SPEAKER_00: Today's reading is from Proverbs chapter four, starting at verse twenty.
SPEAKER_00: It says, My son, be attentive to my words, incline your ear to my sayings, let them not escape from your sight, keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
SPEAKER_00: Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.
SPEAKER_00: Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.
SPEAKER_00: Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure.
SPEAKER_00: Do not swerve to the right or to the left.
SPEAKER_00: Turn your foot away from evil.
SPEAKER_00: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning, City Church.
SPEAKER_01: So glad to be with you.
SPEAKER_01: What a gift and a joy it is.
SPEAKER_01: Um I I love it here with you any chance I get to be out here.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we're in Proverbs.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I know that um I know that the American accent is like an audio ballet, so you're gonna have to uh really focus, you know, and not on how beautiful this voice is.
SPEAKER_01: So uh when you if you were to come to my church, uh everybody'd be very excited and they'd hang on every word.
SPEAKER_01: So, but I'm praying that the Holy Spirit will empower you to listen to this, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I know it it might be grating, but we'll get through it.
SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know if you've ever read a book called Into Thin Air or ever heard of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's about the 1996 Everest expedition disaster.
SPEAKER_01: And uh and it covers uh a very tragic moment on the mountain.
SPEAKER_01: One one um uh one guy, his name is Rob Hall.
SPEAKER_01: Rob Hall was uh a professional climber.
SPEAKER_01: He climbed Everest multiple times.
SPEAKER_01: He led groups over and over, even somebody without oxygen.
SPEAKER_01: And Rob was uh Rob was known, like I know him, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Rob was uh known for being very strict about the danger zone and very strict about turning around.
SPEAKER_01: And uh he was he was known for his standards and for his safety.
SPEAKER_01: And he uh he ended up uh leading a group of eight people uh on May 10th, 1996.
SPEAKER_01: Eight people that were very, very wealthy, very, very committed to getting to the summit.
SPEAKER_01: So as they navigated, they got bottlenecked along the way.
SPEAKER_01: There were some issues, uh, they had some equipment failure, all of that to say that by the time they began to see the summit, um, they were way past their turnaround time.
SPEAKER_01: Rob Rob Hall um contemplated turning around, but there was a couple clients, very wealthy clients, who began to pressure him.
SPEAKER_01: We're right here.
SPEAKER_01: We can see, we can see the summit.
SPEAKER_01: And so against his better judgment, Rob Hall continued to the summit.
SPEAKER_01: They did summit some uh significant amount of time past the turnaround time.
SPEAKER_01: And then uh they began to come down.
SPEAKER_01: As they came down, knife came, a blizzard came, and four of those eight people are still on that mountain, and including Rob.
SPEAKER_01: And then you you compare that uh with another climber.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, she's an American climber, names Christy Ellis and um um not Ellis, Ennis.
SPEAKER_01: Christy Ennis, she's a U.S.
SPEAKER_01: Marine, was in a helicopter crash in combat in Afghanistan, lost her leg, uh, and it was uh above-the-knee amputation.
SPEAKER_01: Well, she was committed to still kind of pushing herself into adrenaline.
SPEAKER_01: So she decided that as an amputee, she was going to climb the seven highest peaks, one in every continent.
SPEAKER_01: She got through six and then began to look at Everest.
SPEAKER_01: And so, and she was, if she would summit, she would be the first above-knee amputee to have summited Everest.
SPEAKER_01: And she began to climb, very, very difficult climb.
SPEAKER_01: There are all kinds of equipment problems and bottlenecks and some of the similar things that Hall and his team faced.
SPEAKER_01: And uh Chrissy Innis uh made it all the way to 200 meters.
SPEAKER_01: Now I translated that for you.
SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know how many kilos are in a meter, but um 200 meters from the summit.
SPEAKER_01: Her oxygen was low.
SPEAKER_01: They can see it, they're right there, and she makes the decision to turn around.
SPEAKER_01: She climbs back down.
SPEAKER_01: A year later, she tries again.
SPEAKER_01: She gets just as near only to turn around again.
SPEAKER_01: If I were to ask a question of Rob Hall and his team, or of Christianis, which one was successful?
SPEAKER_01: Is summiting success or is living?
SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between summiting and being successful.
SPEAKER_01: And just think about what success might look like.
SPEAKER_01: We have these peak experiences.
SPEAKER_01: I I want to I want some form of degree or education, I want some form of status, I I want uh uh uh a job, a career that can sustain me.
SPEAKER_01: I want to get married, I want to have children, I want to be able to buy a house, I want to be able to live wherever I want to live.
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to live in the city and in the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: And so we think about these dreams, these summits, and we could almost see them.
SPEAKER_01: We go, man, if I could just hit those, then I would be successful.
SPEAKER_01: You would sum it, but would it be success?
SPEAKER_01: It was Jesus himself who said, What if you gain the whole world, but you lose your soul?
SPEAKER_01: What what what if you summit but you die?
SPEAKER_01: Who is more successful?
SPEAKER_01: Proverbs is all about answering this question.
SPEAKER_01: And Proverbs chapter 24.
SPEAKER_01: Mark went through it last week.
SPEAKER_01: I would encourage you to go back and and listen to that.
SPEAKER_01: But we're in this, we're in this little section.
SPEAKER_01: Proverbs is written, and it it's like a father having breakfast with his son and writing letters back and forth.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to flourish, son.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to live.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to really live.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want you just to sum it.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to be successful.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to flourish.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to be alive, truly.
SPEAKER_01: And chapter four starts.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about this pathway of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: So just to kind of get us in, I'm gonna read the first couple verses here, and then we're gonna jump to our main text in 20.
SPEAKER_01: But here you have Samuel, hero son, a father's instruction.
SPEAKER_01: And be attentive that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts.
SPEAKER_01: Do not forsake my teaching.
SPEAKER_01: When I was a son, my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, Let your heart hold fast to my words, keep my commandments and live.
SPEAKER_01: Get wisdom and insight.
SPEAKER_01: And do not forget and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.
SPEAKER_01: You hear you just you just hear this father's heart.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's easy, you know, like from Solomon's perspective.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon was the smartest in the world.
SPEAKER_01: People came just to hear him, philosophize and and to provide wisdom and these little fortune cookie sayings, you know, like people came from all over to hear him.
SPEAKER_01: He had more money than anybody, maybe the wealthiest person of all time ever, even if you convert it for inflation.
SPEAKER_01: He had he had more women than any other man, a thousand of them.
SPEAKER_01: He he in Ecclesiastes, we find out that that uh that he pursued every avenue only to reach vanity.
SPEAKER_01: And so it might be easy.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the son would say, Yeah, well, dad, you you got to experience everything.
SPEAKER_01: Now you're telling me to do something different.
SPEAKER_01: And here's a father who's not speaking as somebody who's successful, but somebody who summited.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody who stood on the mountaintops and goes, the view's not better.
SPEAKER_01: And you can have the money, you can have the status, you can have the wisdom, you can have the knowledge, you can have everything that you want.
SPEAKER_01: And at the end, it's vanity, it's nothing.
SPEAKER_01: This is a father talking to a son, just so tender.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, I've been there, I did that, I climbed that mountain.
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm asking you, I'm begging you.
SPEAKER_01: Don't go there.
SPEAKER_01: And that's this whole letter.
SPEAKER_01: And he says this most amazing thing, and I and I know Mark covered it last week, but it's part of the whole context, so we gotta stick with it.
SPEAKER_01: But it it says, get wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: You hear that?
SPEAKER_01: That's different than get whatever you can.
SPEAKER_01: That's different than just get to the top.
SPEAKER_01: Get wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, think of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's an it's an amazing command.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a it's not a an opinion.
SPEAKER_01: He's not going, well, if you can, if it works out, if if your life kind of allows you to.
SPEAKER_01: No, he goes, get wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Out of everything that you can pursue, get wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: It would be like, get a gold medal.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, what?
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: Um, get in shape.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: You know, I am a shape.
SPEAKER_01: Um this command, get wisdom is is an amazingly powerful command.
SPEAKER_01: As we'll see, it's an impossible command.
SPEAKER_01: Out of everything you can do, get wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you would hear something like get rich.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that that doesn't just happen.
SPEAKER_01: Get married, that doesn't just happen.
SPEAKER_01: Easy words.
SPEAKER_01: But the but the idea that of get wisdom is this iceberg of all kinds of life choices, decisions, steps, sacrifices, hardships.
SPEAKER_01: It represents, you don't just go get a gold medal, it represents an incredible amount of training.
SPEAKER_01: You don't just climb Everest, it represents years of preparation.
SPEAKER_01: You don't just become wealthy, you it represents years of working and saving.
SPEAKER_01: You don't just get married, it represents years of making sure that you're a marriable person, and the person you're marrying is a marriageable person.
SPEAKER_01: You don't you don't just arrive at these things, and this idea of get wisdom is you don't just arrive to it.
SPEAKER_01: And here's my working definition of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: My definition of wisdom is this is that wisdom is living in between the ideal of God's revelation and the reality of a broken world.
SPEAKER_01: To be a wise person is to pursue the ideal of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Everything in this Bible, everything God has commanded us, even this idea of get wisdom, it's an idea, an ideal.
SPEAKER_01: It's a there there it's it's a perfected thing, but we could never get there.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because we live in the brokenness of a real world.
SPEAKER_01: And wisdom that Solomon is calling to his son is navigating everything Scripture is calling to, and at the same time, all the brokenness that I live in.
SPEAKER_01: And wisdom is this pursuit of this pathway in the middle of the ideal and reality.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible knows that you're imperfect, and the Bible knows of the brokenness of your life and the sins you've committed and the sins that have been committed against you.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible accounts for all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, get wisdom, the ideal of God's revelation and the reality of our broken world.
SPEAKER_01: And then verses six through 19 is everything that Mark talked about on getting wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: I want to move forward to verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: 20 says, My son, here he is again.
SPEAKER_01: Be attentive to my words, incline your ear to my saying.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the very same things.
SPEAKER_01: So you know we're in a transition.
SPEAKER_01: We're in a he's coming back to kind of summarize and re-establish.
SPEAKER_01: Let them not escape from your sight, keep them within your heart.
SPEAKER_01: And then he's going to show three ways.
SPEAKER_01: Three ways, three dangers that may get in the way to turn you away from true flourishing.
SPEAKER_01: Flourishing in the reality of who God is and what he has told us and revealed to us and the brokenness of our world.
SPEAKER_01: And so it starts like this: He says, Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life.
SPEAKER_01: He begins in the heart.
SPEAKER_01: He's actually going to begin with, he's just going to use the body as a metaphor.
SPEAKER_01: But he begins with the heart.
SPEAKER_01: Guard the heart, keep the heart, protect the heart, for from it is the spring of life.
SPEAKER_01: Life.
SPEAKER_01: And then it goes on, says that healing to all flesh.
SPEAKER_01: You're this flourishing language, health language.
SPEAKER_01: You're alive, you're healed, you're flourishing, you're healthy, but it's not talking about physical health.
SPEAKER_01: It's talking about spiritual health.
SPEAKER_01: It's talking about the wisdom of living in the reality of the ideal.
SPEAKER_01: And so you have this, you see this flourishing life idea.
SPEAKER_01: This success is different than summiting idea.
SPEAKER_01: And then he's going to go, yeah, but here's the problem is that you got to guard the heart.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because there's a danger in a distracted heart.
SPEAKER_01: The distractions of your heart is a particular danger to getting the wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: It's in the way.
SPEAKER_01: It puts you in a different focus.
SPEAKER_01: So now, and if you're coming from a secular worldview, you might recognize some of this language, but I want you to see it.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible's speaking of it differently.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon is speaking of it differently.
SPEAKER_01: As secular people, we might say, like, follow your heart, listen to your heart, obey your heart.
SPEAKER_01: What does your heart want?
SPEAKER_01: Just believe in yourself.
SPEAKER_01: These are these are the slogans, these are the doctrines, these are the creeds of the secular world.
SPEAKER_01: And so when it says, guard your heart, for from it is the springs of life, you might, you might hear what anybody hears.
SPEAKER_01: What's it mean when the pastor is leaving during the sermon?
SPEAKER_01: He's like, good luck, everybody.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: I know which one.
SPEAKER_01: So you might hear the very same thing that we hear in the Second World.
SPEAKER_01: Follow your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Wherever it leads.
SPEAKER_01: Believe in yourself.
SPEAKER_01: The power is in you.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe it, you can accomplish it.
SPEAKER_01: If you if you go for it, if you if you um if you want it, you can manifest it, right?
SPEAKER_01: Well, Solomon isn't talking like that.
SPEAKER_01: He's not talking about believing here.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about something different.
SPEAKER_01: What does he tell us about wisdom and knowledge and in chapter 1, verse 7, that the beginning of all wisdom, all knowledge is fearing the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying it's not a it's not a matter of the heart you have, it's the matter of the heart being transformed into something different.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not just manifesting your own desires, but it's your heart actually having new desires.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible and the ancient cultures speak of the heart as the seed of the will.
SPEAKER_01: See, we we think of the heart as the seat of emotions.
SPEAKER_01: How I feel, I love you, you know, all of that.
SPEAKER_01: But in the ancient world, the heart was the seed of the will.
SPEAKER_01: We think the will is the mind and my my thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: But in in the ancient time, it was the heart.
SPEAKER_01: The heart is the place of the will.
SPEAKER_01: And and where and what is and Jesus brings Proverbs chapter 4 back in, Matthew 6, 21, for where your treasure is, your heart will be also.
SPEAKER_01: Guard your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because it will be what you treasure.
SPEAKER_01: Then he goes further still.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus continues in this idea of Proverbs, building upon and fulfilling what Solomon has written.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see the direct relationship between Jesus and Proverbs?
SPEAKER_01: Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
SPEAKER_01: What does this mean?
SPEAKER_01: It simply means this.
SPEAKER_01: When Solomon is saying, get wisdom and then guard the heart, he's literally commanding an impossibility.
SPEAKER_01: And that impossibility is to get wisdom is to get a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: And how can you make your heart new?
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
SPEAKER_01: Guard this heart of yours, for out of it is the rivers of living water.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Jesus is coming back and he's filling in the gaps, and he's saying the flourishing life, the wise life is a heart that believes in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a heart that just has desires.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a moral heart.
SPEAKER_01: It's a heart that is filled with something brand new.
SPEAKER_01: It is filled with a new will and a new desire.
SPEAKER_01: That of it's filled with Christ's heart.
SPEAKER_01: So guard the heart of Christ in you.
SPEAKER_01: For from it flows the springs of life.
SPEAKER_01: Keep it safe.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I was just in Oxford, so I have a lot of token, Tolkien on my mind and C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis.
SPEAKER_01: So I just think of that scene where Gandalf is like, is it safe?
SPEAKER_01: Is it secret?
SPEAKER_01: Is your heart safe this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Is it secret to the things of the enemy, to the distractions?
SPEAKER_01: Is it protected?
SPEAKER_01: Now we think, here's what we think, because we we love like just trying to manage our way through behavior.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna say something like, well, okay, I'll just stop doing the things.
SPEAKER_01: I'll guard my heart by putting up big walls against things that I know that God has said are not good or they're not spiritually healthy or they're not sound.
SPEAKER_01: So I'll just put up walls and I'll alter my behavior and I'll just stop doing certain things.
SPEAKER_01: But that's not how he's talking about guarding the heart here.
SPEAKER_01: From it flows the springs of life.
SPEAKER_01: It means that it's not just a mere matter of putting up walls as behaviors in our life, but it's actually our heart being filled with something so full that the distractions can't penetrate the heart.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a sponge.
SPEAKER_01: To keep a sponge from absorbing liquid when a sponge is dry is impossible.
SPEAKER_01: It's just gonna absorb it.
SPEAKER_01: But if it's already, if it's already full, then it can't bring in anymore.
SPEAKER_01: When it says guard your heart, the guarding is not just building behavioral walls and going, okay, well, I won't sleep around, or I won't do this, or I won't watch this, or I won't click on this.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that that those might be good, but those are just behaviors.
SPEAKER_01: What we're being called to is you get a new heart, let that heart be such a sponge that it absorbs all of the heart of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So it's so full.
SPEAKER_01: It's so full that there's nothing, it can't absorb anything that is going to distract the heart from flourishing in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Guarding our heart is to fill it.
SPEAKER_01: Not protect it with walls or behaviors.
SPEAKER_01: Behaviors are like the walls of great cathedrals, but they're dead inside.
SPEAKER_01: The next danger comes in verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: Put away your crooked speech, your devious talk far from you.
SPEAKER_01: So now we're kind of moving.
SPEAKER_01: This next metaphor of the body is the mouth.
SPEAKER_01: So one is the danger of a distracted heart, and and this one becomes the danger, and I'll show you.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's the danger of self-talk.
SPEAKER_01: We're all talking to ourselves, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I had a professor uh one time where we were talking about, hey, it's okay that you talk to yourself, just don't answer yourself.
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's when you need help.
SPEAKER_01: Put away crooked speech, crooked.
SPEAKER_01: Meaning it refers to speech that twists truth, maybe lying, but also misrepresentation of facts, manipulation, speech that bends reality.
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
SPEAKER_01: Speech that bends reality for selfish intent.
SPEAKER_01: Devious talk.
SPEAKER_01: It's to devious, it's to turn aside, it's to be led away, it's to deviate within it with this kind of dark intention.
SPEAKER_01: It leads yourself or it leads others off a path of flourishing and true success to the many summits of our world to manipulate, to mislead.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus preached about this also.
SPEAKER_01: Luke chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: The good person out of the good treasure of his heart, there's the count, there's the connection, produces good, and the evil person out of the evil treasure does evil.
SPEAKER_01: For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
SPEAKER_01: And now we begin to see this beautiful logic of Solomon, starting with the heart, and now he's going to the mouth.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to begin with just the mouth of our soul.
SPEAKER_01: What are we saying to ourselves?
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever heard this phrase?
SPEAKER_01: It's an American thing, but um, have you ever heard this phrase?
SPEAKER_01: Uh, loose lips sink ships?
SPEAKER_01: Does that sound familiar?
SPEAKER_01: World War II, when uh when the when the U-boats were out sinking ships, American soldiers would take merchant ships and all of these things.
SPEAKER_01: And it became a slogan for soldiers in World War II that if you talked about what ship you were on, when it's leaving, where it's going, and uh, and any of the ports in between, then you're setting the whole ship up to be sunk.
SPEAKER_01: And so they came out with this, you know, this whole propaganda phrase: loose lips sink ships.
SPEAKER_01: True enough.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible tells us that loose lips of the soul sink Christian ships.
SPEAKER_01: And here we actually we have we actually have the word lips, oddly enough, although it doesn't come out in the English, that the devious talk, it's actually devious lips.
SPEAKER_01: It's translated by the translators as talk, but the word is lip.
SPEAKER_01: So put your devious lips far from you.
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
SPEAKER_01: Take them off, leave them at home, you know?
SPEAKER_01: That's the that's the imagery.
SPEAKER_01: Loose lips stink Christian ships.
SPEAKER_01: Think about James chapter three.
SPEAKER_01: The tongue is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body, it corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
SPEAKER_01: You know what's fascinating is we often think about the words we say and their impact on others.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to think about the words we say and the impact on our own soul.
SPEAKER_01: And look at in James 3, it doesn't say that the tongue is a fire that sets your friends' lives on fire.
SPEAKER_01: It says it sets you on fire.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever noticed that before?
SPEAKER_01: It sets you on fire.
SPEAKER_01: Your lips can sink the ship of your faith.
SPEAKER_01: So what are you saying to yourself?
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever said something like, I know God loves people, but I I don't think he loves me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not actually sure he's for me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't actually think he wants me.
SPEAKER_01: I think he's cursing me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I've done enough that he would give me his favor.
SPEAKER_01: He isn't with me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the last time that God has helped me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think he's near to me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't feel him.
SPEAKER_01: I don't see him working in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I see him working in other people's lives.
SPEAKER_01: I don't see him in my life.
SPEAKER_01: He's distant.
SPEAKER_01: He's a he's abandoned me just just like others in my life have abandoned me.
SPEAKER_01: This God that leaps from this page, I I don't experience this God, I don't know this God, I don't feel this God, I don't see this God.
SPEAKER_01: That's talk.
SPEAKER_01: That's crooked and devious talk.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's deviating from truth, for selfish intention, to make sense of our own lives, to put ourselves front and center instead of God and his goodness front and center for me.
SPEAKER_01: And if God is doing something good and glorifying, then it's the best thing for me, whether I feel it or not.
SPEAKER_01: Crooked and devious talk.
SPEAKER_01: Too much of a sinner to have the grace of God.
SPEAKER_01: God is unjust, God is unfair, God is out of touch, God is non-existent.
SPEAKER_01: What are the things that you tell yourselves when the lights are off and nobody else is with you?
SPEAKER_01: What do you believe as you look in the world around you?
SPEAKER_01: What do you think as God is working or healing somebody around you in a radical way?
SPEAKER_01: Like we just had a woman who got healed from cancer.
SPEAKER_01: She was on hospice and she just got fired from hospice two days ago.
SPEAKER_01: We've been praying over her and she was healed.
SPEAKER_01: What was she thinking?
SPEAKER_01: She was so full of faith, but there's people who are in those times they they've given up and they account God through the lens of their own experiences.
SPEAKER_01: Self-talk.
SPEAKER_01: If I were to ask, for those of you who know Jesus here, do you talk like a Christian?
SPEAKER_01: You know how a Christian talks?
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: I don't mean, you know, no cussing, no R-rated movies.
SPEAKER_01: I got I'm not talking about that.
SPEAKER_01: Not talking about behavior.
SPEAKER_01: Do you speak the truth about who God is to yourself and to others?
SPEAKER_01: Do you speak highly of the love of God?
SPEAKER_01: That is so clear in scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Do you speak highly of the sovereignty of God over your life?
SPEAKER_01: Do you do you speak highly of the goodness of God in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Psalms or as as Psalms, as you might say it, 42, 5.
SPEAKER_01: King David talked to himself.
SPEAKER_01: This is where Solomon picked it up from David.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, Solomon says, My father, who's his father?
SPEAKER_01: King David.
SPEAKER_01: In Psalm chapter 42, he says, Why, my soul, are you downcast?
SPEAKER_01: Why so disturbed within me?
SPEAKER_01: Put your hope in God and I will praise him, my Savior and my God.
SPEAKER_01: Do you hear that self-talk?
SPEAKER_01: Soul, why are you giving up on God?
SPEAKER_01: Where will you go?
SPEAKER_01: Like the disciples when Jesus is like, well, then go then.
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Lord, where would we go?
SPEAKER_01: We've already walked with you, we've seen your ministry, we've heard your teaching, everything that we've seen and experienced.
SPEAKER_01: Where else could that happen?
SPEAKER_01: It won't happen anyway.
SPEAKER_01: Where else would I go?
SPEAKER_01: And David's like, Soul, why are you disturbed?
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, he is disturbed.
SPEAKER_01: He's angry, he's downcast, he's melancholy, he's sad, he's broken, he's angry, he's grieving.
SPEAKER_01: And then he goes, Soul, soul.
SPEAKER_01: Don't go there, soul.
SPEAKER_01: Don't define God by your experience, soul.
SPEAKER_01: Why are you disturbed?
SPEAKER_01: Why does this so bother you when you know that God is orchestrating every little thing and his glory is your good soul?
SPEAKER_01: Don't give up in faith, soul.
SPEAKER_01: Don't don't walk away, soul.
SPEAKER_01: What's our self-talk?
SPEAKER_01: The soul of a Christian speaks highly of the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: Highly of God when we doubt, highly of God when we wrestle, highly with God, highly about God when we're lonely, highly about God in fear and anxiety.
SPEAKER_01: And lastly, 26 and 27, he says, Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.
SPEAKER_01: Ponder the path of your feet, and then your ways will be sure.
SPEAKER_01: Don't turn to the left or to the right or turn your foot away from evil.
SPEAKER_01: So we're just going down, you know, we're going down, it's the heart.
SPEAKER_01: And then to the mouth, and then to the eyes.
SPEAKER_01: And then he's gonna make a connection to the feet, but I think the eyes and the feet are actually more connected than we think, although the eyes and the feet are the kind of the farthest away on the body, but they're actually the most connected.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't I don't know how uh how many of you are um you know snowboarding in Ireland.
SPEAKER_01: Um I don't I don't know if the you know the pails uh have a lot of snow on them.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I grew up in Southern California, surf and most board sports and uh snowboarding and the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: Um so if you if you want that kind of life, you probably have to find a better country.
SPEAKER_01: And um but don't worry, I I'm actually here investigating where we should buy you.
SPEAKER_01: Um everybody who leaves the US now is committed to to figuring out whether we should buy wherever we go.
SPEAKER_01: So um when you when you are uh when you do a board sport, when you snowboard or you skateboard or you surf, one of the things, like if I were to teach you how to do it, one of the things um that I would say is don't worry about turning the board, just turn your eyes.
SPEAKER_01: And when you are uh on a board, any kind of board, wherever you look, it's fascinating.
SPEAKER_01: Your feet will just follow.
SPEAKER_01: And uh and it and it happens so naturally, and that's because we have this natural instinct of wherever we look, we end up going in that direction because that's our focus.
SPEAKER_01: And it's so true in any of the board sports, and whether it's water, waves, or asphalt or whatever it might be, wherever you look is where you will turn.
SPEAKER_01: And so why the connection between eyes and feet?
SPEAKER_01: It's because where your eyes go, your feet will go.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon knows that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what's radical is Solomon knew that, smartest guy ever.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon knew that, but it's also been substantiated by philosophers and even neuroscientists.
SPEAKER_01: You know that neuroscience has discovered uh what's known as the reticular activating system.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know this?
SPEAKER_01: It's the system, some of you have ADHD, so that system's broken, but uh essentially it's the gateway of all the inputs around us, from sound to um to voices to sirens, whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_01: And the the the RAS system of the mind is way back here, kind of in the in the unconscious part of our stem, brainstem, and it's protecting us so that we can focus on the things we need to focus and keep out the things that are unnecessary.
SPEAKER_01: But if it becomes necessary or it's dangerous, or whatever that hierarchy is, then it allows that that input to get in there.
SPEAKER_01: So if there's you know an alarm somewhere in a building, you know, you have to evacuate it, breaks you out of your focus.
SPEAKER_01: That's the the reticular activating system.
SPEAKER_01: It's a filter of information, sights, and sounds.
SPEAKER_01: Tells you in your to bring to your conscience what matters, and it's directed by the thing you're most focused in.
SPEAKER_01: So even our very body has this response.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon didn't know that advanced understanding, but we've substantiated.
SPEAKER_01: But then philosophers also talk this way.
SPEAKER_01: Philosophers have talked for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: We we we are what we love, right?
SPEAKER_01: That that's a very that that's been since Aristotle.
SPEAKER_01: We are what we love.
SPEAKER_01: But then a philosopher, James K.
SPEAKER_01: Smith, he comes out and he writes a book and and he actually puts this together.
SPEAKER_01: He quote, uh, what we love, we learn to love by habitually looking at.
SPEAKER_01: That's powerful.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon says, wherever your eyes are, that's where your feet will go.
SPEAKER_01: Neuroscience says, wherever your eyes are, feet will go.
SPEAKER_01: Philosophers come and say, whatever you love, it's because you focused on it.
SPEAKER_01: Marketing knows this.
SPEAKER_01: Consider the algorithms designed to grab your attention, to lead you somewhere, to endless doom scrolling, to comparison and temptation, and to spend money and purses and watches and phones and Netflix cues, influencers.
SPEAKER_01: The algorithms are after you.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because wherever you look, that's what you'll love.
SPEAKER_01: That's where your feet will go.
SPEAKER_01: What do you look at in the morning?
SPEAKER_01: What it, what is the gaze of the eyes of your soul when you wake up in the morning?
SPEAKER_01: Too often for me, it's my phone and it's X, you know, and it's like, what is going on today?
SPEAKER_01: And then I just get into the rhythm and it's busy.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't even thought about God.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't even thought about his grace that I woke up this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't even put my eyes on him at all.
SPEAKER_01: How in the world will I put my eyes on him at 10:15 when I get a call of a member who's going in for emergency surgery?
SPEAKER_01: How will I put my eyes on him when I'm inundated with selfish thinking and intent at 2 p.m.?
SPEAKER_01: How will I put my eyes on him when when I'm when I'm all alone and it's on my phone and nobody's around and I'm inundated with incredible temptation?
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, maybe I'll just go there.
SPEAKER_01: How will I how will I have my eyes if I have not focused on the Lord all day?
SPEAKER_01: My feet will go, and you'll find, I think, that many of the cycles of sin in our life, the rejecting of God in the everyday.
SPEAKER_01: I could probably bet a lot of money that it the re the reason that cycle exists is because you're still looking.
SPEAKER_01: Your eyes.
SPEAKER_01: What does he say?
SPEAKER_01: He goes, the eye is the lamp of the body.
SPEAKER_01: If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, eyes don't just passively see.
SPEAKER_01: That's how we get deceived.
SPEAKER_01: Eyes direct the soul.
SPEAKER_01: Skeptic might say, Well, isn't this just behavior control?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about behavior.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about the deeper thing, freedom.
SPEAKER_01: When Paul says, I don't look back, but I look forward, straining towards what's ahead, forgetting what lies behind, straining towards what's ahead.
SPEAKER_01: I press on towards the goal, which is the upward call of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you, who's more free?
SPEAKER_01: The person that that gives to the culture what the culture is asking and lives, or the person who puts her eye on Christ, forgetting what lies behind, but pressing on towards the goal to win the prize and the upward call of God, which is Christ, and dies for it.
SPEAKER_01: Who's more free?
SPEAKER_01: See, true freedom is not the ability to decide to do something.
SPEAKER_01: True freedom is the ability to decide what's more flourishing.
SPEAKER_01: The person who puts her eyes on Christ is more free because the object of their faith is more free.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is more free than money.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is more free than status.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is more free than sex.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is more free than porn.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is more free than alcohol.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is more free.
SPEAKER_01: And so then we become more free as we continue to step towards the freedom of the object of our faith, which is Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So who's more free?
SPEAKER_01: Rod Hall, who summits or Christy Ellis, who's tried twice but lives?
SPEAKER_01: Who's more free?
SPEAKER_01: One who lives or one who dies on the summit, conquering the mountain?
SPEAKER_01: It's not the freedom to choose your path, it's the freedom to choose the right path.
SPEAKER_01: Oh son or daughter, heed my words.
SPEAKER_01: My favorite verse out of chapter four is Proverbs 418.
SPEAKER_01: The path of righteousness is like the morning sun shining ever brighter till the full light of day.
SPEAKER_01: Get wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a sunrise, and it never sets, just keeps rising.
SPEAKER_02: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.