[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the way community church podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our mission is to show people the way to life with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: My name's Ahmed Gordon, I'm the podcast producer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to join us, need prayer or worship through giving, you can find the links in the transcript of this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're continuing our, are you ready to heal series and the way community churches lead counselor Alicia Walker will be today's guest speaker helping all of us to become whole enough to love well.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be coming from the book of Luke and first Samuel to talk about the stories of the Goodson Meriton and Abigail.
[SPEAKER_00]: Open your Bibles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's begin our services.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matthew 22 37 through 40 in the NLC.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus replied, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the first and greatest commandment and the second is equally important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love your neighbor as yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: The entire law and the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my question was always like, what if you don't love yourself?
[SPEAKER_01]: What if you don't love yourself?
[SPEAKER_01]: I would ask it in the group, I would ask it to myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I just started asking God, like, how am I to love myself for you and my neighbor?
[SPEAKER_01]: If I don't love myself, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I said it, some of y'all were like, whoo, that might be mine, or that might be somebody I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's just all take a collective, like, deep breath, the catch that statement.
[SPEAKER_01]: It might have been a former season.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it wasn't you, it might have been a family member.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so understanding that some, that statement means, they don't love themselves, literally, because their life isn't shambles, because so much is going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how can I love this when so much is going on?
[SPEAKER_01]: And for others of us, it's maybe we don't love ourselves,
[SPEAKER_01]: because we'd never learned how.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or, how can I love my neighbor as myself and make disciples if my image of Jesus is tainted?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, the people who showed me Jesus was mean, critical point now, all the flaws, said they loved you, but they didn't treat you like they did.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or I'm just new to the faith and all of this is kind of above my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our major key today is being a disciple here at the way means someone who knows Jesus grows to be more like him and intentionally shows people the way to life with Jesus from a healed and whole place, a place of shalom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing missing, nothing broken, a place of peace beyond understanding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if I'm coming from that place, you're not being the disciple by me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not being the disciple by my flaws,
[SPEAKER_01]: My anxiety, my whatever I have going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm bringing God to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a big part of me standing up here is me trying to get out of the way of what God has for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm going to be honest.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was real hard this week because we was in the battle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was going to beat up with the message I'm about to get you so, you know, you're going to get it just like I got it, but I'm going to try to be like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe God just was popping me on the head all week just for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you feel the Bob to take it, it's not me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So don't come after me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last week at the end of service, I said to my daughter who said no audience, I said, dang.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how I was stepping on all of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was like, yeah, you can't come here and be spiritually immature.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, you show, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you get your feelings are quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: in the love of God, okay, take it, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our annual big idea this year is God develops readiness through repeated obedience.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the seven pathways we've talked about is know yourself that you may know God, going back in order to go forward, journey through the wall and larger soul through grief and loss, discover the rhythms of the daily office and Sabbath.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of you have done that this week?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, maybe you didn't do it before, but you decided I'm gonna pray three times a day,
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna read a book three times a day or I'm gonna stop and be in the presence of God three times a day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, and it really isn't out of a religious thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is really just a reminder to stop and slow down and have a relationship with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because any of this we're asking you to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't do it out of your own strength.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: It really is not.
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: For those of you who raise your hand, I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The rest of you this week, that's a part of your homework.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sit down with the law for five minutes, 10 minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if that's a part of your daily conversation, please continue to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But understand what we're trying to do with this is help you create a way of life and living that looks like him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then today, we're going to talk about growing into an emotionally healthy adult.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I'm gonna use the good Samaritan and Abigail.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Peace because our role is the author of this book, and he says, and emotionally healthy disciples slows down to be with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us slow down?
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us even dry fast because we gotta get to where we're going.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us eat fast because we watch in something or we got to be somewhere, we got to slow down to be with Jesus, goes beneath the surface of their life to deeply, to be deeply transformed by Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the part for some people that's scary, because you've had life experiences, family experiences, things that you maybe have not even spoken out loud, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But going beneath the surface so you can be transformed.
[SPEAKER_01]: with the same issue you have.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're coming from a healed and whole place and you're not telling them to do things or encourage them to do things that don't look like Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And offers their life as a gift to the world of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our big idea is I'll know I'm ready to heal when I'm ready to become whole enough to love God myself and others well.
[SPEAKER_01]: The big question, Am I willing to let go of what I thought I knew, and surrender all to Jesus in order to love will?
[SPEAKER_01]: My first question for you is, what does it mean to love will?
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to look at the good Samaritan.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Luke 10, 25 through 37, using the NIV version.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in this passage, a Jewish religious lawyer or scholar asked Jesus,
[SPEAKER_01]: eternal life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus answered him with a question, what is written in the law?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you read it?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I imagine God, you know, Jesus said it with a little bit of spice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, how you read it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you know so much, you know, you studied it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You making sure the law is, you know, people are following it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me how you read it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then the man answered and he said,
[SPEAKER_01]: You should love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first part of that comes from Deuteronomy 65.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the second part, when it says love your neighbor, that comes from Leviticus 1918.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess the signs of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself, I am Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then Jesus said, you have answered correctly, do this and you live, like you told me what you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm telling you, if you do that, you live, just follow these words, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause that was his job, was to tell people to follow these words.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think in my head, when I read some passages, it's like a movie or a TV show,
[SPEAKER_01]: So this apart to me that gets a little spicy, that's my work.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think this man was really trying to try Jesus, like trying to be like, oh, okay, so if this is what's going on, the text says, but we wanted to justify himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said to Jesus, so who was my neighbor?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, okay, you said love my neighbor, but who is my neighbor?
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time, lawyers were religious experts, legal experts.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were the ones to create the rules to measure or determine a person's righteousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever come across somebody who took that on as their role in your life?
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to measure you, tell you what you can and can't do.
[SPEAKER_01]: They condemned anyone who failed to keep the rules while they created loopholes to justify themselves
[SPEAKER_01]: Commandments, does this sound like anything that you might say or do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Find a little loophole, like I'm supposed to love God, love myself with my neighbor, except for that person that worked, because they mean.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or except for my boss, because they're crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or except for my spouse, because they're getting on my nerves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or except for whoever you want to put in there, there's your loophole.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can relate to this or this sounds familiar, who's my neighbor?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you trying to justify with loopholes?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want you to hold on to that for later.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't be like, oh, when she gonna bring it up, she gonna come down here and call me out, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause God didn't call me out enough for everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this room, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: So instead of Jesus answering the lawyer directly, he tells him a parable of the good Samaritan.
[SPEAKER_01]: So look,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, on the internet, those of us who be on their two-legged.
[SPEAKER_01]: They say, you know, when a black person is about to tell a good story, because they'll say, so boom, this is what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: So boom, this is what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of him telling him, do this, this, this, and this, he gave him a parable, and I shared a story this morning with the 830 service that I joined a business mastermind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Years ago, I'm in there thinking,
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm giving you my money, but I'm trying to figure out what's going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to teach all these lessons.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to give me all this information.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to be walking out of here a millionaires, because they was raising up millionaires.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, who want to be one?
[SPEAKER_01]: I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I joined the mastermind thinking, OK, I'm going to go in here and get what I need to get.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they have an all these workshops and panels and whatnot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're asking, like, how do you get to seven figures, seven figures, this millionaires status?
[SPEAKER_01]: taking notes, trying to figure it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many people answer with a story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want you to give me a story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me one, two, three, four, five.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I do this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, do this first, do that second, do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: They answer with, you have to be the embodiment of the person who can make the meal and manage it and maintain it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's some characteristics about you
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to hit it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think the Lord, you want to hear it either.
[SPEAKER_01]: But so, boom, here you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this version, I'm going to read the Scripture first, and then go back to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in Luke 10, 33, 35, and reply to Jesus said, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some verses say overtaken, he was ambushed.
[SPEAKER_01]: They stripped him of his, they stole his stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not into clothes and stuff like that, but imagine you had on some Gucci or Louis or whatever the latest, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it took all your stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: They beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you know they had to be him really, really bad for him to be half dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like on the side of the road, a priest happened to be going down the same road.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when he saw the man,
[SPEAKER_01]: He passed by on the other side.
[SPEAKER_01]: That man over there had it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go this way, because whatever happened to him, I don't want them to get me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to a Levi went, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did the same thing as the priest.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was
[SPEAKER_01]: He took pity on him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He went to him, vanishes wounds, pouring on oil and wine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an end and took care of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: The next day, he took out two dinarra and gave them to the endkeeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look after him, he said.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.
[SPEAKER_01]: So listen, sometimes we read a Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know you've heard the good Samaritan story.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've heard it, but sometimes we go a little too fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm gonna slow us down just a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in this version, it doesn't say that the man who was traveling was Jewish, but he was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jewish people traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho would take a long route because they were trying to avoid Samaria.
[SPEAKER_01]: As my kids would say, mind you, this would add an extra day to and from.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they avoided this route because the Jewish people at this time hated the people of Samaria.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Jews viewed Samaritan's impure half-blooded Israelites.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus making the person who intervened a Samaritan with compassion, mercy, love to a Jewish person
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't get somebody for real in your mind, but imagine there was somebody that you knew hated you and you didn't have, you know, all the good feelings for the mealer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus told you to go take care of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us doing that?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why Jesus was bumping me over the head all week, OK?
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want you to see that the Samaritan saw him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Meaning both the Jewish priests and the Levi saw him, but both of them went the only other side, both the priests and the Levi were religious leaders.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like Dr. Hall, seeing you on the side of the road, he know you go to the way that ain't my business.
[SPEAKER_01]: What you mean on that job is this, they kept going.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it could have been that they were in a hurry to get to where they needed to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could have been that,
[SPEAKER_01]: They decided, or I can't get bloody because then I'll be unclean.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the whole other ritual, and if they're trying to get to where they're trying to go, that's going to slow them down.
[SPEAKER_01]: They already added an extra day because they're trying to get around the Samaritans, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: He took pity on him, and in the NSB version it says, he had compassion on him when he saw him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He went to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: This man was beaten him bloody and stripped of his clothes.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't go to the other side.
[SPEAKER_01]: He went to see about him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He bandaged his wounds.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine somebody beating him bloody on the side of the road?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he bandaged his wound.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had to touch him.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you have gone through some type of trauma, trial, issue,
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes all it takes is somebody's just touch, physical touching of you to help you feel like it's gonna be okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: God sees you, he knows you, he's taking care of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't do this in the first service, but if you don't mind, if you wouldn't just mind just touching your neighbor's hand, just, I know some of us got germ issues, all the things.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you wouldn't mind just touching your neighbor and saying to them, God sees you, he knows.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's going to be okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I imagine that's what he's saying to this man, because he's half dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like God, I got you, this is, I'm coming to help you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm coming to be here with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gave him a compassionate touch.
[SPEAKER_01]: And from the perspective of just neurology and biology, when you are connecting with someone with physical touch, it helps to calm their nervous system.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be considered co-regulation.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're helping them feel like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I can take a deep breath and it's going to be okay because someone's here, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: He poured oil and wine, that was to clean and disinfect it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He put the man on his donkey, meaning he gave up his rye, but his man to get on his donkey.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that also means whatever he was carrying on the donkey, now the Samaritan has to carry his own stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now only did I let you take my car and my ride.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I have to carry my stuff now because I have given up or sacrifice, right, for you to get on my, which mean he had the wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us don't even like walking from our the church to our car to leave out of here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let alone, I don't even know how far this was, but it talks about the whole journey being like over 3,000 miles or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't call it because I think I'm going to put to me the ones zeros in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, it was a long way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And some of us ain't walking from here to the car a little home putting somebody on our ride and then walking beside them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You all see I got a fan on my fan over there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm hot, just standing up here.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then it says he brought him to the end and took care of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He stopped what he was doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: He stopped what he was doing to energy for somebody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then it says the next day, the next day.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means he stayed overnight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who does that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who give up that ride?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who give up that stuff?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who then stays overnight?
[SPEAKER_01]: With somebody that was on the side of the road, you don't know if the people coming back?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he paid the pay to the narrow eye and gave it to the innkeeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's two days' wages.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many are giving up two days of your salary?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if your salary is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know yet, I really, whatever that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: 100, 200, 300, 400.
[SPEAKER_01]: I keep my 500, 600, $7,000.
[SPEAKER_01]: For somebody you have no idea who this is, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he asked the in-keeper to take care of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he said, he promised to repay the in-keeper upon this return.
[SPEAKER_01]: If he had to incur any calls, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: What, how many of us are willing to do this?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the same kind Jesus described in his sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 3 through 11.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just gonna read a few.
[SPEAKER_01]: Blessed are the poor and spirit for theirs as the kingdom of heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Blessed are the gentle or a meek, for they will inherit the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
[SPEAKER_01]: Blessed for the merciful or compassionate, for they will receive mercy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He showed this man compassion, blessed are you if you give it to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then at the end of the chapter, so y'all got to be in here with me like this is story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling you a story, join this story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then at the end of the chapter, Jesus teaches us to love our neighbors, Matthew 5, 43 through 48.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us heard that like, for real, for real.
[SPEAKER_01]: in some of the ways we heard it, you know, just keep everybody out your business, they only, you know, good, everybody not your friend, all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecutues.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that you may prove yourselves to be sons of your father, who was in heaven, for he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And since rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, so we all get in rain and we all get in sun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the tats collectors,
[SPEAKER_01]: Do they not do the same?
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the Gentiles do, they not do the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, you shall be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us have misconstrue the word perfect, and we try to do everything completely right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what this is.
[SPEAKER_01]: The word perfect here means whole, complete, fully mature, lacking nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: well rounded and spiritually mature.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you do what it says in Matthew 5 through 11, the Beatitudes, and then you go even further, and it says, love your enemies.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll be perfect like your father is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me and you'll be whole, complete, fully mature, lacking nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The word love here means the Agape Love.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us have heard that before?
[SPEAKER_01]: Agape Love.
[SPEAKER_01]: Typically, we hear in the context of relationship marriage, premarital, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But this is a kind of love that Jesus has for us, and it's found in 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 8.
[SPEAKER_01]: This kind of love is patient, kind, thoughtful, not easily angered.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to just sit that right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because some of us may be not
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us may be not have given that kind of love.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the kind of love Jesus is asking here is that it's patient, kind, thoughtful, and not easily anger, not seeking self, not keeping a record of wrongs, always protects, trusts, and hopes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in order for us to love in the way that Jesus is describing in the parable of the good Samaritan,
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to love a Lord your God with all your heart and your soul in your mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then allow yourself to be inwardly transformed because obviously you cannot do this in your own might.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot be the Samaritan looking at somebody on the side of the road and do all of what this man did without being inwardly shaped or changed.
[SPEAKER_01]: You just won't, you just won't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you can receive God's grace
[SPEAKER_01]: with Agape Love described in first Corinthians 13, 4 through 8.
[SPEAKER_01]: These scriptures are showing you a way to embody this, to become that person, remember I said at the beginning what my story about the making of millions, we have to become the person in order to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You also have to believe it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to declare over yourself that you believe it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to say that Jesus, I know you can do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if it's never been done in my family, even if I've never seen it before, you can give me this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that you can take care of me enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: to free me of those things that have had me bound.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's really what this message and the messages we've talked about are about is relieving ourselves of those things that we thought we had to hold on to.
[SPEAKER_01]: And know this, from the beginning of this church, when you joined this church, Pastor Hall has always said that he believed that this church was for people to be healed and made whole.
[SPEAKER_01]: that must be your desire too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of these messages have been about how you can be healed and made holes so that you can intentionally go and make disciples that look like Jesus and not a reflection of Alicia, not a reflection of Mary, not a reflection of Michelle, not a reflection of Ruth, not a reflection of James, Jamie, being not a reflection of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're supposed to be reflection of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now this is hard to receive, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But on the flip side of it, you will be blessed.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you go back to the Beatitudes, all of it said, if you do these things, you'll be blessed.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you allow God to enter your heart and change things, you'll be blessed.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you allow these things to happen, you will be made perfect just like Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will be fully mature, whole, complete, lacking nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The hard part is doing the work.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could have had surgery, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But you got to go into rehab.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to go do the work to get your muscles and your strength back up.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what this message is.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is your physical therapy.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is your work that you have to do to become the person that God has called you to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you have to let go of?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not as soon as a little, you have to assess where you are on the spectrum of emotional infancy.
[SPEAKER_01]: to emotional maturity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even that you're like, I don't know what you talkin' through that, I mean, that don't look like me, that is not me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of the characteristics of an emotional infant are, and this is not for you to think about nobody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not for you to point, fingers at nobody.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not for you to get in a car after church to say, did you, what I said, that's you?
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, you have to do,
[SPEAKER_01]: self-assessment.
[SPEAKER_01]: So emotional infants look for others, people to take care of them, emotionally and spiritually.
[SPEAKER_01]: They often have difficult describing, experiencing their feelings in a healthy way, and rarely enter the emotional world of others.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna stand back here like the Levi and the priest did.
[SPEAKER_01]: Emotional children are content when life going their way is going their way, however, as soon as the support
[SPEAKER_01]: They were unraveling inside.
[SPEAKER_01]: They often take things personally interpreting disagreements or criticism as a personal offense.
[SPEAKER_01]: They get defensive emotional adolescent.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't like it when others question them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't ask me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why you ask me.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how suppose to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: They often make quick judgments and interpretations of people's behavior.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were called forgiveness from those who sent against them.
[SPEAKER_01]: avoiding or cutting them off when they do something to hurt them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They subconsciously keep records on the love they give out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Isn't it the opposite of first Corinthians where it said, keeps no record of wrongs?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not trying to step on nobody's toes because of mine already been stepped on, OK?
[SPEAKER_01]: You got a let go of family patterns that were born out of either survival, paying struggles, slavery, or adaptation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Things that have been passed down to us as truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they get in the way of us being emotionally healthy, like not speaking to people, or always have your head on swivel, thinking the worst of people instead of thinking the best.
[SPEAKER_01]: Always having your guard up, always having the inability to really love people, not being able to be vulnerable because you're afraid of being hurt, not being able to let walls down,
[SPEAKER_01]: because other people have hurt you before.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a lot of this has been passed on.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to keep carrying it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the adaptations, and I pulled this definition from a book called Adult Children of emotionally immature parents, how do he go from distant, rejecting, or self-involved parents?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm only pulling this out because one, I'm a therapist.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hear a lot of this from us.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see us.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I hear a lot of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, even if you hear this may have been your parent, we're not going home, be like, this was you, we're not doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're all taking care of ourselves, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to heal their whole, and then we can share it with others.
[SPEAKER_01]: Emotually, immature parents have a low capacity for emotional regulation, self-awareness, and empathy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The author notes that emotionally immature people fear, deep feelings, results, resist self-reflection, and put their own comfort and needs ahead of everyone else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, for some of us, that really hit, because that was the person who took care of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sorry for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: For some of us, this is a heart, pills and swallow, because the people who were supposed to take care of you didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you were in a place in this room that God brought you to, because he wants to see you heal their whole, like I'm by the run,
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants to see you healed and whole, even from that, even from a space of people didn't take care of you who were supposed to, and so you've learned how to do the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you might be doing the same to your family and friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, and I'm just saying this out of love, because I want us to grow.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's funny is, God always brings back to my remembrance.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I told you I'd journal a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I pray, and this one is a little bit up, but this is only from last year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I read it, God told me to go back and read a certain section and I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, this is exactly what you tell me to tell these people today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last year, this same time, are some of the words that I'm giving you today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even a year ago, God saw that we needed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he provided an answer for you in August of 2025 for August of 2026.
[SPEAKER_01]: Receive that, whoever this is for, he gave me an answer for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: An August of 2025 for the year of August 2026.
[SPEAKER_01]: God sees and knows you, even before you recognize I'm all off the script.
[SPEAKER_01]: God sees and knows you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants you to be healed and whole.
[SPEAKER_01]: from past things present so that you can walk in the future free of these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's no way you can walk into the assignment that God has for you, carrying all this baggage.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if y'all remember when I was up here before and I was talking about David.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had a bag man to carry his stuff so when he went into battle, or they went into battle, they didn't have to be saddle with all their baggage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our church is your bag man, leave the bagage here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that when you walk out of these doors today, whatever God has asked you to do, you are not holding onto and shackling you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's impossible to move when it's so much weight on you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to release the weight, I don't know who.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to release the weight, God has asked you to do something in specific, and you have not
[SPEAKER_01]: because you're continuing to say, I gotta keep care, you don't, you don't have to keep caring it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can put it down, you can put it down, you don't, the song was bye-bye, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Letting go in, I didn't even wanna turn around because I ain't looking back at normal.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't wanna see it, it's in the rear view, I'm not even looking in the rear view, I'm not gonna be like lots wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: because God taught me to look forward and I can only look forward if I'm not dragged down by what's on me.
[SPEAKER_01]: My girls know, I talk to them about standing, your laying, managing your laying, doing what you need to do because if you look to the left of the right, what does that do slow you down?
[SPEAKER_01]: Especially if you look back, you don't have to look back.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's asking you to let it go.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's asking you to move forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's asking you to heal and be made whole.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not standing up here from just me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I promise you, I'm not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the fact that, no, I'm not crying on this, the fact that God gave this book to my, the ministry he has me in charge of last year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is now this year, after we went through the season of B, then we're ready now to do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are actually walking in this work that we have asked and given to you, you are not ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: to learn what it is you have to do to look like Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that you can go and make disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're all supposed to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you've got to let some stuff go.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've got to let go of not being emotionally immature.
[SPEAKER_01]: My question here to you is, do these survival strategies that you learn still serve the person God
[SPEAKER_01]: In here, we want to say, we honor the things that our parents and our ancestors gave us to survive, but we don't have to keep living it, and we don't have to require our kids to care yet ether.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some other things you have to let go of is not treating other people as others, like, go do, like, and so in our society in America, we see sometimes foreigners as others,
[SPEAKER_01]: They have that, don't treat people like that, even if you're treating those people like that in your home.
[SPEAKER_01]: False peace keep in this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just trying to preserve my peace.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just a avoiding conflict.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes you gotta have hard conversations.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is true?
[SPEAKER_01]: Having expectations or assumptions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some problems with that is they are usually unconscious, unrealistic, unspoken, and unagreed upon.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can expect me to do some of you never said it to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can ask me to do something that is unrealistic.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to agree upon it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to say yes, this is what I can and can't do.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what God asks me to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I see all laughing over it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has to be agreed upon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the last one is, remember I said, I don't remember this.
[SPEAKER_01]: The last thing you have to let go of is just to find or finding loopholes for your existing behavior that is opposite of you loving your neighbor.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can find Lupole all day.
[SPEAKER_01]: A while I can't, I shouldn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: They did, you did, I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a conversation that had 50 times in the road.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all the Lupoles.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're given it over to God today, he's saying we can't have Lupoles no more.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to let those go.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you apply this to your world?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what I'm about, this is what I want you all to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: growing your faith as an emotionally healthy adult.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's characterized by respect and love for others without changing them or becoming judgmental.
[SPEAKER_01]: Value people for who they are, not for what they can give you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a transactional relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if they don't give you nothing back, take responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings, goals, and action.
[SPEAKER_01]: You be responsible for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, being able to state your own beliefs and values to those who disagree with you, without being argumentative, without being defensive, without being adversarial.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have the ability to accurately self-assess your own limits.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to look at yourselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't always be pointing to fingers at other people's.
[SPEAKER_01]: Renew your mind daily to embody these traits and characteristics and replace the old habits, thoughts, behaviors,
[SPEAKER_01]: every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the last, what you have to let go of or use to be a Muslim mature comes from first Samuel 25 to 35, the story of David, Naval, and Abigail.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to just tell you all this almost like a, I don't want to say we have to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine like you watch on one of the movies where they, they, you know, it's a lot of fighting and stuff going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: They got different cleats and all of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I saw when I read this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So essentially in this story, Enable is married to Abigail.
[SPEAKER_01]: And David has gone through where he's already fought Goliath.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's in the wilderness.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has come against Saul who was like coming after him for chapters and chapters.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when he came to Saul, he spared his life because he coulda killed them, but he didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's at this point now
[SPEAKER_01]: He's in the wilderness, enable and his men are in the wilderness, and they're shearing their sheep.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like a time of celebration.
[SPEAKER_01]: David asked David to ask his team to go ask Naval, can you spare us some food?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this was customary because this was a time of celebration, but it was also customary because David and his people basically protected Naval and his team, his men, while they were in the wilderness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Essentially, Neville was like, I don't know him, who is David?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why I see asking me, I'm not giving him nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So can you imagine, you don't help somebody out, you went out of your way, you unprepared for them, you made sure they was good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you asked for something in return, that is customary, that was like, sorry to this man.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know them, I don't know him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that was a slight, that was disrespectful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this is after David done all these things, so what you think David did.
[SPEAKER_01]: He told us people, uh, we're gonna ride tonight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody get show, whatever you got, we're going.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna take them down.
[SPEAKER_01]: David took 400 men, 400, he meant that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he had 200 others just to hold their stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: 200 others.
[SPEAKER_01]: So 600 men go on down at a fight neighborhood because he don't want to give him no food after he protected them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so one of Naples men came to Abigail and said, your husband, the foolish one because that's what his name meant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Foolish refused David and they're coming to kill air last
[SPEAKER_01]: go do something.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Abigail quickly went into action.
[SPEAKER_01]: She went and got food.
[SPEAKER_01]: She went and got drinks and she took them to David.
[SPEAKER_01]: And interceded on behalf of her foolish husband who didn't have good, this is what the Bible said.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't have good characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't make good decisions.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't embarrassment to his family.
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, I'm gonna go in and see because one, I'm not trying to die.
[SPEAKER_01]: And two, we have all these other people that we need to take care of.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of my husband and his foolish, I cannot let this impact everybody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says that she was intelligent and beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how did she marry him?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what she did was she went to David and basically,
[SPEAKER_01]: besieged on the behalf of her people to say, please forgive me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like she took responsibility for all those was a hers.
[SPEAKER_01]: She took responsibility and said, please take care of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we have an offering better than what you would have gotten.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so sorry, please don't kill us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then David is like, only the Lord could have sent you because y'all was going to die tonight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only the Lord could have interceded and told you to come talk to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had already had the opportunity to kill Saul, but he didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would obtain it the ministry that God had for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now it's coming to this person who wasn't even worthy of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not even like a Saul, but he's given away ready to give away his crown or his inheritance for something that doesn't even matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: We have things that are of importance, but we're ready to put it down,
[SPEAKER_01]: right, but thank God for Abigail in her seeding and saying to David, spare us.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to do us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your God has brought you to success and remember your servant.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a side by side of emotional maturity and loving well from the good Samaritan Abigail.
[SPEAKER_01]: They both see the Samaritan saw a wounded man and had compassion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Abigail saw danger and a crisis.
[SPEAKER_01]: and she understood the dangerousness of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They both stored it, met Gus and Meredith managed himself before managing the situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: In order to go to this man, he had to think through what he needed to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Abigail managed herself before managing the situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: He used emotional charity for the good of that man.
[SPEAKER_01]: She used it for the good of others.
[SPEAKER_01]: He took responsibility and moved forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: She did too.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this is key.
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't abandon their own life.
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't abandon what they needed to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: After Abigail went, when all this was over, she went back home.
[SPEAKER_01]: She went back home.
[SPEAKER_01]: We sometimes move out of people pleasing and perfection of what we thought perfection was.
[SPEAKER_01]: And instead of doing God's will, we're doing the will of everybody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what he asked you to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the good Samaritan continued on his journey.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can stop and help somebody else, but you still have your life to live.
[SPEAKER_01]: Live it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They serve these people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my question to you is, finally, how can you inherit eternal life?
[SPEAKER_01]: How can we become emotionally mature and love well?
[SPEAKER_01]: Love a larger God with all your heart?
[SPEAKER_01]: With all your souls and with all your strength and all your mind?
[SPEAKER_01]: You're showing mercy, compassion, not just to others, but to yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot give mercy and compassion if you don't give it to yourself first.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an inward change for an outward gift.
[SPEAKER_01]: An inward change for outward tasks.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't do what God has asked you to do if the internal work has not been done.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's asking you to,
[SPEAKER_01]: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love your neighbor as your self, God is asking us to do the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a question for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to ask the Holy Spirit, where do I need to grow up?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do I need to grow up?
[SPEAKER_01]: Told you I was stepping on toes, but my God stepped on first.
[SPEAKER_01]: action item, repent in those areas that you've been justifying, try to find loopholes, take one or two of them, and intentionally change your identity to match an emotionally mature Christian.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've laid out what that looks like.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've given you practical steps.
[SPEAKER_01]: So between now and next year this time, you have the opportunity to be somebody different.
[SPEAKER_01]: to live a life that's different, to be emotionally mature in your spirituality and your faith in your relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's up to you and you can do a part of this by joining the MotionHealthy Spirituality Life Groups.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can't do that, you could do it on your own.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can read it, you can pray, spend time with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take time to hear what he says.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how many books of in my house.
[SPEAKER_01]: My kids can books everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: my conversations with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I always do it, no?
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I do it, I feel his presence.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take time to be in his presence.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because even if we give you all the good words in the world, if you do not connect with him, it's falling on Rocky Ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to allow him to change what's in your heart to then give it out to somebody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you have to say you believe it first.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to believe that he can and he will.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you are in this place and the church for a reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: This might be your first time comment, and you like that lady on slap me all upside it, I apologize.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is good, he allowed you to hear this message today.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also we would love for you to take this message and internalize it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to join us on the journey,
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, you can join the life groups, but we love for you to join the church and I'm a loud Greg to come up and do the invitation, but I appreciate y'all and I appreciate God for all the all gone crack and jokes about being beat up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate the fact that he allowed me to get the man's first so that I could have something to get to you, but it's a loving correction.
[SPEAKER_01]: because he wants us all to look more like him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we go out of here today, we're showing the love of Christ to somebody we might have been upset when we walked in the door.
[SPEAKER_01]: To Heavenly Father, I thank you for all of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thank you that you've allowed me to give this message.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I pray those of us who needed to hear these words, hurt them, and I pray that it falls on fertile ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that this time next year, the word that you gave me from 2025, 42026 comes to fruition and this year and the next and the next and the next.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are another blessed thing I ask you guys to sign a Jesus name.