The Shaping of Your Soul
Speaker: Pastor Darin Browne
We looked at the value of your soul, and the battle for your soul. Today I want to ask the question, “What is it that is shaping your soul?”
SAVED, BUT SHAPED WRONGLY
Just because we know Jesus Christ and have asked Him into our life, doesn’t mean that adverse forces in our world are not shaping out lives.
Our soul is the mind, will and emotions. How many know that when your mind over thinks things, or your will makes its own mind up, or your emotions carry you away, that your life can be adversely impacted. If your soul is unhealthy, if it is poorly shaped, then you’ll tend to over think things, be stubborn or over emotional? Is this you?
You can be saved. You can have the Holy Spirit within you, but you can still choose to resist Him, and His work shaping your soul into Christlikeness. As Stephen said…
Acts 7:51
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.
Whether you recognise it or not, your soul is being shaped and manipulated by either the Holy Spirit or something else. So, what’s shaping your soul today?
A boat in the water is good, it floats and serves a purpose. But water in the boat is no good, it causes it to sink! A Christian in the world is good, but the world in a Christian is a disaster! A misshapen soul is painful, destructive and not useful in the Kingdom. So, what shapes our souls?
1: WORLDLY STANDARDS
Today we see worldly standards, even in the church, to the point where expressing an orthodox Bible based view is considered bad or evil by the world!
The number of genders has exploded from the Bible’s two to the world’s seventy-two, and we are told we must embrace them all. They don’t even know what genders are which, and we have churches trying to accommodate such stinking thinking.
Worldly stinking thinking lies, justify the murder of babies. Now we know that a baby of twenty weeks can survive, but the government and media have sold the lie that killing them in the womb is okay. What God intended to be a womb we convert into a tomb.
1 John 2:15-16
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life – is not from the Father but is from the world.
Don’t love the world and don’t love what it loves. Don’t look at the Bible through society but look at society through the Bible.
We need to stand for something lest we fall for anything! The standards of this world are shifting sands, they change every two minutes. I calculate that roughly one new gender is added on average every 45 days since the plebiscite in 2017. Modern morality is unstable. There are no absolutes, it depends purely on what’s popular, not what is right or rational, but…
Isaiah 40:8
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
This world is trying to squeeze you into its pattern. It is trying to force you and even legislate you into doing the enemy’s will. Sadly, some churches are compromising and doing exactly that. Christians must have a standard, a truth to uphold that has stood rock solid for countless centuries. A standard upon which our courts and judicial system is built. God’s standard, God’s Word, God’s measure!
2: WORLDLY THINKING
Worldly thinking goes way beyond just compromising of Biblical standards. It permeates Christians, and even churches. The idea of living a life dedicated not to gaining money, fame, influence or comfort but to growing more like Jesus, even if it involves hurt and pain, is completely foreign to the average Aussie. Sadly, even in the church world, we strive for success, adoration and money, just like the secular world.
Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Do not be conformed (Gk: SYSCHEMATIZO, the be patterned on) to the world, but be transformed, (Gk: METAMORPHOO, metamorphosis, like a larva changing into a butterfly) by the renewing (Gk: ANAKAINOSIS, renovating, like on The Block) of your mind.
We are constantly being squeezed into the world’s mould, the world’s standards and the world’s morality. If we are to see revival in our city and our nation, it’s time for us to stand solidly on the truth! It’s time our kind get renewed, not once or twice but continually!
Joshua 1:8
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
We must concentrate on God’s Word, and follow the Holy Spirit, not the latest fad or trend. God never called us to be tolerant and inclusive, He called us to be discerning and holy.
3: FALSE TEACHING
Another way the enemy tries to shape our souls is, surreptitiously, through wrong or destructive doctrine. Some Christians I know, instead of looking to Jesus, follow fads, and follow preachers like rock stars, believing everything they say without checking God’s Word. Paul said…
1 Timothy 4:1
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,
Listen, what we see on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube is not necessarily the Word of God. Just because someone has a speaking gift and a YouTube channel does not give them the right to point people away from the truth. Some preachers and churches are conforming weak minded believers to their own brand of teaching.
2 Timothy 4:3
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
The standard we must have is the Bible, the simple essence of the true gospel!
We must guard our souls against wrong and errant doctrine and teaching! This is not the time to accept things we cannot change; it’s time to change things we cannot accept!
POTTER AND CLAY
Isaiah 29:15-16
Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?” You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
We are clay in the master potter’s hands, but only if we choose to let Him mould us. The world constantly tries to shape our souls, but if we yield to God, He is the master! The difference between the Potter moulding the clay and God moulding us is that the clay doesn’t moan, groan and exert its pressure back against the potter!
Isaiah 45:9
“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?
We’ve seen how the world tries to shape our souls, but how does God shape our souls. Do we resist His efforts to shape us into the person He wants us to be? How does He shape us?
1: THE WORD OF GOD
How anyone can lead a victorious Christian life without reading the Bible baffles me. The Bible is God’s Word, from cover to cover.
Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
The Word of God divides soul and spirit, it separates the mind, will and emotions from our eternal Spirit. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. God’s Word is the standard, the measuring rod of all creation, of every aspect of society and our personal lives. It’s not an ancient, out of date book. It’s a living, breathing love letter that can shape our lives and our destiny if we apply it. It is living, and active, and at times, sharp.
If we read, study and even memorise the Word of God, it will bear fruit in our conduct, in wisdom and in every aspect of our lives. I challenge you to join us on the Bible reading plan and then look at your life in six months time. You will be more Christlike!
2: THE COMPANY YOU KEEP
1 Corinthians 15:33
Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”
If you hang out with bad company, you won’t change them, they will change you!
There’s an old story of a pastor who had a naughty parrot, who used to bounce up and down and say, “Let’s kiss.” His deacon had a sanctified little parrot who said, “Let’s pray.” The pastor said, “Let’s put them together and see if your parrot can teach my parrot some manners. They did, and immediately the first parrot bounced up and down and said, “Let’s kiss.” The second parrot then bounced up and down and said, “Praise the Lord, my prayers are answered at last.”
We are not changing the world; the world is changing us!
1 John 1:7
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
We are cleansed together as we walk together in fellowship in the light. This is why we have church. We can encourage, support each other, love each other, help each other! Want to be shaped the right way? Hang out with the right people.
3: ADVERSITY
You may not want to hear this, but God uses difficult times to shape our lives. Billy Graham tells of travelling on a train through Switzerland in the spring and seeing incredible vibrant colours of the flowers. They are so vibrant because the winter is so harsh, and the adversity bring out the rich, vibrant colours.
In the same way, a child saw a butterfly trying to struggle and escape its cocoon, so he broke open the cocoon to help it. That butterfly never developed its full colours and beauty. The struggle itself gives rise to the true beauty. That’s why Paul writes…
Romans 5:3-4
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
If you are struggling today, if life is a battle, if it’s tough and you are getting weary, take heart, because God promises to use these difficult forces to shape you into the person, He wants you to be.
KINTSUGI is a Japanese art of restoring broken bowls, where the cracks and the breaks are not hidden but highlighted with gold. That is how adversity is used by God to shape your soul, to not only restore it, but to use the pain, the hurt, the brokenness to make it even more beautiful, even more valuable. God uses adversity to mould you and make you even more beautiful.
4: OBEDIENCE
There are consequences to actions. You can choose what you want to do, that’s your soul, the mind, will and emotions. You cannot choose the consequences. They choose you, based on what you choose.
1 Peter 1:14
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
1 John 5:3
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
If you obey God, He will bless your life in a way beyond your wildest dreams. If you disobey God, you will suffer the consequences.
Reading Deuteronomy 28, I was struck by just how important obedience is…
Deuteronomy 28:2
And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God.
As I looked further into the chapter, I realised that there are fourteen verses of blessings for obedience, contrasted with 54 verses of curses. Clearly God knows our tendencies! Obedience to God’s Word, not just reading it, is how God shapes our souls.
WHOSE HAND?
Will you let the Lord mould your soul today? Will you reject the pressures of an unclean world, and place your soul into His hands, to be shaped as He desires?
A basketball in my hand is worth about $80. A basketball in Michael Jordan’s hand is worth millions. In my hands, a cricket bat is worth about $90 dollars, but in the hands of Steve Smith it’s worth thousands. A paint brush is worth $10, but in the hands of Pro Hart, it’s worth thousands. It’s not the object itself; it’s whose hands it is in.
Consider your soul, your mind, your will, your emotions. In your own hands you might have talent, natural gifting, or maybe you’re nothing special at all. But if you place your soul, your skill, your talent into the hands of Almighty God, only He knows what you could potentially become.
Jeremiah 29:11-13
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
Who is shaping your soul? Some here need to deliberately place their soul into the hands of the master Potter today.