What’s Flowing From Your Life?

Worship Director Jared Cooper preaches from Proverbs 4:20-27. Discussion points: Sometimes God needs to work on you before he can work through you, what lives in your heart flows out into your life, praising God through struggles can reset our hearts.

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  Scripture reader: [Proverbs 4:20-27] 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.

  This is the word of the Lord.

  Preacher: Thanks. Amen, amen. Good morning, City on the Hill Church. I'm back. I'm so excited about this opportunity, to just come and share with you all. if you don't know me by now, my name is Jared. I have the privilege and honor of serving here as the Director of Worship and Spiritual Formation here at City on the Hill Somerville. And I moved here with my family about 4 months ago. I know it seems a little longer, but it's only been 4 months, and it's been a transition. I'll be honest. but God has provided every step of the way. He's literally ordered our steps. We've been so amazed, just kinda like watching how doors open and, you know, even tight timelines, how God just fit it all in.

  And again if I'm, I'm being honest. With you this morning selling our home in Baltimore and moving my family to Balti to Boston. It wasn't on my 2025 bingo card. But I kept praying just kinda as the opportunity was presenting itself and I just couldn't seem to shake it and I kept praying, Father, not my will but your will be done. And as the process got a little further and went a little further, my prayers got a little more urgent, and I said, Lord, how about you just show me what your will is and I'll obey. How about that? Has anybody ever prayed a prayer like that? Just show of hands. OK, what did he say? That's all right. That's all right. It sounds like a simple prayer, right? God, what is your will for my life?

  And what surprised me is that God did answer, but he answered with a few questions of his own. And again, while I'm not preaching from Hebrews today, I'll be preaching from the passage where God began to ask me some really deep and personal things during this process. And I remember just kind of seeking God during this transition and it was one of those days that you know I opened my Bible, I set aside some time, but you know other things jumped in. I think maybe the kids didn't have school like we're used to that, right? In Boston and so I said OK God, I only got about 15 minutes so I opened up the Bible and I said, speak to me. Anybody do that? OK, I'm the only one. And it opened up to Proverbs 4, and I said, oh, awesome, it's titled A Father's Instruction. Here we go.

  And I was reading through, and when I reached verse 23 it said, guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it flows the springs of life. And I sensed the Lord asking me, Jared. What is flowing from your life right now? And I said, oh If I'm being honest. The opportunity came at maybe one of the worst times of my life. I don't think at the time I was actually even leading worship, at least not at the church that I was attending. And thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of workers in the DC area. That were going through job loss, including me. And I was really just kinda like. God, not I mean, what do you mean? What is flowing through my life? You know, I don't know, Burger King. What it's, I really didn't know how to answer the question.

  And his questions didn't stop there. He said, what if there's more that I wanna pour out of your life? What if there's more matter of fact, Jared, if I tipped your life over right now, what would spill out? When people experience the joy of the Lord that's in you or the bitterness and disappointment. From this job loss that you haven't talked to anybody about, you haven't even talked to me about it. Say, good point, good point, God. Would they be filled with faith or would they get some of your quiet frustration with me? I said, well God, a little bit of both. Probably a little bit of both.

  If, if right, right now, you know, if you, now last year, last year I was doing pretty good. If you decided to call me in the ministry last year, last year would have been a great time. So, God, why now? I'll kind of come back to some of the things that the Lord shared to me, but church, I wanna ask you the same question this morning. What is flowing from your life? When I think of this passage and I think of this question. It reminds me of those old Gatorade commercials. Where you see athletes preparing and everyone, everyone looks strong, everyone looks ready, but by the 4th quarter when exhaustion sets in and the pressure rises, you can tell who is just drinking regular water and who has that, you know, Super Saiyan blue Gatorade running through their veins, right? It's pretty clear who's, OK, this, this person's gonna come out on tight top.

  And much like an athletic game, life has a way of squeezing out whatever is on the inside of us and the same goes for ministry so this is precisely why God I was wondering why would you choose one of the most stressful and broken seasons of my life to call me in a full time ministry. And I just sensed the Lord whisper. Son, it was in the breaking of my own body. That blood and water flowed from my side. Without that breaking, there would be no flow for you. And that's the moment that I realized that sometimes the breaking that we experience it's not the interruption, it's for preparation.

  Church, before God does a new thing through you, he often must first do a new work in you, and to do that, he needs access to your heart. So, we're gonna do a little heart therapy this morning. Amen. Amen and before we get going, I just wanna you know again my name is Jared. I'm your friend. It might get a little tense in here but I'm your friend, all right? let me ask you something. When was the last time you truly examined the condition of your heart? I know I'm asking a lot of questions. OK. You can pay my fee later Every day we check things like our email, our calendars, our tires, our blood pressures, maybe the weather, weather, our bank accounts. Why? Because we want to avoid issues work issues, health issues, financial issues but how often do we evaluate the very place where life itself flows from. As the ancient Bostonians say, the heart. Did I pronounce that correctly? It's coming along, it's coming along, Mark. Mark's been teaching me the ways. Of the Bostonian accent. What is the heart? Yeah, I think it's coming. All right.

  When I look at the Hebrew definition, it actually says that the heart is the seat of our emotions, of our intellect of our very will, the inner control center of your life. So whether you're deeply emotional, maybe like me, some of the worship leaders, you know, it's a little. We go a little long on our last songs, right? Maybe you're highly analytical. Or maybe you're fiercely disciplined and you have a strong will. No matter where you fall on that spectrum, your decisions, your reactions, your words, your behaviors all originate from this place called the heart. So sometimes if life is leaking something you don't like. This you might not be your circumstances. As I thought but maybe it's coming out of your heart. No wonder why scripture tells us to guard it, to watch it, to protect it carefully, because it's both critical to us and vulnerable.

  So I'm just gonna take us through a couple of self-reflection questions. Is that OK? I'm not gonna, you know, hand the mic to anyone. We're gonna go through this together. These are actually some of the questions that I, I just kinda asked myself. You know, before coming into this role, I was, director of operation. I oversaw, multiple campuses across the DC, Maryland, Virginia, area, and, I remember the last couple months of that job, I was just super stressed out, just maybe a little short. I know you guys know I'm a nice guy now, but maybe some of those folks maybe saw a different side of me and I was sitting reflecting. Jared, were you always this cynical and distrusting of people? Why am I so easily irritated right now? Why am I so angry lately? When was the last time I had a good day? It's getting quiet up in this Baptist church. That's OK. Let me talk about myself for a second.

  Jared, when was the last time you felt truly productive? A day where you didn't feel ashamed of what you didn't get done. Oh, there it is. Ashamed. Shame, there's there, that's what I'm feeling, that's what I've been feeling. Jared, how long has that shame been there? And this is kind of how this process goes for me. Because sometimes the reason we resist what God is doing externally is because something internally needs our attention. And so I know if I was home right now, in one of the churches I grew up in, someone would probably interrupt me at this point and say, Well, Jared, I've been guarding my heart. That's why I don't go to all these community groups and I just watch church online. I can't stand people. I'm just, they're just messy, just I'm done.

  No sis. That's not guarding. That's building walls. And walls are great for keeping things out. But they also trap things in. So if bitterness gets on the inside of your heart in a season, and you build a wall around it, well now bitterness is locked up inside of you. But guarding, guarding is active. When you look at the actual Hebrew meaning behind this word. It means to actively be watchful, actively intentional about what's going in and coming out of your heart, not set it and forget it like a wall, but close observation.

  Let me give you a little illustration of this, no matter how you feel about this movie, this, you know, just kinda go with me. one of my favorite movies in the Marvel universe is Ant-Man Quantumania, mainly because it was supposed to set up one of my favorite villains from the comics. I'm still hoping they, they come through with it, but in this film, Janet Pym, Hank Pym's wife, the original Ant-Man, she escapes the quantum realm. And the way she eventually escapes before that, she actually locks a character named Kang the Conqueror in this cave. OK? And when she finally gets back to her own time, her own world, she refuses to talk about whatever happened there, you know, she's surrounded by a family of scientists who are all are trying to study this place where she's been for God knows how long and she won't give them any details and she's not even if you watch the movie, she's not even rude about it she's just kinda like, oh I just choose to be in the present. Oh, I just choose to to look forward. I don't wanna talk about the past. There's so much life to she's so sweet about it but so defensive at the same time. Sounds like some no, I won't go there.

  Meanwhile, Kang isn't just exiled in that little cave she left him in. No, he's taking over the entire realm building an empire, and that's what unresolved issues actually do and now some of us are walking around with little Kangs of rejection in our heart and little Kangs of fear, little Kangs of bitterness ruling our hearts and narrating every single relationship and conversation that we have. If there's one thing that I've learned. Whether it's being a child, one of 11. Or being a father or being a husband. Or even being a director, is that the heart always leaks. Because it was meant to flow. God designed it to flow.

  And a matter of fact, Matthew 12:34 tells us that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And you may be saying, Jared, I don't, I'm not really like that. I'm not like you, man. I, I don't wear my emotions on, on your sleeve. I see your sweater. It says worship literally on the front. That's such a worship leader thing to do. I don't, I don't wear my emotions out on my sleeve like that, no, but you wear it on your face sometimes. Maybe you wear it in your tone. Maybe you wear it in your silence. In the spaces that you know you were called to speak into in this season. Your absence to the spaces that God has called you to. Your silence toward that that coworker who you know needs the gospel, desperately needs the gospel, but you're silent because in your heart. You're not really sure if God's going to come through for you.

  So now these walls aren't just keeping bitterness and rejection in, but now it's keeping your testimony from flowing out. Walls don't just keep pain in they keep healing out. They keep your praise and your worship. From flowing out. Maybe that's why worship is felt. So distant lately. Maybe that's why your prayer time is felt so disconnected, not because God is distant, but because we've closed off the very place that he wants access to. He's not rejecting your worship, he's inviting your honesty. He's not just after sound. He wants your truth. Those that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

  And so maybe you're hearing this and you're saying, you know what Jared, maybe you're right. Maybe I'm like you, maybe I'm, I'm where you were right before this transition, and maybe my heart needs a little reset. Well, the Bible actually gives us some great examples, and it gives us some great tools even in today's passage. But first I actually wanna look at, David. David would actually, he was actually called a man after God's own heart, right? So, let, let's just, let's just pretend for a second that David is the expert. Maybe he has an entire book where he's writing and lamenting and praising God.

  So David prays, Father, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. There's one thing that David knew, and that he kept going back to time and time again, and it was that praise is a tool to reset our hearts. Praise is more than just the first fast song that we hear on a Sunday and we're really not awake and I'm spilling my coffee on myself because Jared wants me to clap, but I'm trying to get my caffeine in. No, one thing I've learned is I've, as I read how David applied praise in his life, praise is a disruptor of your internal narrative. Praise wrestles your mind, your will and your emotions into alignment with God. God's word praise shifts your heart from magnifying yourself and the things that you're worried about and magnifying God and what his truth declares praise is not convenience.

  Praise is a sacrifice. Sometimes it takes a real shift. Sometimes you wake up on a Monday morning and the first thing on your mind is not. God, I want to praise you. Sometimes we have to choose to praise when God didn't come through for you the way that you thought. Sometimes you're gonna have to choose to praise when your heart is broken, and you're heavy. When life feels overwhelming, that is the perfect time to praise. We see David do it over and over again. Why so downcast, O my soul, put your trust in God bless the Lord, oh my soul and all that is within me. I don't think he felt like doing that at the time when he was in a cave running from running for his life. I don't think he meant to do that at the time when God had promised that he would be a king. And here he is running in the wilderness, living amongst the Philistines. But David chooses to praise because that's what it means to be a man after God's own heart even when I'm feeling disconnected.

  I understand that what I need to do is lift up the name of the Lord. To speak God's word over my situation, to speak God's word over my own heart. I don't know about you, but there's times where I come in on a Sunday morning and I'm the praise and worship leader. Not only is it my job, but I'm supposed to embody this thing, right? And I'm just not feeling it. Maybe, maybe I forgot to do something and, and, and I, and I know my, I know my wife is, is beefing with we're gonna have to talk about it after, after service or maybe I said something wrong to my kids or maybe, I think it was like my second week here where I lost two MacBooks in the span of a couple of days. And I was like, God, I just got fired from the last job and I'm about to get fired from this one. We praise God.

  But you know what, I, I learned to make a choice. I've built a muscle over the years to not base my my praise based on how I feel. But to base my praise and what I offer to God based on the truth of what God's word declares about him. And I've learned that there's often a transaction that happens that as I, as I sing to him that God, he takes and he trades my ashes for beauty. He gives me, it says he gives me a garment of praise for my heaviness. That's what his word declares. So after our hearts have been reset. How do we then guard our hearts? How do we keep it pure and open before God? Well, that's where the passage really kind of breaks it down for us. First it tells us to watch our words, watch what your mouth speaks. That's the tie in right there to praise. The word says that there's life and death in the power of the tongue. Life and death in the power of the tongue. And that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

  Someone said to me one day, you'll look back on your life and it will look like what you've declared. You'll look back on your life. And it will look like what's in your heart. It's a, it's a principle that's in here. So we have to watch our words and sometimes we have to. Sometimes our emotions and we allow the situations of of life and the pressure of life to determine the flow of what comes out of our mouth, what we're declaring over our marriage, what we're declaring over our single season of singleness, what we're declaring over our career, what we're declaring over our family or our family members that we're praying will come to Christ. But no matter how hard you pray for them, it seems like they get further and further away.

  But I, I know there's testimonies in this room if we had time to stand up. And to share of the goodness of God and His faithfulness. I know there's been some in my own life, family relationships that began to be restored and where God began to work, a family members starting to come to church and starting to pursue God. And I can usually tie it back to a decision that I make where I say God I'm not I'm gonna put it in your hands and I'm gonna thank you in advance. I know that this is not just my brother or my sister or my coworker but that this is your child and I'm gonna speak your truth over them. Watch your focus.

  Matthew 6:22-23. Says that we often gaze at the world and we only glance at Christ. And that is so true. If I think about some of the things that I go to when life gets hard. In one season it might be sports, or it might be my career. Or it might be whatever's going on in the world or politics. And we spend so much time looking at it and often talking to God about those things. Maybe, maybe it's more so distractions. Whether it's gaming or whether it's just different hobbies and hobbies are great and, and, and they're good for recreation, but sometimes these things become idols and altars for us that we worship at. And we're gazing at the world, but we're only glancing at Christ and we wonder why what flows out of our life looks at looks like our focus. Tells us to ponder the path of our feet.

  Are you walking in purpose? I think that's what really God was. Talking to me about when he was asking me those questions. Jared, what's flowing out of your life right now? Yeah, I know why you took that job and I, I know why you're doing this right now, why you took that contract. But is that the purpose? That I spoke to your heart about. No, it may not make sense to go into full-time ministry right now. It may not make logical sense to sell the house. You, you got it in at a, at a lower interest rate, and now the interest rates are doubled. You may not know when the next time you'll, you'll get a house. At least at that interest rate. But what's important Is are you walking in purpose. I believe that when we begin to align our feet.

  And I don't have time this morning to, to tell you about all the miracles that God began to pour out in our lives as I remember sitting in the parking lot with my wife and we were just doing a, a, a quick financial spreadsheet like, hey, let's, let's just kind of talk about this. What would it cost? What would it look like? What would we have to give up? And I remember coming to the conclusion, I'm like, well, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. And even in that same sentence. I just felt the Lord saying it didn't make sense for Paul to go when the prophet said, as you go, you're gonna be imprisoned. And he went anyway. Because he knew the call of God on his life was to proclaim the gospel to that region. Our examples are Christ who sat in the garden. Knowing the cost of what the cross would bring. But he went anyway.

  Sometimes the greatest blessings in your life will come and only come when you make the hard decision to align your feet with purpose. Watch your direction And turn from evil. Sometimes it's really easy to kinda sit back, even as Christians. And Even as we're just kind of looking at the evil in the world. We may not be partaking in it, but we're just. Maybe gazing at it. And we're not even realizing that as we're watching we're positioned towards it. That's why the Bible tells us to turn from evil because even a slight pivot. Can completely alter your destination. If you're realizing that you're in relationships or in places or things that bring you close to evil that even you're being tempted, it doesn't tell us to just stay there, it tells us to turn. So Jesus is calling us to a deeper place.

  Maybe after what I shared this morning you're realizing. Maybe God does wanna pour something. Knew not only in my life but through my life. Maybe there's things blocking me. From hearing his voice, maybe there's things blocking me from his presence, from receiving what he has. And let me tell you guys, therapy helps. Therapy helps. That's coming from someone who grew up in a church that really didn't, and even in a cultural community that doesn't push therapy. They, everything has to be dealt with at the altar. But no, therapy helps. If that's what you need and what it can do is it can help you identify some of the walls. But listen, only Jesus can make you whole. Only worshiping at his feet and sitting in his presence and letting him wash over you.

  There's been more things that God has broken off my life in the secret place. The church that I was at in New York, we used to have an open altar during worship, and I would find myself there constantly just in the season of weeping. And I remember a specific Sunday where I had just been so angry. Things in my upbringing, things about my life. And I remember the presence of God just washing over me and when I got up, I just felt so free. I felt lighter. People would even come up to me and say, they, they would look at my, my school ID from my freshman year and say, that doesn't even look like you anymore. There's things that God broke off of my life while sitting in his presence, so are you making space to sit with him in your prayer time? Are you prioritizing the worship nights? Are you making space for community in your life for other believers to pour into you? Are you sitting with him in his word? His word is alive.

  And listen, if Jesus is going to flow from your life, you must drink from him. Because wrong wells only deepen our thirst. As I end with this last passage, I just wanna invite the worship team up to play softly. When I think about this invite and what God has been just trying to do in my life. It reminds me of the passage in John 4 where he meets the woman at the well. And the passage goes on to say that he intentionally. Almost goes out of his way to go to this place and he meets this woman here and he asks the first thing he asks her is, will you give me a drink? Will you give me a drink? And I believe that this well in this place that he met her, if you'll give me a little bit of theological freedom here. I believe it represents her heart. He's asking for a drink from this well.

  And I even think that Jesus meeting her here in this place is significant. This well, this place that she kept returning to for refreshment. Listen, church, Jesus isn't afraid of your mess, of your past, of your wounds. In fact, that is the very place where he wants to meet you this morning. I believe he's knocking on the door of some of our hearts. Asking for a for a drink of the well. Son, daughter, what's been going on in your heart? Just like he came to Adam. After they had sinned in the garden, he said, Adam, where are you? Not because he didn't know. But he wanted to give him a chance to acknowledge, because God can't heal what we won't acknowledge. He's asking for a drink this morning.

  If you open your hearts today. If you consider the purpose that God has for you, the plan, the new thing that he wants to pour out of your life. And that these other wells, they're just gonna leave you thirsty. That you must drink from him. The goodness of who he is. The goodness of Jesus. Drink from him this morning. And let his life flow through you. City on a Hill I'm so excited to see what God does in each and every one of your lives. So as we get ready to prepare for our communion, I'm just gonna invite you all to stand as Calvin comes up. Thank you.

  I just appreciate Jared sharing us the, the word this morning, and I love that there's all this reflection questions that were there because every single week we have an opportunity to be reflecting and asking ourselves, where do we stand before God? And that happens at the table. And so, each week we get a chance to, to be part of, communion, take part of communion together. And so if you are a believer, please, some of those questions that resounded in your mind and in your heart, ask yourself those questions. You really wonder, am I right with God and what is pouring out of my life?

  If you are not a believer in you yet, then this is a great opportunity to ask those same exact questions. What is the central part of your life. And if you're feeling the spirit moving and nudging you to come to know him and to receive Him, then I'll be in the back as a, as one of the prayer counselors in the back and come, come speak to, to me or come speak to, to Jared or any of us.

  So, on the night that Jesus was betrayed, He took the bread and broke it off and said, this is my body given for you. And then, in the same way, he took the cup. And as he poured it out, he said, this is the blood of my new covenant from my bloodshed for you. And every time you take of the bread and drink of the cup, know that this is the new covenant for you. And so, as we prepare to do that, let that be the reminder for us this week. So let us, let, let me pray, and then I'll, I'll invite the communion servers to, to come up, and prepare to, to take, serve communion while I'm praying. Let's pray.

  Father God, I just thank you that this is a part of our life and that God being a believer, following Jesus, maybe praying a prayer one time does not mean that we do not have to reflect the fact that part of our life of following Jesus is constantly seeing where you are leading us and knowing that we are prone to wander, that we can move away, we can step away from the path that you've set before us. We can swerve to the left and the right, that we have this institution built into the life of followers of Jesus. To say, where am I today? And so God, I pray for all of us that we would be asking that as we take of this communion meal together. And we thank you and pray all this in Jesus' name, Amen.