The Sound Mind - The Spirit's Role

It seems quite almost contradictory for me to be standing in front of a sign that says the sound mind. I am the aberration, the anomaly in the equation here. And uh this this is a very needed uh subject and we have many uh not many but several people that are involved in in counseling. Uh Sister Christie, Sister Amber is doing chaplency work now, I think. and and u we've got um the the Dales, Sister Nicole, uh Sister Tresa, Sister Linda Clark gets involved in in uh some counseling and we've got uh the crossings, Kim and Matt to deal with uh celebrate recovery.

And I wonder the the the unique thing you can get all these these counseling sessions in a secular setting, but the the thing that these folks bring to any counseling session is the Lord. It's the Lord. That's that that is the thing that distinguishes biblical counseling from anything else. and that is the the intervention of Jesus Christ to stand in the middle of these things. I want us to pray for these that I've mentioned and there may be others that are involved that I'm not aware of.

But I want us to pray that God would strengthen them in in their counseling of people to bring to bring not just uh the wisdom that that they may have but also the spirit that they carry with them. Father, I pray for all of these who who are frontliners in this in counseling people who have troubled lives, people who are troubled in their minds many times. And we pray God that your hand would be upon them that you would that you would direct their their speech and the wisdom.

Give them wisdom and your counsel that they can dispense with that. And not only that, but Lord, let the people that they counsel feel the very presence of Almighty God. The peace of God that passes understanding. This is what these who know you bring into any counseling session. And I pray that you would strengthen their hands, oh God, because this is a ministry to people. And people need you more than they need anything else. And we thank you for it, Lord, for your hand of mercy and grace upon these.

Strengthen them now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. I've got a a couple of scriptures I want to read and we'll go uh go on like a a freight train here to try to get through some of this. from Romans 12:es 1 and two. My topic tonight is of course the the theme is a sound mind. Mind is the spirit's role in that sound mind. What is the role of the spirit in uh having a sound mind? Paul wrote in Romans 12:es 1 and two and said this.

I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. Now Paul when he wrote that he's not talking about just you know you can't separate yourself from your body and just drag yourself you know to an altar. uh and and uh it it's not just about dragging the flesh there. He's talking about the composite, the whole man, the whole person uh holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. from 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7. Uh this is our theme verse. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And then finally from Ephesians chapter 6 verse1 17 Paul writing says take the helmet of salvation. take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.

Uh we're we're going to start by uh focusing on some definitions just just and we don't do this just to uh say that I know and you don't know but it's so that we get on the same page so that we've got a a the same foundation of things. There was a man who was born u in 1899. His name was Stanley Stein. It wasn't his real name. His real name was Sydney Leon. And he changed his name to Stanley Stein when he contracted uh leprosy.

He was sent to Carville, Louisiana. There was still uh in in just before the turn of the decade of the the century, there was still a leper colony in the contiguous United States in Carville, Louisiana. And Stanley Stein was sent there, became a patient advocate. He had many contributions. He had been a pharmacist by trade. And then the disease took over his body. He lost feeling. Now, leprosy is a disease of the central nervous system. You lose feeling first in the extremities in your fingers and your toes.

But in Stanley Stein's case, he lost practically all the sensation in his entire body. Not only that, he went nearly deaf. He became nearly blind. And Stanley signed the story when I read this of him said that he would sit in that room and uh he didn't know if anybody was there or not and he would just speak into the air. Is anybody there? Is anybody listening? Can you hear me? Can you hear what I'm saying? He had no clue that anyone was even there. you could shake him violently and and because he had lost all the sensation in his body, it said this that so the normal channels by which the body connects to reality were almost entirely gone.

Stein was trapped inside the box of bone that had been designed to protect him, but now it had become a prison. All he had was his thoughts, his own mind. And as I begin to think about what I'm going to teach tonight, the most impregnable maximum security prison is often one we build for ourselves right here. This box of bone that protects us can become a prison. It's supposed to be a refuge, but it can become a prison. And what we build as a refuge to protect us from pain sometimes can become a prison of isolation.

And we don't want to get hurt. And so we make the walls high and we make the doors thick so that nobody is ever going to hurt us again. And this box of bone once again that is meant to protect us becomes a prison that we allow nothing or anyone to penetrate. Some biblical definitions. I read this statement and it made a lot of sense just in a simplistic way to give a definition to the body, soul and spirit. Man lives in the world through his body, experiences life through his soul, and knows God through his spirit.

That's a very simple explanation. And uh we we throw these terms around sometimes and we really don't have a grasp sometimes of what we are talking about. They they they are interchangeable in our minds and they become overlapping somewhat. But let me just throw some things out to us tonight. The heart is the essential me. When the Bible talks about the heart, it's talking about the essential you, the essential person. It's contained in this outward form that we call a body. But the essential me, I am made up of emotions.

I am made up of valition or will. I am made up of uh my moral conscience, my beliefs, my preferences, uh my taste, my personal taste. All of that is what makes you uniquely who you are. That is the heart of you. That's the core of who you are. The mind, on the other hand, is the faculty of reasoning, understanding, and perception. Now biblically speaking, the mind is not separate from the heart but is contained within the heart. The core of who you are. Your mind is a part of that.

To the ancient Hebrews, the mind was integrated into the heart. So much so when Deuteronomy 6:5 was written, it read like this. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Mind was not even mentioned here because heart to the Hebrew mind contained the mind. The mind was a part of the heart. But when Jesus lived in that Greco Roman culture in which he lived, the intellect had become a big thing. the mind had become much more pronounced and much more distinguishable.

And so when Jesus quoted that scripture in Matthew 12:30, he said it this way, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." This is the first commandment. He didn't quote it exactly because the the audience to which he was speaking was now uh distinguishing the mind and the heart and it's sometimes confusing to us when we read that or when we think about those things and and we also separate the mind from the heart.

But the mind is a part of who you are. It's the the core of who you are. And so let me give you another definition quickly. thinking is the process of developing a thought into a perspective or a viewpoint. And Paul especially in his writings focused on this. He used a term in the Greek, it's logi. It means to reason or to reckon or to think about yourself in this way. So that when you think about yourself, it it may not be an actual condition. Think of yourselves as righteous, but we have no righteousness except in Jesus Christ.

Think of yourself as justified and and think of yourself this way and think of yourself that way. And so thinking is developing a thought into a perspective or a viewpoint that we have. We should think of on these things. We should think of ourselves in the way that Paul talked about. And so the the thinking produces thoughts. Thoughts are products. Thoughts are are uh ideas and concepts that we get from thinking in these in these minds of ours and they take the for form of uh not just one thing.

Let me let me just lay this on you tonight. You have a thought. Sometimes it's words. Sometimes you think and and it's just words. But sometimes when you think these thoughts develop into pictures and you'll get a snapshot of something in your mind. You'll you'll visualize and it becomes sometimes it's a video that plays on the on the screen of your mind and you see a whole a whole movie as it were that rolls out of your thinking and envelops into a a scenario. Sometimes, Sister Christie, it's even music.

Isn't it amazing that that in the soundtrack of your mind that music can begin to play and you'll just start huming a song, right? That's a thought. It it's something that you you were thinking you were processing something and and it developed into a thought and it takes the form of music and you may even write a song. So you get these thoughts and you develop these thoughts. They are real. Thoughts are real in your head. They're real and they have impact even the when they are unactualized deeds.

Jesus taught about this. We may talk about this in a minute, but Jesus talked about this. Uh the ultimate prize. So those are the definitions. Heart, mind, thinking and thoughts. The ultimate prize for which both heaven and hell are engaged is the soul of man. The soul is the person. In the Hebrew mind, at least in the Old Testament, they didn't have a word for person. They called them souls. Souls. Everything was a soul. Every living creature was a soul. Everything that breathed and had life was a soul.

And and so it's the composite person is called a soul. And it's you. It's you. The real you, the one not just the inner you, but the whole you is what heaven and hell are involved in in in the battle and the warfare for. There are at least two aspects of the soul uh and uh they are not mutually exclusive. It's primarily in scripture when the Bible talks about particularly in the New Testament uh and and mostly in the Old Testament when it talks about a soul, it's talking about your natural life.

It's talking about this life. When Jesus said, "What will a man give in exchange for his soul?" He wasn't talking about necessarily that that im that immaterial part of you. He was saying what what would it profit you if you gain the whole world but you die? You lose your natural life. When Herod sought to kill the the the baby Jesus, the Bible said he sought to take his and the word there is suk. It is the soul. He saw he didn't Herod wasn't out to kill Jesus's immortal soul.

He was out to kill the baby. He was out to take his his natural life. And so uh the soloulish man is created from the dust. The that this outward man here is just a tabernacle. Boy, the tabernacle in the wilderness was a beautiful beautiful type of man. There was a tent that was stretched over the structure underneath it called the tabernacle. And inside the tabernacle was a holy place, that inner sanctum where God dwelt. You are a tabernacle and a holy place where the spirit of God can dwell and you are housed in this flesh.

Okay? So the soulish man is created from the dust and spirit was breathed into man and that is the part that is responsive to God. If he hadn't breathed that life into us, we would not have a connecting point with God. But God gave us as he breathed spirit into us. He gave us a point of connection that we not the flesh but something within us that is a part of our makeup can connect to the almighty God. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 11 says, "For what man knoweth the things of man, say the spirit of man which is in him, even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God." So this spirit, when we talk about this spirit, we're talking about a connecting point.

We have the spirit of man that is the faculty by which we connect with each other. You ever find somebody that's a soulmate? That means that you have a connection, not just a physical connection, but you have a soul, a spiritual connection with them. You have this this spirit of man that can connect with other people. You find things in common. But it also gives us the faculty to connect with the spirit of God. We have given the soul the meaning of being the immortal seed that will ultimately be raised as a spiritual body.

But it also the primary meaning is that it is a natural life because we only have one life. This is it right here. We don't believe in reincarnation. You're not coming back as anything else. It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment. We have this life and what happens in this life in this soulish existence that we have will determine our eternal destinies. This is why Paul would start Romans 12:1 by saying, "I beseech you therefore by the mercies of, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies because what you do in the flesh matters.

It has an effect. Present your bodies a living sacrifice." Holy. What? Spirit? No, your bodies holy. It does matter what we do in these bodies acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world. What you do in this body has both temporal and eternal repercussions. Don't allow the world to shape your mind, to shape your activities, to shape your thoughts. Don't let the world squeeze you into the mold. won't be conformed to this world. But that's only the first part.

And and this is my assignment tonight. There is the metamorphosis of the mind. But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Where is this battle going to take place? The real arena of conflict is not the body. It is the mind. It's it's the area of the heart that inner core called the mind. It is here that the toughest battles are staged. Right here, this is where I do battle and it's where you do battle. The actions and the activities are merely repercussions and and projections of what has already gone on in the mind.

This sensory processing center which all of us have, this hardware that we call the brain with the sinapses that fire and send signals and and process sensory data will have an effect and and governs and controls everything that we do. So here is where the battle takes place. In his sermon on the mount, Jesus disclosed that what we think can be described as an unactualized deed. He was not establishing equivalency here. There are some people said, "Well, I thought I think it, therefore, I must go ahead and do it.

I might as well just go ahead and do it because that's what I'm thinking anyway. You ever run into a loose cannon like that? No filters, huh? They just out there with it. Just spit it out. Well, I was thinking it. I might as well say it. No, no, no, no. Jesus was not saying, and I've heard people say that, you know, well, I might as well do it because I'm thinking it anyway. No. A thousand times. No. If you're thinking about burning my house down, just think about it.

Because if you do it, it will have major consequences. He wasn't establishing equivalency. He was establishing a correlation between this is where it starts and that's where it ends. It's not the same. You can think it, but you can get rid of thoughts. You can dump your thoughts before it's a deed. This is what he was saying. Before it ever becomes a deed, it's a seed right here in your mind. And if you nurture it, if you if you plant it and water it and nurture it, it will become a word.

Then it'll become an activity. So therefore just he it he was just trying to make us understand that everything starts right here in the mind. Be careful. Guard that mind. Heaven and hell have differing methods on how to gain control. But the real control that they want to gain is of the mind. Of the mind. They have differing methods of this. Satan believes that the mind is a gateway to the spirit of man. And so that's where he attacks. You know, he can't get into your spirit.

It's the Greek term is naos. It's the inner sanctum. God made you with that spirit for himself. He wanted that connection for himself. Satan has no right of access. And hell has no right of access into the spirit of man. Man must literally throw open the doors and invite that evil into himself. But Satan believes that the mind is the gateway to the spirit. And God knows that the gateway to the mind is the spirit of man. The Bible says that the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.

It's the candle of the Lord. I It's the place where God will light his lamp and dwell. So 1 Corinthians 2:14 says this, "God, let me just lay this this sentence on you. God appeals through the spirit to the spirit of man. Through his spirit, he makes the appeal to you and to me through our spirit. He doesn't appeal to our flesh. God doesn't offer you money. He doesn't offer you success. Those are the things that Satan offers. That's where the temptation of the mind. He's trying to gain access to your mind so that he can gain access to your spirit.

But God, he doesn't offer you the world. He doesn't offer you things, material things. Nowhere in the Bible does it does it speak of those things. Old Testament maybe he that he had a non-spiritual people. He had an earthly people uh a physical people. But now we are children of God that are born of the spirit. He does not appeal to us and say, "I'll make you wealthy. I'll make you successful." And he he doesn't do that. He comes to us. How? Through the spirit. That's why you sense him.

That's why you feel him. And that's why it's so important that when someone walks through the doors of this building and into this church, uh we're not appealing to their intellect. Uh we want to attract the presence of God that can appeal to the spirit of man. Amen. Paul said, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." It's always been this way that that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world.

They look at us and they and they think that you are you're crazy to believe some of the things that you believe. They don't appeal to us. They don't appeal to the world. But that's not how God appeals to humankind, his greatest creation. He's got that connector that's built into us, that spirit that he breathed into us so that so that he could appeal to that. You've got somebody said it this way. We all have this Godshaped space in us that remains empty. And because only God can fill that place in humanity.

It's what connected us with him originally is what connects us with him now. And and and makes us most like him. that that moral particle, that conscience that he uses to touch us. And so when Paul when Paul wrote of the armor of the spirit, put on the whole armor of God, when he talked about those things, he talked about this helmet of salvation. It isn't written as a command. He didn't say, you know, get the helmet of salvation. He said, receive, accept it. It's it's something that we have to take or receive as a gift.

It's an invitation. Take that helmet of salvation. Why? Because you're going to need it. Because your battle is not in the flesh. Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. We need something that will cap these minds of ours. every helmet. If you look at any helmet you want to look at, I've got a I've got some that I used to use as as desk decorations. I've got a Spartan helmet. I've got a Roman helmet. And in in both cases, helmets were not completely protective.

They had points of vulnerability. You look at them, they didn't enclose the ears. They certainly didn't put anything over the eyes. The mouth had to be open. The nostrils, the nose, it could be protected with a strip here, but you couldn't close off the nose and the mouth. There were reasons for it. Every helmet had in its design openings and they became points of vulnerability. So while we take this helmet of salvation, we must understand it's not a catchall. The spirit of God is not going to do everything for us.

It's our battle, too. And there are points of protection. There are points of vulnerability. And they are left to the ability of the soldier to make sure he protects. The role of the spirit is not to take over and make us into mindless robots. If God wanted to do that, he could have done that. He could have just snapped his fingers and everybody becomes automatons. I talked to a man who is a doctor in in uh one of the social sciences. I don't know what it is, but I talked to him one time and he thinks that he believes that Adam was created that way, that he was a soulless creature to begin with until God breathed into him.

And uh and so that I said, "What do you mean?" He he said he was kind of like an automaton. He he just he just was like I guess the walking dead. I don't know, a zombie. But but God doesn't make us that way. And and sometimes that's the way the world culture views us. We're just a bunch of mindless robots. We are not. You don't put your mind on check when you receive the spirit of God. And neither does he do all your thinking for you.

There are points of vulnerability. He puts this helmet strategically in the right place where it should be. But but he does not he does not enclose everything. Why? Because we got to live in this world. And brother, that is the issue right there. This helmet has been designed with two special points of vulnerability. And we must protect. We must guard. The role of the spirit I is is to help us. Everybody say help. That's the greatest thing God can hear from our lips. Help me. I think I think above hallelujah.

I think help me is the highest praise that we can give to God. It shows our dependency upon him. Help me. And that's what the spirit does. Let me give you some scriptures here. John 16:13. How be it when he, the spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you. He's not going to push you. He will guide you. He'll show you the way into all the truth. John 14:26. But the comforter, which is a pariclete, one of the most common words for the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, the pariclete, it means an advocate, somebody who's called alongside you to help you.

Hallelujah. Not to do everything for you, but to help you. That's what the comforter is. And so he says, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name. He shall teach you all things. He'll bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I've said unto you. Romans 8:26 says this. Likewise, the spirit also what? Helpeth our infirmities. It helps our infirmities. It participates together with us against our weaknesses, our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

That's what the spirit is all about. The spirit of the Lord is my helper. He's my helper. Hallelujah. He stands alongside of me as the pariclete. He is the comforter when I need him. He's my lawyer in a courtroom. He's my doctor in a sick room, as the song said. Does he cure everything? No. But he helps. He helps me. He only exercises control over what we submit to him. Only what we submit to him. So if there are areas of my life that I have sub not submitted to him, he cannot help me there.

If I've got that place that I have closed off from the helper, he cannot help me. The nose may have partial protection, but you couldn't seal off the nostrils. You couldn't breathe. The the soldier the mouth could only be partially protected because communication is necessary. And we've all run into those people that we wish it wasn't communication because the helmet don't protect you about what comes out. It cannot protect what is coming out of our mouth. Sometimes Paul realized this right into the Romans 12:18. He said, "If it be possible, I love this.

If it be possible, that leaves me a big loophole right there, Sister Amber." I just say, "It's not possible. That's just me. It's just me." You've heard that, right? You've heard people say, "Well, that's just me. You got to take me or leave me the way I am." No. Okay. I can do that if it's possible as and then he he it's kind of a a double emphasis here. He says if it's possible as much as depends on you as much as you can find it in you to do so live peaceibly with all men.

It leaves a lot of of room a lot of wiggle room for some of us. It's not possible to really live in peace with everybody. It's just Sorry, God. But but the spirit, see that that's what the Holy Ghost does for me. It it makes me compatible and it gives me the ability. It helps me with my weaknesses, my infirmities, and shores them up and and makes me compatible. I've said this before, but the the secular world believes that you should be the best you that you can be.

That's not the church. What God expects is that we be the best Jesus that we can be. Not the best me, the best him that we can be. Right? And so, so you have to guard particularly two areas. You have to guard what goes into your ears and you have to protect what comes into your eyes. You have to do this. We've heard a lot of teaching over the h about these subjects over the the last few years particularly because of these things right here. These little handheld computers that we have that give us access to worlds that we have not known here before.

Amen. all kinds of access. And so the the ears the ears are sound collectors and and but listening is our response to hearing. You're going to hear all kinds of things. 1 Corinthians 14:10 says there are it may be so many kinds of voices in the world and none of them is without signification. You're going to hear all kinds of things every day that you live. You're going to hear things and you go, "Oh man, I wish I could unhear that. I didn't need to hear that." It gets it gets really kind of trying, doesn't it?

The world just rubs up against you and brushes up against you with with the the fbomb has become the most one of the most common thing from the highest echelons of government to the lowest streets. It it it's it's the the vulgarity of that that assaults our ears every day that we live. But listening is our response to hearing. You're going to hear those things and you're going to hear things that appeal to the flesh, but in you got to keep your ears open. You can't close them off, but you don't have to listen to those things.

You can be tuned into the voice of the spirit and you'll hear the appeal of the spirit that says, "I'll give you peace in the midst of all of that storm." Deep calling unto deep. The Lord commands his loving kindness and and uh in the night his song shall be with me. I I may have to hear what the world is saying, but I want to listen to the voice coming from another world. That's the voice I want to listen to closely, even though I have to leave my ears unprotected.

You hear sounds that are designed to depress and discourage, but listen to the voice of the shepherd because that's what will lift you up above the beggarly elements. That's what the, you know, we call them the beggarly elements of the world. That's exactly what it is. You can hear the voices of temptation. God doesn't shield us from those things. The the helmet of salvation doesn't shield our mind from those things. You're going to hear the voices of temptation. You're going to hear the voices that make you fearful.

You're going to hear the world that appeals to us. Come on and indulge. Go ahead and just turn loose and kick up your heels and enjoy whatever you want to enjoy. But you can also experience the voice of victory that comes that says, "I have overcome the world. Fear not." Oh, there's a spirit of fear that tries to swamp us and tries to beat us down. You hear it every day. I don't even indulge in the news very much at all. I have to get it from somebody else because those kind of things will just depress.

They they tend to make us fearful if you are not just steadfast in the Lord. th all those voices coming our ways, wars and rumors of wars and all of the things that are going on in our world, the the infighting and politics. What a what a mess. But I have got my ears attuned to the beat of a different drummer. I'm listening to a voice from another world. And that world is much higher and more transcendent than the world in which I live. I must tune in to that.

Fear not. The eyes are the faculty of sight, portals that allow entry to everything that we look at. And it's the most prominent point of entry for most of us, the visual cortex. That's where we get our mostly our temptation. And so we can't put anything on the outside. Therefore, the sentry must be stationed on the inside. Old song used to say, "Lord, keep my mind while I run this race. Lord, keep my mind." I have got to have the Holy Ghost help me to filter out the things that I should not set before my eyes.

Because brother, you can just flip on something and all of a sudden you are assaulted by things that you didn't ask for and you're not looking for. And if you're not careful, you can be drawn into these things. Lord, keep my mind. Guard the thing. The the century is on the inside, not on the outside. I remember going to minister at the prison in Jefferson City. We went down there to to preach. The the chapel was on the inner it was in the inner courtyard. And and and this guy made me he made me empty all my pockets, took everything away from me.

And I said, "Where am I?" I got on this bus. I thought I was going to a country club. He said, "Let me show you the swimming pool." And so and so about after the fifth gate going I I I I you get this feeling of despair, you know, but the guards are on the inside, not on the outside, they're on the inside. And that's the way the Holy Spirit of God is for us. Can't keep anything c from coming in. But once it gets in there, they're subject to the guard to the spirit that is within us.

Amen. This Holy Spirit will do everything for us if we allow it if we submit to him. My responsibilities include setting a guard. Let's stand. I'm going to quit here. The instructions on how to achieve this. Paul writes to the Philippians said, "Be careful for nothing." Be careful for nothing. But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, woo, thank God for his peace. The peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Finally, brethren, and and here's the key, the how-to statement. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are good report, you can't even get that from a Disney movie. Now I'm just saying you can't get those kind of things from even what we used to consider safe. It's not anymore. We have to think on these things. Why? Because when we think it becomes our thoughts. We formulate our viewpoints from the things that we think.

And so think on these things. Think, "Oh, you're just uh you're out of touch with reality, brother Carden." No. If I am, just leave me alone in my own little world here because these are the things. This is the howto statement. How do you keep yourself in this present world? Think on these things. And I can I can put it into the summation of one statement. When I think about him, he's altogether lovely. He's a good God. He is pure and righteous and holy. And when I think when I think on him, I've got it all in one package.

When I think about him, why there are some music producers that are most highly sought after in the in the secular world particularly. We've got a sound booth back there. Thank you guys. I appreciate all your hard work and and everything that you do consistently. I appreciate it. But there are some music producers out there that are highly sought after. Why is that? Because every one of them has a board that's got equalization adjustments, volume adjustments, filters, effects. They've all got the same boards. They've all got the same boards, the same type of equipment.

But the final product will be the sound that the technician, the master of that board wants us to hear as he has shaped it to what he hears. The best producers are intuitive. They are knowledgeable and they just hear things just right. They know how to set the controls so that what you hear is pleasing because they hear it themselves. Body, soul, and spirit. That's what God has to work with in every one of us. The same thing in every one of us. But the very best result is achieved when we trust the controls to the master technician enough to allow him to achieve the sound he wants to produce in my life.

In your life, we're not going to be alike. We've got differences, but we've got the same technician that in every venue, bishop, he knows how to set the controls to get the results that he wants to get. Lord, I pray this prayer tonight, Father, as I come to you that for this congregation, you would help us, that you would lead us, that you would tweak the controls of our minds that would produce that sweet song that you want this world to hear in each of us.

keep our minds stayed upon you. Not the things of this world, not the chaos and the confusion that is reigning right now. All over and all around us, but in the middle of that, we can hear the serenity. We can hear the peaceful song that only you can produce in a life. I commit this congregation to you, Lord. Lord, I submit them to you that you would guard our minds. We ask for your help. We ask for your your work to be done in our lives.

And in Jesus' name we pray. And let everyone who believes that say amen. Amen.