At any rate, why don't you take your Bibles and open them up to Mark Chapter 2. We are going to be looking at a number of different texts this morning, but I want us to begin here in Mark Chapter 2 and read about Jesus and the way He was and the way He interacted with people because it really sets the framework for the things that we're going to look at this morning. Mark chapter 2. And let me ask you if you would just to stand and honor God's word again. And I'm going to read verses 15 through 17. From Mark chapter 2. The text says that it came about that he was reclining at the table in his house. And many tax gatherers and sinners were dining with Jesus and his disciples. For there were many of them and they were following him. And when the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax gatherers, who by the way were people that were despised culturally in those days, says verse 16, they began saying to his disciples, why is he eating and drinking with tax gatherers and sinners? It was an incredible thing that he was doing. Verse 17, And hearing this, Jesus said to them, It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. We're going to talk about what is shared there and use that as a springboard to look at some other things this morning. Let's pray again just that God would open our hearts to what he has. Father, we thank you that you are who you are, and we pray that you would be active in our hearts and our minds this morning, Lord, taking your word and giving us insight and understanding, Lord, and allowing your word to do what you have promised it would do, Lord, to be powerful, to search our hearts, to expose those things that are there that may need to be addressed, and Lord, ultimately, to bring about healing. and to bring about good health in our lives because of your love for us. Lord, I pray that you would help each one of us to be open to what you have to share with us this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, you can be seated. We're going to come back to this text in just a moment, but I thought I would begin by telling you a story. I may have told this story before. If I have, please forgive me, but it helps to kind of illustrate the significance of the things that we're going to begin to look at this morning. A few years ago, in May of 1997, I was playing a softball game, being the rugged, athletic kind of guy that I am. And I'm out playing a softball game. We had a team at the church that I was a part of down in Los Angeles at that time, and the game was in the evening, and I did not take the time to really stretch and limber my body up the way that I needed to. And so I'm out there playing softball, and it came my turn to bat, and I come to the plate, and the guy pitches probably a slow pitch softball. He pitches a couple of pitches, and then finally he pitches one that I just, boom, I just connect with it. It was an excellent hit. It was a line drive. It went right over the shortstop's head. He couldn't get it. It went into the outfield, and I'm thinking, oh man, this is great. It was just a solid hit. One of those ones that just connects just right, you know? And so I'm running to first base, and as I start to get ready to turn the corner to first base and see if I'm going to go to second, I'm looking out to the outfield to see where the ball's going and see if I'm going to be able to make it to second base. And sure enough, it's way out there, they're running for the ball. And so I turn the corner to first base and I kick it into high gear, which for me is not that significant, but it was an added effort. And as I start to try to accelerate, all of a sudden there's this pain in the back of my left leg, down by my ankle. And it was a strange pain, and what I actually thought happened at the time was I thought somebody had either thrown the softball and hit me on the back of the leg, or that maybe a softball from one of the other fields, because there were some other guys playing on other fields, you know, I thought somebody maybe hit a foul ball and it came over. So that's what it felt like as I started to kick it into high gear and I make it to second base. And once I get to second base, I stop there and I start looking around, you know, for the ball because I literally thought a ball had hit me in the back of the leg. Well, as I'm standing there, I'm thinking, man, this feels really weird, you know, and all of a sudden my leg gets a little limp and I realize I don't think I can walk. And so I kind of sit down and some guys come out and they help me get off the field and I go to the bleachers and I sit down there, they bring some ice, and I was pretty much out of the game. There's no question about it. So I sat there on the bleachers for a couple of innings, icing my leg, and finally I decide, well, I'm just going to go home. And so I hobble out to the car under my own power. It was an incredible effort, but I know. I hobble out there to the car, get in the car, drive home, on my way home, I stop at a grocery store, get some aspirin, again, walking into the store under my own power, and go home, and I'm just in pain. And what I thought had happened was that I had swollen, you know, just kind of tweaked, sprained my ankle, something like that. Well, I tried to sleep that night and sleep was very uncomfortable. So the next day I tell Lori, man, I think I've got to go to the hospital or go to the doctor. So I go to the doctor. The general practitioner comes in, looks at it for a few minutes. He says, well, you know what? I think I better call an orthopedic guy, you know, that works on bones and joints and all that kind of thing. So he gets this orthopedic guy to come in there. The orthopedic guy feels around my ankle for about 10 seconds. I explain to him what happened and he just stands back and he goes, well, it's not good. You're going to have to have surgery and it's going to be a year before you're normal again. I'm thinking, well, thank you and have a good day. And what happened was that I had ruptured my Achilles tendon. It was what had taken place. And the sensation was that when it happened, it's like a spring back there, you know, that basically holds your ankle to your foot. It exploded and immediately everything went numb. And that's why the injury felt like something hitting, you know, the back of my leg. But sure enough, that was on a Tuesday when I saw the doctor. On Thursday, I had surgery for a couple of hours, and then I was in a cast. I had to spend one night in the hospital. I was in a cast for about eight weeks altogether, I think, something like that. And it was. It took a year for things to get back to normal. And it's still generally workable, but there's still a definite sensation there. Now, the reason I share that is because at that point in time, when I had an injury that was debilitating, there was a subconscious awareness of the fact that I had to go to the doctor. And because I believed that the doctor knew what he was talking about, that he knew what was good, I submitted myself to his care to such an extent that I was willing to be put asleep, willing for him to take his knife and all those other things that he needed to do to repair my Achilles tendon for a couple of hours. It's a fairly long surgery for an Achilles repair. I was willing to do that and to go through some temporary pain because I believed that he had my best interest at heart. The reason I share that is because this morning, as we begin to talk about some of the commitments that are necessary on our part in order to grow and to become healthy in the way that God desires for us, it's important for us, I believe, to understand that God is a great physician. And you've probably heard that phrase before. And that phrase is based in part on what is revealed about Jesus here in Mark chapter 2. Where Jesus affirms that when he came, he came not to heal those that didn't need any help, but rather those who are sick. And he says very plainly, you know, I didn't come, it's not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. And God can be seen and be understood as a great physician, the one who is interested in healing, not even primarily our bodies, but healing our souls. As we, through a result of sin and through a result of wandering from God, get ourselves into all kinds of trouble and bring all kinds of hardship and pain and difficulty and turmoil to our lives, Jesus proclaims himself as one who has come in order to heal. And as such, he is a great physician. In these last few weeks, we've been dealing with this issue of growing in Christ. Or we could also talk about it in terms of being healthy in Christ. We've established the fact a few weeks ago from 2 Peter 1 and 2 Peter 3 that for a believer, someone who has trusted Jesus Christ, growth is a necessity. It should be a normal, ongoing process that one who has trusted Jesus Christ is growing spiritually. Or we could think of it in terms of continually becoming spiritually healthy. And we've established the fact that spiritual growth indicates the presence of genuine spiritual life. It's a necessity. If you or I proclaim or profess to know Jesus Christ, there should be a pattern of growth in our life that is evident. We should be becoming more and more healthy. And then we've also talked about from 1 Peter 2, the means of that growth. In other words, if God's desire is for us to be healthy and to be growing in a spiritual sense and to be experiencing Him and to be experiencing life in the way that God intended for us, how do we go about doing that? And 1 Peter 2 makes it very clear that we grow as a result of knowing and feeding on Jesus, knowing and feeding on the Word of God. The Word of God as it's revealed in Scripture is His Word that He's revealed to us. Jesus Christ is the Word living. And those two realities are really the same. The Bible is God's Word revealed. Jesus is God's Word in action, life, and living. And so we grow as a result of feeding on Jesus Christ, or we could say feeding on the Word of God. That is how we grow. There is no other way to grow spiritually or to experience spiritual health apart from knowing and trusting and taking to ourselves and obeying God's Word as He's revealed it in Scripture, as He's illustrated it and demonstrated it in the life of Jesus Christ. Well, now having established that, having established the necessity of growth, having established the means of growth being through God's Word, through Jesus Christ, now it becomes real practical when we say, well, how on a day-to-day basis do we go about doing that? In other words, if we're going to grow, if we're going to be healthy, what is required of us in response to who God is and in response to all that God has given and what is it that He desires for us in order that we might have healthy souls and in order that we might bear the fruit that God wants us to bear in terms of His character and in terms of His likeness? How are we to do that? And that's what leads us to to this morning as we're going to begin to talk about commitments that are necessary on our part in order to grow spiritually. Because while God is the one who does the work, while God is the one who has provided everything for us in Jesus Christ and through his word, we have to respond to that. And I believe that there are seven commitments that are necessary for us to have if we are going to grow spiritually, and if we're going to experience the health that God wants for us. And even as Jesus says in Mark chapter 2, How do we respond to him if we're to experience the health from a spiritual perspective that he desires for us to have? And as I mentioned, again, I believe there's seven commitments that we need to take heed to. And what we're going to do is rather than trying to cover all seven of these commitments this morning, we're going to take two, maybe even three weeks to examine these commitments in detail, because for all of us, this is where the rubber meets the road. And this is where it really comes down to an issue of are we going to receive what God has given and what He has offered in Jesus Christ and in His Word, and are we going to grow and experience His goodness and His kindness and His blessing and the fullness of life as He intends it, or are we just going to let these things be something that, you know, is kind of a nice thing that we hear on Sunday morning, but they're not going to really impact our life. I believe God desires more for us and we need to consider our commitment, our response to what God has given us. So we're going to take, as I mentioned, two or maybe even three weeks to do that and to consider these commitments. So as I said, this is where the rubber meets the road and this is where it becomes very personal to each one of us. Now what I'd like to do is just mention the seven different commitments and then we'll begin to work through them one by one as we consider In a sense, this spiritual exercise program, if you can think of it in those terms, that God would have for us. Let me share these seven commitments. They're listed there on the front page of your bulletin. The first commitment would be a commitment to wholeheartedly trust the Great Physician. The second commitment would be a commitment to quit eating junk food. The third commitment would be a commitment to ask continually for the Great Physician's help. And then the fourth commitment is a commitment to order life around learning from the great physician. And then the fifth commitment is one to follow in detail everything that the great physician prescribes. And then the sixth commitment is one to savor all of the great physician's medicine. We'll talk about that in a week or so. see what that means. And then the final commitment is a commitment to be involved with other patients in the treatment process. A commitment to be involved with other patients in the treatment process. Now I want to challenge you even as we begin and as I've shared with you at the very beginning of this little series dealing with growing in Christ What I've been praying towards and what I believe God desires for every one of us is that there would be such a hunger to know Him, to walk with Him, to taste more and more of His goodness and His kindness and all that He's revealed for us in Scripture, that there would be such a hunger for Him in our hearts that it would radically change the way that we live our lives. Because that's what God's interested in doing. Not because He wants to destroy us, but because He wants to heal us. Because he is the great physician, and he knows what's best for him. And so I want to challenge you at the very beginning as we work through these different commitments to pray and to seriously consider, am I willing to be committed to that? Am I willing to let God do what He desires to do in my life and to let the great position do and accomplish in me whatever it is He desires in order that I might be healthy and might know Him and I might bear fruit in the way that He wants me to bear fruit? I want to challenge you to be asking that of yourself. Am I willing to be committed? Well, with that in mind then, let's look at this first commitment that I believe we need to be called to and committed to, and that is a commitment to wholeheartedly trust the great physician. And again, you'll see it there on page three of your notes, but it's point number one, a commitment to wholeheartedly trust the great physician. And the idea of this commitment is to have such a trust, such a confidence in God and all that He has revealed in His Word that we would trust in His all-powerful, all-sufficient, and all-satisfying Word if He has revealed it to us in Scripture and in the person of Jesus Christ. And before we can talk about any of the other things that we need to be committed to, this is really the bottom line. This is the foundational issue is do you and do I trust the great physician? Are we willing, in the same way that we would entrust ourselves to the care of a doctor when we have some physical issue that we're dealing with, are we so willing to entrust ourselves wholeheartedly, fully, to God Himself in order that we might allow Him to work in our lives and accomplish what He desires? That's what we have to be committed to, to trust Him, to take Him at His word. Now let me have you look at a few passages to establish this and then we'll Try to illustrate it and see how it applies to our lives. Go to Proverbs chapter 3. Proverbs chapter 3. Because you see, for you and I to be willing to trust the great physician, what it means is we have to be willing to relinquish or to let go of our own opinion or our own idea of how we think things should be and how we think things should work. To trust the Great Physician means that I say, God, I trust you. I'm not even going to concern myself with my thoughts or my opinions or my ideas. I'm going to trust you. And that's what God calls us to. And this is very clearly communicated in Proverbs 3, verses 5, 6, 7, and 8. Listen to what God says. Through Solomon, he says, trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways. Acknowledge him and he will make your path straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. Now think of that as a prescription from the great physician for what produces health, and not primarily physical health, but health in our souls, health in our hearts, strength, fullness, vitality in our hearts. He says, trust in him with all of our hearts, don't lean on our own understanding, in all our ways acknowledge him, and he will make our paths straight. Now, just for the sake of illustration, when I had my little injury there playing softball, my initial thought and impression was that I had just sprained my ankle, as I had done on numerous occasions before. And my thought was, you know, if I just ice it a little bit, if I just walk around on it a little bit, I'll be okay. Now, had I chosen on Tuesday morning, the day after I had had my injury, to maintain that line of reasoning, I could have been in for a lot of trouble. If I would have chosen to not go to a doctor, to not be evaluated by somebody who was a quote-unquote professional, I could have set myself up for perhaps a lifetime of difficulty with my ankle. I could have chosen to be wise in my own estimation of things and ignored the advice of somebody who really knew. And again, I would have set myself up for all kinds of trouble. And it actually was more of my wife's prompting that encouraged me to go to the doctor that day, because I don't like to go to doctors. But the point is, is that if we choose to ignore God and if we choose to trust in ourselves and our own perspective, our own evaluation of life, our own idea of what's good for us and what's best for us, ultimately we do that to our own peril. Because the truth is, we don't know what's best for us. We don't know what's good for us. If we had our own way and had everything that we wanted, we'd probably kill ourselves. And I've probably told you this story before, or the illustration, you know, when a little child walks into a candy store, if the child gets everything that the child wants, what's going to happen? Big trouble. They don't know what's best for them. And so a loving, gracious parent's going to help them know that, no, you can't have everything, and it's going to protect them in that. And the same is true for God. He loves us. He wants what's best for us. He has our best interests at heart. He created us. He knows every aspect about how life is to be. And that's why He wants us to listen to Him because it's only as we trust Him and rely on Him that we'll experience His blessings. Now see, this gets very practical, doesn't it? You and I have challenges. We have difficulties. We have problems in relationships. We have disappointments, we have heartache, we have fears, we have all these things. Let me ask you the question, what do you do with those? How do you resolve those? Do you and I go to God and say, Lord, teach me, and Lord, help me understand, and Lord, lead me and guide me, or do we try to figure things out on our own? If we try to figure things out on our own, that's when we get in trouble. Proverbs, in Proverbs chapter 14, goes on to say that there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. So God calls us to trust Him wholly and wholeheartedly. And again, that's really foundational to every other aspect of these commitments that we're going to talk about. And just think about it. Again, for you personally, do you trust Him wholly, wholeheartedly, fully, to such an extent that you don't lean on your own understanding, to such an extent that you're not wise in your own eyes, but you're turning away from evil as God defines it? Do you experience that sense of healing and that sense of satisfaction that comes from trusting Him wholly? Well, in your notes here, I put a few things that I believe God reveals in His Word that are necessary for us to know about God if we are to trust Him. Because the truth is, we can't trust someone that we don't know. or that we don't have some sense of confidence in them being able to do what they promised that they would do. Well, let's consider just a couple of things, a few things here about God, that in order to trust Him, we must know, number one, letter A, we must know that God's heart is gentle and humble. His heart is gentle and humble. Let me have you turn to Matthew chapter 11. Matthew 11. Listen to what Jesus says, an invitation that is an incredible invitation that He gives to us. Matthew 11, and I'll begin in verse 28. Jesus says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden. Again, think of that in terms of sickness. whose souls are weary and heavy laden. He says, verse 28, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Why? For I am gentle and humble in heart and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my load is light. And Jesus says of himself, we understand because of what Jesus says of himself, and that Jesus was God in the flesh, that he is gentle and humble in heart. Now, we don't have time to fully develop what those two characteristics refer to, but think of it in these terms. When Jesus says that he's gentle, what he's acknowledging is that while he is the king of the universe, while he is the one that can speak and things happen, and that he created the entire universe by the word of his mouth, while he has that power and that authority and that majesty and that greatness, Yet, he deals in gentleness. The power that he has, the authority that he has to create, to speak, to have dominion over everything, yet he exercises that with gentleness. The word is also translated meek, and it literally has to do with power under control. In other words, the power that God possesses because He is God is not something that operates outside of His gentleness and His patience and His kindness. And the fact that His demeanor towards us is one of love and one of patience and one of gentleness. Now, that doesn't mean that He's a wimp. It doesn't mean that He's a pushover. It doesn't mean that His holiness or His truthfulness can be despised, but it means that His desire for us is one of goodness and one of building up and one of strengthening and restoring rather than tearing down. He's gentle. Now certainly there's a time where he exercises his strength in judgment. You remember what took place with Jesus when he cleared the temple of those that were making a mockery of the temple, of the house of prayer. They were using it as a place of greed and as a place of making money. And Jesus said, that's not going to happen. And so he goes through and destroys the tables of the money changers and all. So there's power, and yet his demeanor is one of gentleness and a desire to restore. Maybe I can give you an example of this if you turn over to Matthew 23, that even when God exercises judgment and even when God communicates judgment, when there's a time that judgment occurs with people, yet his heart is one of brokenness over that. In Matthew 23, Verses 13 and following, Jesus is pronouncing judgment against the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day. And it's interesting, you read through the Gospels and you watch Jesus' interactions with people. The people that he had the most agitation with and the most expressed anger towards was self-righteous people. People like the Pharisees and the religious leaders of the day, who had all the external things right, but there was no real heart for God. And in Matthew 23, he pronounces judgment upon these Pharisees and these religious leaders. And we won't take time to read it, but he pronounces woe after woe, and woe is a very strong term for judgment and condemnation. But after he's done all of that, look at the very end of chapter 23, in verse 37, as Jesus, after he's pronounced this judgment, he laments, he expresses mourning and sorrow over what is going to come of these people who have rejected him. He says in verse 37 of chapter 23, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her, how often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate. You see the gentleness of... Even as he's communicating judgment and judgment that is deserved for those that have rejected him and for those that have been unwilling to come to him, yet it breaks his heart. It breaks his heart. Ezekiel chapter 18, God says that he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He would rather that they repent and that they would turn to him. And yet, because he's holy, his judgment will take place. But the point I want you to see is that God's heart breaks for those that he's created. He's gentle and he's humble. He wants to lift up those that are low. And it's important for us to know that if we're going to trust him, that his disposition is one of kindness and a desire to restore. But see again, if a person is continually unwilling to come to him, to not trust him, eventually there will be judgment. Yet his heart is gentle and humble. Another reality about who he is, it's important to understand, letter B, is that his goal is restoration. His goal is restoration. We won't turn there, but in Hebrews chapter 12, the writer talks about God's discipline and how God disciplines as a perfect heavenly Father. not in order to destroy and not in order to do away with, but rather to heal and to bring restoration. And that's God's desire for us. Now, again, when you and I go to a doctor, when we're experiencing some problem, we go with the hope and the anticipation that whatever it is that we're experiencing in a physical sense, that doctor is going to be interested in what? Restoring us. Now, obviously, there may be any number of motives that a doctor has for doing that. Obviously, their paycheck may be one of them. And yet, regardless of their motives, we believe that what they're going to tell us is going to help to restore us to the health that we long for. And the same is true of God in a much greater sense and with much purer motives. His desire is restoration. Jesus said in John 10, you may be familiar with this verse. He says the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I've come that they may have life and have it to the full. His desire is to restore. And again, that's what Jesus affirmed in Mark chapter two, that he didn't come to call the righteous, but he came to call sinners. Those are the ones who need a doctor. His desire is restoration. And letter C, the third thing we need to know if we're going to trust him is that his skill is perfect. His skill is perfect. Can you imagine what it would be like if there was a doctor in this world who had a 100% success rate with every single patient he ever saw? Would that be a popular doctor? Absolutely. There would be a huge waiting line to see that doctor. Why? Because you would have absolute confidence that whatever he told you to do, regardless of how well you understood it or not, you knew that he would be successful, that it would be exactly what you wanted. Well, that's the way God is. And even more so, obviously, than any earthly doctor, because God is God. He's perfect. He created us. He designed us. He knows what's best for us. The reference that's given there, we won't turn there, but I'll quote it to you. Isaiah 55, 8 and 9, God says, For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. God's saying, Listen, folks, I'm God and you're not. I see things, I understand things that you don't see, you don't understand. That's why you need to trust Me. And we have to have that confidence in the character of God to trust Him and to believe that His skill is perfect in what He prescribes for us to do at any given time. Years ago, you may have seen this movie called Karate Kid came out sometime in the 80s. I guess there was two or three of those movies. I only saw the first one. But I remember a scene in the very first movie of Karate Kid. This this kid who is going to learn karate begins to align himself with this teacher. I don't remember the name. Did any of you see this movie? OK, so you have vague remembrance of it. Well, this kid who wants to learn how to do karate aligns himself with this guy who is supposedly like the world's greatest karate teacher, you know, and has taught all kinds of champions in karate. Well, the very first thing that the teacher does is he takes him to his house where he's got all of these old cars. And he says to the boy, you know, boy, what I want you to do is to go out and start waxing these cars. And the kid is thinking to himself, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I want you to teach me karate. And the teacher basically communicates, you know, no, you need to trust me and do what I tell you to do. And he gives him a very specific direction in how he wants him to wax the cars. With one hand, he puts the wax on. And then with the other hand, he puts the wax off. OK, you may remember that scene. So you got wax on and wax off. And so he's very specific in doing this. And for hours and hours, days and weeks, that's all the kid does. And the kid's thinking to himself, what an idiot I am. You know, I've fallen for this guy's ploy and all I'm going to do is do this. Well, of course, later on in the movie, what we find out is that what is taking place as he is learning to put the wax on and the wax off is that those are very significant moves in karate that he is cultivating as a result of doing this. Now, I won't try to do any of them because I don't know karate. And I've already made enough of my fool of myself with other things. But the point is, is that the boy, through that whole process, had to learn to trust his teacher, even when the teacher told him to do things that didn't make sense to the boy at the time. Now see, isn't that the exact same thing that Proverbs 3 says? Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean on your understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. And really, how arrogant it is of us, isn't it? When we say, no God, I'm going to do it my way. We're foolish. We're just as foolish as a little kid in a candy shop that doesn't know what's best for them and that's not willing to obey their parents. And we bring trouble upon ourselves. And we should have such a regard for the faithfulness of God, His gentleness, His humility, His kindness, His goodness, His desire to restore in the truthfulness of His Word, that whatever He says, even when it doesn't make sense to us, we say, okay, Lord, I trust You, because I know that You're good, and that You're kind, and that You're skillful, and that Your desire is to restore. And so that's the starting point if we're going to begin to be committed to this process of growth and spiritual health is to trust him wholeheartedly. To be willing to trust his diagnosis of the problem and to trust his prescription for treatment. Now, I think you'll see a relationship between that commitment and the second commitment that I believe that we need to be committed to And that is that if we're going to trust him wholeheartedly and totally trust the care of the great physician, second of all, we need to be committed to quit eating junk food. Many times perhaps, and you may have even experienced this, where you've gone to the doctor and they do a series of tests and they find out that you have a high cholesterol level, or in some cases there's been people I've known that they find out that they have diabetes. And one of the things that the doctor may say to you, the primary thing he may say to you is, ma'am or sir, you are going to need to radically change your diet. Well, if we're committed to receiving God's Word and receiving what God desires, we have to be honest about the fact that all too often, we are feeding on the wrong things. We're eating junk food. We're eating junk food. And let me have you look over in James 1, and we'll look at a couple of passages that identify this, and then we'll talk about it in detail here for a little bit. James 1, because all of this relates to receiving God's Word, to trusting God's Word, to knowing God's Word. We can't feed on God's Word if we're constantly filling ourselves with junk food. We're killing ourselves spiritually, and we often don't realize it. James 1, verse 21. James says this, Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness in humility, receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. James is saying before you can receive God's Word, before you can take in that medication that God as the great physician has given to heal and to restore, before you can take that in, you've got to be willing to get rid of the junk food that you're feeding on. He describes it as all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness. If there's anything in our lives that is proving to be food for us that we're feeding on and looking to for nourishment outside of God's Word, His medication that He gives to provide healing for us, we're not going to experience spiritual health. And we're undermining the very thing that the great physician desires to accomplish in our lives. And we have to be honest about that, and we have to be willing to evaluate what it is that we allowed ourselves to feed on that before we realize it, again, is completely undermining and neutralizing the power of God's Word in our lives. We need to quit eating junk food. Now, obviously, in our society, we are a junk food consumed society. It boggles my mind. You know, I don't travel a lot, but like earlier this summer, when I went to National Conference, and I flew into Chicago, and I drove, I was in Wisconsin for a little bit, and then in National Conference in Indiana, everywhere along the highway, almost, it seems like every few miles, you just see these little conglomerations of restaurants, you know, where they've got a McDonald's, they've got a Carl's Jr. or something like that, they've got a Taco Bell, they've got a Kentucky Fried Chicken. We live on fast food. Now, all of us know, you know, if you ate nothing but a diet of fast food, Big Macs, French fries, Kentucky Fried, you know, all of those things, if that's all you ate, you would bring serious harm to your body. Because while that food may taste good and while it might provide a little bit of filling for a little bit of time, and while there may be, you know, small little molecules of nourishment somewhere in the midst of that food, it's not going to produce health. It's going to tear us down. And yet we're drawn to it. And in a spiritual sense, I believe there's all kinds of junk food that all of us can easily gravitate towards. And if we're going to be healthy, if we're going to experience all of the goodness that the great physician wants to give to us, we have to take a hard, honest look at what we're feeding on that represents, in a sense, spiritual junk food. Let me just list some of the things that could be possible sources of spiritual junk food that it's easy for us to feed on. Some of them are obvious and others may not be. Obviously, the television. You know, there's not very much stuff on TV that really is profitable, that really is beneficial to our relationship with God. There's not much that spurs us on to think about who God is and all that God has done in Jesus Christ and all that He has called us to. If you feed on television to an extent that that's the dominant food that you eat, you're going to kill yourself spiritually. And the same could be said of music or any other form of entertainment, movies, magazines, books, all these kinds of things, some of which may not be evil in and of themselves. And yet, if that's the primary source of nourishment for you, you're killing yourself. Because you're causing your thinking to be more and more exposed to the ways of the world and to all the lies of the enemy. And you're just, in a sense, feeding your own flesh and it's going to kill you. And we cannot have a healthy diet of God's word and God's nourishment and God's goodness and God's power and provision in our life if we're feeding on those things. Computers are a wonderful tool, a huge resource. And with all of the information that's available through the Internet, I mean, there are great benefits to which that can be used. But any of us would know unquestionably there's great danger there as well. let alone all of the overtly evil, God-destroying things that are available on the internet, but even just the fascination of computers, you know, the distractedness that can occur. If any of you that have ever used computers, you know, you can sit down and boy, there's just all these different things that you can do on computers. Again, let alone all the evil stuff, just stuff that is fun. I mean, computer games, you know, all these different things. Again, not necessarily evil in and of itself, But boy, can it ever kill your appetite for the things of God. And can it cause you to get distracted and so consumed with these things, that before you know it, you can sit at a computer for hours and hours and hours and not even realize it. And the time has gone on. There's so many things that we feed on as junk food. Pleasure, sports and exercise, not bad in and of itself, but it can so easily become a God for us. bitterness, work. Some people get so consumed with work that that becomes their God, that becomes their source of food and nourishment, relationships, possessions, materialism. I mean, there's so many things that we feed on for junk food. And maybe just to help us think, you know, what do we feed on and where do we fall in this? Let me just ask this question that's maybe kind of a diagnostic question for you to think about. When you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing that you want to eat? What's the first thing that you want to eat? OK, I'm not. Thank you for sharing that. Everybody take bagels to Dorothy this week, OK? I don't mean simply literal food, but what's the first thing that you want to do that kind of brings some sense of satisfaction or some sense of nourishment? You know, when I come into my office here on any given day of the week, I'll tell you an honest temptation. That's one of the very first things that I want to do before anything. As I sit down at my computer, you know what it is? I want to check my email. I want to see if there's any messages for me, because it's fun to get messages, isn't it? It's fun when somebody writes you something, just like it's fun to get a letter. And it's a temptation for me to do that before I spend time putting my heart before God and before I spend time listening to his word. Why? Because there's a kind of a sense of nourishment and satisfaction that comes from that. For some people, the first thing that they do when they wake up, the first thing they want to eat, in a sense, is the television. Find out what's happening in the news. Find out what's going on with the traffic. Just got to have that thing on. Got to have some noise. Got to have some companionship. Got to have that. It's junk food if it takes the place of your appetite for God's Word and for the medication that God wants to give through His Word. And for you and I to experience healing from the great physician, we have to be willing to evaluate what's our diet like. And what junk food have we maybe been giving ourselves to that sure, it provides a little bit of satisfaction. I mean, my goodness, all these fast food places would not be the successful money making things that they are if we weren't drawn to that. I mean, who wouldn't want to eat donuts every day of their life for every meal? They'd look good. They taste good. All of that. But they'll destroy us if that's all we eat. And the same is true with sin. It looks good, it looks appealing, it looks desirable, it's fascinating, it's fun, it's pleasurable, but it has a consequence that is deadly. It's junk food. And so you and I, if we're going to have an appetite for God's Word, it begins again with trusting God, being committed to trusting Him wholly, and then it begins with taking a good, hard, honest look at what are we feeding on. and being honest enough to say, you know, there's things I got to quit doing. And you know what those are for you, and I know what those are for me, but we've got to be honest about that. You've probably heard the old saying, you know, you are what you eat. Well, the same is true spiritually. You feast on the world, you eat the lies of the world, you chew on those, you take them into yourself, that's what you're going to become. You feast on God, you take him at his word, you trust Jesus, you walk with him, you experience his power, his grace, you're going to become more like him. It's a simple question of our diet. And we've got to be committed to quit eating junk food. The third commitment that we'll address this morning is in light of the need to be committed to trusting Him, in light of the need to quit eating junk food. Third, we need a commitment to ask continually for the great physician's help. To ask continually for the great physician's help. And this is where prayer, calling out to God, looking to Him for help is so critical because we realize we can't do it on our own. And this is where God as the great physician is so much greater than any earthly doctor that we could imagine, because He's not only the one who prescribes the treatment, but He's the one who enables us to take the treatment and who gives us strength to grow and to walk with Him and to experience what He desires for us. And to pray and to ask continually for His help means that we have to recognize a couple of things. There's two of them there that I've put in your notes. Number one, letter A, we need to recognize our weakness, our dependency, and our vulnerability. Our weakness, our dependency, and our vulnerability. That while we can, in our minds, know that He's good, know that what He prescribes is good, know that it's what He wants for us, and that that's what we really need, we have to recognize that it's easy for us to wander from that. It's easy for us to drive past, you know, the fast food place and just want to go in and just get a little order of fries or, you know, some little. It's easy for us to want to do that. So we've got to pray for help because we're vulnerable and we're dependent. And we also have to recognize his power, provision and his faithfulness and to cry to him for help. to beg and to plead and say, Lord, I know that you're good. I know that what you want is good. I know that all of your word is good. Oh, God, help me to love it. Help me to trust you. Help me to pursue you. Help me to get rid of those things that represent junk food in my life and help me to learn from you and to pray that way. If we're going to grow spiritually, if we're going to be healthy, we have to pray that way. And I've listed here a number of different prayers in the Psalms that I want us to just look at briefly and encourage you to take these to heart and to make these prayers your prayers as you would seek to grow with God. Go first to Psalm 25. And listen to these prayers that come from the heart of somebody that says, God, I do want to know you. I do want to trust you, but I know that I'm weak and I know that my heart has a tendency to wander. Listen to what David says in Psalm 25, verses 4 and 5. And this whole Psalm is a prayer, but look particularly at verses 4 and 5. He says, Make me know thy ways, O Lord. Teach me thy paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation. For you, I wait all the day. Now, that's a prayer that comes from somebody that says, Lord, I don't know what's best for me. On my best day, I don't have a clue what to do. God, teach me, lead me, guide me, help me learn to wait on you. Now, as we're going to begin to see next week, if you pray that prayer, that also means that there's got to be a willingness to seek God's Word to find out what He wants for us. He's saying, God, I don't know what's best. Teach me, lead me, help me learn. What a great prayer. Go over to Psalm 86. Psalm 86, in verse 11. In essence, the same thought is communicated here. And again, Psalm 86 is just a constant prayer seeking God's pleasure and favor and goodness and provision. But in verse 11, he says, Teach me thy ways, O Lord, I will walk in your truth. And then he says, Unite my heart to fear your name. See, that's a prayer that comes from somebody that says, God, my heart is all over the place. I can be given to work. I can be given to this. I can be given to school. I can be given to this pleasure or that pleasure or this desire or that pleasure. God, please intervene in my life and unite my heart to fear you. Bring my heart to that place, God, where you're enough and where you're sufficient and where I fear you wholeheartedly. Pray that way. I guarantee you as you pray that prayer, God will work. He'll move in your life to bring that about. Then over in Psalm 119, Smokey mentioned this Psalm earlier. And I would encourage you again, as I did last week, if you're struggling with an appetite for God's Word, if your desire for God and His Word is shrinking, read through Psalm 119, pray through Psalm 119, because it's an anthem extolling the blessing and the greatness of God's Word, because it's from God. But listen to what the psalmist prays in Psalm 119, verse 18. He says, God, open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things from thy law. That's a verse you should memorize. That's a prayer that you should pray every time that you read God's word. Because if God isn't opening our eyes to the wonderful things that he's revealed in his word, then you know what? This book just becomes a book, doesn't it? Just becomes a bunch of words written on a bunch of pages, and it means nothing. But as we pray and as God answers that prayer to open our eyes to help us to see Him, to see His wonder and His beauty and His goodness and His greatness and His blessing and His kindness and His desire to restore, God will do that. And we pray that and say, Lord, please open our eyes. If it's left to us, we're not going to see it. We're not going to see it. Then in Psalm 119, go over to verses 36 and 37. I love this prayer. I love this prayer. And the fact that prayers like this are in God's Word should encourage us to know that other saints recognize their need of God and their need for His help. Look at what he says, verse 36 and 37. It's a prayer. Incline my heart, God, to your testimonies and not towards dishonest or towards selfish gain. He says, Incline my heart to your testimony, or I'm sorry, turn my eyes from looking at vanity and revive me in your ways. What a great prayer. God, I realize there's all this junk food around, and it looks good, and it looks tasty, and I really want to eat it. God, turn my eyes away from worthless things. That's a verse you ought to plant right on the top of your refrigerator, and right on the top of your television, and right on the top of your computer, and ultimately right on the top of your brain and your heart. God, turn my eyes away from worthless things. They deceive, they don't satisfy. Pray that prayer. Go over to Psalm 139. Another prayer, recognizing the greatness of God and the deceitfulness of our own hearts. The prayer in verse 23 and 24 of Psalm 139 that says, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts. God, see if there be any hurtful way in me. Lead me in the everlasting way. To pray that prayer is to acknowledge, God, I'm easily deceived. I'm so deceived, I don't even know my own heart, God. I don't even know my own motives. God, would you please search those? Would you show me? Would you expose whatever's there that's not pleasing? that I could be cleansed, that I could be restored, that I could be healthy and have peace in my soul. God, would you search me? And then over in Psalm 141. Listen to this, what a great prayer. Psalm 141, verse 4. David says, Do not incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice deeds of wickedness with men who do iniquity. O God, do not let me eat of their delicacies. Do you understand the deceitfulness of sin? That it looks good, it smells good, it's so desirable. I mean, why would it not be tempting if it didn't look good? We have to pray, oh, God, please don't incline my heart towards sin. God, please rescue me from wanting to eat of the delicacies of wickedness. I think of it in terms of I mean, for me, this is helpful. I don't know. I think of it in terms of a caramel covered onion, you know, a caramel covered. What do you call a caramel covered apple? Is that right? Sorry, I got a little mixed up. If you eat a caramel covered apple, it's hard to say a caramel covered apple. That's going to taste good because it's fruit and sweet. Sin is like a caramel covered onion. It looks great on the outside, but you bite into it and it's terrible. Now, you might like onions and you might like caramel, but they don't necessarily go together. OK, so we'll just qualify that. We need to pray, God, please don't incline my heart to evil. Please, God, don't let me eat of the delicacies of sin because it'll destroy me. It'll destroy me. If you're going to grow, if you're going to be healthy, if you're going to experience the provision of the great physician, it begins, first of all, by having a commitment to trust him wholeheartedly. It begins, second of all, by having a commitment to quit eating junk food and to understand the difference between what's good for you and what's bad for you in a spiritual sense. And it means, number three, having a commitment to pray and to ask for the Great Physician's help on a constant basis. And to use some of those prayers, and there's many other prayers in Scripture, to say, God, I need your help. Unite my heart. Cleanse me. Help me. Open my eyes. Search my heart. God, I need your help. Well, I'd encourage you this week to consider those things. to consider whether or not you're committed to that. Next week, we're going to pick it up with the fourth commitment, the commitment of ordering our lives around learning from the great physician. And we'll continue with that next week. Let's close in prayer this morning. Oh, Lord, I pray that your spirit would work in all of us in such a way, God, that we would understand the difference between health and between poor health from a spiritual sense. And God, that we would truly know you as a great physician. Lord, I'm sure that there's some this morning that in their hearts have never even come to you at all. Lord, that they may be, it may be true of them, God, that they are seeking their own. And Lord, that they are following that way that seems right to them that you've said in the end is a way of death. Lord, I pray that you'd awaken them to realize that it's your goodness and your kindness that would desire for them to change, that you might forgive and cleanse their lives and Lord, allow them to experience life as you really intended it to be. Father, again, there may be others this morning that have trusted you at one time, but God, if they were honest, they'd acknowledge that their appetite for you has diminished and perhaps isn't even there anymore. Lord, whatever may need to be addressed in their lives, I pray that you would do. Whatever things perhaps they've been feeding on other than you, Lord, I pray you'd expose. And God, that you would give them grace and courage to turn from those things that they might turn to you. Lord, do the work among us that you desire. We thank you for the truth and the clarity of your word. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.