Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hey, guys, this is Naeeb and you've reached the mosaic church podcast. So excited that you're part of our listening community and I love for you to be even more connected. So check out our website. There's more content there and there's more opportunities for you to get connected in our ministries and events as well. Also, love for you to share this content if this is blessed to you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it, so share this podcast if you will. Lastly, would you consider supporting this ministry? This is made possible by other people's generosity and I'd love for you to pay it forward. Join us to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus together. So would you consider giving to this ministry? I know that God is able to do immeasurably more through us when we come together. Thank you so much. God bless you and enjoy.
[00:00:55] Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. So if you're a guest here, we usually don't stand up for me, but you know what? We're going to make it out of habit. Let's do that. No, no, no. But thank you for doing that. Thank you, BJ. Yeah. All right. So if you're a guest here, we're in a series called what?
[00:01:12] Yeah, almost. Almost true. Almost true. And we're talking about these idioms. We're talking about these sayings that we want them to be true, but they're not really true. Like, this idea of you can be anything you want to be, right? We start off talking about that. Truth is, you can't have. You can't. We realize that Pastor Kristen's daughter wants to be an animal. You can't do that. You can't be what you want to be. Okay? And then last week, I talked about this idea of, like, you can do anything that you put your mind to, which is not true, because you know what? If that was true, every. I would just say every guy would dunk the basketball. You know what I'm saying? Every person, you would do all kinds of incredible things. It's not necessarily true. So what we're doing is we're talking about these phrases and. And talking about what's actually more true about these phrases and kind of turning them a little bit. And so this week, this is going to be the conclusion of the series, because next week, I'm talking about this idea of protecting your peace. It's a series that I feel like we need to talk about in light of this political environment that we've got going on. So it's not going to be political, but it is going to be talking about how do we protect our peace of mind? Because it's crazy. It's getting crazier as well. And so that's next week, today, the last installment of almost true. I want to get to the phrase. But before I do that, I wanted to show you this book. This book is actually a book that my little niece left because she visited last week. And I found out about this book because we were driving somewhere and she was like, mamu, mamu. Which if you don't know what Mamu means, which most of you probably don't, maybe Vikram does. Yes, yes. Mamu is the Urdu word for uncle, okay? She says, mamu, mamu, mamu. And then she goes, hey, would you rather. And I'm like, what is happening here? She's like, would you rather. And she read the first page here. She said, eat a hair sandwich or an ear wax omelette.
[00:03:13] Yes. And I was like, I would not rather do any of those things. Any of those things. And then she was like, you know what? You know what? You know, the hair. Hair has like, like a lot of protein in it, okay? The problem is you. But your stomach can digest hair, so that's the problem. Okay? That's the problem. And I was like. And so she left it. And I'll tell you what, this has been an interesting read, friends. I don't know what books you're reading, but this is. This is really, really good. I mean, would you rather. This is pretty awesome stuff here. Like, for example, would you rather be hit by lightning? Let's play this. Okay? Would you rather be hit by lightning or bitten by a shark? Shark. Shark.
[00:03:57] Some of you guys, like, can we just talk about Jesus?
[00:04:00] No, no. Let's talk about this. Lightning. I know. Person. My neighbor actually got started by lightning. No, bad scene. Bad scene. Shark.
[00:04:09] No, I don't want to do that. No, I don't want to do that. This is a good one. As I was scrolling through this again, like I said, guys, I'm actually working on a book, and it's almost done. It's going to be out next year. But after reading this, I was like, why did I write that book? Because this is so much better. So much better.
[00:04:26] This is a good one. Last one for you guys. Would you rather. Would you rather always have to do your family's laundry or always have to do all the family's dishes after every meal?
[00:04:38] I know. I know. Some of you guys are like, I do that already.
[00:04:42] I do that already.
[00:04:44] Okay. So the phrase that I know.
[00:04:48] Hey, hey, hey, listen, listen.
[00:04:51] Now, they're coming up with a plan here. How do we do this? So, the phrase that we're going to talk about this morning, friends, is this phrase that I feel like we really need to understand what this implies. And what I want to do is, if you're a person who grew up in church, you know the argument about this phrase, like, behind this phrase, if you don't, if you didn't grow up in church, I want you to know that I understand why this phrase is so important. I totally do, because it's one of those phrases I actually love. But the phrase is basically the idea of following your heart.
[00:05:28] Follow your heart. You've heard that. You've heard that in college graduations, we hear people say it. We inspire people with that. This idea of, like, you should follow your heart. And I get it. I totally get it. Why? Because we don't want to live in life that's mediocre. We don't want to do that. We don't want to always make decisions because of the smartest decisions to make. I mean, not that we shouldn't make smart decisions, but if you're always chasing logic or intellect, you never really live out your passions. So when people say you should follow your heart, it means that you should live a life of passion, which I'm all about. I'm all about that. I'm all about pursuing your dreams. Let's do that. Let's do that. So when people say, follow your heart, I'm like, yes. You got to follow your gut. You got to follow that. You got to do that. And you don't want to live a life of obligation, either. Who wants to live a life of obligation? I come from middle eastern backgrounds, and it's really interesting. I was talking to. We had a couple tonight, last week or so. And so I was talking to a guy. He's nigerian. And he was talking about how the similarities between his culture, nigerian culture, and the pakistani culture in terms of marriages. Because there's this idea when you grow up and sometimes also in indian marriages, is that you are spoken for. You're actually spoken for as a kid. So child marriages, you know, my mom and dad were.
[00:06:46] They were first cousins. Okay. And, yeah, child marriage right there. And so they just kind of lined people up, and you were spoken for. And I remember my dad living a life of obligation his whole life. Like, he was obligated to do this. He was obligated to do that. He was obligated to do that. And there was, there was this life that I was like, I don't want ever live that. So when someone says, follow your dreams and follow your heart, I'm like, yes, I want to do that. Here's the problem, though. The problem is, I'm not quite sure about my heart sometimes, you know, when you come into the christian world, if you come, if you read the scriptures at all, you know, also, this idea of heart in some cases is like, the heart is, like, not good, and in some cases, like, it is good. For example, let me give you a passage of scripture here, which is a really good one. People love this, okay? It's psalms 37 four, I believe, and says this. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he'll give you what the desires of your heart delight yourself, like, do his will. Delight yourself and he'll give you your desires. So if you just, like, in a simple way, you know, cynical way, if you just obey, he'll give you your dreams. If you just do this. Okay, so. But the implication is that your desires are good. Like, if you delight yourself but your desires or your heart is actually terrible, is God gonna give you that? So what do you do? What do you do? But this implies that, yeah, you have good desires in your heart, and if you just delight in them, God will give it to you. Okay? Which is good. We love that. We love that. But then you have other verses as well. For example, James, the brother of Jesus, he tells this, okay, about his thoughts, about desires. He says this. He says, temptation. Let me just tell you, temptation comes from your own. What desires? Yeah, which entice you and drag you away. Like he's. Like, they're enticing you. They're dragging you away to a dungeon. You know what I'm saying? And what happens after that happens? Well, what happens is these desires. These desires give what they give birth to, what sinful nature actions. They do that. And what happens then when sin is fully allowed to grow, even sin becomes a teenager. Watch out, just watch out, watch out. Why? Because it brings what?
[00:09:03] Death?
[00:09:05] So you're like, okay, the desires of my heart, and now my desires are evil. What's going on? There's another passage which is pretty popular, and this is from Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a old testament prophet. There was a time where, I mean, this guy was all heart, by the way. He did so many things in his life, but he was consistently, like, telling people about who God was and dealing with people and dealing with people and dealing with people. There was a time where he was a bullfrog. But that's not a time that we're going to talk about, if you get that. But this guy wrote this about desires in heart and all that. Okay? Here's what he says. What he says, he says this is also a bad day. Okay? He says this, the human heart is what is the most deceitful. Deceitful of what? All things and desperately wicked.
[00:09:52] And then it says this. Who really knows how bad it is? Now, what's interesting is we live in a culture where people go, you know what?
[00:10:00] You know what? I know your heart. Or in the south, we say bless your heart, which, by the way, I've realized it's not a compliment. Okay? Bless your heart. You dumb. Like, I mean, like, what is, what does that mean? So what do we do? What do we do? Because we want to live passionate lives, right? We want to live lives that are on purpose. We want to figure out, like, God, I've got some desires to my heart. Do I not follow them? Do I not follow them? The problem is, is that this phrase is almost true. And here's why. If I could just make it a little serious here. The problem is, is for some of us, things happen in our life and our hearts break.
[00:10:41] Like, there are people in our lives, there are relationships in your life. They have broken your heart.
[00:10:47] You're shattered. Like, someone passes away, and then you just don't even know. You don't know. You understand this. We understand this. There's sometimes we look at our choices and we look at them, we're like, I don't even know what I feel right now. I don't know. So if you're supposed to follow your heart and your heart's broken, which part of your heart do you follow?
[00:11:07] Do you follow the one that's so sad? Do you follow the one who wants revenge, what do you follow?
[00:11:14] What do you follow? So it's almost true. So what I would say is we don't need to follow our hearts. We, in fact, need to lead our hearts. We need to switch them, because in the scriptures, the heart, the word, there is the word Leva. Can you say Leva? Leva. And it doesn't mean heart organ. It actually means the inner person. It's like the combination. Like the writers of the scriptures believed, the culture believed Jesus time. When they were talking about heart, they were never talking about an organ. They were talking about, in one sense, kind of your gut. But this idea of, like, you have an inner person that's connected or actually that consists of your mind, your intellect, your emotions, your feelings, all of those things. And that's why like the old school shema, which is the, the phrase that jewish people would say, you know, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and strength. Like your full person, your inner person. So there is this idea of an inner person that you have. And it's not as simple as just your feelings and just your emotions. It's also your intellect, it's your soul. And that is what the scriptures talk about when it talks about your heart. So every time the scriptures talk about heartland, a lot of times most of the passages are talking about this inner person of you. Like this whole person of you, this whole person. And this whole person needs to be led, it needs to be shaped. It needs to be. It needs to be. It cannot be. You can't just follow it. You can't just follow it. And then when you read the scriptures, and sometimes if you know the psalms, if you ever read the psalms, psalms are great because the writer there is talking about, he's talking to his soul. A whole lot of times he's telling his soul what to think. He's telling his soul what to do. He's telling his body what to do. Like there's a sense of you don't follow your heart, you in fact lead your heart. And when you lead your heart, that changes the game. Then you begin to understand what's really, really happening. So how the question is, right, how do we lead our heart? Couple things, I'll give you number one. You start by actually questioning your heart.
[00:13:33] You question your heart. And I'm not saying it's always wrong, I'm just saying you need to know why, you know why you're feeling these things. Why are you reacting this way? Why are you thinking these thoughts? Why is it that this person triggers you and this makes this person make you so happy? Why? Why is it, why are you going through a season of life that you're just feeling defeated, maybe even super condemned? Like there are seasons of our life where we feel like, oh, we're good. And then there are seasons we get into and we go, I can't do anything. What right? I can't do anything. Right. Anything, right. So there's a passage in one John and one John kind of, I love what he writes here because again, there's a sense of leading your heart, you're leading your inner person. And he says here, he says this, if, if, and you, maybe that's where you are. If you are, what heart does what condemn?
[00:14:30] If it condemns us, so right now, is there a sense of condemnation? Do you feel like, man, I've just done some really dumb things, or I've done some things in my life that I'm not proud of, and I just feel guilty all the time? Have you ever been in a season where you just walk around guilty?
[00:14:49] You're like, I don't deserve this. I'm terrible. I said I wouldn't get into that relationship, but I did. I said I wouldn't do this, but I did. I said I wouldn't. And I told myself, like, have you ever made a promise to yourself and broke it?
[00:15:04] And what do you feel? You just feel like, why did I act like that? Why did I say that to this person?
[00:15:13] Like, I want to do the right thing, I'm doing wrong. And so here John says, hey, when your heart condemns you, when it condemns you, you need to know something.
[00:15:25] What does he say? He says, know that what God is. What? Help me out. God, what is greater than our hearts? He said, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything God says. So you have to lead your heart in the knowledge of God. You have to understand that God knows your heart. And he's not talking about, he knows everything you do wrong. He says, God knows the potential you have.
[00:15:54] And so if you might judge yourself in this moment, and your heart might want to judge you and condemn you, but when your heart condemns you, when something tells you, I cannot be in church, I cannot show up here, I don't deserve, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, xyz. It says, tell your heart God is greater.
[00:16:12] Question it. Question your heart. You and I have to do that. There's another passage of scripture, and this is fascinating. It's in Matthew. Matthew. And Jesus is talking about. He's talking to religious people, and so maybe a lot of us. And he says this. He says, for this people, for this people, he says, the people's hearts have become calloused.
[00:16:39] They hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their what? They've closed their eyes. They've closed their eyes. Then he goes on, he says, otherwise, they might. They might.
[00:16:52] They might have kind of seen. They see with their ears and their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their what? Hearts and turn and I would what, heal them. So again, Jesus is talking about this idea that if you don't question your heart, your heart is going to just do what it wants to do sometimes and led by what it's ever happened. And so if you've gone through a really nasty separation.
[00:17:22] Your heart is calloused for the next. And if you've been through several relationships like that and several business deals and several disappointments, there is something that comes on your heart, and it's a protection you don't trust anymore.
[00:17:38] You're always doubting. It's like, it's like a person who, who had a very abusive relationship, and then they take that abuse into the next relationship and they don't trust that person. They're always thinking that person is going to cheat on them, break up with them or leave them.
[00:17:58] And what happens is your eyes don't see clearly. Your ears don't hear. Your hearts are calloused. And God's saying, if you would turn to me, if you would turn, I want to heal you. What he's also saying is some of us are unable just to, are unable to be healed because our hearts have never been questioned.
[00:18:20] You just believe your heart. You're like, this is what I feel. And it's true. It's not necessarily true.
[00:18:25] Your feelings are real, but they're not true. The best advice I got was from a counselor that I had gone to see right after my dad died. And friends, I gotta tell you, like, when my dad died, it messed me up. The first thing my heart told me is stop. Stop doing church.
[00:18:50] And I remember telling Ashley, I don't want to ever speak again.
[00:18:55] I don't want to speak again.
[00:18:58] I'm done. I'm done with mosaic. I'm done with everything because my heart was broken.
[00:19:04] And you know, the counselor, the best thing he told me is he said, he said, he said, hey, for the next year or so, you're not going to make any good decisions. And I was like, what?
[00:19:18] He said, in fact, I would just tell your staff that you're going to make some really awful decisions and to just question your decisions.
[00:19:28] He was like, that was the best advice he gave me. And I did it. I said, hey, guys, I'm going to make some goofy calls. I'm going to feel some things. They're not even true. They're not connected to you.
[00:19:39] I'm going to react a certain way. I don't know. But what's happening is my heart is grieving for the next year, and I don't even know it. So can you question your heart? That's how you lead it.
[00:19:53] Lead it. The second thing you do as friends is you feed your heart. Do you know you're supposed to feed your heart? Your inner person is supposed to be fed. Like, I don't know if you know this. But if you're here, you are. And if you're watching, you're feeding your heart. You're feeding your inner person. You're doing that. The scriptures actually talk about that. Like, this idea of, like, feeding your heart. Problem is, when it comes to food, we have a very interesting relationship with food, don't we?
[00:20:24] All of us do. All of us do. Let me ask you this. Like, is there a food that your mouth loves, your body hates? Think about it, right? We do. You're like, I love this. My body hates it. Like, you have a food that going in is like, oh, my God.
[00:20:43] And then it finally settles in and you're like, oh, my God.
[00:20:48] Like, I feel like carbs do that to me. You know what I'm saying? I just love them. Love them. And then it's like, ah. In fact, I was in, I was in California last week, and the pastor that was with me, he was like, hey. He pointed to in n out. He's like, you gotta go try this. You gotta. I'm like, nope. I said, I'm not going in and out. And he's like, what's wrong? I said, that will literally be in and out. Like, I'm not. He's like, what? I'm like, bro. Nope. Just telling you. I'm just telling you. I'm sorry, but I can't do it. I can't do it. Like, there are certain things I cannot, I can't eat. It's just junk food. It's just junk. I want it. Your heart can't survive on junk food.
[00:21:26] Your heart can't survive on flattery.
[00:21:30] Like, it loves it.
[00:21:32] Tell me more, tell me more, tell me more, and then keep on telling me, and then you keep quiet and you tell me more. So we just.
[00:21:44] It loves it. Doesn't feed it.
[00:21:47] Flattery does not do that. Even accomplishments don't do that. It doesn't feed your heart. I mean, it makes you feel great. Of course. You can be like, look at all the things I've done. Look at all the things. Like all the trophies, all the things. All the degrees, all the. All the. All. Yeah, and that's great. It feeds your inner person. But it's a little bit of a junk food because you know why? It does not last.
[00:22:09] It just doesn't feed your heart. It doesn't.
[00:22:12] It doesn't. Doesn't do that. You know what doesn't feed your heart either is entertainment.
[00:22:19] I mean, we love it. It's a good, it's fun. It's a good thing. It's. It's, you know. Hey, I'm not saying junk food is not. It's all terrible. No, I'm saying it's. But it's not nutritious. You know what I'm saying? So, like, you, like, I gotta feel feed my heart. I'm gonna play video games all day. Mmm.
[00:22:35] That's just.
[00:22:37] That's entertainment.
[00:22:39] I'm gonna binge watch so and so and so and so. Sometimes you need to do that. I get that.
[00:22:44] But it doesn't feed your heart. It doesn't really feed your heart. So let's just spend some time on this. What does it mean to feed your heart? Because once you question your heart and feed your heart, you begin to. You're leading your heart a certain way. Then you're gonna make the right decisions. You're gonna choose and make better choices financially and relationally and career wise. You're gonna do that. So you have to spend some time feeding your heart. So what does it look like? Let me take you to a passage of scripture. I think it's really interesting. So I'll kind of break down part of the scripture. Okay. Like one verse by verse, sort of. It's found in ephesians three. And it starts off and says, I pray that out of his glorious riches that he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being. Again, talking about your heart. But then he breaks it down. He says, so that. So that Christ. Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So he's a lot of words to basically talk about this idea of this idea of Christ dwelling in your heart through faith. I think this is, like, the. One of the first things about how do you feed your heart, this idea of having Christ dwell in you, having that as the stronghold, the center point of your life. See, for some of us, we're like, you know what? I like church. I like this. I like that.
[00:24:10] But what really dwells inside of you, what has made home in you?
[00:24:17] Has Christ made a home in you? See, that's the difference between, like, you know, I kind of believe this. I'm good with believing Jesus, and I'm good with that. I get that. And it's beautiful. It's a first step. But have you allowed Jesus, in a sense, to unpack his bags and settle for a little bit? Have you allowed him to kind of move things around?
[00:24:41] Do you know what I'm saying? He's like, we're going to repaint that wall. We're going to fix this. Can he really dwell, or have you just kind of said his thing.
[00:24:52] Has he dwelled in you? I think that's got to be the initial thing. For some of you, it might be like, I don't know if I've ever done that. And that's why maybe as an adult, you need to do the things that make sure you've actually done this. For some of you, it's baptism. It's like, yeah, I'm going to make a personal, an adult, you know, I guess a confession that, yeah, I want Christ to dwell in me, live and make home in me and change me from the inside out.
[00:25:32] Christ dwelling in us is the first step of like, really feeding our hearts. So what's the second? When he goes on, he says this, he says this, he says, I pray. So he's saying, he says, I pray that you being rooted and established in love. Okay, now let's stop right there.
[00:25:51] This idea of being rooted and established in love, I think that's a cool, cool phrase, too, because there's so much depth in what he's writing. He talks about Christ's dwelling, but now he's talking about this idea of being rooted in love and being established in love. So, translation, feeding your heart. It requires one allowing Christ, God, to live inside of you, make home. But then also you doing acts of love and kindness.
[00:26:23] Feeding your heart requires you and I are rooted in love. Because I'll tell you what, roots make all difference. You guys know this, okay? You guys are better growers than I am. I am. Listen, I grew up in the desert. I don't know these things. I learned these things. But it doesn't matter how awesome it looks. The roots are where it's all at. The roots make the difference. The roots are bad. It's gonna go. And he's saying, here's how you feed your heart. You do acts of love and kindness, not acts of entertainment, not acts of flattery. No. You, your act of compassion, your act of kindness, your act of acceptance, youre, every act of love in service of people feeds your heart. I mean, that's why even psychologists, that's why even therapists recommend people who are depressed or struggling with depression to go, go do something for someone else. Why? Because it feeds their what? It feeds their heart.
[00:27:29] This is a no brainer. But if so, if you guys are nothing serving someone, you're not necessarily feeding your heart because you were created that way. And then lastly, he says this. He says, he says this and may have power. He says, I pray that you be rooted in love and strengthened and that way you'll have power together with all of what?
[00:27:53] The Lord's holy people. He's like, he says, this idea of being together feeds your heart.
[00:28:02] Feeds your heart. It's not just like Christ making his home, you doing acts of service. Feeds your heart. But being around people feeds your heart. Friends. That's why. I mean, if you like, I'm just talking to people online who are listening, who are. And if you're just doing online stuff, I don't understand why I don't need to. Because there are seasons where you just can't get out of the house. But if you can, it's important to be together. I mean, if the pandemic taught us one thing is we're not good by ourselves.
[00:28:35] We're not good. We're not good apart. We get weird. I got weird. It's not good. We were created to just be around each other. And so what does it say? You feed your heart by being together in a community of people. That's why. Friends. I'll tell you what, that's why. And we don't talk about it a whole lot because we don't take attendance. But, man, it's not about your attendance. It's your presence. Your presence matters. So on a Sunday, your presence. So when you're not here and you're like, I'm not gonna do this. Your presence makes a difference in people's lives.
[00:29:13] Can I understand this? No, but there's something supernatural about coming together. You feel something and you don't know what, but it's feeding your. What? Heart. It's feeding your heart. It's feeding your heart being with people. You know this. You know this, man. We, we understand this. Like, if you're really down and out, you're like, I need to call so and so. I just need them to show up. That's why, like, sometimes people walk in the door and you're like, oh, I'm so happy. They haven't even done anything. You're just like, ah, these people. It's awesome. It is. He says, if you are able to do that, here's what's gonna happen. He says, if you do this with God's holy people, okay. You'll grasp how wise, how long, how high and deep is the love of Christ.
[00:30:03] So he's saying, hey, this is how you feed your heart. All right, lastly. Lastly, if you're going to lead your heart, you gotta. What? No. What was the first thing anybody remember? First thing was you have to question it. Secondly, you have to feed it. Third, you have to guard your heart.
[00:30:21] You do it by guarding your heart. You got to guard your heart. You got to guard your heart. There are all kinds of things happening here. Like, I mean, the religious people have to understand, like, it's so interesting because sometimes religious people can guard their hearts from people and not, and actually they can guard themselves from even being godly. It's like, it's the strangest, strangest thing. Okay, Matthew, Matthew twelve says this. He says, jesus is talking. And this is, whoo, this is interesting. He says, you brood of vipers. He's like, okay, he got everybody's attention. He says, how can you who are evil say anything good?
[00:30:56] Whoa, hey, what's going on? And then he says this. He says, for out of the, what, the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And he says, he says, you've allowed certain things in your heart. You've allowed all this fear and anxiety in your heart.
[00:31:20] You got to guard it. You got to guard it.
[00:31:22] It's not easy, but you got to guard it. You got to guard. I'll tell you what comes easy. Hate comes easy. Prejudice easy. Easy. Just fear, anxiety, all the worry, all day, every day. The expert, I can do all that. You know? I mean, all these things are easy. He says, but listen, from the overflow of your heart, your mouth is going to speak. So if you say, man, I have a bad mouth, well, you might have an unnurished, unnourished heart.
[00:31:59] It's not a bad mouth because there's something in there that needs to not be in there. Things to come out. It needs to come out, you know? Do you know this? This is interesting to me. So your body, the way it's made up, right? Your brain uses electromagnetic pulses to communicate the organs, right? You're like, I know that. Okay, well, okay, whatever. Okay, so that's how it does. It sends out these signals, and it tells your organs what to do. The brain, the brain. And people would go, okay, the brain is the most important thing, right? If your brain dead, it's over. It's over because it sends out all these electromagnetic pulses. But there is only one other organ that sends out five times more, five times more than your brain. It is your heart. Your heart sends out, which is fascinating to the scientists. They're like, your heart sends out more electromagnetic pulses, and they're like, where is it sending?
[00:32:54] What is it doing? Because the brain has a job to do. Heart's like, hey, hey, hey, I. He's just doing it. So I'm making the joke. But seriously, scientists have figured out machines to figure out where is this electromagnetic pulses going. In fact, they've realized that sometimes in certain emotions when they shoot out, you can feel another person can literally feel someone else's aura, essence, whatever you want. Feeling three to 5ft away.
[00:33:23] That's why we say stuff like, oh, I feel it's hard.
[00:33:26] You know why? Because you literally feel it's hard.
[00:33:29] If someone does something, you're like, they have no heart. You know why? Because there's no heart. There's like, there's no feeling.
[00:33:36] That's why proverbs says this. Proverbs for this says this. What? It says, this is before all the scientists figured out, we figured out what proverbs were really saying. But proverbs says this, he says, above all else, what?
[00:33:49] Guard your heart for what? Everything flows from it. Everything. So, friends, let me just tell you, you can, we can manage our sin, we can manage our hatred, we can manage our prejudice, we can manage our. Whatever, whatever our biases, we can manage. Manage it. And conceal, conceal, conceal. It doesn't matter. Whatever is in your heart you cannot control. It will come out. That is your superpower.
[00:34:17] And so all we have to do is just put the right things in there and you can literally walk down the street and hope will come out of you and peace will come out of you. Do you know people like that? They walk in, you're like, I feel good. I feel good. There's something about that. There's something true about that. Someone's presence makes you happy.
[00:34:42] Someone's presence makes you smile. Why? I.
[00:34:46] Why?
[00:34:48] There are some people you walk by, you don't even know them. You're like, I like her, I like her. I do not like him.
[00:34:57] You get a vibe from them. They're like, ah, so all these language, all these words to describe what's really happening.
[00:35:04] What's really happening. So let's not follow our hearts. I mean, that sounds great.
[00:35:10] It's almost true.
[00:35:12] Let's what?
[00:35:14] Let's lead our hearts. Let's lead our hearts. I love. What? David, he was a psalmist in the scriptures. And you know, one of the verses he used, and this is extra here, but he just said, he says to himself one time, he says, why so? Why so depressed, my soul? Why are you so depressed? Put your hope in goddess. And there are times I have to say that to myself, why so sad?
[00:35:42] Why so down? Why so in despair? Put your hope in God. I have to tell myself, hey, what's going on? Why, why are you so anxious? Why are you doing this. Why are you doing this? And when I do that, I choose to act a certain way, which. Which means I am leading my heart and moving towards it. Now, I want to pray for us, but I do want to leave you with one thing, and that is, for some of us, today might be a day your heart is just broken.
[00:36:12] It's just like, I don't know.
[00:36:15] This breakup really messed you up. I mean, really messed you up.
[00:36:22] This season really messed you up. This death really left you lonely.
[00:36:29] And you're just like, I don't know. I don't know. And you feel like, you know what?
[00:36:34] I need a heart transplant.
[00:36:36] Like, that's what I need. I need something else. So, can I leave you with this promise? This is found in Ezekiel. And Ezekiel.
[00:36:45] God says this, and Ezekiel says it to the people. He says, hey, I will give you a new heart.
[00:36:52] The day will come that I'll give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you, and I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
[00:37:05] And so I feel like, for some of us, that's a promise you need to have, have and hold and put inside of you. So, can I pray for you? Can we do that? Let's stand together, lord. God, we thank you.
[00:37:25] God, we thank you that your love for us is truly extravagant. It's unbelievable.
[00:37:32] It's impossible sometimes to really comprehend. But, God, I thank you for making us so wonderfully complex. God, we are so nuanced in what we feel.
[00:37:44] God, I thank you that you know the struggles of our heart. You know what we are facing. You know the things that tempt us. You know the directions we seem to want to go. Sometimes they're opposites.
[00:38:00] But, God, today. Today I pray for my friends here, that, number one, for those of us who have never really allowed you, in a sense or given you or permission or said the things we just say. God, Christ, Jesus, dwell inside of me.
[00:38:21] Like, get comfortable.
[00:38:23] Get comfortable in me.
[00:38:26] Show me. Let me be uncomfortable for a minute. But you get comfortable. Make your home in me today.
[00:38:37] And, God, for some of us who just feel like we need a new heart, God, you are the God who does incredible things, supernatural things. You can give us a new heart. So today I pray in Jesus name. In Jesus name, God, for new hearts right now. New hearts. God, wrapped up with this extravagant love of yours. God, new hearts. Goddess, you'd remove our heart of stone because of what has happened to us. And you give us a heart of flesh ripe for compassion, for your spirit, for you alive. Fully alive. A heart.
[00:39:30] God, we thank you for this. God. I pray that as we respond, we allow ourselves in worship to just sit and allow you to feed our hearts.
[00:39:41] God, thank you.
[00:39:43] Let's respond. Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more audio and video content, visit us at Mosaicchurch TV.
