You're listening to Mountain View Church Audio, Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City, Whitehorse, Yukon. Here's this week's message. If you've ever had a significant injury, you know that recovery can be as much as a mental battle as a physical one. This is because after a few weeks, you feel better, and the doctor has cautioned you to take it easy. And that caution starts to feel a bit excessive, and before too long, you're back to normal life. Then it happens. You re-injure yourself. You end up right back in the doctor's office, disappointed and mildly embarrassed. In that situation, emotion pushed logic out of the way. You felt good, so you acted on what that feeling told you instead of acting on the doctor's advice. In the end, it cost you.
Believe it or not, spiritual recovery follows a similar pattern. Some of you know what it's like to walk through a season of maybe rebellious behavior or poor choices or maybe even habitual sin. You've experienced the damage it caused in your life and often in the lives of your loved ones. Thankfully, after turning to God, there's forgiveness and restoration can begin. But just like physical injuries, there's a recovery period. There's a journey toward complete healing and acquiring the strength and discernment to face the trials and temptations that once dragged you down.
My name is Jeremy. Welcome to Mountain View Church. This is our final message in our series, Emotions, Getting a Grip on Your Heart and Mind. We started this series addressing the deception of the human heart, how our feelings and emotions lead us down destructive paths. God wants to transform that deceptive heart into a discerning heart, learning to live with God's wisdom as a protection against falling back into the choices and behaviors that caused us so much pain in the past. Now, think of it like a season of recovery, like a time of training, learning to recognize what's healthy and what's harmful.
You'll learn today how to filter your feelings and desires so that your decisions are based on God's truth instead of just your emotional impulse. You see, God wants to build you up so that you never return to that painful season ever again. My name is Mandy. Our scripture reading is from Proverbs 4, 20 to 27. You are welcome to follow along with a physical Bible. Search the table of contents to locate the corresponding page number for Proverbs. Alternatively, you can download the Bible app or visit bible.com.
My son, be attentive to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil.
So what does a season of spiritual recovery and training look like? Well, Scripture gives us some insight into the process, and we're going to walk through a few passages that show us the different stages of the journey toward a discerning heart. First, let's look at Proverbs 4, written by Solomon. We read, My son, be attentive to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
This is a picture of someone intentionally accepting God's word as core truths to live by. This spiritual and cerebral shift impacts the heart, confirming that discernment begins by accepting God's instruction. Specifically note the instruction to, quote, keep God's word within your heart and to, quote, keep your heart with all vigilance. This is an active, ongoing training, even when the trials and temptations are minimal, maybe, or non-existent. Because when the pressure hits, there's no time to start building that recovery and training. Your heart will respond with whatever you've been doing.
in the times of peace and calm and whatever you've built your recovery on. You see, the heart has to be trained, and training happens long before the moment of testing arrives. Think about it this way. Imagine a hockey player who never trained. They never thought through the movements of the play or how the team plays as a unit until the game had already started. This hockey player has never envisioned the positioning of the other players, never practiced skating or stick handling, none of it. They just left it all for the game.
obviously that'd be foolishness because the instinctive movements and decisions that happen in the game are solidified through hours and hours of practice outside of the game. Then the body does what it's been trained to do. And the same is true spiritually. When God's word is consistently imprinted into the heart, the instruction becomes like a default response. Discernment is built in such a way that it stops feeling like a deliberate calculation and it's more like an instinct. And when we discern according to God's truth, wisdom eventually becomes a reflex.
Accepting God's instruction is the starting point, of course. But maybe you're wondering, how does this play out in day-to-day life? Well, what does a person who's striving for a discerning heart really look like? We get that description in Psalm 112, which reads, The psalmist gives us a vivid picture of what a heart rooted in God's word produces. And notice the progression. First, the heart is firm, not afraid of bad news, trusting the Lord. Second, leading to a steady heart that's not afraid of adversaries, enduring under God's righteousness. We see that discernment grows by trusting God's faithfulness.
This psalm doesn't promise that life is automatically easier. That's important. Bad news still comes and adversaries still show up in life. That's how life works. But the heart doesn't move because the seed of God's word has been planted deep and now it's growing under the nourishment of God's faithful care. You see, an anxious heart is always prone to wander, but a discerning heart stays planted in what it already knows to be true. And so out of that, peace and confidence in the storms of life and resilience under pressure are the fruit of that discerning heart.
To give an example, in January 2009, Captain Sully Sullenberg landed U.S. Airways flight 1549 on the Hudson River after both engines failed. He had exactly 208 seconds to make a decision that ended up saving 155 lives. In the debrief afterwards, he said that the landing was a result of training, not heroics. His reflexes knew exactly what to do before his mind had fully processed the crisis he was in. And so in a way, that's a physical picture of what the psalmist is describing spiritually.
The person who is unshaken under pressure isn't unshaken because they won't ever be faced with a crisis. That's just not true. They're unshaken because they're able to react, because of their training, because they've built resiliency. They've rehearsed it over and over. They've rehearsed their trust in God's faithfulness. So consistently, when the pressure comes, their heart, their mind, their soul knows exactly what to do. A discerning heart knows where it's rooted. And being rooted in God's faithfulness will hold under any pressure.
But let's move to our final passage to discover the long-term impacts of a discerning heart. We come back to Proverbs, the Proverbs of Solomon. We read, Here we get a picture of someone in active, intentional pursuit of wisdom, God's wisdom. This is a spiritually mature person living a life that's being led by God's word day by day. And from that pursuit, we see that discernment matures by seeking God's wisdom. Notice the words in this passage. Receive, treasure, incline, call out, and seek. Once again, we see a person in that active pursuit. They deeply desire God's truth. And so a mature person is hanging on God's every word, following every command, applying every passage. They crave it.
So wisdom isn't something that just falls into your lap. Now, granted, it can come supernaturally through the Holy Spirit's gifting. That can happen. And it can come through life lessons, the experiences, both good and bad, through a long life, years lived. But more often, it's sought out and it's pursued. And the greatest wisdom comes from the one who carries all wisdom. In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argued that world-class expertise doesn't come from raw talent, but from deliberate, purposeful practice, often hundreds or even thousands of hours in intentional repetition.
A spiritual maturity works in a similar way. Every time you bring a decision to God in prayer instead of reacting on impulse, every time you open up scripture instead of scrolling for an answer, every time you choose obedience, when your feelings push back, you're building discernment for the next trial or challenge. You're developing the kind of wisdom that eventually becomes instinct. And that's a beautiful thing. You need to understand that every obedient decision strengthens spiritual reflexes. And over time, wisdom will become instinctual. It takes time. It takes training.
It takes recovery. So here's the tension in everything we've looked at today. All of these principles require a heart that is willing to be trained. Willing is a key word. You have to be willing to accept God's instruction, trusting his faithfulness, seeking his wisdom. They're all disciplines that assume something has already been initiated inside of you, at your core.
And so the broken, sin-sick heart must first surrender to God. That's the first step, because only he can do what no amount of discipline or wisdom-seeking could ever do. He's the initiator, and that work begins with his son, Jesus. When Jesus came, he didn't just teach wisdom, he embodied it. And the Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthian church, described him as Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Many believe that Jesus was simply a wise teacher or a prophet, but in that belief, they miss that he didn't come simply to give us better principles to live by.
It's more than that. He came because the heart problem runs deep, deeper than any principle, and far-reaching. The human heart alone can't fix itself. And so every passage we've looked at today assumes a heart that is open, teachable, and capable of being transformed. Jesus is the one who makes that possible. He said, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Living water flows out of the heart that believes in Jesus.
And this is a connection back to Solomon who said, keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow springs of life. Jesus is saying, I am the source of everything Solomon was pointing to way back then. And so on the cross, Jesus took the full weight of everything that corrupts the heart, every impulsive decision, every habitual sin, every pattern that we've looked at through this entire series. And he paid for it all. And thankfully, in glory, three days later, God raised him from the dead, overcoming sin and death. And through that resurrection, he made available what the writers of the Old Testament promised and prophesied about, a new heart. A new heart capable of being trained and renewed and recovered by God's Holy Spirit. If you've never surrendered your heart to Jesus, if you've never surrendered your life to Jesus, that's the starting point. Just come to him honestly and say, Jesus, I need what only you can provide. And if you have already trusted Jesus, this message and this moment is simply a reminder.
that the Holy Spirit living inside of you isn't passive. He's actively shaping you. He's training and renewing your heart every single day. Clean to that. Because the discerning heart isn't something that you can manufacture on your own. It's something that only God builds in you as you stay attentive and humble, surrendered to his will for your life. We started today with a simple picture. Someone with a significant injury who felt better and skipped the recovery process. And then they paid for it. Too often, we handle our spiritual injuries in the same way. We feel better. We move on.
We assume the hard season is behind us until the same pattern resurfaces, seemingly out of nowhere. And then we're in pain and shame again. And this is because the heart was never fully recovered. But God doesn't want to leave you there. And the journey to recovery starts with Jesus. Now, maybe this is your first time placing your trust in Jesus, or you're just reaffirming your belief in him. Wherever you're at in your faith journey today, let's all make that move toward a discerning heart. Surrender to Jesus, seeking God's wisdom. Let's pray.
Dear God, I confess that I've been trusting my own instincts over your truth. My heart needs more than discipline and effort. It needs recovery and renewal. I believe that you sent your son Jesus, who died on the cross for my sin and rose from the dead three days later. Today I surrender my life to you. Teach me to filter my behavior and decisions through your truth rather than my emotions. Send your spirit to guide me from this day forward. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Thank you so much for being here today. We'd love to connect with you. Simply visit mountainview.church slash connect or find us on social media and send us a DM at Mountain View Whitehorse and we'll connect with you there. And if these messages have been helpful, please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel and turning on those notifications so that each week's message shows up in your feed automatically. Before you go, we have a few important updates.
We are one week away from the launch of our Easter series, From Darkness to Dawn. We'll start with Palm Sunday on March 29th, and it's a family Sunday, which means children will be joining us in the adult gatherings, English gatherings at 9.30 and 11, or Filipino Tagalog gatherings at 3 p.m. And Herber, our children's pastor, will be sharing the message in our English gatherings. Maundy Thursday is on April 2nd. A video message will be provided for in-home gatherings. Gather with family or friends, and Pastor Byron will provide a Maundy Thursday message, then guide you through communion, and an optional practice of foot washing, witnessed in John's account of the Last Supper.
Moving on to Good Friday, it's on April 3rd at 6 or 7 p.m. We'll be hosting online or in-house gatherings with communion served and a children's program will be available for the younger kids. We'll be inviting the older kids up with us into the main gathering. Then the main event is on Easter Sunday, April 5th. We'll be hosting three English gatherings at 8, 9.30 or 11 a.m. and one Filipino gathering at 3 p.m. A children's program will be available at all four gatherings. Please pre-register for our English gatherings at 8, 9.30 or 11. It's going to be busy. Just go to mountainview.church slash Easter.
Now, one of the best parts about our Easter Sunday gatherings is the opportunity to celebrate baptisms with those who've given their lives to Jesus. And now they want to publicly declare it to the world. If that's you or you want more info, simply visit mountainview.church slash baptism. And again, you can get more information or sign up right there. Finally, we have three questions to help you discuss and process this week's message. Discussing a message always adds more than just listening to it. So if you're with someone, work through these questions together. And if you're on your own, sit with them for a few minutes and then drop a comment in the feed. Question number one, where have you been relying on your own instincts?
instead of filtering your decisions through God's truth? Where have you been relying on your own instincts instead of filtering your decision through God's truth? Question two, what does your current daily rhythm say about what you're feeding your heart? What does your current daily rhythm say about what you're feeding your heart? And then the third question is, what is one specific habit you could start this week to begin building a more discerning heart? What's one specific habit you could start this week to begin building a more discerning heart? We'll see you next week, which is Palm Sunday and the launch of our Easter series. See you then.
If you prayed to receive Jesus today or would like to connect with our church community, visit mountainview.church and click the connect link. If this podcast and radio ministry has been a blessing to you, please consider partnering with us or making a tax-deductible donation at mountainview.church. Thanks for listening to Mountain View Church Audio. Join us next week for more Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City, Whitehorse New Farm.