The Church of Eleven22 - A Discussion on Discipleship and Mental & Emotional Health - It Doesn’t Make Sense Wk. 3

Episode Date: November 26, 2023

“Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” -1 John 5:5 If you are considering harming yourself or are having suicidal thoughts please call 988 right now. Help is always available. If you'd like to receive care from our team go to coe22.com/care and someone will be in touch with you very soon. - The Church of Eleven22™ is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. Eleven22 is led by Pastor Joby Martin and based in Jacksonville, Florida, with multiple campuses throughout Jacksonville and the surrounding areas. To support The Church of Eleven22 and help us continue to reach people around the world, visit https://www.coe22.com/donate

Amen, amen. Amen. It's good to see you this morning, church. So exciting to be here. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with you and your loved ones. We're going to continue in the It Doesn't Make Sense series we've been in for the last three weeks. If you've missed any part of it, I would highly encourage you to go back and listen to the past couple of weeks as we dive in this week. Week one, Pastor Jobi shared with us the why and the heart behind this series and the spiritual realities at work in this world that would keep us from living the abundant life that Jesus has offered.

to us. Last week, I shared a little bit about my story in regards to mental and emotional health and things that I've been learning and things that I am learning in my own struggles and in the promises of God coming true in my life. And so today, I brought some friends with me, and they are, rest assured, real life professionals. And so you are in good hands. Let me introduce you to my friends. This is Rebecca Maxwell. She's a part of the 1122 family. Yeah, you can clap for her. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and private practice. She's been married to Sean for 23 years, and together they have two nearly grown sons. What qualifies as nearly grown?

Almost 18. Almost 18. Nearly grown. Now you know. You were wondering, but now you know. They have two puppies and a nana. Rebecca is passionate about the intersection of science and scripture, as well as the role of our relationship with God to our overall health. She leads a team of six therapists and growing, and she is writing a book called Jesus and your mental health, which will come out next year.

are awesome. Let me introduce you to my good friend Ray McConnell. Ray, if you know Ray, you love Ray. Ray is my counselor and my wife and I's counselor. We love Ray a lot. Ray had a radical conversion to become a follower of Jesus at age 27, and it totally changed the trajectory of his life. Jesus will do that. He will change things. His marriage to Patty as a result of this conversion was restored, and they have shared the adventure of a life together for over the last few. 50 years. The Lord is blessed them with two children and three amazing grandchildren. Ray has been in ministry for 29 years and 18 of those. He and his wife, Patty, served as overseas missionaries. They've worked in 24 different countries, primarily focusing on mental and emotional health with missionaries serving on the field. And today, Ray provides pastoral care and counseling to people

in ministry as well as those to the community at large here in Jacksonville. So welcome Ray. Thank you. And last but not least, Dr. Carl Benzio, we'll call him Dr. Carl today. because that's what he told me he likes to be called. So that's what we're going to do. He loves Jesus. His wife for 32 years, Martin is here with us that they have three daughters, two son-in-laws, one granddaughter. He loves pickleball and ice cream.

Dr. Carl is a board-certified psychiatrist whose expertise is integrating Bible-based Jesus-centered principles with psychiatric sciences to maximize healing through his primary roles, to maximize healing. His primary role is as the co-founder and medical director of a unique Christian residential facility called Honey Lake Clinic here in Florida, and he is the medical director of the largest Christian behavioral health organization, the American Association of Christian counselors. I got it all out, people.

I got it all out. So we're going to have a conversation today about mental and emotional health and behavioral health and just stepping into the abundant life. And each of my friends here have areas of specialty where they're going to just kind of help us lean in and better understand what God might have. have for us. But we're going to start with the scriptures. So if you have your Bible, go to 1 John chapter 5. First John chapter 5, starting in verse 1, it says this. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. And everyone who loves the father loves whoever has been born of

him. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world

except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God? As we've studied the abundant life as a church and the offer of Jesus in John Chapter 10, another way to say the abundant life is the life that has overcome or the victorious life that's given to us

as a gift, free gift of grace through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But as we go through the course of this life, we find ourselves in different relationships that are very defining. We find ourselves in different circumstances that can become very defining. And one of those relationships is the primary family that we're born into. I shared a bit last week about my family and unpacking family history. And so, Rebecca, in regards to living the abundant life and walking as one who, who is loved by God overcoming the things that the world would throw at us. How do we navigate family history?

What are some things that we think about in regards to how those relationships shape and form every other relationship that we have, even our relationship with God? Yeah, absolutely. This is one of my favorite topics. As a marriage and family therapist, I deal with this daily. People are coming in to understand their relationships better. And like Pastor Britt unpacked last week, to understand how their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are shaped by the environment that they grew up in.

Proverbs 4-7 says that the beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom and whatever you get, get insight. It says get insights. Going back and understanding your primary caregivers and how they shaped you is a way to get insight. Everything that has happened to us leaves an imprint on us. And I really hope you didn't do the genogram before you went to Thanksgiving dinner. but you should do it now if you didn't do it before.

I want you to go back for a moment in your mind to your childhood. This might be hard for some, and that's okay. You're surrounded by a community that loves you, but consider these questions that I often ask people when I meet them for the first time in counseling. What was it like growing up in your family? Did you feel safe and did you have enough? Who did you go to for comfort when you were young?

could you always count on them? Did they ever betray you or were they unavailable at critical times? Did you ever feel rejected or threatened by your parents or other trusted adults? How did your parents communicate with you when you were happy and excited versus unhappy or distressed? Did your parents let you express emotions? These questions point to some truths about all of our relationships. The first one being, we need each other. The relational environment you grew up in greatly impacts your overall growth and development.

Good connection is healthy growth. God's purpose for loving connection is coded as survival in our brains, both physically and emotionally. It's not good for man to be alone. and from cradle to grave, God intends for us to be in close connection to others. In observing infants, the late researcher John Bolby, founder of attachment theory, found that the first task of human development is learning how to trust. Babies are born totally dependent, and they learn to trust caregivers when they're given consistent comfort via feeding, diapering, and physical contact.

Infants also depend on parents to help them regulate physiology and behavior. And in ideal conditions, parents serve as co-regulators of behavior and emotion. And this means that infants can regulate their distress in contact with safe, calm caregivers. Over time, children in this ideal environment take on more self-regulation as they head off to school and social environments. Proverbs 103.13 tells us, as a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. Emotion is the language of connection. Sorry, but it's true.

We first communicate via body language, via face, and then words later. Emotional connection is a safety cue in our brains, and emotional disconnection is a danger cue. And in a broken world, only Christ does this perfectly. Our early caregivers have been imperfect, and they have their own journeys of sanctification, and it impacts us.

So what happens when we don't have safe, loving, consistent connection? One, we can be emotionally underdeveloped, not knowing how to express our feelings, our wants, our needs. As Pastor Britt said last week, we can carry around different emotions like grief and hurt and pain. And these emotions can begin to define our life, and we can see everyone out there is out to get us, and we can see disappointment around every corner.

We can also learn to cope in maladaptive, which means poorly adapted or unhealthy ways. When we don't know what to do with our feelings, they can leak out on others in harmful ways, and we can turn to substances or fleshly behaviors to ease the pain. We can also put ourselves in unhealthy or even dangerous relationships, and I know that some of you can relate. Pastor Britt showed us that our emotional legacy can impact our own nuclear family, the ones that live with us in our house now. And it can be the very thing that prompts us to change.

You also need to know that we all have a relational past, all of us. And if you don't deal with it, it will keep you from moving forward into abundant life. Many folks tell me that they don't see the point in going back. It's too painful. Why should I deal with the past? What's the benefit? And childhood trauma is especially impactful. And I know that a lot of you in this room have experienced significant childhood trauma.

but our past doesn't have to be traumatic to be impactful. A couple of biblical examples of these issues, if you can remember. Noah, a man of great faith. He was called a man without blemish. He builds an arc, saves the human race. Later, he grows a vineyard, gets drunk and embarrasses his entire family by exposing himself. And David, a man after God's own heart, the main writer of the book of Psalms, which is basically a whole book on emotional regulation.

But David wasn't perfect either. He summons his soldier's wife to his bedchamber, and instead of facing what he has done when she conceives, he devises a plan eventually killing his own soldier. No doubt these and all families have issues. There's a problem in not dealing with your emotional past. The pain of your story will make you sick if you don't find a place for us to go.

And that's a quote by author Rebecca Lyons. Pastor Britt fleshed this out for us last week. Another problem is that pain will travel through generations of families until someone has the courage to stare it down and do the work of healing. Your undelt with pain will come out in your parenting, your lack of boundaries, isolation, difficulty trusting others, difficulty managing emotions, and you will unconsciously repeat the patterns that become well-worn ways

of operating in your mind based on how you were raised. Patterns of thinking from our family of origin are like computer programs in our mind. They're like a dog running along a fence wearing a path in the grass. So do thinking patterns happen in your mind. We are destined to repeat what we don't recognize and allow God to redeem. So dealing with your past doesn't mean going back to relive the past or blame your parents because most of our parents did the best they could. But going back does help you understand yourself,

better and why you do the things you do. As we saw in Pastor Brits, Gennagram, families are not generally all good or all bad, but we need to recognize the unhealth in order to allow God to do the work of healing. It helps you to know where God needs to work in your heart and mind to live abundantly. And like I've said, how you were raised, how you were related to growing up greatly impacts how you relate to others now. God in relationship with himself, the triune God, mirrors how he created humans to be in relationship with others, God and ourselves. We're created to be face to face with God, with others, and to be securely attached. You all know Psalm 23, and it talks about being cared for, comforted, and walking with God. A couple more verses to do. A couple more verses to

consider, Zefaniah 317, the Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness and he will quiet you with his love. This speaks to comfort. And the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 3418. This secure attachment to God is all over the scriptures and serves as an example of a healthy, secure attachment to others. Speaking of attachment to others, Paul talks about this in nearly every letter that he writes in the New Testament.

In Thessalonians, he writes, but we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you, not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. Ephesians 521, the verse on mutual submission. This is basically discussing secure attachment under the banner of the Lord. And Galatian 6 says bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. But let each one test his own work and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load. This is a combination of we carry our own load and we share our own load and we share.

one another's burdens. This secure bond where we bear one another's burdens means that we have relationships that are accessible and responsive, and we are also accessible and responsive to others. Sometimes bonding securely to others is difficult because of how we were raised. And so my encouragement to you is to gain insight into your early attachments, how your emotional self was developed, and submit yourself to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. It'll be for your joy for your joy and his glory. Amen. Amen. Thank you. So Rebecca said a lot there.

A couple of things that I would highlight if you're taking notes, things to remember. One is that every relationship leaves an impact on you. That matters a ton. Every relationship leaves an impact to you. And no relationship that you have can leave or has left a greater impact on you into eternity than your relationship with Jesus Christ. That is the strongest bond formed through the blood of Jesus. And that is what's at work in this conversation.

And so every relationship leaves an impact. We need each other. Amen. Amen. You may be coming on the hills of Thanksgiving and be like, my introvert, my people tank is full. I'm good. But we need each other in Jesus' name. This is one of the beauties of the local church is that God has chosen to organize us together so that we can be in relationships and know him as we know each other and know ourselves.

Emotion is the language of connection. Emotion is the language of connection. I'll have to think about that one for a while. I get my wife to explain it to me. But one of the things you talked about in a few different ways was the idea of being emotionally underdeveloped. And I think that's a part of the conversation that we'll have throughout the rest of the day. And that it takes courage, one, to be willing to recognize that that might be you, that you might be emotionally underdeveloped. I know that was true.

It is true for me sometimes. Two, emotionally underdeveloped in my life played out in the word, fine. how you doing fine but what fine meant was sarcastic overly tough yeah um what's the big deal if it was hard or had to think about it emotionally i just kind of shrug it off and try to move on but the whole time all of these relationships are defined by my version of fine right right yeah and so to the person who says hey yeah what's the big deal i'm fine what's a what's a thought you would give us in regards to leaning in there? I think just starting with thinking a little bit deeper about what's going on in your life and even if you can't sense what's going on in

your own self, like what makes sense based on the fact that I just lost my job or how to fight with my wife. I'm not, or husband, I'm not fine. There's some other words. And so when you're under when you're underdeveloped, you're not even sure what those words are. Maybe you haven't been given that language yet. And something's happening in your body related to how you feel, but you may not be able to put those things together. And so I recommend if you find yourself in that place a lot, do some work with a counselor. Anybody, you know, that's trained in this area can help you develop your emotional language to be better in touch with yourself and then share that with other people because you're being fine all the time isn't benefiting your nuclear family at all because they know

you're not fine. That's right. Yeah, that's good. And the thing is, and the thing is, thing about family, Ray, is that any, however that plays out in relationships, but primarily in regards to family and marriage and these type bonds that God forms and puts us in. One of the things is that we, like Rebecca said, that Jesus is the only one who loves perfectly all the time. And the rest of us are bumping into each other and we're nicking each other and sometimes honestly it's deep cuts. We leave deep wounds on each other.

other. And one of the things about being in relationships that we are invited into the abundant life is forgiveness. Receiving the forgiveness that Jesus has for us and then being able to forgive others truly forgive them in Jesus' name. So talk to us a little bit about the power of forgiveness. Okay. Yeah, I think the Lord's intention for us in relationship and just individually with him is that we have a strong measure of freedom. One of my favorite verses is Galatians 5-1. It says, for freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. And so we know that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, yet we also know that we are fragile

and vulnerable, and we hurt easily. So the Lord in his kindness has given us a spiritual practice. And by saying spiritual practice, it means he's in it with us. It's not something that we do alone. and a practice is meant to take us to a place of greater freedom. So the practice that I want to talk about in relationship today is the practice of forgiving those who have hurt us. It is one of the ways that the Lord restores the soul mentioned in Psalm 23.

And we know it's a practice because when Peter asked Jesus, how many times should I forgive my brother when he sins against me, seven? and Jesus said no, seven times 70, which means perpetually. I think there will never be a day if we're in relationship that we will not need to practice forgiveness on some level. And it's all through the scripture. It's everywhere. And we do see a connection between our ability to forgive others, our choice to forgive others, and enjoying the Lord's forgiveness for us.

Even in the Lord's prayer, it says, forgive me in the same way that I have forgiven. given those who have hurt me. So we see this connection, and I think it's implying for me to enjoy the fullness of my salvation, the 10-10 life, I'm going to have to practice forgiveness as I'm going to walk by receiving forgiveness. And Mark, we see Jesus saying, if you stand praying and you have anything against anyone, forgive them so that you too can be forgiven by your father. Once again, we see this connection.

Paul picks up the same idea in Ephesians 432 when he says, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. So we see at least two things there in that scripture. I think the Lord wants us to maintain a soft and supple heart. We relate from a heart position. And I think he's saying there, if we do not practice forgiveness, the heart will not stay tender, it will actually harden over time. And the model that we look to as an example of amazing forgiveness that we are to follow is the Lord

himself. He is the one who has forgiven us. So it's actually a commandment. Sometimes we steer away from that word, but I have come to believe after walking with the Lord these years that a commandment is a life-giving truth. It's the best way to see it. The author of life has provided a path to the path. for us to follow that will impact our life, that he walks with us. So it's a life-giving truth, even if it's difficult to practice.

It's another way to move towards wholeness and freedom. So there are great benefits in practicing forgiveness. I'm going to mention a couple here. One is it destroys bitterness. In Hebrews, it talks about let no bitter root spring up, grow among you for by that root many are defiled. Some translations say polluted or even poison. The idea there is that unforgiveness turns towards bitterness

and it's not stagnant. It infiltrates through our entire body. And by practicing forgiveness and extending forgiveness I picture that root being uprooted, cut, severed because if we maintain bitterness it not only affects a relationship with the person who hurt us but it flows into all relationships. We become less trusting in relationships that deserve trust. We become less vulnerable. And it's like we have this kind of under the surface, low-key irritability

when it comes to relationships. It also, I think, begins the healing process in earnest. A hurt is a cut. You use that term. It's a wound. And I picture it in the soul, in a sense. And as long as I maintain unforgiveness, that wound stays raw. It's still not healing. I may push it down, I may ignore it, I may deny it, but the reality is it is like a virus that's going to continue to spread through my experiences and primarily my relationships. I think it also breaks the unhealthy connection to the one who hurt us. I often picture this tether between the one that hurt us and ourselves that we can't seem to get away from. And by practicing forgiveness, we're releasing ourselves from the unhealthiness, the dominance in some ways that that person has over us,

so that once again we can heal and be able to move on with more freedom in our lives. But we all know it's hard to forgive. It's tough. It hurts. It doesn't feel right. And I've looked at some of the reasons why I think we resist forgiveness. One is, is if I forgive someone, am I saying the thing that they did doesn't matter? If I forgive them, it's like saying it doesn't matter. This hurt that they did. But in fact, it is saying it matters very much. It matters so much that it needs forgiveness.

In no way is forgiving downplaying the pain. Every day in my office, I hear painful stories. And when I think I've heard the worst, the next one is even deeper. So we make room for pain to be expressed. We honor that. We have empathy. We never downplay the pain, but the path away from the pain, ultimately over time, is going to begin with practicing forgiveness. So we're not saying it didn't matter.

We're saying it mattered so much that it needs forgiveness. Jesus said, my sins mattered so much. They weren't excused. They were not passed over. They were forgiven. Amen. Sometimes we resist forgiveness. practicing forgiveness because we feel like we're letting somebody off the hook.

If I forgive them, I'm just letting them off the hook. But the reality is we're letting ourselves off the hook. We're letting go of a cup of poison that continues to infiltrate the very soul that we live in. And the truth is that Jesus placed himself on the hooks in order to provide forgiveness for us, but for us also to be recipients and carry that forgiveness forward, a great cost to himself. And this one's a little tricky. Sometimes people don't want to forgive because they equate forgiveness as being the same as trust, and it's not.

I like to say that forgiveness is required, it's the commandment, but trust is earned. And some people, we may always have to have a little bit of a safe distance from because they can't value the relationship that we offer to them. But I have a lot of couples coming to my office as well, and sometimes there's been broken trust. There's been unfaithful, things have happened. And when they want to see reconciliation, and if they want to, they will, they can.

But ultimately, forgiveness has to come so that trust then can be restored. With no forgiveness, there's no room for trust to ever grow again. So here's how I look at forgiveness. Tim Keller said this. Forgiveness is granted not felt. It's not an emotional response, but often it begins the emotional healing that we're looking for.

It is an act of faith. It's an act of obedience. And it's really an act of trust in the one who has both the wisdom, the understanding, and the experience to call me into forgiving those. Hebrews says that Jesus experienced everything that we've ever experienced and more yet without sin. So he is the path to walking in freedom, walking in restoration of relationships, and watching our own soul be restored. Amen.

Amen. A couple of things you said, Ray, that I think are important for us to note. One is that forgiveness, maybe not unlike, but certainly profoundly, in the spiritual practice of forgiveness is the promise that he is in it with us. Yes. That who knows how to forgive on a deeper level than Jesus Christ himself? He is the author of forgiveness. He's the one who gives it.

He's in it with us. A spiritual practice, and specific to the conversation around forgiveness, a spiritual practice is something that takes us in to greater freedom. That's a great line. You should copyright that, bro. That a soft heart comes over time. Who's ever been around someone or had seasons in your life? where you're just heart of heart.

You just feel numb, you just feel stuck, you feel emotionless at best, and that unforgiveness can lead to a hardened heart and will lead to a hardened heart over time. But what God's heart is for us is that we would take on his heart over time and his heart is soft toward us. It is.

Praise God for that. A command of God is a life-giving truth and that unforgiveness is a, forgive others. is a command. And to step into this command is a life-giving truth and not forgiving. Unforgiveness is like drinking poison thinking it's going to kill somebody else. And so the question I would ask, though, you'd mention this, is there's, oftentimes

people have a deep sense of justice, right and wrong. You know, I've been wronged, and until that person is wronged doubly, then nothing's right in the world. And they can't get past this moral framework of justice based on right and right. wrong. How do we as believers think about it rightly in the context of our situation, whatever that may be, how do we maybe, maybe I'm not even asking the question right, but how do we set ourselves free from these deep feelings for need for justice and to be able to step into forgiveness? I think it's the cross. I think that if we want to live as forgiven people, we want to live as

justified people. And the caveat to that is if I'm going to be a recipient, I have to become a mercy extender as well. But the beauty in that is not only am I granting something towards someone else that may or may not impact their lives, it is a gift that I'm giving myself so that I can continue to have relationships grow and strengthen and develop and hopefully manifest an expression of what God has done for us. He didn't give us justice.

He gave us mercy, grace, and kindness. Amen to that. Amen. Thank you. So Dr. Carl, as we talk about family history, and Rebecca shared about that, and Ray shared about forgiveness, and these two things work together to form much of how we see the world, how we relate to each other. And ultimately, what we're talking about is decision making and our ability to make decisions in the context of relationships, healthy decisions that lead to life and that lead to good and that lead to us stepping into God's plan and purposes for our life. And so what you don't know about, maybe don't know about the mental health profession is that what's the percentage of Christian counselors that are psychiatrists? Well, it's like 2%.

Very small. Very small. And so. Probably even 1%. Yeah. And so Dr. Carl has a unique perspective into this based on his field of study and the ministry that he does day in and day out. And all of these things work together to shape for us a worldview. and the foundation and the filters by which we make decisions in life.

So talk to us a little bit about healthy decision-making and stepping into the wisdom that Rebecca was talking about from Proverbs. Yeah, so what Rebecca and Ray shared were just real foundational to psychological health. But a key part of that is understanding our unconscious mind. So I want to dump into that just for a few minutes here. First of all, if you had one wish, what would you wish? what would you wish for? You had an Aladdin's lamp, you're able to rub it,

a genie pops out, you got one wish. And in the Bible, there's a place where God is a genie, and he grants one wish. And that's to Solomon. Now, if we looked at Solomon's family of origin, the house that he got raised in, David was his dad. David had at least seven wives, eight wives.

That's a lot of stepmothers. That's a pretty chaotic family. He had at least 20 brothers of several sisters. Dad's king. He's out military conquest. Maybe he'll return. maybe he'll get killed in battle. Solomon's raised in the palace, a lot of maids, hand servants, riches.

Solomon has a brother that rapes his sister, a brother that kills a brother, a brother that tries to kill his dad. So that's a pretty chaotic family of origin. He could have just wished for a while. At Hanukkah, I just wish everybody got along, and we had a nice Hanukkah celebration together. But he wished for wisdom, or as my second grade Sunday school teacher said, to be a godly decision maker.

You see, anything that you would wish for, whether it's health, wealth, marriage, kids, house, car, if you're not a good decision maker, you'll lose it. So decision making is the most important thing that we have 100% control over. Now, who's here ever had, you know, grades 1 through 8 English class growing up? How about math class, science class? How about decision-making class? Anybody here ever have a decision-making class? Look around.

No hands. It's amazing. It's the most important skill that we need, but we don't get taught it. And so what I want to share with you is here's a picture, a diagram of decision making. And it looks a little complicated. We're not going to unpack the whole thing. But it spells out the word spears. These are the six elements, and they occur in this sequence.

Every single decision. We make about 200 to 400,000 decisions a day. This is the sequence. These are the six elements. Stimulus, there's a situation. We perceive it, we take it in, mainly via our eyes and ears. Then it leads to an emotion. We assess a bunch of options.

We spit out a response, a decision, and then we have a summary thought. Wow, did that work for me or not? The stimulus, when something happens to us, we take a look at it, and now we start to search our memory banks to figure out, wow, what do I have in there of all my experiences, from my childhood, from my growing up? people that I've met, things I've learned, what reminds me or connected to this particular situation

so I can figure out what's going on, how do I take it in, and then what decision I need to make as a response to it. We take in 11 million bytes per second. That's a lot, 11 million bytes per second. Consciously we process 500 bytes per second, unconsciously we process 10.5 million bytes per second. So most of our processing is really happening in that deeper space

where we're not really aware of it. We can become aware of it, but a lot of it is formed, as Rebecca was talking about, by our family of origin, by those earlier years. That's why we have trouble forgiving because we have a lot of hurt and a lot of injustice that have happened to us in those earlier years. So the good news is God gave us a powerful mind, but the bad news is God gave us a powerful mind. And Satan tries to use that against us. So that's that unconscious space that's hurting us in so many ways. Now the Bible is a great decision-making textbook, and we could go into a lot of different passages, but I'm just going to go into a couple. Second Corinthians 10 says, for though we walk in the flesh, we're not waging war

according to the flesh. We're in the spiritual war. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power. They have divine power to destroy strongholds. Those are things that have strongholds over our mind. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive, not just our conscious thoughts, but our conscious and our unconscious thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ. So we're trying to purge out those unconscious thoughts that are wrong, that are aberrant, that are distortions, propaganda. And we're taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,

being ready to punish every disobedience when our obedience, our decision-making, is complete and healthy. So our decision-making is our divinely powerful weapon. That is huge. That is so important. Then in Romans, Paul writes to the Romans, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly and acceptable to God. This is your spiritual act of worship.

So our bodies, he doesn't want us to kill ourselves, our bodies is what acts out our decisions. So our decisions is our spiritual act of worship. We can come here on Sunday morning and say, you know, God, you're my number one, Jesus, amen, you're my Savior, you're my Lord, Holy Spirit, I'm all in. but it's our decisions that we make Monday through Saturday, that really reveals and shows what is number one in our heart. That's our spiritual act of worship is our decisions. So we want holy, healthy decisions. But it's not enough to know just what the right answer is

because our unconscious, as we've talked about, sort of messes up things. And here's an example in the Bible. At the last supper, Peter is told by Jesus, Hey, Peter, you're going to deny me three times before the cock crows. And Peter's like, oh, man, Jesus, you're right. I'm such a loser. I'm a failure. I'm so stupid. I make so many mistakes. I'm impulsive. I lop off people's ears. Just forgive me now. All right, please.

Well, Peter didn't say that. He said, I'd never do that, Jesus. In fact, I'd lay down my life for you before I did anything like that. Well, we know a few hours later, Peter totally chokes. So he was given, hey, here's the situation, Peter. This lady's going to ask you, do you know me? And Peter, he rehearses his response. But a few hours later, because of unconscious stuff that's ruin in there. We're not sure exactly what, whether it's physical safety, I don't want to be tortured, I don't want to be in pain, I've worked my way up to number three on the Jewish hierarchy. I don't want to go all the way down to the bottom again. I invested three years here. Peter totally chokes. There's another passage in Romans where Paul talks to the Romans and he's, we pull that side up, says, for I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do the good

things I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, meaning I know what the right thing to do is, but with my flesh, that unconscious space, I serve the law of sin, and I keep on sinning. So Paul is just talking about that unconscious space, the unconscious space, all that illogical information, those lies, those distortions, those misinterpretations that we develop as kids.

We believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy. There's a lot of misinformation down inside there that, unfortunately, as Christians, we don't do a good job, and even as non-Christians, but especially as Christians, And sometimes we think, well, that's my old self. I just, I don't have to deal with that. I'm a new creation. I want to move forward. So here's a quote by Victor Frankel.

He's a famous psychiatrist. Here's the opportunity that we have. He says, between stimulus and response, there's a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. And in that response is our growth and our freedom. So that response is our decisions. And we go back to that decision-making diagram there, that between stimulus and our response,

response, that's where all that unconscious stuff is happening. That's where all that family of origin, those injustices, those hurts that we have, those wounds, they're swirling in there, and they're impacting us in various ways. You know, I call that our essence space. That really reveals the essence of who we are. And psychiatry, the root of psychiatry is Suke. And Suu K, in Suu K is Greek for that the inner being, the innermost part of who we are, the essence of who we are, and that's where we get psychiatry.

Psychiatry is just understanding why we do what we do, or why we make the decisions we make. And in Honey Lake Clinic, what we try to do is help people understand, well, what's going on in that unconscious space? How do we develop a stronger relationship with God and understand, well, what's going on inside of us, how to take those thoughts captive, not

to the obedience of the world or our past or our sin nature, but with the obedience to God. So a clear representation of this in the Bible is the story of Lazarus. You know, Jesus, you know, is told, hey, your buddy's sick. He's going to die. Jesus is late getting there. Lazarus is dead.

Jesus goes in and says, Lazarus rise and come forth. So Lazarus rises and comes forth. Next verse there. The man who had died came out. His hands and feet were bound with linen strips and his face wrapped with a cloth. You see, he had these death wrappings all around his face, his eyes, his body, couldn't see clearly, interfered with his vision, interfered with his movement, his freedom, his walk.

The next thing Jesus says is unbind him and let him go. He told the others around him to unbind Lazarus. And to me, this is a representation of our spiritual walk. You know, we're spiritually dead through Christ. We become born again, spiritually alive. We rise. We come forth. but we all have death wrappings.

We all have baggage. Nobody got a brain transplant when they became saved. All our past experiences, that information that we have stored in our memory banks, it's still there. We have a clean slate sin-wise, but we don't have a clean slate in our memory banks, so we bring those forward.

And that's why God puts us in community. That's why God has built us for relationships because we need each other to help in that unbinding process. We need to engage each other to be unbound by others and to help each other unbind. So as you read your Bible, as you do devotions, as you grow in God, try to look at all those passages, all those activities,

is how do I become a better decision maker? How do I learn more about myself, more about God, so I can apply it practically to become a more godly decision maker? And that's what leads to the abundant life that he's promised us. Amen. Amen. One of the things you said, Dr. Carl, was that our decisions, Monday through Friday reveal what or who we really desire. And the whole heart of this series

has been to get down on the level of desire and to better understand where our desires come from and what's going on inside of us so that we can submit all of who we are under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and we can receive and believe his love for us every single part of us and let it do what only it can do in transforming us into his likeness. One of the things we had talked about was compartmentalization. And we'll kind of close with this, that we all have the unique ability to compartmentalize. And you had mentioned, we'll say, well, that's the old me, the new me. And Ray, I think you had said trust is earned. And a lot of times we'll go through traumatic experiences and maybe even we're the aggressor. And we'll say, I'm sorry, forgive me. But all the sudden trust is not just immediate.

And we're like, what's the problem? I said, I'm sorry. Can we not just move on? But the human mind and the human body, we don't just move on well. And when we compartmentalize, we're actually putting things in drawers to hold on to them to keep us from moving on. And so Dr. Carl, I'd ask you this question and then maybe share your final thought with us. And the question would be this. How do we, what is a practice we can put in place to truly live the integrated self, the whole self, to not compartmentalize? Yeah, I would say, you know, To me, I always like to start with Jesus. You know, Jesus is the wonderful counselor and the great physician.

You know, if we put those two professionals together, he's a psychiatrist. Jesus is the perfect psychiatrist. Was he, Dr. Carl? Was he? Well, he might have been a little bit more than that, right? But he's the perfect psychiatrist. And I think as Christians, we're afraid of psychiatry. We're afraid of science.

And science is just the understanding of what God made, how we designed it to function, and then how do we maximally steward it? And like I said, he's given us this powerful mind, but sometimes we're not very good at understanding how does our mind work? And, you know, as a great psychiatrist, he has a prescription, and he gives it to us in Matthew, verse 13, chapter 13, verse 15. He says, if they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understanding their heart in turn, I would heal them. And to me, what he's saying is if I can see myself clearly, you know, that, that, an unconscious space to sort of have some self-reflection, self-assessment, ask others,

hey, what do you notice about me? What do you see in me? Because we have blinders on at times. We see God clearly. We see others, our situations. Then we hear, we hear God's answers to those situations. We understand in our heart, how do we connect the answer to the situation? And then it's not just enough to understand. Peter, at the last supper, understood, but then he totally choked. It's understand, but we trust that answer. strongly enough that we put it into action in the form of a decision. And then that's where Jesus says healing occurs. And that's what neuroplasticity is. So we get psychological healing, healing, spiritual healing, but also our brain chemistry gets healed whenever we're able to take a look

and have that self-reflection and self-assessment. I think that's key into what we do. A lot of times we like to push that under the table or put it in, you know, compartments, put it in a deep vault and try to say, well, I'm never having to go there again. But we need to look at those things. And whenever we're struggling, especially to look at it then to say, hmm, there's something that's in there that is eaten at me or that's causing me to do some of the wrong things that I don't want to do. Let me sort of unpack that. Let me get with a counselor and let me get with my pastor, my small group, my spouse. You know, let's take a look at some of this and let me be confident enough in the power of Christ to be vulnerable and transparent to expose that to others. I think that's where

great freedom will come. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Dr. Carl. Ray, and share a closing thought with us on the power of forgiveness. Okay. Probably, or perhaps, while I was talking about forgiveness, a name came to you, a former spouse, current spouse, adult children, a pastor, teacher, somebody. And, but what name may not have come to you is yourself. Sometimes the person that most needs our forgiveness is ourselves. We need to forgive ourselves. And I don't, we don't think of it like this, but if I don't, don't embrace,

grace, forgiveness for myself, in a way, I'm saying that the sacrifice wasn't enough. I'm saying my sin was so great, it's held outside of your mercy. And that's the position we don't want to see because the mercy was enough, the cross was enough, and grace was enough. And if we hold ourselves in self-condemnation, ultimately that will turn into shame. And shame is not so much about what I've done is it becomes who I am, and it seeps down and creeps its way into our sense of identity. And the Lord wants to see us as children, that he valued, that he pursued, that he came after,

that he rescued, that he ransomed at great cost for himself. Our identity is bestowed, and we see life through the lens of identity, and we want that lens to be as clear and accurate as possible. And Jesus, not only was a great psychiatrist, he's the genius of humanity. and he knows how we can live in the freedom for which he paid for. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

Rebecca, it's a unique seat for you. You attend here every week. You're on the front row. You've been a part of the founding of this church. And you love this church and these folks. And so, man, encourage us with a closing word in regards to just who we are in the identity and how that's been shaped through our family history. I will.

First John 3-2 says, Beloved, you are. are God's children now. And what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. What I really want you to know is, regardless of how you were raised and all of that, you may not receive healing instantaneously or miraculously on this earth. You may continue to suffer. You may struggle to find the right medication. and counselors and therapies and rhythms with the Lord and communities to sustain you in this life. But Jesus knows, he knows your grief and he knows your sorrows.

Keep coming to him day after day, week after week. Worship through the pain. Don't give up. Philippians 4-5 says, the Lord is at hand. That means he is near and he will not stop loving you. The journey is worth it and the work is worth it. Amen. Amen.

You guys give our friends a round of applause. So what is the next step for you? What is the encouragement to continue, as Rebecca just said, to keep fighting, to keep pressing in, to keep receiving and believing the love of God. So often we go through our lives and we think that our purpose is about something to do when our highest calling in life is about who we're called to be, which is to be God's beloved children. So we're going to respond, as we always do here.

We're going to respond through prayer. And at all of our campuses, our altars are open. Maybe it's forgiveness that you need to come and bring before the Lord. Forgiveness for yourself, forgiveness for another. Maybe there's a relationship where you've sought forgiveness, but trust just has not been restored. And putting yourself underneath the love of God and praying that God would grow trust in those relationships. Maybe it's a stronghold. As Dr. Carl mentioned, that there's something that has a strong hold on your mind, on your heart, on a relationship.

And today, you would seek the freedom that could only come through Jesus Christ. And so we're going to respond in prayer. We'd invite you to come and put your body in the posture that you want your heart and your life to be in. We're going to respond through singing. We're going to sing true things about God, believing that if we say them out loud, they'll take root in our mind and our hearts, and they will overcome us with the truth. And then we're going to bring our first and our best by bringing our ties and offerings back to Jesus, who was God's first and God's best as he gave them to us. And so we're going to respond through prayer, through singing, and through bringing. Let me pray for us, if you would, stand with us.

it just happened right here it's just water so don't worry stand with us we're going to pray and we're going to sing father we love you we thank you for your kindness in our lives we thank you jesus that you loved us first and that because of who you are and because of what you've done for us that we can walk in freedom step by step day by day we can continue to trust you we can better understand who we are and the experiences we've been through uh to to better relate to you and to understand your relationship us. And Father, we want to deepen our relationship with you. We want to grow. We want to be stretched. We want to be comforted and convicted. So Holy Spirit, we invite you to do the work that only you can do in the deepest parts of who we are and the parts of us that we may not even be aware of. We invite you to come in.

We invite you to begin to heal and to begin to reveal to us the places where we need growth. We need growth. We trust you and we love you. And we need you more than anything and we love you more than anything. We pray that's not just something we say. That's something you make true in us and of us. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, amen. Let's respond together.