they deal with continuous anxiety so that means that the good majority of the people in this room you are dealing with some form of anxiety or depression except that then we worship jesus and we hear that he's the god of peace that jesus is the prince of peace the night jesus was born the angel declared what peace on earth good will toward men we read philippians 4 that says there's a peace that surpasses understanding and yet it is missing from our life so i'm going to try to teach you as fast as i can okay i did a series on this called the missing piece i've put it on the link in my bio on my instagram page um if you want the whole series please go listen to it i'm not signing you up for an email you don't have to pay for it you don't have to fill out an account and i'm not promoting myself if you don't want to follow me don't if you want to that's cool but i just want you to have the series okay because i can't teach it all to you today although tonight i will teach another part of it so i'm going to really encourage you to come back to church tonight and some of you are thinking oh my god church twice on a sunday like well what else are you going to do you're going to watch football record it football's not going to change your life football's not going to help you sleep better like football's not going to get closer get you closer to jesus so you just decide right now you're coming back at six but why don't you get here like a little early and meet some people and get signed up in a group too okay all right philippians 4 verse 4 it says rejoice in the lord sometimes oh no it says rejoice in the lord what always so even in the worst of times rejoice in the lord always and again paul says rejoice let your gentleman gentleness be made known to all men the lord is at hand be anxious for nothing okay jesus did has anybody ever read that verse and hated it you're like are we allowed to admit it here i'll admit it and i'm a pastor but i used to read that and it it would say be anxious for nothing and i'd be like dude i'm anxious about everything now i'm reading the bible and i'm anxious that i'm not good enough to do what the bible's telling me to do except here's the thing about god god doesn't set you up for failure he sets you up for success so if he tells you to do something then he's going to show you how to do it okay so he says be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to god so he says in anxiety come to me in anxiety come to me in anxiety come to me verse 7 and the peace of god which surpasses understanding will guard your heart and mind through who jesus christ not through you not through alcohol not through weed not through more working out not through more sex no through jesus christ john 16 33 jesus speaking in the world you will have trouble in me you will have peace so in the world you will have trouble philippians 4 verse 6 the word anxious means troubled so jesus says the world trouble and all that comes with it me peace the world trouble me peace paul says be anxious turn to jesus why because jesus is the prince of peace god is the god of peace and yes the night jesus was born the angel of the lord declared peace on earth now that begs the question what does peace mean peace has five definitions in the new testament i'm gonna give you two of them okay again i just don't have time that's why i'm telling you to go just go listen to the whole series all right the first definition means tranquility for your heart and mind tranquility for your heart and mind so a a peaceful a restful a tranquil heart and mind the second definition means this it means health welfare prosperity and every kind of good health welfare prosperity and every kind of good health yes god wants you to be healthy welfare yes god wants you to live well prosperity yes god wants you to prosper not for the wrong reasons the right reasons we're blessed to be a blessing okay all right so don't take that and twist only prosperity gospel well i mean god wants you to prosper just for his glory for your life and to be a blessing okay all right and every kind of good so listen to me church listen if it doesn't fit within health welfare prosperity and all kind of good it is not from jesus it's from the world it may be from your own bad decisions but do not cast blame on god for things that are not associated with health welfare prosperity and all kinds of good why because the angel of the lord declared the moment jesus was born that from this moment until jesus comes back at the end of all things from god the father to his children is health welfare prosperity and every kind of good and there is nothing you can do to change it in your best times in your worst times in the seasons where half your life is good and half of it's bad from god to you no matter what's going on no matter where you are no matter what you are doing he is sending health welfare prosperity and all kinds of good can we give god a shout of praise so he says if you'll turn to me there will be a tranquility there will be health there will be welfare there will be prosperity there'll be all kinds of good and it will surpass human understanding and it will guard so the peace of god is not just a declaration from god we now see it is actually a weapon you use to guard your heart and mind so john 16 says in the world you will have trouble in me you will have peace then he says take heart i've overcome the world. the apostle paul says guard your heart so right now i'm going to teach you how to take heart tonight i'm going to teach you how to take control of your mind you ever woken up in or got in bed in the middle of the night and you got in bed normal and 15 minutes later you were full blown crazy like you entered the sheets a normal human being and 15 minutes later your heart is racing you're sweating and you are you have dreamed up things that couldn't be true even if you actually tried to make them true so tonight you're gonna learn how to get control of your mind so you come back to church for real you come back to church okay so where does trouble land trouble lands in your heart and in your mind but god declares peace and his peace is what health welfare prosperity and every kind of why don't you say that with me come on say it health welfare prosperity every kind of good why don't you say it again health welfare prosperity every kind of why don't you start saying it with a little conviction a little attitude okay like like you might actually believe this okay come on say it with some passion say it one more time why am i being so repetitious because that's how you learn and i want you six months from now when something tries to come into your life that is bringing trouble for you to remember the prince of peace lives on the inside of me and he is the prince of health the prince of welfare the prince of prosperity i'm not going to accept this i am not going to be defined by this i'm not going to be ruled by this i'm not going to live like this anymore i am not going to be depressed i am not going to be broken i am not going to live in panic i live with jesus and he has declared over me say it with me health welfare prosperity and all kinds of good praise the lord amen so john 16 33 says take heart so the enemy wants you to lose heart every day of your life there is a battle going on for control of your heart and mind and the devil wants to get control of it he wants you to lose heart see when you lose heart you get tired you get exhausted you get overburdened over anxious over stressed you start living half-hearted you're just going through the motions i wonder if there's an area of your life that you've lost heart maybe it's in your finances maybe it's in your career you're just going to work and just well got to pay the bills so here i am maybe it's in your marriage it's just what used to be isn't what it is today and now we're just in a business relationship to raise the kids you've just lost heart maybe you've lost heart in the area of anxiety and depression you want to know how you'll know is that you're now declaring those things over your own life you know me and my anxiety those are the words of someone who has lost heart you've quit trying to overcome it you've quit trying to fight it you've quit trying to be delivered from it you know me and my depression i'm so depressed that is the vocabulary of someone who has given up but you don't have to give up see here's the great thing about when you've lost something you can find it once again you can take heart like jesus said see living as a christian is not a life absent from trouble living as a christian is a life of being empowered to overcome trouble and you do that through the power of god in your life and jesus said take heart i'm here to tell you today some of you tonight is going to be the first night that you're going to sleep in peace in months some of you are going to start getting free from your panic attacks today like today some of you as i speak in the next 21 minutes you're actually going to feel your heart come alive again some of you in your marriages you're going to go home today and you're going to repent to each other you're going to talk to each other you're going to start putting effort again you're going to start being nice to each other again you're going to start honoring each other you're going to encourage each other you're going to love each other some of you are going to start giving your offerings again some of you're going to start serving again some of you're going to go through growth track you're going to get in that group you're not going to go through the motions of christianity anymore some of you are going to start removing the identity of insecurity and over burden and over stress and depression and anxiety you're going to take that off of your life and you're going to live under an identity that i am a child of the most high god the prince of peace lives on the inside of me and i will live in health welfare prosperity and my life will be ruled by good things even in the face of bad things so how do we do it i'm gonna give you four simple steps okay i don't have time to go through all of them in great detail all right number one you cannot listen although you will hear you don't have to listen to the contrary voices this isn't a hard concept you hear things all the times that you don't accept you don't have to listen to everything let me share with you an example uh the nation of israel in deuteronomy 1 28 moses has brought them to the border of the promised land it's called canaan a lot of you know the story right the nation of israel was bound and enslaved to the nation of egypt moses brought them across the red sea and they come to the border and moses sends 12 spies well 10 of those spies came back with a negative report and they actually talked 3 million people out of their destiny they can literally see god's promise it's right there and ten men affected three million it's called canaan the land that flowed with milk and honey in the literal text it means this the land that flowed with health welfare and prosperity why because all god's promises bring health welfare and prosperity except in the face of every promise there will be a contrary voice and you have to start listening to the right ones but man it's hard because it is so easy to listen to negativity it is so easy to fall into your insecurities it is so easy right now to get cynical it is so easy to convince yourself of conspiracies i mean my god like you don't even actually have to try right it's so easy to listen to those contrary voices it's so easy to forget that god is on your side i mean these people got delivered from the most powerful man on the planet god then destroyed him and his entire army opens an ocean lets them walk through an ocean on dry land closes the ocean takes them through the wilderness while out in the middle of nowhere delivers manna from heaven to feed them in the day while it was hot he would bring a cloud to give them shade how trippy was that like this cloud just moving in unison with three million people at night said cloud would come and form a pillar of fire to keep them warm and then they walk in and look what it says where can we go our brothers have discouraged our hearts that's all satan's trying to do is to discourage your heart oh you can't apply for that promotion who are you you'll never overcome this oh you'll always be depressed why would you even try why even bother again what's the point anyway this stuff doesn't work some of you when i said you're going to start being delivered from this you're going to start sleeping the contrary voice was in your head while i said it no i won't i mean that'll i believe that'll work for someone in this room but not me all that is is the contrary voice and it is so easy look what happens it says they discouraged our hearts the people are greater and taller than we the cities are great and fortified to the heavens to the heavens to the heavens in numbers in this story they actually say and we saw the the giants of anakin there and then they say the city the cities truly do flow with milk and honey the next statement is we saw the giants the next statement is the land devours its inhabitants well which one is it does it flow with milk and honey and produce giants or does it devour the inhabitants which one is it but see when your heart is discouraged you begin to make exaggerative statements sweeping generalizations everybody's against me nobody pays attention to me there's no way i could do that you've done it 10 times in your life already i can never god doesn't heal anymore really because last week you had a headache you took in a leave and the headache went away well god didn't heal me really because he's the god of good things don't tell me that a leave that fixed your headache in 10 minutes isn't from god everything good comes from the father of lights he still heals right see satan will always want to make you think that the challenge is insurmountable it's fortified to the heavens i mean i've seen some tall buildings but none of them have ever reached the heavens see in the world you have trouble and the trouble just tries to discourage your heart and you can't accept the contrary voice isn't it amazing how we will allow our hearts to sink by things that have no effect on us i mean you'll watch the news and get depressed and it has nothing to do with you you'll get so mad at a decision that's made you start fighting with your wife the decision doesn't even affect you am i the only one i can't be the only one we all do it don't we we allow the issues of society to become our issues and then we stress then we worry then we get anxiety then we get panic then we get worried and none of it has anything to do with us remember the 2008 recession when we started every conversation with well in this economy remember that well in this economy who could do that and 90 of the time is like well you can i mean it got so bad in america we got all the way down to nine percent unemployment nine percent so 91 percent of people still had jobs but you would have thought it was the other way around you would have thought nobody had a job well in this economy who can buy a house you can't bud you have a job you're good bro so worried about this oh my god what are we gonna do keep doing what you've been doing you're fine right don't allow the contrary voice to cause you to forget that god is greater god is stronger he is more than enough you are an overcomer you are a conqueror through christ jesus greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world in in me jesus said you will have peace in the world you will have trouble you run to jesus amen number two oh here's where it gets hard you got to deal with disappointment oh disappointment you got to face it you got to deal with it the bible says in proverbs 13 verse 12 that unrelenting disappointment makes the heart sick you know if there's one thing that we all have in common in this room it's that we have and we will again face disappointment what is disappointment disappointment is a failure of an expectation disappointment comes in all shapes and sizes and listen i'm not talking about meaningless disappointment like i'm not talking about that they put an extra pump of vanilla in your latte get over yourself like just be grateful that you're so blessed to live in a country where you can afford to pay five dollars for a coffee okay like i'm so so disappointed man i ordered it medium rare and they brought it medium stop it you are so prosperous that you can pay other people to make you food like get over yourself now i'm talking about your 16 year old comes home pregnant you're driving home from work minding your own business and someone runs a red light and t-bones you i'm talking about greed in new york gets you laid off i'm talking about you come home and your spouse is looking at porn or you open up messages and they're talking to somebody and here's the thing about disappointment sometimes it seems like it comes in waves and it's unrelenting and i mean you're you're in your life and you're like god can i just get a breath please can i get a break can we pace out the disappointment like can you give me three months to deal with this and then okay this no it's like it's just one after another after another and it's hitting you over the head and you don't know where to look and you don't know what to do it all comes to make your heart sick here's what it's coming to do it's coming to rob you of your hope see in the new king james where it says unrelenting disappointment makes your heart sick it says hope deferred makes your heart sick well disappointment is the antithesis to hope hope is a positive expectation for your future disappointment is a failure of what of hope so the bible then says in in in romans 15 13 now may the god of hope fill you with peace so he's the god of a positive expectation why because he has declared to you that in every situation he is going to deliver unto you health welfare prosperity and every kind of good so god removed from the bible it does not exist the word hopeless or hopelessness because as a child of god the hope of humanity jesus christ lives on the inside of you the devil is trying to get you to become a prisoner to disappointment but god said to be a prisoner of hope so if you allow disappointment to rule your heart but see it's so tempting to not face the disappointment to just live broken hurting we say things like i'm devastated you're not devastated you're choosing to be devastated we allow that disappointment to poison our hearts and it robs us of our fight of our grit of our endurance of our strength you don't try anymore why because your heart is sick carla and i 12 years ago she got pregnant with our first child it was a really exciting time announced it to the church my mom started buying gifts we didn't even know the the gender of the child and my mom was already buying pillows and blankets and wanting to order furniture and i'm like wow so we go to the doctor everything's great you know they do that weird jelly stuff and you know the little sticky thing you know and everything's great go back the next month and we walked in and the lady turned it on and i felt in my spirit there's something wrong and sure enough she's doing it and she goes hmm and then she's doing it and i'm like oh no she goes well i i can't find the uh the the beat the heartbeat but don't worry don't panic i'm like what did you just say to me so we come back two weeks later sure enough my wife's had a miscarriage and um she's had the type of miscarriage that didn't flush out of her body naturally so they have to go do a procedure it's called the dnc where they take the cartilage out and all that come to find out my wife had like this one in a million type of miscarriage it's called a molar pregnancy i'll spare you the details okay in that type they have to then do blood work to check the woman's hormones to make sure that the hormones come back to a previous a pre-pregnancy level if they do not the woman has to go through six months worth of chemotherapy so we get sent to the foremost specialist in el paso texas and he walks in the room and he says well i'm going to check you into the hospital today uh we're gonna start you on six rounds of chemotherapy it'll be four days a week uh i think it was twice a month for six months or something like that i i don't really remember all the details okay and i mean i'm like losing my mind i remember i couldn't hear a word he was saying i'm thinking to myself okay how are we here how was it that two months ago we're celebrating that she's pregnant now we're doing chemotherapy does my wife have cancer because he didn't say cancer but i heard chemotherapy so i said cancer so now i'm saying to myself how can my beautiful strong amazing lawyer successful powerful wife have cancer from a miscarriage doctor didn't say cancer but jared is saying cancer because that's a sick heart you start saying things as truth that are not true because you're not facing the disappointment so thank god my the doctor walks out of the room and i mean my head is spinning and my wife goes jared get up we're leaving i went yeah i know babe we got to go check into the hospital she said uh-uh the holy spirit just told me that the doctor's wrong we're leaving and i'm like we're what it's like we're leaving jared get up we're leaving now you don't understand my wife's a litigator okay so when she speaks you obey i'm like okay except that we really do have a big church and like a lot of people know me so like when i had walked in all the nurses all okay pastor chad so then i'm like my wife's out and i'm like goodbye we're leaving oh god bless you great to see you sister i'll see you sunday my wife's down the hall yelling at me jared i told you to leave i'm like uh send us the bill i'm sure you have your our address like thank you yeah email my office if you need counseling we're cool i'm like being sweet right my wife said get out of the building jared so sherry to make a long story short sure enough she didn't have any of it the original doctor who did the procedure didn't get all of the cartilage out her body thought she was still pregnant that was the only thing going on see sometimes in life you've got to slow yourself down so you can hear the voice of the lord because when that disappointment gets unrelenting you can't hear the voice of the lord that's why he says be anxious turn to me amen all right number three we're gonna do this real fast number three people lose their peace when they get overwhelmed by circumstance king david comes in and the nation of israel is at war with philistines and there's this guy named goliath you know the story he's a giant right so king david comes in in first samuel and he goes i'll fight him i'll take him on i've killed a lion and a bear i'll do it and look what he says in first samuel 17 he says let no man's heart fail because of this giant let no man's heart fail you want to know if you've had a failed heart just listen to yourself talk nothing good ever happens for me and my family our marriage is broken beyond repair i could never get that promotion i couldn't do that there's no way i could finish college now that's a fallen heart the nation of israel wouldn't even fight they wouldn't even get in the fight you can go read the story they were hiding in bunkers the god of angel armies was on their side and they wouldn't even engage [Music] see the devil can't actually defeat you so he just has to get you to stop fighting the fight of faith but don't quit don't lose heart don't let yourself grow weary don't give up on overcoming anxiety don't give up on not having peace you have peace it lives on the inside of you and that brings you to the last point which was the first point is you have to run to jesus that's all david did he said my god is greater i walk through the valley of the shadow of death but i fear no evil did you know that he wrote psalm 23 while walking down the mountain to face goliath i fear no evil god is with me in me you have peace in the world you have trouble be anxious for nothing in everything pray see every time anxiety depression disappointment challenge overburden worry darkness comes into your life your life comes to a crossroad and you have a choice to make and that choice is you are going to run to god the author and finisher of your of your faith the hope of humanity the prince of health welfare prosperity and every kind of good or you are going to run away from god there is no other option on this side of the of the road is peace on this side is trouble [Music] you are driving the car you either take a left or a right the choice is yours now your nature everything about you will scream at you to turn to the world but why is it that we keep doing the same things we've been doing that have not been working and yet we convince ourselves to just keep doing it like some of you told yourself not to come back tonight it's not part of my routine i've got work tomorrow oh because you're going to bed at eight o'clock tonight stop it you're gonna netflix till 12 30. like stop it we have church at six you'll literally be out of the property at 7 30. like so you can either run to jesus who is your source and your supply or not the the choice is yours but if you will run to him you will never be absent of peace because where he is all of who he is is with him and he is the prince of health the prince of welfare the prince of prosperity the prince of good things he is the prince of a tranquil heart and mind amen amen

Channel: City Light

Views: 1,028

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: city light, Las Vegas, church Las Vegas, anxiety, depression, how to deal with anxiety, take heart, jared nieman, how to guard your heart, how to be happy

Id: lvy5GlV0Yx0

Length: 40min 14sec (2414 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021