For my brothers whom I love and
long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.
I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntica to agree in the Lord.
Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have labored
side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the
rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.
Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let
your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything. But in everything, by prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally,
brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever
is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything
worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned
and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things
and the God of peace will be with you. There's a lot there,
and I'm going to focus this morning on verse 8, specifically. Now I want you to think. I want
you to always be thinking. Don't come in here and just listen
to my voice and just take it. Just be discerning, discriminate. Consider what I'm saying and
consider the application. Ask yourself, is what he's saying
biblical? Is it right? Is it what I see
here? Is it from the context? Does
it agree with the rest of Scripture? These are the mindsets that we
should have when we listen to Scripture and someone teaching
and anything else, to be honest. If we're really honest, though,
sometimes we just go through life just absorbing whatever
sits before us. We take and take and take, and
we don't realize we're taking. We hear, we see, and we don't
realize we're listening. We don't realize we're observing.
And it transforms our mind from the inside out. And then that
transformation subconsciously, that means without our knowledge,
begins to inform our conscious mind. And then we think we are
coming to conclusions and we are acting instinctively, but
we're really acting out of what our subconscious mind has taught
us based on what we've observed without discrimination. Now when I say that to some people,
especially in the community, not necessarily in the church,
they come back to me sometimes and go, yeah, you're right, that's
why we stand over here against this. Or man, you better believe
it, that's why we gotta stop these people. And that's exactly
what I'm talking about. That's not what I'm trying to
get us to. Sometimes when we find ourselves
in those places, it's evidence that we have actually just absorbed. We become transformed by our
subconscious exposure to things, to culture, to ideas, to philosophies,
to religion, to theology, to everything, to actions, to beliefs. I was able to get on my tractor
yesterday and do some landscaping, if you can call it that, you
know. And it's been over a year since I've been able to ride
on that thing because the last time I was on it, I was in a very traumatic
place emotionally and physically, deeply infected and in great
pain. Didn't realize I'd get on there,
you know, move it right around for about five and get off. I
just felt anxious. I didn't think, oh, you know
what, I don't ever want to get on that tractor again, because
the last time I was on that tractor, I was really having a hard time, and there's something
related to that experience. Nobody thought that. Nobody told
me, you know, when you hurt yourself last year, and all that storm,
and you were moving that dirt, trying to keep it out of your
pool, and all this stuff, and you hurt yourself, and it subsequently
caused all these problems, you know, you should probably stay
off that tractor. No one told me that. It was my
experience, and I never understood it until yesterday. The same is true with smells,
with sounds, with people, with related experiences, with
stories, with certain music. I mean, let's be honest. When
you're at the beach and if someone played out of a loudspeaker,
I mean, you're getting out of the water. I don't care who you
are. I mean, it's going to give you at least chills. Or someone
screams shark. You're like, ah, I'm getting
out of the water. I mean, there's just certain, or somebody yells
fire in a hotel or a theater. This is what we do, we respond,
we react. So the way that we overcome these
things, according to the scripture, is the renewing of our mind.
We do this spiritually, we do it emotionally in the context
of spiritual things. And we're doing it right now.
We just don't know it. So to become consciously aware
of who we are and where we are and why we are, we need to always
be mindful of these truths. And so that every thought, the
scripture says to take every thought captive and filter it,
what? Through the personal love of
Christ? It doesn't mean that Jesus has
to be at the center of everything in some exposed way. We don't have to cut our grass
while singing hymns or always be mindful. It's okay to be mindful
of the Lord in all things, but it's not necessarily to manifestly
and express all of that all the time in all things. We don't
have to look to make something spiritual. When I was in my late
20s, I made the comment to a mentor one time that, actually I said
it from the pulpit and a few weeks later they called me on
it. I said, everything you do, you do for the glory of the Lord.
Is that true? Principle taught by Scripture,
yes. The Scripture says everything you do, whether you eat or you
drink, no matter what you do or what you say, do it under
the glory of Christ, do it under the glory of the Lord. That means
what? The glory to reveal who He is and that He's actively
a part of who you are. His work, His hands, His feet,
His word. And I said this excitedly, and
I used to walk when I preached because I, you know, I can't
get, I've never been able to get that thing to work with this
sound system, but, you know, it's probably good. Standing
still is better. But I was excited and I said,
you know, even when you put on your socks, you do it under the
glory of the Lord. And I still believe that. I started
writing an essay yesterday about socks and how people fold them
and how people unfold them and people that sling them out and
some people, especially some men that I know who have never
folded a pair of socks in their life. And I find that strange,
but they haven't. So, you know, and all sorts of
things, but that's beside the point. Socks, you've got socks. Do you know socks are important
in the world? A majority of the world don't
have socks. And if you can send them socks, I mean, you get socks
for Christmas, it's like, oh, you didn't know I was coming,
did you? You know, you forgot about me. You had this pair of
socks in the drawer. That's why they're orange. But you give socks to some people
in undeveloped countries, you might have saved their life. You give shoes to some people,
you've made their life. That's why I used to buy Tom's.
Remember those shoes? $3,000 for a pair of cardboard
with some vinyl on the side of it, some canvas. They're called
blisters. That's what they should have
named them, blisters. But you buy a pair and they give a pair
to someone in a third world country. They weren't really that expensive,
but they weren't worth $30. You were literally buying two
pairs of $15 shoes, but that's okay. Shoes are important. Do it under the glory of God.
If nothing else, be thankful you have socks. Be thankful you
have food. Be thankful you have a watch.
Be thankful you have eyeglasses. I went without eyeglasses for
about seven weeks last year. Remember that? These were scratched
up, couldn't see out of them. Then I stepped on the other ones
and CVS. It was terrible. It's not fun. All in the same week. And then
I scratched these because I was anxious and I was wiping them
with a paper towel, blotting. Don't do that anymore. And in
my anxiety, I just sanded them off. It was a cocktail of disaster.
Thankful. Most people would be thankful
to have scratched glasses that they could see through. But that's
not the point today. The point is that we are often
unaware of anything. except the thoughts in our heads
that are the result of our feelings, emotions, or our programming.
And this is completely biblical. Because the Bible tells us to
do it all for the glory of God. The scripture here in verse 4
says to rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I will say, rejoice. The scripture says to let us
be reasonable and let our reasonableness be our identity. Now think about
that for a second. If we were to walk up to people
who knew us and say, hey, first thing that pops into your mind,
adjective about me, what is it? Ugly. Oh man, second one, you
know. If they said reasonable, you'd
be like, I mean, we're not getting up every day on our dream boards
and our goals and our journals and writing, man, I just want
to be reasonable. If I could just die a reasonable man. No. We want to be powerful. We want
to be successful. We want to leave a legacy. I
was talking about that with someone this morning. I'm not trying
to stay above the dirt. I'm trying to die well. So that
the fruit of my life actually becomes fertilizer for the ground
around me that other people can grow from my experiences. Yes! But is that really what it's
all about? No. That's not what it's about. It's to be reasonable.
Reasonable people don't have statues. They don't have their
names in billboards. They're not known. They're not
influencers in large. But let our reasonableness be
known to everyone. Why? Because nothing that we're doing
and nothing that we care about is outside the providential power
of God. Nothing. Nothing that we think
about is causing God to wring his hands. Oh, James, you're
almost there. If you just see just a little
bit more. Yes, he got it. Hallelujah. I've been waiting
for a guy like this to get on board with my plans. Is that
God? The word God means highest of
all. Elohim. Highest of all things. So when the scripture says that
Jesus, who became the lowest of all things, out of heaven
and the highest of all places, died and then rose to life, that
God would exalt him to be above all things, he's literally saying
he is God. Back to the place where he came. And so here it is, the God of
all things, the highest of all things is God. Do not be anxious
about anything, Paul says. The Lord is at hand. So that's
a command, that's an instruction. Rejoice and do not be anxious. God, you don't know what's going
on. He does know what's going on in your head. He knows what's
going on in your heart. He knows what's going on in your
emotions. He knows what's going on in your body. He knows what's
going on in your marriage. He knows what's going on at work. He knows
what's going on with your kids. He knows what's going on and
he's known what's going on. He's always known. God doesn't learn. God
doesn't look into the future. God doesn't try to find out.
God isn't a psychic. He's omniscient. All things are
known to him at all times in all of eternity at the same time,
all the time, always. Time is a part of His created
tool for us to feel guilty because
we're not there on time, or we didn't give enough time, or that we're resentful because
we wish we had more time. And that can be a rebuke or it
can be a comedy stand-up routine, whichever one you choose. I'd
choose the latter, honestly, because I think the very fact
that we worry about time so much shows that we aren't really understanding
the essence of God in time, because He is above it. Do not be anxious. And I'm not telling you anything,
I'm just sharing everything that I've learned. Not just this week,
but not just this year, but this life. And it's always going to
be like that. I'm no expert, I'm just a couple
of hours ahead of where you are. A couple of days ahead. Talking to a long-time friend
who's in the faith, in the ministry, and in these next few weeks he's
actually going to step out. He's going to step out. And Lord
blessing, because for the first time in a long, long time he's
going to feel free to do that which he knows is best for him
and his family and not what the culture would say is wrong because
of what they think. And so we are able to talk about
these things. And something that they said
to me was, you know, I can tell you this because just last year
you were there. I've always heard you say, you
know, you're just a little bit ahead of everybody else, but I didn't
realize how close that was. So, like, first, second, third
in a horse race, you know, it's by a nose or a tooth or an ear. I mean, the guy that breaks the
ribbon, the ribbon's also on the chest of the guy in second
and third. They're running together at the finish line. That's where
we are. I, as your pastor, as one of
your pastors, am not this lofty, spiritually mature person. I'm
just maturing a couple of hours or days or weeks ahead of you
in certain circumstances. Now, there may be some things
that I'm way years down the road because of just time. Isn't that
funny? But beloved, we carry one another, we lead by showing
the way. We lead, and we have that very
example in the lives of the apostles, the foundation of which the New
Jerusalem is built upon, isn't it? I remember being told in
my mid-30s or early 30s by a mentor, pastor, that if I wasn't happy
or having fun in ministry, that I probably wasn't called of God.
And I went back and thought to myself. Oh, then I guess I never
was. Because in that same season of
life, I had another mentor who was teaching me to be personally
developed a little bit and to not take everything so personal.
And he would say to me, the good news is, James, we get to work
with people, but the bad news is we get to work with people. We can say that. We get to worship
with people and the bad news is we get to worship with the
people. The good news is we get to marry people, but the bad news is we
get to marry people. The good news is we have children
who are people and the bad news is that we find out they're not
people. And then, you know, so on and so forth. Now the kids
are listening. They're like, hey, what? No,
you're people. You're people. But we grow, we learn. And we
also digress. I love Paul's writing to the
Romans because in that, here's the apostle Paul, the PhD of
PhDs of PhDs, the Jew of Jews, the tribe of Benjamin. Not just
was he a Pharisee, but also part of the Sanhedrin, the ruling
70. And you got Nicodemus, who was the primary teacher of the
nation of Israel. He was like the teacher of the
teachers of the teachers. And both of these men were dumbfounded. by the message of Christ. Messiah
is not the person that you're presenting. You are not Messiah.
That's what Christ means, Messiah. It's just different English translations
of different languages, words, the Greek and the Hebrew. Paul would say, you know, all
the stuff that I was, all the maturity that I had, all the
theological things that I knew, all of the stuff. He was right
about them, but he couldn't see them. You see, a lot of people
are right about their doctrine, but they can't see Christ. And
a lot of people can see Christ and never learn their doctrine
because they're not students of scripture or they're sitting
under some teaching that's insufficient. And so we see the apostle Paul
and he says, you know, what am I to do? How am I to escape this
body of death? Why do I do what I don't want
to do? And why do I love this stuff? And he says, but the one who's
led by the spirit, who's walking in the spirit, who's living by
the spirit is not worried about the things of the flesh. Do not
be anxious, he says to the Philippians, but rejoice. That's the prime. That's the foundation of not
not not living in anxiety is to just rejoice and to remember
that the Lord is at hand and that he's got it. Well, how am
I supposed to do that? As long as you're asking that
question, you're worried about the flesh. That's why sometimes we lay in
bed at night, unable to sleep because things are going into
our mind. And the worst thing that could ever pop into our
mind when we're trying to go to sleep is we can't go to sleep.
How can I go to sleep? I wish I could go to sleep. Then
you do this treatise on sleep and you pull out the phone and
you read other people who were up on social media thinking about
not sleeping. And by the morning, you have
everything in order. You know how much caffeine to
take. You know what kind of exercise plan to start. You know what
kind of meditation to do. You know what your prayer life needs to
be and your Bible study time and how to have some Marge and
all this kind of stuff. And that's Monday morning, Wednesday morning,
you're frazzled because you're living in the flesh instead of
just going to sleep. Now see, that's
a platitude, right? You can't really do that. It
doesn't work that way. But the spiritual side of the
teaching of scripture and doing what we're gonna talk about today
is to make sure that in all things, whether we're struggling with
sleep or we're really just bent in all sorts of emotional problems, there's one solution when it
comes to spiritual things. And let me give a caveat here.
Let me give something very clearly, pastorally and biblically. There's
many times where we need therapy. We need to talk to professionals
who understand how the body and the mind work together. And it is not a sin. And I'm
gonna say, I'm gonna be dogmatic right now, anyone who tells you
that it is a sin, I would flush them down the closest toilet
that wouldn't overflow in your house, because you don't want
that residue. So I can be ugly and funny at the same time. Do
not let a spiritual person tell you that it is sinful to get
emotional help from a doctor. It's nonsense. Nonsense. Most pastors, including
myself, are not therapists. Even though I have a degree in
counseling and a lot of applied education in counseling, I am
not a therapist. I am not a psychologist. And I probably read 20 or 30 articles a week on that
stuff. On top of everything else I read. Sometimes it's on physics,
sometimes it's on chess, sometimes it's on jazz, sometimes it's
on something really, really new. Like the origin of rice noodles.
I read that this week. Neat stuff. It's okay. Get the help you need. And also
learn what I'm gonna teach you today. Finally, brothers and sisters,
whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable,
if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise,
think on these things. See, the reason that we struggle
so much in the trying to renew our mind is because we focus
on the negatives that need renewal. So let's start there. We start
there, the power of thought. Thought influences our behavior. I don't know who said this, this
is basic psychology, that ideas and observations, they create
this subconscious awareness that we're not aware of, the scripts
and these stories that we're just trained to do certain things
because of the way life is, and then these images or these words
can create images in our mind which create feelings, and these
feelings create actions. Fifth grade explanation of how
we're influenced psychologically and mentally and emotionally.
It's true of the Bible, it's true of life, it's true of love,
it's true of everything that we are. And if we're not paying
attention, we just change. We frame things based on our
experiences and we don't even know, rather than listening and
reframing things based on truth. A power of thought. The Bible says in Romans 12,
do not be conformed to this world. And I preached on this, what,
six, eight weeks ago. But be transformed by the renewal
of your mind that by testing you may discriminate what is
the will of God. And the will of God, of course, is good and
perfect and acceptable. That's Paul's sentiment. He's
not saying there are three wills and these are the three types.
It's just generally speaking. Solomon, it might be Solomon,
but either way, Proverbs 23, for he is like one who is inwardly
calculating. Eat and drink, he says to you,
but his heart is not with you. Are you inwardly calculating?
Other people are. We need to recognize that thoughts
are important. So what are we thinking about?
Everything. And I know some of you, you see
in your mind images. You see like a movie going on
in your mind. It's a constant dialogue for me. It's audible
Tippin's voice. Or if you're in that conversation,
it's your voice. And if I don't know what your
voice sounds like, it's one of those caricatures that I often
say audibly. There's about a dozen of them.
And most of them come from probably movie characters from the 90s
or the 80s. I don't know. There's nothing
new under the sun. So we think. So whatever we think
on, that is going to be where we are. That is going to be what
we are, and that is going to be the emphasis of what controls
us. So if we're thinking about how
we're not in control, then our not being in control is what's
controlling us. If we're thinking about not sleeping, then the
ability not to sleep is going to be what controls us. If we're
thinking about our sin and how we're just not living right,
then us not living right is what's controlling us. The scripture
doesn't say to think on those things. The scripture doesn't
say that. Because if I have an anger problem, it's not honorable,
true, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, worthy of praise.
So why would I spend four hours a day focusing on my anger? Why
not get some tools and some training and some help or some therapy
or some accountability and some spiritual maturity to recognize
what causes my anger and change my attitude about it and focus
on the positive sides of what makes me happy rather than me
being angry, or I don't have peace, or I do have anxiety.
I'm constantly worried. I used to live, I lived my whole
life until this year worried and didn't even know it. Posturing,
yeah, it's all good. It wasn't all good. It's all
good, golly, is what it is. It wasn't all good, didn't know
it. Everything, even the pleasant
things of life, even the pleasurable things of life were always embroiled
with fear and frustration and anxiety about the outcome or
the inference or the implication. Everything was caused. This is
no, this is not living. It's not living. And people love
to say, you have to have faith. Okay. Well, tell me how that faith
is. Does it keep you out of stress, or does it take you through stress?
Does it keep you out of pain, or does it carry you through
pain? Because if you're trying to avoid it, if you're trying
to avoid life, you're not going to. You're not going to. We're
not going to do that. So we've got to evaluate our
thoughts. We've got to look at our thoughts, and we've got to
recognize the negative and the unhelpful thoughts, spiritually
speaking, emotionally speaking, relationally speaking. Because
the danger of dwelling on worldly and sinful things matter. And here's what it does. It puts
us in bondage. Paul says to the Galatians, he
talks about, you've been freed by grace. Why would then you
become a bondage to the law? I saw this extremely long, ridiculously
silly, infantile conversation and debate yesterday on social
media about Christians following the Sabbath laws. And I'm thinking to myself, let's
just take several New Testament letters out, the Gospel of John,
the letter to the Ephesians, the writing to the Colossians,
the book of Romans, and 1 John, and let's just cut those out
and bind them together and hand them to someone. And ask the
question, if they read these five letters and follow everything
in there, what about Sabbath are they going to learn? And
the answer to that is nothing. Nothing. And that's an extreme
situation, but do we not do the same thing? Are we not supposed
to watch TV? Are we not supposed to wear black
or white after Labor Day or whatever? Are we not supposed to do that?
How much makeup should a woman wear? I don't know. I don't care, and neither does
God. Don't wear any, it doesn't matter.
Some men, you could do with some. Can I listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd?
I don't know. Can you? Do your ears work? Should you? That depends on your conscience. When you hear those things and
excite yourself on that, does it cause you anxiety? Does it
cause you stress? Does it cause you these misfunctions? Does
it take you away from focusing on godly things and Christ things? And how do I know I'm really
focusing on Christ-filled things? We'll get to that. That's the
punchline of the whole sermon. We've got to evaluate these thought
patterns. And then we have to embrace the
virtuous and the praiseworthy. Let's look at those things. What
is it? One, two, three, four, five, six things. Let's look
at them very quickly. What is it? True. What does it mean? Truth. Look
at what is true. Focus on what is true. Well,
what is true? Very little. The script in our subconscious
isn't true. I mean, I learned something a couple of months
ago about imposter syndrome. And the question was posed to
me, what are you good at? And I'm going, nothing. I suck at everything. Can you
say that? I'm sorry if I could. I stink
at everything. You mean you have nothing that
you do well? No, I got a lot of stuff I do like crappy. And
that's a terrible place to live. And then when you discover you
do do something well, you really feel like a fake, because it's
so stinking easy. You ever done that? Oh, I know
some. I'm gonna hire you for this job.
I want you to do this wonderful, magical thing you do. And you're
like, man, I'm stealing this guy's money. I just wake up and
float into that spot and boop, it all comes to pass. But you're
the only one who can do it. You see, imposter syndrome. That's not the truth. It's not
the truth that God has given, that God has not given you gifts
and talents. God has given you gifts and talents. And if you're
measuring your gifts and talents against mine, go ahead and understand,
I think I stink at it anyway, so don't be like me, be better,
you know? And then that makes it go, oh
wow. So that deprecates myself and deprecates you and makes
you feel even worse because you also think you can't do anything
well. And the one thing runs to another and then we're just
a bunch of losers sitting together. And we're just a step away from
becoming Puritans once again. And God forbid we ever fall down
that road. that we have to sing a song that
says, step on me God and watch me squirm because I'm just a
worm. I mean, no. This is not the love of God for
His people. Recently I had a conversation
with one of my adult children and they asked the question that,
you know, where did I stand in the context? This is going to
shock some folks. Where did I stand in the context of what I used to say
when they were little? Like, what do we deserve? And
they would speak up, hell, the wrath of God, And it was the
cutest thing amongst the evangelical church, right? Look at that little
girl. Is it true that in God's righteousness
that we are guilty? Yes. And do the guilty deserve
justice? Absolutely. But is that really
what the Bible teaches us about who we are in Christ? No. The
Bible says we're more than conquerors. The Bible calls us beloved. The
Bible says that because of the love of God for us, Christ entered
into the world in a human body that created for himself that
he might die so that we would be free and be his righteousness. Change the way you see yourself,
beloved. That's true. And I regret so much having propagated
that crap. Ignorantly, you see subconscious
programming, it's just what we say, it's what we do, it's neat.
Oh, yeah, but we're saying we are. Don't tell yourself you're worthless.
Thank God you're not. What's honorable? And of course
we get into the truth of what is true. We know what fake news
is, and we know what fake theology is, and we know what burdens
and things. Somebody can take the truth and bind you to it.
That binding is a lie, you see. So, there's a lot to learn there,
but most importantly, learn whose you are. Honorable. What is honorable? Living with
integrity and respect. Being reasonable. That's honorable. But we don't like that. I had
a little video, maybe it was yesterday, the day before, I
put up on YouTube, you know, about how we focus on the negative
all the time. I mean, newspapers and news, I mean, even the weather.
I mean, it's like play-by-play of the wind speed. 12 days, well,
there's clouds in the Pacific. Could it be? Will it be terrible? Who knows? Stay tuned, 24-hour
coverage of the clouds in the Pacific. I don't know. I mean, that'd
be like live streaming an anthill. These ants are deadly. Look how
big the hill is. I bet there's 40 billion ants
in there covering miles underneath. Is your child safe? Let's watch
and see if a child falls into the anthill and dies. I mean,
you know, it would be the somebody's going to take that make millions
with it. I'm not going to make millions
with it. Just watching pure animals and grasshoppers float into the
anthill and getting consumed. It's just danger, danger, danger.
And we'd film that, but nobody would want to watch a live feed
of the asparagus that I've cut down 12 times in the last six
minutes. I don't want it anymore, and it just goes, phew. It didn't
grow for 10 years, and now it's this high after one night. I
don't know what's going on with it. But it's as big around as
a toothpick. You can't eat that. Live stream of the asparagus
growing. Wow, look, one viewer. But it's honorable. See, we're
not inclined to watch what is honorable, to read what is honorable.
We love true crime, myself included. I mean, Robin and I, we digest
a lot of old mysteries. I grew up reading Agatha Christie
because it was the only book on the shelf that wasn't silly. Alfred Hitchcock, loved it. Twilight
Zone, I've seen them all 10 times, every one of them. Don't argue
with me about them, because you'll never get away. Honorable. We have tabloid syndrome. We love to read the headline
that says, oh, new stinky, stinky stuff about somebody real famous. Or maybe just not so dishonorable,
but You know, what did Martha Stewart eat today? I don't care. I mean, what about just? Whatever is just? Advocating
for fairness and justice. We should focus on that which
is just. Is it just? How are people being treated?
What laws are in effect? So that's a touchy one, isn't
it? Because focusing on what is just can just as easily slide,
no pun intended, can just as easily slide into being really
focused on the negative side of that. So it's about the outcomes, about
what is good, not necessarily what is wrong. Do we turn a blind
eye to that? No, that would be silly. But do not be anxious. The Lord
is at hand. You see what I talked about the
very first few minutes about God sovereignly owning everything,
circumstances, all of it? He may cause us to be actively
involved in mitigating some things, speaking against some things,
but it's not our every breath. Just like it's not our every
breath to be evangelists. I'm sorry. God, there's nowhere
in the scripture that teaches us, I mean, that we're supposed
to be every second of the day concerned about continually preaching
Christ in action. Because if it is, then there's
never been a successful evangelist. Because we have other things
we have to do, right? Unto the glory of God. And when
He opens that door, like if you're getting paid by your employer,
they are not paying you to evangelize. But you can, within reason, when
you're not being paid to push the buttons. or to answer the
phone. Yeah, I'd like to call about
a car warranty. Well, I'm glad you called. Let me tell you about
Jesus. I mean, you could do that. I do that some. Click, they hang
up real quick. You better not talk about Jesus.
What are we focusing on? Are we looking and putting our
attention on what is just? How about pure? Moral uprightness
in thought and action. Now let me, oh don't even get
me started. I'm gonna say something here that's gonna wind some of
our thoughts into a place of uncertainty, but I am, I'm tired
of purity culture. You know what that means? For
us that sort of grew up in the 80s and the 90s. Purity culture. Not your eyes or your ears, you
know, the monkey. I don't put the finger up the nose, you can't
smell evil either. You just want to make sure that there's nothing
impure. Well, what is impure? I remember one of the mantras
that I lived by as a high school kid. Pure thoughts, pure words,
pure actions. But then defining what is pure,
defining what is impure, is very subjective. So we've got to go
back to truth. What is true? Because I'm telling
you right now, when it comes to Intimacy to sexuality to entertainment
to all sorts of things. Culturally, especially down here
in the southeast of the United States, we have really made things
impure that are actually pure. And we've taken things that are
impure and called them pure and things that are pure and called
them impure. And I think Paul had something to say to Peter
about that publicly. How about lovely? This is the way I look at lovely,
is to find the beauty of God in what I see. With my relationships and what
I see with my eyes. Focus on those things. That's
what I was saying, you know, you can look in the world and
find some beautiful things. Celebrate them. Celebrate. That's where
it came from. I'm not just making stuff up off the top of my head. This
is pondering this scripture for myself. How about commendable? Seeking out and celebrating the
good in others. Commendable. It's worthy of sharing. Not trash,
but treasure. It's worthy of sharing. Hey,
let me tell you something about Johnny. Hey, let me tell you
something about Susie. Let me tell you something about
Bobby. And then give something commendable.
Give something positive. Because, oh boy, you want to
say something negative, Just start talking. I mean, we've
got a list, right? If you need some negative things to say about
me, great. You don't have to look very far. But look through that and look
and peer into the world around us and find that which is something
worthy of celebrating. And sometimes when we see knuckleheads
getting justice, it's worthy of celebrating. Aha! You got it. But we don't do that
from a haughty position. We do that from a position of
truth and purity. I hate it that that man or that
woman did this. It's good that justice is served
and let it go. But see, we don't often do that
either. We want more. We want more. So what are some things that
we can do according to this text and according to the other texts
of scripture to redirect our thoughts? Let's listen to a couple
of passages of scripture. Psalm 119, 11. I have stored
up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. For those who grew up in the
Bible clubs or the elementary schools where you did the Christian
flag thing, or the pledge allegiance to the Bible, God's holy word,
I make it a light unto my path, a lamp unto my heart, something
like that, that I might not send against God. Y'all remember that one?
I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and to the nation for whose
kingdom it stand, and to the Savior for whose kingdom it stand,
all this kind of stuff. And then the American flag, and then all the other
things. Go mighty tigers. Whatever it is you can pledge
your allegiance to. But the Bible says, I've stored
your word in my heart that I might not get sent against you. Why? Because when we see the love
of God for us, and we know the love of God for us, and we understand
the promises of God for us, we are more inclined to walk in
a manner worthy of this love. But so easily we forget. Just
like in relationships, if we're not constantly pursuing intimacy
and reframing all of the things that take place in life, you
know, the abundance of knuckle-headedness and silliness and foolishness
and wrongness, then we'll never, we'll never find joy and peace
and reconciliation. We have to look. We have to seek
it out. And so we have to remember why
we love somebody. We have to remember why we ever
wanted to love somebody. And we have to remember, as we'll
see in just a minute, that love is what we do, not what we feel.
It's regardless. It's not in spite of others.
It's regardless. No matter who you are or what
you are, I'm going to love you in this way, A, B, C, D, E. I'm
going to do these things. I'm going to be committed to
these things. And if we're working together in that area, we will
not fail. I gave the punchline early. But meditating on scripture,
Joshua 1.8, the book of the law shall not depart from your mouth,
shall meditate on it night and day, 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 you'll have success. Now, we
understand the context of Joshua and what he was tasked with.
And the promises of God to Joshua were the promises of God to Moses. And the promises of God to Moses,
Moses wrote of them and he wrote of Christ. And so we're not seeking
some, you know, secondary thing. We're not seeking some spiritual
nation. We're not seeking some, you know,
experiential essence for us to be as a people. We're living
life in whatever culture we're living in and whatever day and
whatever technologies are in front of us. And we're living
it by the grace of God. And we're walking, meditating
on His promises to us that never change, no matter what changes.
I mean, I'm aging out of things. I'm hard pressed into this AI,
really hard pressed. I'm reading white papers and
I'm going, okay, what's the implication of this on the mind? And it freaks me out. Because
I remember when they came out with cordless phones and they
were always dead. I remember when they came out
with CDs. Digital radios. So it's an interesting time to
live for our generation. It's like, we've seen it all.
Because when we were young, our grandparents and great grandparents
had those old transistor radios that would kill you. Or those
tube TVs that got brighter after a minute. Tin foil. Rabbit ears, I remember
when those came out. Things change, but God's love
doesn't. And change is inevitable, and
change is fine. But in all of that change, we
have to stand on something that doesn't move. And the only thing
that doesn't move, according to the truth of what I believe,
is God's love and promises. So we meditate on scripture.
We pray as a means of refocusing. We meditate and we pray. In 1
Thessalonians 5, Paul says, I mean, do we do that? We don't do that.
But this is how we are going to make ourselves in a place
of peace. This is how we're going to surround
ourselves in a place of stability. This is how we're going to be
free of what the culture and this script that is continually
being written on the hard drive of our heads. And this is how
we're going to succeed. Two more things in practicality.
This is a tough one. Surround yourself with the right
people. Now you don't get to pick all the people. But if you
don't have positive influences in your life, if everybody that
you talk to and everything that you read and everybody that gets
around you, if they're always honing in, there's only two answers
to that. You either need to say, hey,
I need you to understand what your negativity is doing so that
we can change together, or you need to say, hey, I'm not hanging
out with you anymore because you stink. And it's okay. to seek out relationships. But
listen, there's nobody perfect, especially me and especially
you. Anybody else that may hear that
statement. So because I'm not perfect, I can't expect you to
be perfect. So in the best of circumstances, there's always
going to be a little sprinkling of negative. There's always going
to be, oops, I did it again. There's always going to be some
song lyric that you can throw in there that shows that you
aren't perfect. But finally, in all of that,
Proverbs 13, 20, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise. But
the companion of fools will suffer harm. We got to do more than
just hang out, meditate and pray. We got to put action to our understanding. And beloved, I will tell you
right now, the way that the Bible commands the church to function
is to do. Two things. One, gather together
all who claim Christ and continue to grow in the knowledge of grace.
And while we're together, regardless of anything that takes place,
until someone refuses to be corrected in a matter that causes division
in the interpersonal relationship of the church, we are to walk
together regardless. And when those people decide
to come back and say, hey, I'm sorry, let's walk together, we
walk together. and then we hold fast to loving
people. If there are people in the world
who have all knowledge of Scripture, all correct doctrines of grace
and its sovereign and free reality, but have not love and sacrificial
patience and endurance, regardless, they are not to be considered
in the faith. Let me put it simply. Anyone who is condemning, bossy,
nosy, aggressive, in the name of God, trying to put and parse
and disperse, I'm not considering them a brother. I don't care
what they say about the gospel. But I know many brothers who
know the true gospel and sisters who have gotten really ugly in
the church, and that doesn't make them unbelievers either,
does it? But when they aren't corrected
in their love, we're to keep them at a distance. If I have the faith to move mountains,
but I don't love, I have nothing. Where's that, 1 Corinthians 13? If I don't have love, I am nothing. Compassion, patience, kindness. You know, the gift of the Spirit. And all I can hear right now
is, yeah, but. And you know what that is to
me? A clanging cymbal. a gong being banged against my
face. There are no yeah buts in the
commandment to love our neighbors and our enemies. And love never
insists on its own way, even when it's about theology. What happens when we do these
things? We edify each other. There's a virtuous mindset, personal
peace and contentment. Philippians 4, where we are right
there, verse 7, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and will guard your minds in Christ Jesus.
Beloved, that's what I want. I want that rest every breath. I want that rest every breath.
And I have gained some tools in the last year that seems so
outside of the norm in the context of the Christian world. But all
I can do every time I empower myself and practice these tools
is to just go right back to Scripture and see that it's been there
the whole time, but I haven't been able to see it. Because I've been
running under a program that was not biblical. It was cultural. It was historical. It was imposed
upon me. And most congregations do, most
denominations do, it's just the way it is, the way we are as
a people. We want that law, we want that structure, we want
that box, we want to be put in it, we want to be carried along.
So when we hit the wall, oh, oh, this is not the way I need
to go, we don't want to think for ourselves. And then we're
taught to posture and pretend and then just in this preposterous
way of being a poser, there's four Ps for you, that we can
just, you know, we're just not our own person anymore. We give
up autonomy. We give up free thinking. And we never come to the knowledge
of the truth because we're always just following after the echoes
of other people who we think are right. It's okay to disagree. But it's not okay to destroy
each other. So we've got to challenge ourselves. When we have peace, we'll have
enhanced and intimate relationships with others, with all humility
and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.
That is not conditional. That is absolutely regardless.
That's Ephesians 4, by the way. And then in doing that, we will
draw near to God. You know, you can't draw near to God unless
you're drawing near to others. You can't love God unless you're
physically, actively loving others. So are we setting aside some
time of our day to evaluate and recalibrate our thoughts? Beloved,
you've got to schedule thinking. If you're like me, you write
down, you write stuff and at the end of the week you've got
so much stuff written on so many different things or recorded.
I've got, I looked yesterday, it's got over 300 audio messages
in here, averaging 15 to 20 minutes a piece. I don't know what I'm
gonna do with that. I just think I need to delete
it because if I listen to them all and I try to categorize them
over the last year or so, I'm just gonna end up with a whole
nother three months of just trying to discombobulate this gray matter. And I just don't want to do that.
I just want to be where I am, being present where I am. If
God wants me to focus on some of those things later, he'll
bring them up again in my brain. But it's okay to sit down and say,
okay, this afternoon when I get home, I'm going to drink a cup
of coffee, drink a glass of wine, drink Diet Coke, drink sweet
tea, drink water, whatever it is you drink, or whatever it
is you do, put my feet up. I'm not going to sit for a minute.
I'm going to think about the things that I've had on my mind today. I'm
going to write them down. I'm going to give 10 minutes to this, or
20 minutes, or 2 hours, whatever it is, but you schedule it and
you get up. And when you find these things
in your mind, you find these things that we're focused on,
you need help, you need guidance. Be very discriminatory with who
you talk to. Open mic night at the church
is not a healthy place. Anybody got something they want
to share about all their sins and problems? Yeah, I was just
letting y'all know, I just dreamt I was going to murder everybody
in my sleep last night, so y'all come to my house tomorrow for
some fellowship. No, thank you. You know, don't
tell everybody that. Don't tell everybody you got
mad at McDonald's and punched the window. Don't tell everybody
you cursed out the tax assessor, or the AT&T rep, or whoever it
is that you're cell phone services with. Don't tell it all. Tell somebody. Let somebody walk
with you in wisdom, and how will you know? You'll know them by
their fruit. You'll know them by their patience. You'll know
them by their gentleness. You'll know them by the fact
that we listen to you, and nobody else will hear it. And then take time to meditate
on scripture. Take a verse. I mean, I'll be
honest with you. I'm going to be on verse eight
for the next few weeks, personally. I'm going to be on this verse
about truth. I'm going to start filtering everything, and I have
started doing this. When I think about it, I'm going
to say, does it fall into one of these five or six? Nah. Okay. It's not that important.
Is it consuming me? Then I probably should do something
with it. You know, Duran Duran's new stuff. It doesn't fit in
there. It's just neat that it's old
folks who are actually singing new music. I don't care. The final thing is to seek intimacy
and meet needs through that intimacy. Meet needs. Beloved, not many
people can take listening to the burdens of others emotionally
and spiritually, psychologically. It takes a lot. And if you have empathy, you
want to. If you have hyper empathy, you are, you are arrested by
it. So there's sometimes you have
to have boundaries. And some of us, you're like, Oh my God,
there's no way I can help that person move. Just take my truck, but
I'm not coming. You know, not everybody can do
that. Just overwhelms you. It's okay. You do what you can
do. You do what's in your giftedness, but do something meet needs. Meet needs. And nobody can judge
you for the needs that you meet and the way that you do it. Because
God has gifted you to be who you are and He loves you without
measure because He gave His Son for you. And that's who we are. And that's
where we are. And if we practice these things,
you see that's how Paul, I just preach ahead of the text, you
know I do that all the time. Think about these things. And in verse
9, as we close, what you've learned There's some theology there.
There's some doctrinal teachings there. That's what doctrine,
I'm going to stop using that. There's some teachings there. There's some things about
Christ that are true. There's some things about Christ
that the world says that are lies. We've got to get the lies out.
We've got to teach the truth. No one comes to faith in lies. They come to faith in truth.
Okay? So what you've learned and what
you've received and what you've heard and what you've seen, what
you've watched me do, how you've seen me relate to people, Practice
these things, all of them, all of them, and the God of peace
will be with you. Now, that's not a condition for
God to walk with you. It just means you will be walking in
fellowship like 1 John. You'll be walking in fellowship
because your life will be so centered on rest and purpose. You won't have time for anxiety
and strife and despair. It will be delight. Quit trying
to escape life and experience it with enjoyment. Because there is a whole lot
of stuff flying in the air right now that will land right in the
middle of that enjoyment. It's going to disrupt it. Get through it
and keep enjoying. For the sake of Christ. who died
for us that we might live. Let's live. Let's pray. We thank
you, Father, for the glory that you've shown us. Father, for
the beauty of Christ. And Lord, for these simple things,
for these practical things that we can learn from the Bible that
we so often overlook in the name of deeper things. And Lord, we
get so much, we get so much pleasure out of some of the deeper things
that we forget that we're not actually enjoying it. Because
we're not doing anything. when your word has instructed
us to do, to know and to do. So let's not lose sight of that,
Father. Help us, please, to not lose
sight of that. And most of all, keep us from guilt and shame.
Keep us from being inundated by those who would seek to do
us harm, even ourselves and our own thoughts, Lord, that we might
be free. And Father, help us to love one
another in ways that we've never imagined, and to not be judgmental, but
to show compassion. Father, we pray for those among
us who are suffering, some who are even suffering, Lord, that
we don't even know about. We just don't know. Father, you
know, and you've always known, and you brought them to this
place. So, Father, we trust that you will do that, which you've
purposed through it. And at the end of it all, we
will be thankful, we will be grateful for the journey, this
day, part of this experience, as part of your gift of grace.
which is ours because of Christ. And we pray all these things
in His name. Amen.