3 Habits Of A Healthy Heart

Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.

I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.

I shared a teaching with our staff.

A couple weeks ago, what was it about two months ago? And I came in and taught this teaching called three Habits of a Healthy Heart, and several of them said you.

Need to share that with the church.

And I couldn't find a good weekend to share it because of all of the scheduling and well, when I realized we would have to postpone our series for a week, I thought, this is the time, this is the window for me to.

Share this with you. So I want to teach you a little bit today. You may be seated.

Thank you for your enthusiasm in God's presence today.

This teaching.

Is going to require your full attention, and I don't just mean with your mind, I mean your emotional attention and kind of while I get set up here to teach you today, Three Habits of a Healthy Heart how many, No real lasting change has to happen in your heart? Talk to me, please, I said, how many? No real lasting change has to happen in your heart? Can't just be in your behavior. You really have to fundamentally change your belief. And that's kind of what the Psalmist is

The longest chapter in the Bible.

It's constructed grammatically in a specific way that we won't go into in this class. I kind of want to teach a little bit today, if that's all right, he said, all right, if I don't even shout.

Or holler or anything.

If you wanted to hear me holler, you should have come to the praise party. We had an amazing time saying good morning midnight, because we welcome not only in new year, but we welcomed our challenges this year, knowing that often our calling is contained in our challenges if we learn.

How to see it correctly.

Everything begins with perspective, and the perspective of the Psalmist in Psalm one hundred and nineteen is kind of all over the place. I think he's dealing with some inner issues and getting beyond.

The grammar of the song. We can know a little.

Bit of the intention of it because the Psalmist says in one twelve, I incline my heart to perform your statutes, forever to the end, Forever to the end.

I want this to last. I don't just want to.

See some changes in my life for a few weeks in January. Come on, somebody, I didn't hand them much membership and sign up for a year just to be eaten chocolate by Valentine's Day. I want to see some lasting change in my life this year. The Psalma said, I incline my heart. It has to happen within, not just the behavior, but the belief that drives the behavior has to change or the change won't stay. We found

That means you had to.

Act upon it in order to orient it in a different direction right, So we don't incline something that's already upright. Must have meant that his heart was declined. And the problem with a lot of us is we go through life reclined. That is just however we wake up.

That's how we stay.

However we feel, that's how we act. This almost said, I act upon my attitude and I incline my heart. Did you know you're in charge of your heart? Quit saying people broke your heart. They can't break it if you don't give it to them. Hey, and so he said, I'm setting my heart in the direction of Heaven. I wonder is your heart set in a divine direction today? Incline my heart. I don't think this is something you

That ought to get me by.

I said it, but the Psalmist said, it's not enough to set it and forget it.

He said it, it's more like you said it.

You check it, you reset it, you check it, because.

All through your day and all through your year, your.

Heart is going to be tempted to decline to a default position. And maybe it's a default position of discouragement or despair or dysfunction. But when you take charge of your heart, touch your neighbors, say, take charge of your heart.

That's what the writer of Proverbs said. It's not just a Psalmist that did it.

The writer of Proverbs said, guard your heart. It's your heart, and that's where the issues of life flow from.

So before we can.

Get the windows working, we gotta get our hearts open. Hey man, the doctor was fussinate at me a couple months ago about my cholesterol. Let's me know, I'm getting on up there in age. I never had a conversation like this with the doctor before.

And he just talking talking, blah blah.

Blah ldl HDL. Try glysseride all.

This stuff, and I know we could tell he wasn't getting through to me because.

He took a real drastic turn.

He said, hey, I don't want you to be one of those guys who looked real fit on the outside, which made me feel happy that he said that about me. But then one day you're just outside running and you just fall over of a heart attack, and to listen to me, And I corrected him. I said, doctor, I know you got some degrees that I don't have it all that, but you're wrong about that.

I don't run, so if fall over, it's not going to be on cardio.

But he said, you can be blocked on the inside, look good on the outside and be successful and fall over, and be sexy and fall over, and be married and fall over, come on, get a promotion and fall over, be religious and fall over. It has to happen in the heart. But it doesn't start with the heart. It starts with the habits. Your habits create the condition of your heart.

It is good.

Every once in a while, you got to stop and clap for.

The word God speaks through you.

I feel like God is going to help somebody set your heart on things above. Get your heart set in the right direction. But it's going to require some.

And they're all right there in the Sawmu. I want to read you the.

Next two verses because my three habits are right there.

In the verses. Forever to the end.

I set my heart to perform your statutes. I hate this is one thirteen.

I hate. I hate what's that we're doing in the Bible. I thought I was supposed to love everything.

Now I hate the double minded, but I love your law.

I don't think we should go on until we talk about that. He said.

I hate this. I hate the double minded. I hate It's not a person. I hate, it's I hate the condition of double mindedness.

I hate it.

And see, the thing about the thing about hate is hate is the most powerful motivation to change, not love. And so before you start with wanting to reach your goals, maybe the first thing for you to do is to make a decision and about some things that you hate. And it's going to be complicated, because you know, ask for me. I have a love hate relationship with some of the things.

I feel kind of like David.

One time, David's son Absolom died and Joe ab came to him.

He said, your son is dead.

And David started weeping, and Joe Ab was mad because Absolom was trying to take the throne from David, and so Absolom had become David's enemy. But David's heart was connected to Absolom. So he was crying, and Joe Ab said, you need to get it together. You hate those who love you, and you love those who hate you. You hate what's trying to deliver you, and you love what's trying to destroy you. And I feel that way about certain things in my life. Certain action, certain behaviors in my life.

I love how they feel.

For a minute, but I hate the crash and certain things in my life I hate how they feel when I'm doing them. I hate the plank Exhibit A. I mean I was for years. I was one of these people. I would tell you to your face, I hate to exercise.

You can go back and watch my sermon videos from three years ago.

I was standing on the stage and say I hate to exercise. You know why I hated it because it wasn't to have it. I didn't do it enough to love it. I hated it. But you don't have to accept your default attitude toward anything. I incline my heart. I'm gonna teach today.

You came out. I'm gonna make it work your while. I'm gonna teach today. Get that elevation pen ready.

We're gonna burn it up today and get a new one next week.

I grew to hate.

I think the moment of realization for me was when I was paying Andy four hundred and fifty dollars to come over to my house and let my pants out.

I hated it. I looked at.

Andy and I said, I hate this, man. I could be using this money to buy new clothes, and I'm paying it to you to make my clothes bigger. I hate this. And he said, hey, keep eating. It's job security for me. That's what my Taylor said. I said, no, man, I hate this. I hate this feeling. And sometimes sometimes before you can make a change, you have to be motivated by I know it's a strong word of some very pastoral you.

Have to hate it. You have to hate it. You have to hate self pity.

Wow.

And the problem with hating self pity.

Is Ooh, it feels good like a bag of Dorito's on your tongue. See, it's not that I hate the taste of Doritos. I just hated what it did to my waist. This is so good, sounds simple, but it's real deep, he said.

I hate the double minded. I love your law. Before I can.

Do what I love, I have to know what to hate. I hate this, I hate the way. I hate the way watch watch. I love what it does for me, but I hate what it does to me. It's a complicated relationship. A bag of Doritos does something for me. Am I not doing anything for you. It does something for me. I have a long standing relationship with carbohydrates. They have been there for me in the midnight hour when I couldn't call on anybody else.

I could call on chocolate.

So I love it, but I hate I love what it does for me, but I hate what it.

Does to me.

I hate all this. I hate anger. Oh it makes me feel good. It even gets me some results. I have a complicated relationship with anger. If you get mad enough, you can get people to do what you want, but then you're all alone. After they do it, nobody wants to be with you. I hate being angry because I hate being alone. Somebody shall outcome. I hate the outcome of this and that I hate it. I hate what it does to my marriage. I hate what it does

And it's complicated.

It's a complicated relationship that I have with complaining.

I love to complain. Ooh.

I love to tell somebody you can look at there at me when the woman Basil who's doing to do it, Bible says, don't do it, but it didn't say it doesn't feel good? Hey man, It feels real good to complain. It feels like a choice morsel going down. I mean, just as it's coming out of your mouth, just to unload on them. When somebody says how you doing, Just let them know for five minutes, every age, every pain,

Don't say stuff like that.

People put it on YouTube and use it against you as a weapon.

But I just got to tell you.

I love it makes me feel really good about my dysfunction to spend a little time discussing yours. I love to talk about other people's dumb decisions.

I love it.

It's just it's a natural high because if I can get you down here, then I feel right like I'm right here. Only problem is I'm setting myself up for decline, and now the next time I see you, I can't treat you better than I talk about you, so it ruins my relationships. I love what it does for me. It does something for me. Come on, how many will admit it does something for you to talk about what Henry did and what Susie wore, and what they should have done and what their kids are like. But by

I hate it.

The problem with a lot of our resolutions for change is that they are not motivated by a healthy kind of hate.

Healthy hate. Yeah, there is a healthy way to hate. I hate racism, I hate.

Poverty, that's the only thing that will motivate me to do anything about it is I've got to hate it. I hate bullying. I hate bullying.

US bullied.

Tony Wigfall jacked me up against the wall. I still remember my head cracking against the wall on my friend Hamilton looking at me, saying, don't look at me, man. I still remember the view from up there, and I can't see somebody being picked on without seeing myself from up there, just wondering, there is this guy gonna.

Break my face. I hate it. I hate it.

Holly said to me the other day, she said, I hate being late. Notice she didn't say I love being early, because she doesn't.

But you got to get to.

The point we were going to see somebody, she said, I don't want to walk in like that. And until you hate being late more than you love hitting snooze, you won't make the change. Yeah, get that thing on your mind, that back of Dorito's, and say I hate it.

Look at your neighbors, say I hate it, not I hate you. I hate it.

I hate it, I hate it, I hate the double minded, I hate indecision.

I hate it.

I'd rather make a bad decision than make no decision.

I hate procrastination. I hate it.

I did it a lot, but I finally got to the point where I hate it now. I hate the discipline of preparation too, but I hate the pain of procrastination more than I hate.

I hate it.

And I actually said to somebody the other day, I said, I never thought i'd hear myself say this, and I used to hate people who said this.

I think I like exercise.

After three years of doing it five days a week and finding out what works for me, I think I'm one of those people that I used to roll my eyes at. I think I like the exercise. I think I've reset my heart. I reset, I declare reset. There are some things in your life that have been on the decline. But God brought you to church on the first weekend of the year, and you're setting your heart in a different direction.

Come on, you're gonna love the presence of God this year. You're gonna love the Word of God this year. You're gonna love the right things this year. Train your brain to hate it. Train your brain. I know that's what my.

Dad was trying to do when he made us eat all the food on our plate, when we overfilled it. At the Ryan's buffet Vacation Memories.

He said, you're.

Gonna eat every bite on that plate. And me and my brother took turns causing diversions while the other one stuffed our pockets, and we walked out of Ryan's with pockets full of food.

Never forget it.

He wanted me to have an association, he said, I want.

You to hate waste.

Maybe that's why sometimes God lets us get so low. So I hate it, so I will despise Egypt, because if I didn't despise it, I would be tempted to go back.

Hate the double minded. And I love your law.

And I know what the hate, and this is healthy habit number two. I know where to hide. Do you know where to hide?

You better?

Because the attacks are going to come, and the missiles are going to fly, and the doubts and discouraging thought are going to try to set your heart on the decline, get you off track, take you back where you've been, keep you stuck from moving forward. Do you know where to hide when discouragement comes flying past your head? Or do you run to the same enemy that is attacking

Help me preach this.

The expectation of no attack is a.

Set up for disappointment.

But the sum is said, I set myself up for success because I designated in advance where I would hide when the attack came. You can't find the place to hide once the attack starts. I'm gonna teach more on this in the weeks to come.

Are you coming back for the series? This series?

When I say this series is something worth canceling your life to make sure you don't miss I mean it.

I mean it's so.

What God has shown me is so explosive. I think it might even be my next book. I don't even want to write another book, but it's so strong. I think I might have to because I'm gonna teach you in this about the power of making decisions and sticking with them. That I'm not going back there. I'm not running to that. I can't. I can't. I can't ask God to protect me from the enemy that I'm running to.

Where do you hide when it gets hard?

Set it up in advance that I'm running to the places.

Where there's real.

Protection, not the illusion of protection. Because some of us hide in places that seem safe.

He said, you are my hiding place.

Elijah went and hid in a cave because it seems safe. It was far away from Jezebel, and she was threatening his very life. This is an Old Testament story that's worth reading if you hadn't read it, because the whisper of God came into the cave as Elijah ran from his calling. Or you're running from the conflict, or you're running into the conflict, because the place of conflict is

I will see the goodness.

Of the Lord in the land of the living. But I want to experience life and dead places, so I got to know where to hide. One of the staff members that heard this teaching, when I taught it to the staff, and to be honest with you, I'm teaching it better to you than I taught it to them. I had some practice now. She said that her hiding place is blame.

She said, when.

I'm confronted with a need to change a hide behind blame. When we were picturing our hiding place, because I had all of the staff members, I could have you do this, but I don't want to embarrass you and you might be a first time guest. I had them turned to each other and say what their hiding place was, and they went deep. Some of them said porn, some of them said eating, some of them said destructive thought patterns. Some of them said this, and some of them said that.

If it's somebody else that needs to change. It's a convenient hiding place.

Yeah, for a little while, but it's a it's a paper mache shield. It can only keep you from so much. She said, I blame I blame everybody. I blame everything. I blame the way I was raised.

I blame my.

Parents for being too hard on me, and then I blame them for being.

Too easy on me.

I blame them if they would have made me stick with piano lessons. And then I blame them that they made me show up the choir practice. I mean, I blame them. I blame I blame what I did get. I blame what I didn't get blame. What's her hiding place? What's yours? What's yours? Elijah had a cave, she had blamed. I wonder do you hide behind low expectations? This one is real common because if you don't expect much, you can't be disappointed, and so you learn how to hide behind this fake smile.

You don't really have a whole heart.

You have a fake smile to cover up your half hearted interior life.

And we hide.

Ourselves from even those closest to us. And we hide ourselves because if I hide behind an image that I present, I don't have to deal with who I am.

And the call of God is coming forth.

Like the voice of the Lord went into the cave, the voice of the Lord is coming into your heart today, saying, come out, Come out of hiding, Come out of fear, come out of low expectations, come out of hypocrisy, Come out from the stake spirituality, come out, come.

Out wherever you are.

You know when you hide in the shadow of the most High, you can abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I have a shelter.

I don't have to hide behind anything, but gosh, I'm glad it's snows so I can breach this message.

What's going to open your heart?

What good will it do for the windows of heaven to be open?

If your heart is blocked.

You gotta know where to hide, or you'll be running doing your thing this year and just collapse.

The doctor said, because you.

Didn't know where to hide. I know where to hide. I don't always do it, but I know where. And I said, start, I.

Know where to hide.

Somebody shout, I know where to hide. My kids were playing hide and seek one time and they got locked in.

The crass space. That's what you don't want to do.

And sometimes, just like that, you're running from something, thinking you're hiding, but you end up locking yourself. I mean, you can lock yourself in a pattern, in an attitude and an effort to escape something, and what you get locked in is worse than what.

You were running from.

Reaching to myself on the media's sermon, and you think, and you need a better hiding place.

You got hide somewhere. So memorize some songs, the little songs that you like. The little songs will be singing the church.

You can sing them other than Sunday. You can run the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it. So you might have to sing in the shower to incline your heart to keep his commands. You might have to hide in a different place. Where else are you gonna hide? You're gonna hide and feeling sorry for yourself. You're gonna hide in enemy held territory and expect to be safe there.

I know where to hide. I know how to say I love.

You, Lord, and I lift my voice to word you. Oh my soul, rejoice they joy my king this old song. But it will still work to run the devil off when he starts messing with you in the middle of the night.

Why are you here?

May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your I can sing when I'm squeezed.

I can sing when I'm pressed. I can rejoice. Hit and reset on my heart.

I've set my heart that keep put the man. Come on, we're hitting reset. I want you to picture yourself.

You're playing Nintendo, remember Bill, and you hit reset. You're about to go have to start over all your progress and you hit reset. The psalm is set. I know where to go to reset my heart. It's not that the missiles never fly. I just learned how to duck, and I know where to hide, and I pointed my heart in the direction of my destiny. I know where to hide. I know what to hate, and my heart knows how to hope. Want you to stand up if you have hope, Stand up if you have hope.

It's good to have hope. I said, it's good to have hope.

If a whole Christmas sermon on we have this hope, I hope everybody at every location is standing up because you have hope. But the Psalmist doesn't say, in this particular instance, I have hope. He says I hope. And I'm not sure if I learned this in third grade English or fourth But when he says I hope instead of saying I have hope, that makes it a verb and not a noun. Any English teachers can verify what I just said.

It's not just something I have.

It's something that I what, is something that I do.

It's an active hope.

And you cannot go into another year of your life hoping it gets better. Like the lady I sat next to on the plane, she said, here's Mulfulow's feet. Hope for the best, expect the worst. That's clever, but it's crap. Hope doesn't just wish it would. And I'll tell you what if you don't know how to hope. If you think hope is just when we say I hope in your word, that's not a bookmark in your Bible that you look at every once in a while or something on your coffee mouth.

It is a way of living.

I hope somebody saying I hope, I hope, not just I.

Wish I hope. What does hope do. Hope puts its hand to work.

Hope, not just in my heart, but hope. Look, have you put your hand to what you're hoping for? Because faith is the substance of things hope for and the evidence of things not seen. God wants to open your heart this new year to possibility.

But you're going to have.

To put your hand to what you're hoping for. In other words, you've got to work your window and watch this. I don't hope. It's not cold. I wear a coat. When I was leaving for church this weekend, Elijah said, Daddy is going to be great.

He said.

It's going to be record attendants. I said, no, it's not. He said, yes, it is. Daddy, have a little faith practice what you preache. But I said, boy, let me teach you a little lesson.

About church growth and hope.

Okay, some of my campuses have to be closed, so it can't be record attendants and Charlotte people are kind of crazy, some of them anyway, not you' all, but some people watching a line.

And I said, my hope isn't that the rooms are going to be full.

My hope is that God is going to show up and speak to whoever calls. That's how I hope. I don't hope it's not cold. I put on a cold and go outside.

Anyway, I don't hope it's not hard. I SARTs to who. My hope is not in the path. My hope is in the promise.

So the path can look like this, but I'm still headed to the promise. I hope in your word, how many received something from the Lord today? You tell your heart opening enough, you can feel it, you can feel God doing something this This is going to be an amazing year church. If I were you, I wouldn't miss the window. I wouldn't miss it. Next weekend, I'm really going to start the series this time, work your window. What I feel like today was a little w D

If you feel comfortable, I don't know if you do or not.

Would you just lift your hands like this to the Lord to receive what he has for you, hoping your word, hope in your promise. Thank you for your presence, Lord, I thank you for the expectation of change. We incline our hearts. We're set up for success. The windows of heaven are open, and so are our hearts. We won't be blocked. We've set our hearts. We'll set it again and again and again. I will bless the Lord at all times, and his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Come on say it.

I will bless the Lord at all times, and his praise shall continually be in my mouth. I will bless the Lords at all times, and his phrase shall continually be in my mouth.

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