Traditions: Soul Care

Hi family. How are you? Don't mind us. We're just getting ready. That's for you. (Pastor is handing Marcella a stage prop) Okay. Before we get rolling Marcella is going to open us with prayer here in just a minute, but before we do I need to make one announcement and that is this. We found out some really good news about Israel. They're going to open their country in May which is really exciting. The downside is it's May 23rd and our trip to Israel is supposed to be on May 14th. So that's a drag. What that means is we've moved the May trip to the back half of October. Now I know what you're thinking to yourself. Hey, didn't you say you had a trip already in October? Absolutely we do, but that one's full. That one's the first through the 15th. And so, what we did is we took the May trip and moved it to the 22nd of October until November 5th.

And so, if you want to go on that trip, there's space available on it. It's going to fill up quick, but you can jump onto gtitours.org, you get their phone number, or you can email them, and they can get you connected to the trip and get you signed up. So, we'd love to have you come along, come with me to Israel. It's the only time you're going to hear me say that today. But I need to get that out. So, we're all aware now, before we get rolling, since we're going to talk about prayer, it's very fitting that we open with prayer and Marcella is going to do that for us.

Kind merciful, loving heavenly father. Thank you for this Lord's day. Thank you that at long last we can come out of isolation and see each other. But Lord, we didn't come to see each other today, we came to see you. We want a word from you. Father, for each person here that has claimed Jesus Christ as the son of God and excepted him as their savior. I pray Lord that you fan within them a fresh flame, that they will long for you, more and more and more. And father for those who have not yet accepted you as their Lord and savior, I pray Lord that you will split our hearts wide open with a desperation to know you and to love you. Father we want a word from you today. We're listening. Speak to us in Jesus' name. Amen.

I want to give you guys an update this morning on restart. If you don't know what restart is, restart is a thing. I don't want to get all technical on you, but it's a thing. It's an initiative that we started that when you give to restart, every dollar that you give goes into local businesses and communities. Our hope with this was that we would help get businesses in the communities around our area back on their feet through the process of, you know, COVID kind of coming to an end. A lot of small businesses are struggling, so it’s kind of like a PPP loan only effective. That was really funny. (Laughing)

But there's a reason why we're doing this. It's, it's been kind of a cool journey. And so, I want to give you an update on a couple of stories that I think are pretty cool. One is we got a letter from a group called Kids Create Studio, that give art lessons to kids and all that kind of stuff. I want to read just a couple of paragraphs out of their letter because it's really, really cool. Here's what it says. “To you, you gave me money. I received more than that from you. You gave me hope, which I really needed to move forward. You've renewed my faith to keep trusting and the assurance that God has a hand in this business path that I've chosen. I needed to see some light and believe that everything was going to be okay at the end of the day, my faith is now renewed because of your generosity. I am now more encouraged to put all my trust in God because he does work in mysterious ways”. Which is really cool, but here's the cool part. “Because you've been a blessing to me. I would like to be a blessing to some families as well. Please let me know if your Royal family kids’ program could use some art parties”. That's awesome! “I would love to give some free art parties to some foster kids or other kids in the program who can use some free art camps or birthday parties”. That kind of thing is cool! Like, not only did we, you know, reopen her heart towards, God, the father, who is most important, but the fact that there's a ripple effect in giving that extends far beyond our initial gift, right? That when we take what God's blessed us with and bless others, they then in turn become a blessing, and that ripple effect becomes really transformative for our culture. It's really, really cool. And so that was neat. The other story that I wanted to tell you about that's kind of fun is one of the things that we did is we asked the prayer team to pray over it and get involved in praying for the businesses that submit applications. We had a business that submitted an application. The prayer team started praying for them and a couple of weeks into it, they called and said, we're going to withdraw our application because God has been so good to us since your prayer team has been praying with us and for us, we don't need the money, which I love that! I love that! I love it when God shows off and he just does, right? Like, he just showing off. So that was really cool. And we wanted to share those. Those are your dollars that you have given that are actually being stewarded well, and they're making a difference. They're making a kingdom and eternal difference, which is really, really awesome. So today we're going to talk a little bit about prayer. We're going to talk a lot about some other stuff that's actually really significant parts of prayer, but Marcella is our prayer pastor. So, she organizes all of our prayer initiatives in our church events, different things that are going on, and I couldn't think of somebody more fitting to talk about prayer because she is passionate about it. So, Marcella is going to help me today. And she's going to talk about prayer.

Well, Aaron, I remember the very, very first conversation that you and I had together just before you arrived at Southeast to take the lead position. And one of the things that you said was that your vision for Southeast Christian Church is that we would become a praying church that prays 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And you referred us to the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York City and to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City because both of those churches have such a model. It was very, very encouraging to the prayer team, to me that that is your vision. That is enormous because prayer must be a pillar at the foundation of our faith, and so we are so grateful for your vision and I am so thankful that I get to be privileged enough to be part of that. So, thank you so much. I appreciate that.

 We're actually not going to talk about prayer today, per se, and the reason is because we do have a prayer workshop on Friday evening and Saturday morning, and I want this message to position us, to set us up, to receive that well. And in order to do that I want to talk about the soul, and I want to share something of my own story that will help you see why I think that this is an important message. So, when I was five years old, my mom and dad decided with a few other couples that they wanted to start a church. And so, they started a church and I attended church in my mom and dad's living room. And then when I was nine years old, my twin sister and I made the decision to make Jesus Christ the Lord of our lives.

On a very cold January, Sunday night, we were baptized, and I've always been a disciple of Jesus since then. I've always attended church. I've always engaged in Bible studies. I've always engaged in worship. As a matter of fact, I was the church pianist for 25 years. And I've always done those things that a Christian does to help advance the kingdom of God, but in no time from then, until now, have I heard a message that defines the soul and why it matters. I mean, I know that we have a soul. I knew that we have a soul. That's why I got baptized. I wanted my soul to be saved. I wanted to go to heaven when I died, I wanted my soul to be secure. And I sang some songs about the soul. My favorite is, It Is Well With My Soul. He teases me that that shows how old I am because it's a hymn. I like hymns. I know Bible verses about the soul. You know, ”why so downcast oh my soul? Put your hope in God”. And “my soul finds rest in God alone. My salvation comes from him”. When I was little, I even learned a bedtime prayer about the soul. It goes like this. “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep, but if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord, my soul to take”.

Isn’t that creepy? Isn’t that a creepy prayer? I mean, think about a little person laying in bed in the dark at night, thinking about dying in my sleep and the Lord swooping down to take my soul. It just sounds like a nightmare more than a nighttime prayer to me. But that's about what I knew about the soul. I had no idea what it meant to really have a soul and what we're to do with it, that in my pursuit to know God and grow in my faith over the years, I have become convinced unless we understand the soul, we will never fully comprehend the depths of God's love for us.

Friends God's greatest desire is to have an intimate love relationship with you. His greatest desire is for you to enjoy him. That is your purpose. That's why you were created. You never have to ask anybody or think to yourself again, what is my purpose? Your purpose is to enjoy God and to glorify him. God's greatest desire is for you to experience his presence and to be with him. And, you know, unless we get the being right, the doing just doesn't matter all that much, but we love our doing, don't we? It makes us feel virtuous. It makes us feel Holy. It makes us feel like we've accomplished something. I love my to-do list. Sometimes I will accomplish a task and look at my to-do list and realize I hadn't written that task on my to-do list. So I'll write it on my to-do list, just so I can have the joy of marking it off. Why? Because I like my doing, it makes me feel successful. But if we don't be with Jesus first, our doing really just becomes a set of rules that we think, that's what it means to be a Christian and developing that relationship is all about and being with Jesus is all about caring for the soul. Unless we understand the soul, our prayers become exactly the same way. It becomes a list of things that we want to ask God to do for us.

I had a conversation with a good young friend recently, and she graduated from Bible college and she said, “all the time in Bible college, nobody ever talked to me about my soul or why it's important, and I've always felt like I've been praying into a black hole.”

But it doesn't have to be that way. It shouldn't be that way. It's not God's intention for us. It's not his best, but we must take care of our soul in order to have an intimate relationship with him. And so today, instead of talking about prayer, I want to talk about what is a soul? Why is it important to take care of it? And how do you take care of it? But first, because this soul thing is so mysterious, I want to kind of share with you what the soul isn't. I need to get this out of the way anyway, people can't see. (Marcella had a large white ball) So, let's pretend like this is your soul. It's not, it's actually a swimming pool toy, but for today, let's pretend like it's your soul. So, you've had a conversion experience. You've accepted Jesus Christ as your savior, and you're baptized. And you're saved. You're really glad that your soul is saved. You want to go to heaven! I mean, we know there's a heaven and a hell, and we know that hell is decidedly, unpleasant, horrific, as a matter of fact. And so, we're really glad our soul is saved, but the soul seems other worldly. Like maybe it applies to heaven, but it's just kind of hanging out, doing nothing here. And so, we've got this life to live. We're still on earth. So, what do we do? Well, mentally, this is kind of what we do.

We take it to the closet, and we put it away.

Now, sometimes we'll go back and check on it every now and then, because we want to make sure it's still got a glimmer going on there, but mostly we have a life to live here. And so, we get on with the business of doing what we think it means to be a Christian, but we live on Earth. So, what do we do? Well, we go to church and we read the Bible and we worship, and we serve, and we give money, a lot. And we modify our behavior because we want to look like a Christian. But the things of this world are tapping us on the shoulder. The world says you must perform. The world says you must please. The world says you must pursue status and acquire stuff. And we go along and we're thinking, I am weary, I'm depleted, I'm rung out.

There must be something more to the Christian life than this, but we don't want to tell anybody because we know we'll be judged. So, what do we do? We try harder. We go to church and we go to Bible study and we have a little devotion, and we call it prayer and we serve, and we give money, but the world is still there. And it's still requiring us to perform for maybe a boss and to please, maybe your spouse. And it's still saying, you must seek to achieve status and to acquire stuff. And pretty soon you come to this same conclusion, there must be something more to the Christian life than this. What is wrong with me? And what is wrong with you is that you've neglected to take care of your soul. So, let's examine what the soul is before we talk about how to take care of it.

This is a long quote by a modern-day theologian named Dallas Willard. It's long so stick with me. I'll explain it. “What is running your life at any given moment is your soul, not circumstances or your thoughts or your intentions, or even your feelings. It is your soul that's running your life. It is the aspect of your whole being that integrates everything going on in the various dimensions of yourself. It is the life center of the human being and what matters most. What marks your existence. The really deep reason why human life matters so much is because of this tiny, fragile, vulnerable, precious thing about you called your soul. You're not just a self, you're a soul. You are a soul made by God. You're a soul made for God and made to need God and made to run to God, which means that you are not made to be self-sufficient”.

Let me say it in a simpler way that I even I can understand. So, your soul is the boss of all the functions of being a human being. Your soul is the boss of all the functions of being a human being. And each part of the human being must be healthy and working as God intended it to that makes a healthy soul. That's why it's so important to take care of your soul. Now that's still a kind of a mysterious concept, this soul business, isn't it? So, let's talk first about the four parts of a human being. Those functions that I'm referring to. The first thing is your will. Your will is your ability to choose. It is your ability to say yes and no. It makes you a person and not a thing, it's unique. It's mysterious. It's irreplaceable. Let's take the example of a toddler if you will. So, a two-year-old toddler asserting his will. What’s the first word that he says? No.

You all have got kids I can tell. And the second thing that a toddler says is what? Mine. That little toddler is asserting his will in his life. It's important, the will is, but it's limited, and the problem is, is that sin gets into our will and when it's working right, I would always intend to do good. And I would always carry out my good intentions, but I don't, you don't. Intentions are good, but sometimes I don't always carry them out. There's this great little saying, it's not a Bible verse. So don't quote it that way. But it says, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, but my will is fractured, and it leans towards sin. So does yours. So, to live a life like Jesus, you must surrender your will to God. Proverbs 4:23 says, “above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”. That verse refers to your will and your heart. Your will, guard your will.

And how do you guard? How do you surrender your will to God? You must take care of your soul. So, the next function is the mind. Your mind is your thoughts and your feelings, your hopes, your desires, your conscience, your sense of humor, your personality. It's how you process life's experience. If your mind is always working, right, you'd always think thoughts that are right and true and noble and pure and lovely and admirable and excellent and praise praiseworthy. You'd always think that which is good. You'd always desire that which is good, but you don't. Your mind is a mess. My mind is a mess. My thoughts and feelings can very often go towards anger and anxiety and selfishness. For example, I may be talking to a friend and that friend has just achieved something of success about something. And I may be actually congratulating my friend on her success, and at the same time, I'm thinking and feeling jealous. Why? Because my mind's a mess. It's like ricochet rabbit and yours is too. So, Romans 8:6 says, “the mind that is governed by the flesh is death. But the mind governed by the spirit”, that is the soul, “is life and peace”.  And so, to live a life like Jesus, your mind must be transformed by God. Your will must be surrendered and your mind must be transformed. And how do you do that? Well, you must take care of your soul. So next is your body. Here's what Dallas Willard says about that. “Our bodies are our little power packs. We couldn't be us without them, but they are not the whole story. We are not just the stuff that our bodies are made of”. So, unless you live in the Twilight Zone, you have to have a body in order to be a human being. You can't have a mind and a will with no body and be a human being. So, your body is pretty important, but it's full of habits and it's full of addictions and appetites. Your body should be able to rule. I mean, your will should be able to rule over your body. That's how God designed you. That's how God designed us. Let's take the baby. The toddler illustration again. So, a little toddler uses ,at about two years old, his will to control his body so that he can make it to the potty on time to avoid soiling his diaper. That's the will ruling over the body. But the problem is that with our appetites and habits, and sometimes addictions, they end up in enslaving our will. And that's not good. I give you an example of how that works. Not good. So, you all used your will to decide to come to church today, but your body might be saying, I stayed a little late at the party last night and I'm sleepy. And I can see it happening right here, because why? Your body is ruling over your will. So that's a huge problem in spiritual formation and spiritual growth. We think that just trying harder and harder with the will to be more like Jesus, we can do it that way, but the will is bad at overriding those appetites and those habits. Jesus understood this. Maybe I was in good company there. Jesus invited his disciples to come and pray with him. And what did they do? They fell asleep and Jesus with empathy and compassion said, your spirit is willing, but your flesh is weak. To live a life like Jesus, your body must be retrained. So, your will must be surrendered. Your mind must be transformed. Your body must be retrained. And how do you do that? You must take care of your will. So now finally the soul that's the final circle.

Your human soul is what integrates all those different parts. All those functions into a human single person. It connects your will, which is your choices and your thoughts with your mind, which is your thoughts and feelings and your body with its habits and appetites into one, harmonious human being. The soul connects all those different parts of you together, and it connects your whole being with God. Your soul is meant to live in harmony with God. That's how he created you. In harmony with God, in harmony with creation, in harmony with yourself and in harmony with others. The soul is the deepest part of you, but what does the world do? The world encourages us to ignore our soul. The core human condition is this. Sin enslaves your will. Sin distorts your mind; sin corrupts your body and sin disintegrates your soul. It disintegrates, it, it splinters it, it fractures it. To live a life like Jesus, your will must be surrendered, your mind transformed, your body retrained, and your soul must be saved. And so that healthy soul as the integrated soul. That unhealthy soul is disintegrated. When you have an unhealthy soul, you got to come to grips with sin.

You have a soul. And for you to have a soul that is healed, that is healthy, that is redeemed by God. That matters more than the outcome of any circumstance in your life or in your world. Your eternal destiny rests on the wellbeing of your soul. And only God ,friends, can heal your soul through the power of the Holy spirit. Only God can heal your soul and only you can take care of yourself. No one can do it for you. Let me give you an illustration, kind of the contrast. So, I have a really sweet husband. I really do. He's a really sweet guy. And two years ago, he decided that he would retire from the workforce. And on that day, he proclaimed, you are now my project for the rest of my life. You are now my project. And it's like, yeah, that seems weird. And I don't know what that means, but dude, you've been my project for 42 years. So,I'll take it. “You said, dude”! (Pastor interjecting, laughing) I've been around you too long.

Here's what he does for me. So, one of the things, how I'm his project is he does nice little sweet things for me. And one of those things is that when he sees that my gas tank is trending towards empty, he'll say to me, baby duck, that's his love name for me. Don't know where that came from. And listen, Y'all if you have a comment about this message, you email baby.duck@southeastcc.org. (More laughing)

So anyway, he sees my gas tank edging towards empty, and he says, baby duck, I'll take up your car to the gas station and fill your tank with gas. And I am so grateful. I mean, I can do it myself, but I am really grateful that he will do that kindness for me, but that's not how it works with the soul. Only you can take care of your soul. He can't say to me, Hey, it looks like your soul is running on empty. How about I take it for you and fill it up? And I can't say to him, Hey, my soul is really running on empty. So, will you take it for me and fill it up? That's not how it works. Only you can take care of your soul. So, before we talk about how to do that, let me introduce this notion of what people have said to me about how to take care of the soul. So, I've asked believing friends and non-believing friends about what does it look like to take care of the soul? And almost without exception almost it seems to be some airy- fairy, new age kind of idea that includes a trip to the mall for retail therapy and a spa for a massage, and those things are really refreshing, but take my word for it, that is not taking care of your soul. So, what is taking care of your soul? Let me first say, because of a comment that I got from the last service is, I know full well that it is the work of the Holy Spirit working in you and through you to accomplish his Goodwill, and to bring you into relationship, but we have a part to play. And so, what we must do is intentionally position yourself to practice the presence of God, to be in relationship with him, to enjoy him and to know him. And how do you do that? I want to offer up two points to help you get ready for Friday's workshop. Two points. Number one is you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.

We look at the life of Jesus Christ in no time in the scriptures do we get the sense that he was hurried. Neither internally nor externally. Consider his friend Lazarus had died, and he got word. Jesus got word that his friend Lazarus had passed away. What did he do? He didn't rush off or hurry off. He waited two days before he went. Why did he do that? Because he was unhurried. And he was committed to living at the tempo that his heavenly father gave him. So, when we're hurried internally, you know, when we accept Jesus Christ, as our savior, his spirit dwells within us. All of his power, all of his authority, all of his righteousness dwells within us. But if we're living a hurried life, we're distracted, and we can't see where he's working within us. And that applies to our external circumstances as well.

You know, God is in our midst. He ain't in the wild, blue yonder somewhere absent. He's in our midst. And if we're living a hurried existence, we can't see what he's doing all around us. Hurry is the great enemy of our souls in our day. Being busy is mostly a condition of our outer world. It's having many things to do. That's okay. Having many things do. Being hurried is a problem of the soul though. It's being so preoccupied with myself and what myself has to do that I'm no longer able to be fully present with God and with others. There is no way a soul can thrive when it's hurried, and nobody will come along and unhurry your soul for you. Look at what Jesus said in Mark 8:36. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their soul?

Haven't we always read that verse and thought that that meant about salvation of our soul? Somehow losing our soul and not going to heaven. But I commit to you. I submit to you that it's much more than that. Our soul matters, how healthy it is matters, here on this earth. And if we're so hurried that we can't present ourselves to our Lord and savior and be in his presence and rest in his presence and receive his love, then we can lose our souls right here on this earth and not experience the joy that he has for us, and not experience the abundant life that he has promised us. And so, we must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives. You have one soul and gaining the whole world won't help you if you lose it. Being hurried, being distracted will lead you to losing it.

Matthew 6:33 Jesus said, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Isn't this a beautiful promise? Isn't this a beautiful, beautiful verse? And friends, if this, if we trust that this is the word of God, it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If we're going to read this book and do what it says, we can't pick and choose which commandments to obey and which one's not, but this is so beautiful and such to our benefit. And he says, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all those things will be given to you. That means he will order your life for you. Doesn't that take a load off your shoulders? That you don't have to be performing and pleasing and taking on all the woes of the world. He will order your life for you.

So, my second point, you must intentionally and consistently practice the presence of God through entering into solitude with him. Mark 1:35 talks to us about Jesus and what he did. Very early in the morning while it was still dark, Jesus got up and he left the house and he went off to a solitary place where he prayed, noticed solitary. And then he prayed first, eliminate hurry, and then practice the presence of God through solitude. And friends, man, if it was a priority of Jesus to go into solitude so that he can hear from his heavenly father, should it not be a priority for us? We enter into solitude. When we listen for his voice, we are able to rest in his love and to receive his love. And then we want to respond to his love. And then, and only then will your prayers become something more than a laundry list of your wants and needs that you hope God will give you.

So, if you're willing to, if you wanting to live a life like Jesus, let's consider two things about Jesus as the example. Okay, so we just talked about, well, first of all, he gave us a framework from which to pray that is, we call it the Lord's prayer. And as we just saw, he went into solitude and he prayed. So he modeled prayer. He invited the disciples into pray with him and all that. In John 17, we get Jesus's very words where he prayed for himself. He prayed for his disciples and then he prayed for believers of all time. Beloved, his work didn't stop there. He did not die on the cross for our sins, rise up from the dead and prepare to ascend to heaven and brush off his hands and say, okay, my work is done. I'll see you when you get there.

No, his work did not stop with that. Romans 8:34 says, who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died more than that, who was raised to life is at the right hand of God, and he is also interceding, that is praying for us. Imagine this friends, imagine that the creator of the universe, our heavenly father is sitting on his throne and Jesus Christ is sitting at his right hand, and Jesus Christ is leaning over talking to the heavenly father about you all the time. Every moment of every day, he's praying for you. You, you who may have lost a loved one to COVID or some other mysterious illness, or been received, a diagnosis that rocks your world. He’s praying for you, you who has financial insecurity or a marriage that is floundering or an addiction that you just can't overcome.

Jesus Christ is praying for you, they're talking about yah, they're rejoicing over you. They're delighting in you. He loves you. His work wasn't finished. He continues to pray for you every moment, every day and every second. Doesn’t that make you want to run to him? Doesn't it make you thrilled to know that Jesus is praying for you and that he's loving on you and that he is making a case for you and that he's pleading your cause? It does me. Doesn't it make you want to run to him and be in his presence? Doesn't it make you want to rest in his love and receive his love? Well, to do that, you must be intentional about taking care of your soul. Caring for your soul and allowing it to flourish in God's presence and to become the gift to the world around you. That is your primary charge that faces you before eternity. One last quote from my friend, Dallas Willard. “This is the most important thing you can know about your identity. You are an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God's great universe. Your soul will live forever, and you are the keeper of your soul”. Thanks be to God. (Clapping)

(Change of speakers) Well, I know they're going to let you walk out of here and everything. There's been days where I've wondered if I was going to let you do that. Some next action steps for us all to consider because we don't want to just drop this on you and then go try and figure it out. We would like to actually invite you to some opportunities for prayer. Lindsay mentioned during the announcements that this Thursday is the National Day of Prayer, and we will have an event here from  6:30 to 8:00 in the morning. I know that some of you in this room were like, I was today years old when I realized that  6:30 came twice in a day. There's a 6:30 in the morning. That's early, right?

Yeah, but I get it,  6:30 AM is early. It's early, so I understand that, but it's worth it to come and intercede on behalf of our nation. Our nation needs Jesus to show up. Charles Spurgeon said, “prayer moves the hand that moves of world”. Like, we have access to that movement through prayer. So, we want to invite you to that. The next one is, as she mentioned, the prayer workshop is this Friday evening and Saturday morning. Friday evening from 7:00 to 9:00 PM.  Saturday morning from 9:00 AM to noon. We will start working on a tactical approach to prayer based on what we're talking about here, with soul care and those kinds of things. The other thing that I want to throw out to you, that's actually really significant is that Thursday, May 13^th, we are starting a weekly prayer service. Now this is our next step toward 24 seven prayer.

And this is going to be a big deal! When I went to Bible college, most of what I learned in Bible college kind of ricocheted off, but every once in a while, a professor would say something that was just like, I'm going to hang on to that for the rest for the rest of my life. And one of the things at a Bible college, I had a professor that changed me when he said this. He said, “It's foolish to think that anything of significance will ever happen in the kingdom of God without first being bathed than prayer”. And here's the thing. I believe that God has positioned Southeast Christian Church to do big things. God wants to do big things in the kingdom of God, but God wants to do big things at Southeast Christian Church. And it's foolish for us to think that those things will ever come to fruition if they're not first bathed in prayer.

Like, I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to be a part of small things. Like, I don't want to just be a part of small things, to say it that way. I want to be a part of God doing big things in the kingdom, and if we're going to do that, then we've got to be willing to initiate them through prayer. So that's going to start on Thursday evening, May the 13th. So, we want to invite you to those things as next steps. I have some implications for you do some tie down points on what Marcella was talking about, which by the way, you did a great job, great job, Marcella. (Clapping)

Here's the implication number one- at its core, prayer is connecting our souls to God. That's what prayer is at its core. Number two- soul care is critically important to God. It's critically important to God that we care for our souls. Number three- caring for our souls through prayer allows us to live in a holistic and integrated way. And then the reason why that's important is because God is working all around us. But so many times our soul is so fractured that we don't see it. The more whole that our soul gets, the more that we can see God at work. And so, we get more and more and more of the presence of God in our life the more we allow our souls to be integrated. And then number four- true freedom from sin and brokenness can only be found in spending time with God at a soul level.

And I know that we talk a lot about, you know, victory in Christ and be more than conquerors and all that stuff, but I don't know a lot of people that experienced a lot of that, and I think for us, a lot of our problem is rooted in the fact that we're not tending to our soul. And so, the invitation here is to tend to our soul, to get healing at a soul level so that we can really experience the victory that's ours in Christ. Like God wants you to have it. And it lays on the other side of that hard soul work. And because of that, we're going to move towards communion, which I love this transition just because communion, as we've been talking over these last couple of weeks about communion, it's this space where we remember Jesus has tremendous love and compassion and grace for us.

And, and this is a really cool opportunity for us to be able to say, God, I haven't forgotten. And because of that, I want to be, I want to be more intentional about doing my part in our relationship. And so, as we prepare our hearts for communion this morning, I just invite you to wrestle with this question. Like, have you taken prayer seriously? Or has it been this kind of an ethereal, mystical thing that you'd just kind of let go by the wayside, you put your soul in the closet and didn't really think about it unless you have to because it's hard to put your mind around. I would invite you to engage God through this communion time with Lord, I'm going to do this to better prepare my soul, to understand you, and to know you better. Let's take a minute and talk to the Lord as we prepare hearts for communion.

 On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, and he broke it. He said, “this is my body, which is given for you. So, whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance of me”.

And then after the dinner, he took a cup and he said, “this cup, this is a new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. So, whenever you drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me”. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your gentle patience with us as we wrestle through how to heal our soul and Lord,

thank you that you've given us this incredible opportunity to grow into deeper and deeper relationship with you. That you're not going to leave us hanging as we do that work, which you're going to walk right alongside us and let us know how much you love us. As we face down some of those giants in our own hearts. Lord, give us the courage to not shrink back from the hard work of the soul in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's stand and sing one more song.

So, I hope that as we leave here that we can be conscious of like, what's our soul condition? Where do we find ourselves as we enter the world? Are we, are absent of the father's work around us? Are we missing out? Are we finding ourselves victim to the same things over and over and over again? Because victory is yours in Christ, but it comes through proper care of the soul. And so, we want to make sure that we're living as people who live in the truth of that. And if you're struggling with that this morning, we have some people that would be up here in front to pray with you. We'd love to have you come and do that. Or you can pray in our prayer room right outside this door with somebody or on your own. That's totally fine. But may we be people who live in the miracle of God's presence through the healing of our soul this week. Thanks for coming. Have a great week.