The Shape of Your Heart

So we've had two messages in this discernment series so far. And including today, it'll be five altogether. And even in that, we're not saying everything that could be said about discernment.

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In fact, when I put the message series together, I was going in a different direction for today's sermon than the one I'm taking today. Okay, that's just how it works. Sometimes, the discernment message I was going to do was about reading your life. So, as Parker Palmer says, let your life speak. How is your life speaking to you in a way that you can discern what's next in your life?

37:12 - 01:05:38

That's going to be more for that workshop? Not for today's message. Today's message is going to be, a little bit more foundational about what's underneath that decision making that we go through. And spiritual directors oftentimes, center around two foundational questions when we're thinking about discernment. The first question is this what do you think Jesus is saying to you at this point in your life?

01:05:42 - 01:31:00

In the context of both the challenges and the opportunities that you are facing? So this, discerning process, it leans towards trying to hear the voice of God through Jesus. What is Jesus saying to you through the challenge, through the opportunity? So it's not just either or is Jesus speaking to us in all facets of our lives?

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And then the second question that we ask as spiritual directors with regards to discernment is this what what indicators give you some measure of confidence that it is Jesus who is actually speaking to you, rather than someone or something else? So the first question is about hearing Jesus. The second question is about how do you know? Is Jesus you hear in Jesus?

01:52:45 - 02:23:39

Oh yeah, I heard Jesus. Well, how do you know that it was Jesus? And in these conversations around spiritual discernment, we ask these questions because we realize that we are faced with everyday challenges and opportunities, whether you are navigating a relational challenge, perhaps a friendship that has become toxic, or you're facing some kind of difficulty in your marriage and it needs some attention, discernment helps us to navigate the way through that.

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Or if you're discerning some kind of vocational change, perhaps even a ministry calling and trying to discern God, how have you led me and where are you directing me now? Discernment is good for helping to identify that or maybe in this politically charged time that we find ourselves in. You're asking yourself, Lord, how do I engage in this work, this political work, this justice oriented work and discernment helps us to ask the question, what is honoring to Jesus?

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What is God saying to me? And how do I take a step forward? Now? Anytime we have this conversation around discernment, the world outside of the church, the world outside of Scripture is also asking and offering advice on how to do this. They're not using the word discernment, though. The advice that the world is giving outside of the church is this follow your yes, follow your heart.

03:25:57 - 04:01:15

It's not new advice. This follow your heart is shorthand for, do what makes you happy. Be authentic. Be your true self. Choose what makes you fulfilled. Sounds good right? And it shows up repeatedly in graduation speeches, high school or college. It shows up repeatedly in, Disney and Pixar movies. That's what makes us feel good, right? It shows up in the very popular, growing industry of career coaching.

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It even shows up in therapy. The language around self-actualization. In 2005, Steve Jobs, the the guy, the Apple guy, he was giving a graduation speech to Stanford, and he said these words, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Doesn't this resonate with us? Take the courage to follow your heart and your intuition.

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They already know what you want to become because it names something real. Psychology even supports part of this that when people ignore their inner life, when decisions are driven by pressure or fear, they burn out. They become fragmented. But when we pay attention to our values, our longings become in line to give us greater clarity about who we are.

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And so the problem isn't that culture tells us to listen inwardly. I want to affirm that some that's bad. That advice is not bad. Listen inwardly. However, everybody say. However. However, the problem is that it stops right there. It doesn't take another step, because research also shows that we're often wrong about what we actually believe will make us happy.

05:28:16 - 05:57:20

What we actually believe will make us whole, and we confuse things like intensity with truth. And we mistake desire sometimes for direction. And Scripture says that we ought to pay attention to our hearts, but don't enthrone it. Pay attention to your heart, but guard it. Pay attention to your heart, but question it. Pay attention to your heart, but test what's shaping it.

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Ask not only what do you feel, but ask what spirit is forming these desires and where is it leading me? The title for today's message, because I had sting in my mind as I was preparing it, is the shape of your heart. Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. Done a body that's just the shape of my heart.

06:26:21 - 06:49:34

Yeah. The other, the other song that I had for a sermon title was Listen to Your Heart. There. Now there's my vanilla crowd. Y'all know. No. Yeah. Listen. Do you. Ha. Then hernia causes anything that has an own. So you pick whatever title you want, shape of your heart, or listen to your heart. It's all the same. Maybe I should pray.

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Yes, Lord, thank you for this gathering, for this time. Where we are here to listen, to hear, to follow.

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Help us to notice and pay attention to what's happening in our heart and where you are at. Work in it so that we might discern the way forward in the strong name of Jesus. We do pray. Amen. So we're going to be looking at three different texts as a discernment framework. And the first text is Proverbs 423 where we learn discernment flows from the heart, discernment flows from the heart.

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The writer in Proverbs says, above all else, watch. I'll be there with me. Above all else. Guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. The writer doesn't say some things flow from it. Reddick. It says everything flows from your heart. So you and I need to guard our heart. In Scripture, the word heart is synonymous oftentimes with desire.

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So you see heart. You should also think maybe it's speaking towards desire. The heart is the center of desire. It's not speaking about that physical organ in your body. It is speaking about the center of desire, of will, of imagination and of attention. It is where meaning is made and direction is set. And Proverbs insists that discernment doesn't go around the heart.

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When you're trying to make a decision, it goes through the heart. In fact, it begins there. Every decision, every pattern of life flows from our heart that contains information about what we love, about what we trust, about what we believe, about what we attend to most deeply and so when the writer says, we've got to guard our hearts, it doesn't mean that we need to harden it or build up walls around it.

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It doesn't mean that we need to ignore it either. It means that we need to tend to it, pay attention, and tend to your heart. Notice the desires that are there because those desires are giving you information about the decision that is in front of you. Spiritual leader Ronald Rolle Heizer names this when he says, spirituality is what we do with our desire.

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We're all spiritual people, but spirituality leads us to notice and pay attention to the desires that are in our heart and where to step. What do we do with those desires? How many of us grew up in church and heard that your desires are bad and they're bad because you are a man? Listen, what church do y'all go to?

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We must be one. We might have went to the same church I went to the same church. You and your desires are bad because you are a sinner and because you were a sinner. Everything is bad about you. In fact, ain't nothing good about you at all. You just a worthless worm. Come on. We went to the same church, y'all.

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I know we went to the same church. You are worthless worms, so you can't trust your own desire. And that's where the world is. Say, hold on. Wait a minute. Now. Nothing. You can't trust anything about your heart. You can't trust anything about your desire. You can't trust anything about your intuition at all. All of it is evil.

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All of it is bad. And the church can put these in an all or nothing category. Like men, I cannot trust my heart at all. Whereas the scripture says no, this is the place where it begins. Beloved, your desires are information. They are not good or bad or evil. They're giving you information, which is why we need to pay close attention to it.

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It reveals what is alive inside of us, what makes us come alive. Now it's information that we need to be careful of for sure, because your belly will tell you that you are hungry, but it won't tell you what to eat, and it won't tell you what you should eat to be good for you, because your belly will tell you you hungry and you say, cool, I'm finna go get this 24 piece of KFC chicken.

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What I know right? That only makes sense. Popeyes. I'm gonna go get some Popeyes because everybody know KFC ain't real chicken. Everybody knows them chickens with their heads cut off is it was running around genetically made or manufactured. Anyway, I'm going to go to Popeyes and I'm gonna get the red beans and rice and the fries, and then I'm going to get a shake with cream cheese and Oreo cookie.

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Your belly tells you you're hungry, but it doesn't tell you what you should eat or what's good for you. And in the same way, our desires give us information, but they don't tell us what to do with it so we can notice and pay attention what's happening inside of us. That information about your desire is good. You desire good things.

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You desire joy. You desire comfort, you desire wholeness and healing. But how do you get it? What is the pathway to take that is the information we lean towards when we're asking ourselves, what is the shape of my heart? We have to notice and pay attention to this as a spiritual discipline, because guarding the heart means creating that intentional space for us to bring all of those desires to God.

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Some of us don't bring our desires to God because we've had some bad teaching in theology that your all of your desires are evil, so we don't bring them to God. Some of us have been taught that our desires are somehow, they just need to be suppressed. Even some great theologians have taught, you know, that we should beat those desires out of us, even so that we are somehow empty of any desire, at all.

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Very few people are being led to listen to your desire and bring that to the Lord. To guard your heart is to bring those affections, bring those desires, and lay them before the feet of Jesus to pay attention to what this desire is communicating to you. But paying attention is not the only thing you do. In this framework of discernment, of noticing the shape of our heart, the second thing we've got to do is question our heart.

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So yes, your your heart matters is the place where that discernment begins. And notice and paying attention. But we've got to question it. And this is where your fundamental church that you grew up in that told you you was a sinner. You couldn't trust your heart. This is the first idea that that that they used. Right? This is the one Jeremiah 17 and nine and ten read it with me.

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The heart is deceitful above all things. Who can understand it? The I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind. Oh, we sometimes you, we just you. Usually I say who we. Jeremiah here is not speaking to nonbelievers. By the way, he's speaking to a deeply religious community who's confident in its spiritual instincts, who's certain of its own sincerity.

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And that is precisely the danger that he is warning this community against. You've built sincerity over time in your passion and in your desire to be pleasing to the Lord. You have developed the ability to lean into your instincts. And that's where I want to caution you. Jeremiah says that your heart can still be easily influenced, that your heart can still be deceived, that your heart can still get things wrong.

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In Jeremiah's world, the heart interprets the reality and explains what is motivating us to go in certain directions. If we're not aware of the fears of the the pride of unhealed wounds that are present, then the heart will blindly lead us into directions that later might get us into trouble. Because the heart is not silent. The heart speaks, it speaks and it looks at our past.

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It looks at our present. It looks at the world around us. And yes, it tries to protect us from further harm. But sometimes that protection can lead us in the wrong direction. In short, beloved, the heart cannot be the final authority. Let it give you information. Let it speak to the desires of your heart. But it cannot be the final authority.

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The strong desire that you have does not equal divine guidance. I got a strong feeling. Okay, that's good information. Passion is not proof of direction. Conviction doesn't always equal confirmation. Even you all know this one language. Like God told me God told you can sometimes function as a way to shut down discernment. God told you can function as a way to close your ears off from what God is trying to say to you.

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God told me, can blind your eyes from reading Scripture to see what God might want to say to you. I get in this situation more often times than I care to admit, particularly with people who want to plant churches. They want to start churches. Somebody comes in, they're really excited. You know, Richard started a church 15 years ago.

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I'm feeling called, you know, to by God to start a church. I say, all right, man, you know how many churches we got in Columbus, Ohio? I mean, how many churches we got 1200, 1200. And some churches right here in Columbus, Ohio. I'm talking about inside the two, around the 272. I'm not talking about all the way up in Marysville.

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I'm talking about right around here, 1200 churches, you know, I mean, church we got right here from Morris Road, down to 17th, 100, 100 churches right down. Oh, there you feel let it go. You start a church. Why? Amen. Because ain't nobody getting it right. Praise God he's got him in. And you the one that's going to get it right.

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All right, all right. Yeah. I just want to see people saved. Okay. Saved from what? You know, from hell, man. People are going through hell right now. What about right now? I mean, I'm talking about, you know, the eternal lake of fire. Okay, praise, praise God, praise God. The compassion is genuine. They want to follow the Lord. They feel conviction.

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They feel led by God. But when trusted friends, people who've been through what they want to go through, start to ask questions about how are you going to sustain this? And is this the right time or the readiness or what kind of Jesus are you going to be presenting in this new church that you endeavor? Then you see the defensive walls come up.

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Oh, why are you questioning God's call? Oh, I'm the I'm questioning you ain't questioning God. But anyway. Right. I'm not questioning God. I'm asking you. But over time, it becomes clear that the desire was there to serve. And it was real. But it was tangled up with guilt. It was tangled up with church hurt. It was tangled up from shame.

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It was tangled up with all kinds of unspoken issues that didn't get fully resolved. And at that point, they can choose to go on down that path. I'm still going to plant this church. Or they can say, you know what, Lord, maybe you're causing me to pause and address these issues in my heart because the church is not the place to work that stuff out.

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And too many times we get spiritual leaders starting churches taking over churches or leading small groups is taking over who haven't paid attention to the shape of their heart. And they're doing so because they're running away from something. They're doing so out of they're not out of, they're doing so out of trauma that has not been resolved, whereas God might lead them to take another step.

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And this is what Jeremiah is getting at. Your heart needs to be examined. But notice the second part. I love this in verse ten, I, the Lord, searched the heart. I, the Lord tests the mind. In other words, God is not going to abandon us to our own self-deception. God is going to jump in there with us. God is going to search the heart even before we ask God to search it.

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God is going to test us even before we ask to be tested. God loves us too much to let our unexamined desires lead us too far off course. And God provides grace for us even when we've gone in the wrong direction. The kind of grace that says, I'm covering you right now. I ain't letting the covers off of you.

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I'm covering you right now because I am wooing you back into the right path. I want you to notice what's in your heart. I want you to question what's in your heart. I want you to know that your heart can be made right and whole. If you lean on me and lean into me and lean into My Holy Spirit.

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God wants our heart. James picks up on this right? James chapter one. You know, somebody is like, you know, man, I was I've been tempted in James like, I've been tempted by God James. Like, you've been tempted by the desire in your own heart. And so you, beloved, need to question it. Sincerity alone is not enough.

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Courageous. Following is not enough. The heart matters, but it can't be the final authority. And here is the third part of our discernment framework with regards to the heart. It is the heart test. And to test our hearts, it matters. Your heart matters. Your heart's giving you information. You should question it, but then you should also tested first.

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John four one. Let's read this one together. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. I love first John. I love his letters. Second John, third John two. There are wonderful, wonderful letters because John assumes something crucial that our inner lives are not spiritually neutral. Your heart is not spiritually neutral.

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Your heart does not start from a blank slate. Your discernment doesn't start from a blank page. It already has influences on it. I know you're a smart person. I know you a great man of God, and I don't. I'm not influenced by anything. I have come up on this decision all by myself. I have had no influences whatsoever on me.

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I don't need to read any books. I'm very smart. I'm not influenced by anything on television at all. I don't pay attention to social media. I am not influenced at all. I'm a man and I'm a man of God.

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God bless you.

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God bless you. You're not neutral. And everybody's Instagram right now is going to be flooded with all kind of follow your heart stuff right here. As soon as you open that, join up as soon as you overnight join a media influence. There's multiple influences. Your past has an influence on your discernment, your trauma has an influence on your decision making.

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Your idealization has an influence on your decision making. I'm rocking Morehouse College today because you know what this weekend is? It's MLK birthday tomorrow. Hey, it's not really a birthday, but it's the day we celebrate it anyway. Is MLK graduate of Morehouse College? I was six years old when I decided I wanted to go to Morehouse College. Six years old.

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I decided I want to go to Morehouse College at six years old, because I wanted to be like Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King. I played Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King in a little school play, and then the local PBS station picked it up and they said, we want to put you, you know, in that suit on TV so you can do the I Have a Dream speech.

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And I got my little suit and I was on the on TV with the Martin Luther the King. I have a dream speech. I'm go be like Martin Luther King.

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Yeah.

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The video is lost. I don't know where, you know what I'm saying? It's like, you know, when there's no evidence. There's no evidence. Can we see it? You know, see, you know, you search YouTube, you never you never know. So anyway, I'm heading in this direction. My heart. If I'm if I'm really honest, it was about the influence that Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King had, like, oh, look at all those thousands of people you know, he's speaking to.

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I want to speak like that. I want to have that kind of, you know, movement in my voice, you know, and whatnot. And underneath the desire to be like Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King was a desire filled with pride.

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It's quiet. Why it's so quiet? Because sometimes we are. We step in a direction where we believe we are following a heart and we are, but we're not. We're not. And at six years old, asking the question about the heart, really. But as I got older and I chose, you know what, I'm gonna still go to Morehouse College, but I ain't gonna be like Martin Luther King.

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I'm going to be a chemical engineer and make some money because I realized Martin wasn't making no money. He ain't making a whole lot of money. Like I'm going to be a chemical engineer. And then my sophomore year, my English. I had an English professor who required that we do some mentoring in a local, school. And so while I was mentoring in this local school, we had to journal about it.

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You know, each week to submit it. I was watching these African-American boys being constantly pushed to the back of the class. And, you know, prisons are built off of third grade test scores. I don't know if you knew that, but they build up third grade test scores. The future of, adolescence is built off of what happens in those early, early, early years from kindergarten to third grade.

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I said, you know what? I'm gonna change my major to from engineering to education. I was failing anyway, but that's a whole nother story. That was all the information the Lord was giving me. But the Lord called me to be an educator. It wasn't the fact that differential equations kicked my behind twice. But you know, that's another story.

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That's another story. Any engineers can relate differential equations. So yeah, I went this other this other direction. And here's the beloved in this, in this testing of our hearts is the Lord's commitment to constantly pull us, even when we think we're going the wrong way, even when we're taking the wrong step. The Lord is like, I am right in step there with you, the Lord, walking in step with some of us in the wrong direction in the Lord is right there with us, constantly nudging, constantly trying to bring us into a space of alignment.

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I'll continue with my story a little bit later, but here's what Emily Freeman offers as a helpful lens when we're thinking about discernment in this testing of our hearts, she says, the choice that is right for you is the choice that helps you become more loving, more present, and at peace with God and others. When we're testing our hearts in this choice that is before us, we ask ourselves, does this help us become more loving?

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Does this help us become more present? That has helped us become more peaceful with God and our relationship with the Lord? In relationship with others? And that question cuts through the spiritual noise. It cuts through the noise, asking us to think ahead, not just think in the moment. Does it make us? Will it make us? Will we become?

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Will we look like Jesus? And the psalmist invite this kind of questioning for ourselves? Search me, O God. Psalm 139. No, my heart tests me. No my anxious thoughts. So here are four tests I want to offer you for your heart. The first is the Jesus tests. That was obvious, right? Does this movement does this decision lead me toward the way of Jesus, toward love, humility, and self-giving?

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Does it lead me to look, sound, and feel more like Jesus? Is it making me into the image of Jesus? Or is this making me in my own image? The Jesus test? And in order to know the Jesus test, we need to know Jesus. And in order to know Jesus, we need to read the Gospels that are written about Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

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No better place to start than write in the Gospels. I'm not saying Paul is bad, but start with what would people have said about Jesus first before going to the interpretation of who Jesus is? I'm not saying commentaries are bad. I'm not saying the self-help books, you know, are bad. Look at what the Gospels say about Jesus. Does this line up with the character, the compassion, the way of Jesus?

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Will this decision, this discernment, make me more like Jesus? This is the second test, is the fruit test y'all knew that was coming to. You've been around church long enough. Galatians chapter five. Amen. Things 522 and 23. The fruit test is this bearing spirit led fruit. Is this leading toward spirit led maturity or is it leading to anxiety?

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Is it leading towards pressure or is it leading towards freedom and peace? The fruit test what kind of person is not just not just. It sounds very much like the Jesus test. This one is really kind of inward. It's looking more inward. What kind of what kind of inward motivations are being cultivated in this decision that you are discerning?

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What kind of fruit is it making you more in line with that person that you know Jesus is trying to make you in line with, or is it pulling you away? The third test is the community test, one that we're oftentimes surprised by because discernment is not just an isolated thing. It is done in community with spiritual companions.

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We're going to talk about this a little bit more next week. The Lord willing. When we talk about inviting wise counsel into your life as you are discerning. And because we are built around individualism in our culture, that individualism has seeped into our spiritual journey and walk with God, where we think our decision is just ours doesn't impact anybody.

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I don't need anybody. I can clearly see the way to go. I'll need any help. Thank you very much. The Scripture offers a very different path. One that invites others into the discernment process. Doesn't give them authority, but it invites a perspective that you might not be considering and might be overlooking. So we'll talk about that a little bit more.

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The community test next week. And then the last test is the time test. It just is. It's just send the spirit is patient, way more patient than we are, way more patient than we are. What God desires is deep clarity that doesn't oftentimes come in an instant. It's over time. Urgency, panic, and pressure are rarely the primary language of the spirit.

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It's over time, and that's why God is so good and so gracious. Time will tell and reveal so much in our discerning and discern ment. You know this is you know where I started to a little bit more. You know of the story, right? I'm jumping in. Okay. I go into to education and I feel this sense of call, you know, all my life as I'm growing in my, my spiritual walk, you know, in college, you know, the Lord is really grabbed my heart.

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And, the Lord gives me this prophetic word that I'm to be a pastor and a pastor of a, a multiracial church because God's call me to bring, you know, these, races and ethnicities together for the kingdom of God. And I grab a hold of the preacher part of my. Okay, I'm. Imma be a preacher. Hallelujah.

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I'm gonna go do revivals. And, you know, me and my buddy Sam, we're doing revivals around Atlanta. And, you know, we got this call in our life. We're going to be by vocational. You know, he's going to be a social worker. Imma be a, classroom educator. And then we're going, you know, we're going to, you know, pastor churches and, you know, they're going to be these powerful, African-American justice oriented, you know, congregations and we got this this whole plan for our life.

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We even we even scripted out the wives we were going to have. You know, you need a wife that wears heels like this and can rock hats like that and can do this and can do that. We had it all scripted out whole, whole nine yards. I that's a whole nother story. I tell y'all that later. Tell that later.

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The Lord got me off track. But he got me. I mean, I got off track, but the Lord got me back on track. So anyway, I'm headed down this path and it's like, yes, we are going to be the this generation's MLK. And slowly the heart starts to do its work and the Lord starts to do work on the heart, helping me to notice and pay attention to pride.

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And pride is actually one of the things that pulled me away from that trajectory that I was on on to this path where I'm on right now. I was in Kenya doing a revival, and we were doing a revival, revival in this small town of Rongai. And, people were walking miles to come, you know, to this revival, some people in bare feet to be in this revival.

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And we were preaching the Jabez Prayer. Anybody know the Jabez prayer? Enlarge my territory, bless me, bless me. And it's so like I mean, it's going, it's going. People are like, oh, this is awesome. Hallelujah. They were picking up the chairs and like, man, this is great. Bless me. And then I have this thought. These folks walk miles and bare feet and they are believing this word that I'm giving them from the Prayer of Jabez.

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Every single one of them. God can do that for me. And it caused me to wonder, I don't know if I'm preaching the right Jesus here. I don't know if I'm preaching the right gospel. Preaching the gospel. Really, that sounds a lot like prosperity. Preaching the gospel. That sounds a lot like, you know, God is going to take care of you and bless you and enlarge a territory.

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And meanwhile, meanwhile, unsure of where the next meal is going to come from, meanwhile, unsure how God's going to take care of the family. Meanwhile, there are diseases preventable ones that they are dying from. Meanwhile. Meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, I'm like Lord, I'm on. I'm on the wrong path. And Lord reminded me of that second part of my call.

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So remember when I called you to bring people of multiple races, multi ethnicities together? I just want to I just want to remind you that I just want to remind you that's part of your call. And not that you can't be faithful in this as well. But I'm inviting you rich to another path. I'm inviting you to something different.

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What's in your heart? And the Lord just began to work in my heart. Charlene I stepped away from our, historic, traditional black church in Hampton, Virginia, and we moved here to Westerville, Ohio, to join a predominantly white church that wanted to be multiracial. What in the actual okay, what when the first Sunday, first Sundays like. Yeah. Are you, evangelical?

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I'm like, what is that? I don't even know what an evangelical is. It's like, do you follow John Calvin or Martin Luther? And I'm like, Martin Luther King, why don't you just say that? Yes.

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You're like, no, Martin Luther, the reformer. Who? That. Who is who? Who are you talking about?

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I'll tell y'all the story later. I tell you all the story later, man.

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So we're here, following our heart, but questioning it, testing it, and trusting and relying that God is going to lead us. Here's what we can trust. Because I know this sounds overwhelming. Ezekiel 3626 says this I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. In other words, we don't have to fix our hearts ourselves.

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I will give you a new heart. Remember, heart and desire are oftentimes synonymous in the Scripture. I will give you a new desire. You desired what you want. I'm going to give you a new desire, and I'm going to remind you of this desire because it is me who is in you and with you and for you. I'm going to give you this new heart.

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Hallelujah! So, beloved, your heart has this information about your desires that you can listen to, but you can also question what are the motivations behind it. And you have tests. And finally, you can trust that it is God who is in you that kind of discernment is not about striving. That kind of discernment is not about being afraid of getting it wrong.

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That kind of discernment is about trusting God, who is already at work in you, softening that heart so that you can become even more like Jesus, the kind of person that is needed in this world. So the step, while it is simple, it may be heavy, is to bring your real heart to God, not the one you think Jesus wants.

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Bring your real heart, the confused one, the conflicted one, the unfinished one, the ambitious one, the excited one, the goal oriented one. Bring it all into the presence of God. Bring your whole heart into the presence of God and allow the Lord to show you what is good and the good direction of that heart. Can I also say this off script?

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Is that ambition is not bad. Wanting to be in charge and have influence is not bad. Churches will sometimes suppress that desire. You shouldn't want that. You shouldn't know you know. You gotta make yourself less. You gotta be a pioneer upon. Or as you know, because you're a worthless worm you can't possibly know. And you can't possibly handle that responsibility with integrity.

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So don't even desire it. But beloved, that is not good news. And that is not gospel. The Lord has put some ambitions in your heart, and it has been the Lord who put them there. And it is the Lord who wants you to give that desire back to him, so that he can lead you in the right next step.

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As okay, bring all of your desires to the Lord. Can I close here by inviting you to just start by noticing 1 or 2 desires in your heart?

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I want to invite some silence here and ask Holy Spirit to just bring 1 or 2 desires in your heart that you've been holding on to. This might look like a question. It might look like a step, it might look like a relationship. But as you start there, Holy Spirit, bring the 1 or 2 desires. There.

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The real one, the one underneath.

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The one that we've been avoiding. The one we've been ignoring. The one we didn't pull out from the box that we hid away for a long time. Lord.

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You've been so faithful to walk with us. To care for us. To notice and pay attention to our journey. Not from a distance or from afar, but right in step with us.

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Thank you for being so gracious.

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Now for the next 30s of silence. I invite Holy Spirit to speak.

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If you got that 1 or 2 desires, would you to imagine sharing that with Jesus?

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Perhaps by handing it over, perhaps the conversation?

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Begin the hand that over. Share that with Jesus.

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Notice the kindness in Jesus's eyes as you share that. The gentleness that doesn't have condemnation in it.

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The gentleness that doesn't have shame in it.

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The gentleness that has delight.

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Who calls you beloved?

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Even Jesus's gratitude for you for sharing that with him.

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And hear Jesus say to you, let's begin again. Holy spirit, thank you for.

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Looking into our hearts.

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Seeing the good that is there.

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But also the entanglement.

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As we identify the next step to have that heart untangled, we trust in your Holy Spirit.

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To lead us and to guide us along the way. This journey we call life the strong name of Jesus. We pray.