Well, good morning, my friends, and welcome to the Heritage Hour. I’m Mark Gonzales, your pastoral encourager or soul care encourager here in Southwest Florida. And I’m so delighted to be with you on air, online, and in media ministry for 35 years now. . .

So thank you for sitting with me at the feet of the Lord to listen for his heart to touch our hearts. And if you’ve been with us, we know we started a brand new series just about three weeks ago, probably an eight part series. It’s the topic of soul care portraits of God. Last time earlier this year, we did the Passion Week portraits of God, because as I look through scriptures, I see nothing but portraits of God.

It points us up to him, points us up to him.

But now the Lord just took me to this theme of how he is our soul care shepherd. And that’s the first one that we covered. As we talk about soul care portraits of God, he’s our soul care shepherd. As we talked about that, and you can find these at my website, by the way, at markpg.org.

I call it Helping You Hear God. And there’s a lot of resources. On the first page, just click on the broadcast box. Then the next page, just click on Portraits of God and start scrolling.

And you can get all of the messages that I’ve been archiving here for quite some time. That’s markpg.org.

And so we talked about how the Lord is our soul care shepherd. more specifically under that, our restoring shepherd out of Psalm 23 and our rest giving shepherd out of Matthew 11, the second week. We covered how he is our healing creator. Another way he offers us his soul care. By the way, a quick definition of soul care.

There’s the working definition I’ve given you.

Soul care is simply about two things are dramatically different, heart wiring and heart wounds. And these are things which the Lord lovingly yearns to gradually reveal and heal to the degree we abide in him to bear much fruit.

So when we abide in the Lord, all these things fall into place as he gradually reveals our heart wiring in more detail and heals the heart wounds that we get throughout our lives.

And so as we talked about the Lord as our healing creator as he shares his soul care with us We saw he is our creative designer out of Romans 12 spiritual gifts and wirings and all that And then how he our creative healer because the heart is more deceitful than anything else, according to Jeremiah 17. And who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. And then how he died on the cross and by his wounds we are healed.

And that’s not just body, that is spirit first, then soul, then body. And that’s an ongoing thing. so we expanded on that the third week talked about how you are creative healer and we covered three themes the biblical journey of how jesus is healed looked at the whole new testament of all the different ways he healed 20 biblical reasons why god allows physical infirmity we took a journey there and then seven hidden things that blind and bind our hearts now those are three two-page each two-page info guide.

So you can just print off my website at markpg.org on that landing page. Just click on printed or quick guides and you can get these, put them in your Bible and refer to them. And we covered those last time.

Now today we come to a new portrait of God. He’s not just our soul care shepherd, not just our healing creator, not just our creative healer.

But before I tell you the portrait title here. Let me take you on a journey with me to New York City. I was at a global mission conference and I had been in an online task force about the theological foundations of a movement, global movement called the 414 Movement, focusing on how people are more open to the gospel between ages 4 and 14 by far than any other ages.

So it was an encouragement and a movement that began back then to, hey, don’t treat children’s ministry and teen youth ministry as second-rate ministries. They are primary. People are ripe for the gospel at those ages. Doesn’t mean to quit on the other ages, but anyway, that’s all another story.

But I was on the theological task force, seven of us. I was from the U.S., somebody from England who was the chair, who was mentored by C.S. Lewis years and years ago. I mean, I wanted to know as much as I could, learn as much as I could from this man.

I felt like Mickey Mouse compared to him. We had others on the team, one from India, one from Africa, one from another part of Asia and all. Anyway, we were in dialogue about the theological foundation for our movement But I was struggling in the online conversations we were having with the chair from England who had as I said been mentored by C Lewis because every time I would post questions and all his answers he seemed to dance around topic and never really answer it.

So by the time I met him in New York for the thing, for the conference, I actually met him in the hallways, introduced myself. He said, oh, you’re that long-winded American. Yes, yes, yes. It’s good to meet you.

Good to meet you. Are you coming to my session? Yes, sir, I am, and I’m looking forward to it. Wonderful, wonderful.

Went to his hour and a half session, and eager to ask the questions in person. And I did as we were all gathered. And he still danced around topic, still frustrated me.

So afterwards, a buddy of mine and I asked him to, you know, can we have lunch together here during the break? And we said, sure. And I began asking him questions there. And after about 10 minutes, my friends, as I asked questions and he seemed to dance around it, not really answer it, he saw my frustration.

And he stopped mid-sentence of what he was saying at one point. And he said, let me ask you a question, Mark. Do you know what it says in John 1.1? And pardon my attempt at an English accent, but it helps me remember it more vividly.

I said, well, yes, sir. Yeah, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then verse 14, the Word became God. And Dottamonga said, yes, yes, very good, very good.

Do you know there’s another rendering for Word? I mean, for logos, other than wood, in that passage, equally good. Well, no, sir. He says, and when he told me what that alternate rendering, which is just as valid as word for the Greek word logos, I fell back in my chair.

An epiphany came. It’s just like things opened up, clicked up. I went, what? In the beginning was the word, the logos.

The Word was with God. The Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

But he said, You know, the alternate rendering is conversation. And that’s when I fell back. Wait, wait. In the beginning was the conversation.

That’s right. That’s Father, Son, Holy Spirit. In the beginning was the conversation. The conversation was with God. the conversation was God.

And oh my goodness, the conversation became flesh and dwelt among us. And I said, wait a minute, as I fell back in my chair, wait, we’re in a constant conversation with the Lord He says yes yes that right And he infinite eternal and we not Yes yes that right And we cannot possibly understand the totality of what god is doing no no we can and he it is so it so transcendent said yes yes you know but you americans you always want everything tied up in a nice little box and a bow is god really that way i said well no is life that way well no are we with our hearts that way well no that’s right That’s why when we get together, we just, you know, chat a bit, kick the can down the road a bit, and we’ll have another go at it down the road. My friends had freed me up, freed me up of insisting on having precise answers all nightly tied up in a bow. He was just answering with glimpses because that’s all we can get from the Lord.

That’s all that he offers.

But here’s the thing. He is our constant conversation. That’s the portrait. And I’m going to give you five more specific dynamics of that as this unfolds today.

But grab hold of this one. In the beginning was the conversation. We’re talking about pre-time, my friends. The first sub-portrait is he is our eternal conversation.

In the beginning. Not the beginning of the universe. way before back in the beginning with which there is no beginning because eternity goes into eternity past as well as it goes into eternity future. Hang on to that. And he loves to converse with us.

Man, there are times when I just feel overwhelmed. In fact, I’ll be honest with you, yesterday I had a rough day. All kinds of stuff was coming down. My wife had surgery, a second surgery.

We’ve been in and out of the hospital for several months now. IRS sent me a notice that our little business tax filing didn’t arrive, and they were fining us a fee.

But I know I sent it, and I had to track down all the proof and work with them. I tried to call, got put on hold for two hours, and they never answered. Then I tried the call back thing, and when they called back, it went out on me too.

So it’s anyway, that and then insurance stuff and Medicare changing my wife’s number during the middle of the year.

So then records were anyway, on and on. I just I had a meltdown basically internally yesterday, really needed to lean into the Lord. And remember, he is our constant conversation and our eternal conversation. And I take these pre-dawn walks very often.

I love the starry skies. I love the emerging sun as I continue my work. walk, it reminds me of the eternal nature of the Lord. I look up and enter conversation with the Lord. He is our eternal conversation, my friend.

You think he can handle your life, the IRS, insurance companies, hospital bills, surgeries that have glitches, all those things? Yeah, He can. He’s our eternal conversation. And he constantly converses with us.

But it’s not just looking up. It’s looking in. He is our internal conversation. Let me take you to John 15, verse 5.

You know this one. The passage says, I am the vine. You are the branches. The one who abides in me.

This is Jesus talking, as you know. The one who abides in me. And I in him. bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.

My friend, this is part of our definition of soul care, remembering that we are one with the Lord. He calls us to abide in Him. Other passages talk about our union with Him, our oneness with Him, and we are one with Him. It is the deepest level of intimate connection we can have with Him.

There are actually five levels. We’re going to cover that next time.

But the union that we have with him is the deepest. This is one of the ways metaphorically it’s described to us about how he is our vine, think trunk. We are the branches to be connected to him. In fact, this was so important to me over the decades that this was the theme verse for all the churches I pastored.

I said, we’re here. This is about Jesus. This is his church. It’s not my church.

It’s not the deacon’s church. It’s not your church. It’s his church. we need to focus on one thing his name is Jesus and we’re to abide in him to bear much fruit before we leave this let me just give you another metaphor for abiding I call it the marinating steaks principle back when I was pastoring here in southwest Florida one of the families one of the couples invited us over to have some steaks with them and they were wonderful steaks so much so my buddy did a great job I said dude this is amazing what’s the key. He said, it’s the marinade.

Yeah. Yeah. I’ll give you the recipe.

So he did. I tried to add it at home a couple of weeks later, put the steaks on the Barbie, all that stuff. And man, they were like hockey pucks did not work.

So I thought he gave me the wrong recipe.

But when I talked to him the following week and just mentioned it, he said, no, no, I know I gave you the right recipe. Describe how did you do it? Well, you know, I made it like you did and I put the steak Well how long did you put the steak in the marinade Oh a good 20 minutes Oh dude well there a problem I said what Dude they got it sitting there like six seven hours I said, what? Yeah, that marinade has to soak into the steak all the way to the inside.

So when you put it on the grill, it stays moist and you have the taste. You just put it on for 20 minutes and it burned. It’s just on the surface and it burned right off. The first time the fire came up.

Well, that’s us. We’re to marinate in Jesus, my friends. If you just have token prayer time, token Bible reading, how you doing, Lord, and you’re just sitting there for just a few minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, and that’s your abiding, and you don’t think about him the rest of the day, you don’t talk to him or listen for the whispers the rest of the day. Life’s heat comes up.

It burns you up, man. You know you’re marinating in the Lord, that when life’s fires come up, when life’s pressures squeeze you, when you get squeezed, Jesus comes out.

But when you get squeezed, anger, bitterness, swearing, frustration, you know, discomfort comes out, you’re not marinating very long in the Lord. We’re to abide and marinate in Him. And when we do, we’ll bear much fruit. That’s the marinating principle. he is our internal conversation sometimes i have to look within sometimes i look above eternal conversation internal conversation it’s good to know he’s our constant conversation overall but here’s the third sub point he is our whispering conversation i gave you a hint of that a few moments ago let me take you to first kings 19 this is a story remember when elijah got the death threat from Ahab and Jezebel.

And he got so fearful, he ran off to the mountains. And he was just, I mean, so afraid. He had a total meltdown, ran away, hunkered down in a cave. And the Lord came by and he said, What are you doing here, Elijah?

And this is just so, let’s not be harsh on him. This is us. He says, I’ve been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, but the israels have abandoned your covenant torn down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword and i alone am left and they’re looking for me to take my life away all right well that’s how he was feeling he had a death threat from the king and queen and stuff he ran off all that was good he needed to run off these you know the the world going to be after us we know that just ask He got a litany litany of stonings and beatings and and all in his uh career but here the point the point is that when he went off and he was processing the lord was so gracious that he came by and it tells us in verse 9 the word of the lord came to him and he said what are you doing here elijah and he replied as i read a moment ago but here’s the thing about that voice of God on that day.

Because it says that at that moment in verse 11, the Lord passed by, a great and mighty wind was tearing at the mountains and was shattering cliffs before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was a still small voice.

I love that. The Lord is our constant conversation. He is our eternal conversation. He’s our internal conversation but he’s also our whispering conversation.

That’s why the scripture says to be still and know that I am God. It’s why Psalm 23 as we said in the first broadcast about the Lord being our restoring shepherd says, shepherd says, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not lack. He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. Do you listen for the whispers of God? When I say he’s constantly conversing with us, it’s almost always in whispers.

There are occasions when he’ll speak far more loudly.

But most of the time it’s in these whispers. Not winds, earthquakes, fires, the still small voice. Do you get still long enough? Do you lie down in the green pasture long enough to meditate and soak in the things that the Lord shows you in the scriptures that He’s speaking to your hearts?

Or do you let the noise of this world and it’s plenty loud. And the noises of our heart, I had a very noisy heart yesterday, really struggled. I don’t mind sharing that with you. I woke up though and did my time with the Lord and I tell you, He just has a way of helping us breathe.

He is our whispering conversation. Don’t you just love this?

So in our soul care, He’s our constant conversation. He our eternal conversation internal conversation whispering conversation But check this out He also our tested conversation Let me take you over to 1 John chapter 4 verse 1 It says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. You see, when we’re trying to commune with God, experience God, hear the whispers of God, there are other voices trying to talk to us as well. The enemy is not an idiot.

There’s an enemy’s voice out there. There’s a voice of this world. There’s a voice of this flesh. There’s a voice of our wounds and all of these things and narratives that have got spun around in our minds.

The enemy plants those throughout our lives when we misunderstand or misread the things that are going on.

And so we get these negative, false narratives spinning around. Scripture talks about how he implants these thoughts and we’re to take every thought captive in obedience to Christ.

But if we don’t, they can turn into lofty things raised against the knowledge of God and then strongholds or fortresses. And that’s a way of thinking that you’re so locked in that you just habitually and reflexively think that way, respond that way, and do these things that aren’t of God because we did not test the voice originally. We’re not testing the voices that come back up again. That’s the voice of our wounded hearts, our hurt hearts, our betrayed hearts, our disoriented hearts, our depressed heart, all these things. we need to test the spirits.

It’s like having a butterfly net. These thoughts are floating around your brain, your head, and you just want to, let me get this thought. Oh boy, is that of God? And how do you test it?

You test it by the scripture.

But let me give you a couple more passages because I want to make sure and ground this one because it’s so important to test that internal voice that you’re hearing to see if it’s of God or not. Scripture says to test the spirits. The scripture also says over in John 4.24 that God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.

Now it’s both and. We tend to focus on one or the other. If it’s just the spirit and we have some kind of emotionally based thing and what we feel like we just go with but we don’t test it, that’s wrong.

But if we’re very didactic and intellectual and academic and we go to the scripture and teach it like the tax code, you know, or an encyclopedia and just full of, you know, facts and information and data and we plug it in, plug it in. and all that stuff, well then you’re missing out on the spirit side of it. It’s a both and, not an either or. Scripture does tell us that all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching. By the way, some translations put the word doctrine in.

But doctrine is being kind of redefined into a system of theological truths.

But this is just teaching here. It can turn into a system of doctrinal truths in that sense.

But here it’s just teaching for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. All right.

So here’s the point. Are you ready? When we test the thoughts that we’re getting, the interpretations that we’re drawing from the scripture, this is what we call hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the art of interpreting God’s word.

Actually, it’s interpreting anything. Life is lived at the interpretive level, my friends. It’s inescapable. We interpret everything.

The question is, are we doing it well, or are we doing it poorly? And hermeneutics is to be done in spirit by the Holy Spirit opening our eyes to receive eternal and transcendent truths the whispers of God through the pages of Scripture through the words of Scripture and truth Of course, Jesus, you know, in John chapter 14, Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. All right. What is he saying?

It’s a both and, not an either or. We want the mystical side of Christianity, spirit to spirit, heart to heart, but it’s got to be tested and grounded on the biblical side, the written side of truth. It’s a both and, not an either or. An imbalance in either direction is an imbalance.

So when you’re talking about applications and doctrinal statements and all these things, let’s just get it straight. we start with the infallible word of God. I believe that the infallible and errant word of God. It is reliable.

Now, from there, we have to interpret it. All interpretations are not the same.

Some are more accurate than others. We get that. Then you have another step. Groups get together and they decide on codification This is the interpretation of this passage or this topic that we going with and we going to codify it We going to make a catechism or we going to make a statement of faith or whatever, a creed and all that stuff.

And I’m not saying they’re bad, but I’m saying they are different. And then you can even have codified agreement on your interpretation of scripture, that then you have the application, how are we going to apply this in real life? And that’s where all of the variety takes place. Don’t be threatened by it.

Let’s be humble enough to admit that the hermeneutical process, the interpretive process of trying to worship the Lord and follow him in spirit and in truth, we’re going to have different conclusions. It’s okay.

Now, some of it’s way out there and not okay, but that’s a whole other series. Let’s just be humble enough to know that we need to test the impressions that we have, seek counsel, do the reading, but understand that the Lord is also wanting us to hear what He wants us to hear. Which brings me to the final one, our focused conversation. Oh, my friend, are you getting the big picture here?

The Lord who is our soul care provider is our constant conversation Eternal conversation internal conversation a whispering conversation a tested conversation but a focused conversation as well John 5, 39 and 40 puts it this way. You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is those very scriptures that testify about me. Yet you’re unwilling to come to me so that you may have life.

This is a call to salvation. This is a call to a daily conversation and focus on the Lord. Don’t let the scriptures be the end. They don’t have life.

The scriptures are a means to the truth. The means of the end whose name is Jesus. Focus on him as you go to the scriptures, not the scriptures themselves. Oh, thank you, Lord.

What a journey you’ve been taking us on. We receive this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Well, I’m Mark Gonzales, and I hope you’ll check out my website at markpg.org for more.

Until next time, fall in love with Jesus, our constant conversation.