250727 Soul Keeping (1 of 5)

The Soul's Design: Made by God, Made for God Hey, so this morning we are kicking off a new series with a chance for if you want to read along at home or join a small group and work your way through it. You can. There's a book you can download it onto Kindle. You can download it onto Audible. There's videos that you can use in your small group which you can download for a small cost. There's a study guide, hundreds of ways that you can enjoy this material. And the sermon series. We've got 5 sermons. There's six studies and 17 chapters in the book and they all kind of overlap. So it doesn't matter if you're reading along or not, still come along and hear the sermons. But if you'd like to be part of a group that is sort of talking about this and working out what what this is all about, then you're welcome to do that. We've got a new group starting up this week which has I think all the three people in it so far. So a good chance if you'd like to, David's here. David Vandemeza, wave your hand. See David if you'd like to join, join a group or there's also Robert and Cindy's groups has some spaces and we've got a couple of other groups that have got spaces in as well. So if you want to find a time that suits you, you're welcome to do that. We've chosen this material quite deliberately. It's a chance. You know, we often win our preaching series. We we work our way through books of the Bible and we talk about that. But we thought it'd be a really good opportunity just to refocus a little and to think about this whole idea of how we look after our soul and what our soul even is. The material is great, and it's a good chance to interact with that. Let's just spend a moment praying, and then we'll launch off into the sermon. Father, this morning we do ask that we might hear your voice, that we might know it's our good, loving Heavenly Father who's speaking to us. And Father, you might capture our hearts and draw us closer to you. Lord, we pray that in these moments, as we exhale and let go of all the things that have been going on in our lives, that you might take this opportunity in the quietness just to speak to our very hearts. We pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen. So this whole idea of how we care for our soul kind of prompts a starting question of what exactly is our soul. And if you read through the scriptures, you find there's lots of descriptions of different parts, body, soul, spirit, mind. You know, there's all kinds of designations given in Scripture. And we kind of have this sense that we know what a soul is, but we have trouble defining it, right. For the Greeks, they kind of got to the point where they, they broke this up and they said we're made-up of body, spirit and soul. And they, they have these designations and to the point where they kind of go the soul is the eternal part. And that when you die, there's a repository that you go to and, and that's where the whole idea of reincarnation comes from. You know, then your soul comes and re reincarnates into somebody else. The Hebrews had a much deeper and more complex and yet simpler view of what soul was. They kind of viewed people as being an integrated person. You're just a person and although you might know there's parts of you, you act and you respond as a person. Now we know what it is to have a bit of a dichotomy there sometimes. Sometimes our mind tells us something in our heart tells us something different. And so the the Greeks tried to to clarify this, but that Hebrew concept of being an integrated person is a deeply biblical concept all the way through. And my contention would be that we don't exist without a body. And that's why it talks in the Scripture about a resurrection body that we will have because God has always viewed us as us as being that person who is all together and one person making decisions in terms of where they stand with God. When Altberg talks about this, he takes up one of Dallas Willard's idea and he says, you know, it's, it was explained to him that you have a will, which is your decision making. You have a a mind, which is your thoughts and your feelings. The Bible talks about both of them in the same breath. And you also have a body. And his contention is this, that the soul is a part of you that integrates all of that together. It's kind of the glue that holds it together and helps you to relate to God. And so as we think about what it is to care for our souls, I think we're actually thinking about the very part of us that relates to God that was created for that purpose. Willard is quoted as saying you are a soul made by God, made for God and made to need God. Hence you were not made to be self-sufficient. This is really important, the fact that God has actually given you this bit of yourself that integrates everything else and helps you to live life made for God, made by God and made to need God. And here he points out, and we're going to look at this a little later, but here he points out that self-sufficiency is actually enemy of the soul, is actually what drives us away from the lighting. Well, to God, what we put in place of God in that sense for the Hebrews, they write from the early days of the Old Testament in the Torah, it was recorded over and over again, this idea that heart and soul go together. But if they're but if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek with all of your heart and all of your soul. Here's the sense of what soul is about. It's the part of us that seeks after God. And it's interesting to me that in especially in the early part of the Old Testament, it nearly always puts heart and soul together with everything you are, with all of your passion, but the very sense of what makes you, you seek after God and he will make himself known to you. You know, it's the funniest thing that when you sit on the outside of this, it kind of doesn't make a lot of sense. But if you've been a person who've worked, walked with God for a while, you know the truth of this, that as you've sought after him, he's made himself known to you. You know, Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians, says this is foolishness to those who don't understand and don't believe. But for those of you who believe, you know the truth of this, that Jesus died and he rose again. Why? So that we could seek after God. And when you step into that relationship and you spend your time with all of your heart searching for who God is, your discovery can be found. And as you walk that journey, you discover more and more about Him and your relationship with Him deepens. Someone said that understanding God is like an onion. You know, you've got this layer of grace that you peel, and what do you find inside the next layer of grace? And then you peel that and what do you find? The next layer of God loving you undeservedly. Grace. We were made for this, and this is the very essence of how we were created. For me, I kind of think of it like the connecting thread, the bit that actually draws us to God, the bit that keeps me upright, the bit that stops me falling over or drifting or wandering off, the thread that connects me to God. I don't know about you, but the the news this week has been quite distressing, watching what's going on in Gaza in particular. Soul's Hunger: Responding to Suffering, Avoiding Junk Food There's one photo that's become viral. The Daily Mirror in Britain put it on their front page of a mother holding his son and his all bones. And the title on the Daily Mirror says don't look away. And everything you need screams to look away because it's heartbreaking. You see this little kid who doesn't deserve this, who has no food and is probably going to die for salvation without intervention. You know, this is last time I brought up a child from Gaza. I got accused of being political, and this is not political. This is actually heart that God calls to us. He's put something in us, this bit that integrates us, that looks for him and his meaning and His purpose. And when we see things like this, our hearts should be distressed, right? We should cry because God cries. We should be distressed because this isn't right. This is how humans were created to be. And yet everything in US looks to dull this down, to numb this, to distract ourselves from this so that our hearts don't actually respond. And all of life and everything around us looks to beat that down. And so we become numb and we no longer respond. You know, I get what self-care is and not not becoming emotionally overloaded with things we can't change. I get all that. I understand why people don't watch the news. But there's something, you know that should never stop responding, right? That should always be distressed when we see what humans do to humans. We always should be distressed when there's tragedy. If you've lived long enough, you've seen tragedy on so many fronts, and it's easy to become a little numb to the stuff going on around you. This is how you were created. You were created with a soul that integrates everything that you are, that makes sense of your mind and your body and and your will. And it helps you to put that stuff together and to be a person, that response. And when we start to break that up or we don't have a solid, healthy soul holding that together, we start to become fragmented and we lose a sense of purpose and a sense of who we are. Our soul was actually created for a purpose. It was actually created to be hungry and it was designed to be hungry for God. I just pulled 2 random verses out. There's lots and lots of them. In Psalm 84 it says my soul yearns, even faints for the course of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. And in Psalm 42, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God? You see, you were created to have this God connection. You were created as a healthy person with a healthy soul to be hungry for God and everything around you will look to feed you junk food, will look to feed you things that aren't God, to try and replace this in your life. Our Calling is to understand that our souls are hungry and to feed ourselves in a healthy manner, to actually feed them with what they were designed for, a relationship with God. You know, soul sickness comes when we start to feed ourselves on the things that aren't God, when we start to feed ourselves on the things that the world offers us that purports to make us happy, to make us OK. When Peter writes to his followers, he says difference. I urge you as foreigners and exiles to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. You see, everything around you calls you to be a glutton on things that aren't good for you. And we get all fragmented and we start to get unhealthy, and this starts to stop working for us. And the end result of all of that is that we become very unhealthy people. You know, it's interesting to me that Peter here says foreigners and exiles, He writes to his followers and he says, know this. You don't belong to this world. You belong to another Kingdom. You're just passing through. Know that there's a bigger reality, something that's true, something that calls to you that you were made for. And be careful, because everything around you will look to take that off you. When we don't listen to our soul and we start feeding it stuff that isn't good for it, we find that all we're doing is replacing the part of us that was designed for God. That hungry for God becomes hungry for other things. And so rather than having a healthy sense of purpose that God gave you, you start to find that you lean towards selfish ambition and you're busily raking things in and validating yourself and saying, look how smart I am. Look what I can do, look what I've achieved. This is true of love that for for us, we were created with this deep desire to love God and we get hungry with that. And so we turn to things that aren't helpful. Porn, romantic novels, movies that don't help us. We we get to the point where we just become love hungry and we're looking for love on any front to feed us. And does it do its damage? Yeah. It starts to disintegrate our souls. It starts to pull us apart because we weren't designed to be that for others of us. We we lean into control and we try and control our circumstances and we try and control the people around us. We try and control our families to be what we need them to be. Why? Because we're feeding ourselves desperately, like the little kid with their cake in the face going, I need, I want, I deserve. And all the time we're just integrating our souls. You know, the Scripture is really clear on this, that you were made by God, you were made for God, and you were made to need God. That's your very design in who you are. And when you feed the wrong stuff, it takes you to the wrong place. The Disintegrating Soul: Signs of a Fragmented Life In the midst of all of that, Martin Siegelman is quoted by Altberg in his book. He's a psychologist that has no particular faith orientation, but he says this just as an observation. We've replaced church, faith and community with a teeny unit that cannot bear the weight of meaning. That self. We're all about self. We revolve about our lives around. We revolve our lives around ourselves. I've been looking for a a, a picture that said you deserve it. And you know, there was a about 1000 I could have chosen from. Why? Because it's a mantra, isn't it? You deserve it. You deserve better. You deserve people to treat you better. You deserve to have more. You deserve to be loved and to have people around you. You deserve for people to look after you. You deserve a better job. You deserve more pay than you get. You, you hear hear the mantra. It's become an anthem for us. And Siegelman, A psychologist who's looking on, says the problem is we've put all this weight on this teeny thing called self, and it can't bear the weight of meaning. You see, because you were designed by God for God to need God, that's how you were made. And when you pay no attention to that, your soul becomes unhealthy and you start to become unintegrated. In the book, Ortberg talks about the fact that our soul is a part that integrates all those things together. And what happens is we when we pay no attention to it, it starts to disintegrate, it starts to fall apart and we find ourselves not functioning even how we would want to be, let alone how God would want us to be. We know that we don't even measure up to our own standards and we find ourselves swinging, oscillating on the pendulum of one this way, one that way, and we're all over the place. If you join a small Group, One of the exercises in the first study is to think about what it looks like to have a disintegrated will. This is your decision making centre. And some of the things that will give you an idea that you're disintegrating, that that your will is falling apart, is that your decisions become chaotic and unreconcilable. Unreconcilable in the sense you want this and you want that and you can't even bring them together. And so you find yourself constantly torn and then you become enslaved to this chaotic pendulum swing that goes back because you want this, but you're driving people away. And you, you try this, but it's not. We pick up destructive habits. We start doing things that aren't good for us. We start acting in ways that actually start to pull ourselves apart. So words that come easily are manipulation, deception, seduction, malice, exalting ourselves. And the question you're asking yourself all the time because you're hungry. How can I get my way? God created you for more than this. How would you know if your mind is starting to disintegrate? Our mind is a wild mixture of thought and feeling. We put God in a box of our own creation. God can only do this. God is good for that. I just leave Him on a Sunday. I do this bit over here and I compartmentalize and then I go and do this bit over here. We start to actually limit who God is and what He can do in our life, and it's by our own design. We cry out God out through activity and busyness. You know, one of the easiest ways to actually numb your soul is just to get busy. It's been the age-old problem for churches. We start programs and activities with good intention and then they just take on a life of their own. And then we find we're all running around so busy and if we don't have church, we're doing it in our own lives. It's kind of like running around with your fingers in your ears going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Do you say you can't hear anything right? We numb ourselves. We're enslaved by feelings, anger, lust, woundedness, which can't be satisfied. We drift with a lack of self-control. You know, there's a whole bunch of things about being human where we feel the little tickle of some of this and sometimes we have trouble working out what is us just getting older and, and what is our mind actually disintegrating. But he makes a point and he says, you know, it's really clear for us because we know that it's pulling us apart. We're at a party yesterday and I was telling my kids that I've been to Ocean Key shops earlier in the day. And I'm walking around the shops going, when are they going to stop playing this ridiculous carnival music? Like it was really, it was really starting to annoy me. And I went out to the car park and it got louder and I thought they part, they're piping it even louder out here. And then I hopped in my car and it was louder still. And I realized it was on my phone and I'd been walking around with this carnival music play. It had downloaded an ad or a game or something. And in the background, you know, I have these moments. I know what it is to be getting a little bit older. I won't give you the whole conversation because then my kids went on to point out many ways in which I'm a dinosaur and I get this stuff wrong. But you know when your mind is disintegrating, it's a different beast all together than just getting older, isn't it? Because you start to feel the slip, you start to feel the oscillation, you start to feel the pull away from God towards the things that aren't healthy, that aren't good for you. And then he also talks about in the in the book what it is to have a disintegrated body, where our bodies make us slaves, where we have to be healthy and fit and do everything right and look properly and look good. Or at the other end of the pendulum, the second one, it becomes a source of shame, of of disgust, of agitation, of self loathing. When we become obsessed at either end with our bodies. Well, that's us starting our souls starting to disintegrate. Parts of our body feel beyond our control. Improv, as it says. You'll have a lying tongue, haughty eyes, hands that shed innocent blood, feet rushing towards evil. It's quite a graphic description, isn't it, of what it is when we start to disintegrate. You were made by God. You were made for God. You were made to need God. And when you don't pay attention to that, when you're not looking after your soul, these, these wheels start to fall off and you find yourself getting lost. You're finding yourself getting pulled apart. You find yourself being the person that you never intended to be. Soul Health Check: Clinging to God as Your Anchor You know, I think even if you've been walking with God for a long time, it's good just to do a little bit of a health check, isn't it? There's bits and pieces of this that you might go, yeah, I can see how I'm leaning into this or to that, how I'm not giving God his due, how I'm not feeding myself on him, but rather I'm feeding myself on junk food. Deuteronomy said way back when. They're talking off those who come with dreams and prophecies, those who speak in and try to lead you astray. The writer says this. If they say come, let us worship other gods, gods you have not known before, do not listen to them. The Lord your God is testing you to see if you truly love Him with all of your heart and soul. Serve only the Lord your God and fear Him alone. Obey His commands, listen to His voice and cling to Him. Over the next few weeks we're just going to unpack some of what that looks like and some of how we can look after our soul and take care of it. But here is the central thought that you were made for God and by God you were made to need God. If you pay attention to that and if you look to love him with all of your heart and soul, then what actually happens? He becomes your anchor that stops you from drifting. The writer for the Hebrews puts it like this. We take hold of the hopes that before us, we have this hope as an anchor for the soul the and secure. You know, for most of us, we know what it is to drift a little. We just often haven't had words around what what's going on for us. Can I encourage you over the next few weeks as we think about caring for your soul and actually feeding yourself on the right stuff? That you pay attention to what you're telling yourself of what you know of yourself. That you listen for God's voice in the midst of that. And that you put your emphasis back onto your hope in Him, loving Him with all of your heart and soul so that He might provide the anchor that stops you from drifting, an anchor that's firm and secure. Let's pray, Father, even as we've thought about this this morning, it's you alone who knows our hearts. It's you alone who sees through all of our external act and all the ways in which we we do things and the things we say. We sit here this morning completely exposed to you. You know us. You know our hearts. You know the things for us that draw us away from you. Lord, I pray that this morning as we think about this, that your people here might have the courage to be honest to themselves. They might have the courage to think about where they are with you. They might think about the ways in which they've let their soul become unhealthy and that they might find you yet again as their anchor. Lord, our deep prayer for this week is that we might know again what our hope is, and that through that hope, you might provide for us a firm and secure anchor. We pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen.