Speaker 1: 0:00

Now, I don't know about you guys, but I've been making some dumb decisions recently.

Speaker 1: 0:06

I've been making some irrational choices. Here you go. Is it just me, or have you ever done something? And after you did it, you said to yourself why did I do that? Like what was I thinking there? I can't believe I did that. I've been doing those. Okay, can I be honest with you? Can I be transparent today? Can I share one of the stories of a bad decision I made recently? You're not going to judge me, though, right? Someone said yes, they will. They said I'm judging you right now. I was like, okay, all right, okay, here you go.

Speaker 1: 0:37

I had this big idea that I wanted to go camping in my backyard with my kids. Okay, I didn't want to go real camping because too many bucks, but I said how about we go camping in the backyard? We do what we call Family Fun Day once a week, and the theme was going to be a camp out in the backyard. We were going to roast marshmallows. I went on Amazon and I bought this nice big tent, this camping tent that we could use. It was really nice. It was pretty cheap too, but it was really nice, and so I'm excited for this. This is our theme. We go out in the backyard, we set up the tent. You know it's super easy. Well, by we set up the tent, I mean Aaron set up the tent and I just watched because it got a little too tricky for me. But we set it up and it's awesome. The kids are jumping in and out of it. We're having a fun time.

Speaker 1: 1:26

But then some yellow jackets start to kind of get around the tent. Right, they're kind of hanging low to the ground flying around it. Now, ever since I moved to Midlothian a few years ago, I've been stung by a yellow jacket every single year. Every time I cut the grass, the yellow jacket nests, like go into my yard, it's like a regular thing. And so I get me, and yellow jackets are not on speaking terms, all right. And so I'm like, okay, these yellow jackets are around and I know how bad it feels to get stung by them and I didn't want my kids to get stung by them. So I'm kind of being paranoid. I'm not really fully engaged in the playtime that we're doing, but I'm there, but I'm keeping an eye out, right, okay? So here you go.

Speaker 1: 2:12

This is when the stupidity comes in. All right. So I'm sitting at the entranceway of the tent with my daughter, kingsley, who's six, and I'm sitting there and a yellow jacket lands right in front of the tent, right in front of the doorway, and I say, hey, kingsley, check this out, check this out. And she's like, okay, I make a fist, I ball a man, make a fist. And I go wham, I punch that yellow jacket. Wham, I punch as hard as I can. And my wham instantly went to a ah, because that yellow jacket stung me right in my knuckles. And in that moment I said why did I do something so dumb? So this yellow jacket stinger is deep in my knuckles. I'm screaming, the kids are like what's wrong, what's wrong? And I hurry up, I run to the bathroom, I get some tweezers and I pull this thing out. Dude, it was like deep in there. I wish I took a picture of it, because my hand was triple the size afterwards. It hurt, it hurt. So, needless to say, don't punch yellow jackets.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Okay, I don't even know what I was thinking. Why was I doing that? But have you ever done something like that? Well, maybe not punch a yellow jacket, but have you ever done something that?

Speaker 1: 3:22

Instantly after you did it. You regret that you did it. You're like what the heck was I thinking about? Why was I doing that? Here you go.

Speaker 1: 3:28

In life we often make decisions that after the decision is made, it leaves us saying why did I do that? What was going on? I got some good news for you today. It's not just because you made a bad decision. It's not just because you know something is just wrong with you. It's actually sometimes the way our brains are worked, the way our mind is worked. Here you go. Here's something that you might relate to a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 3:54

Okay, maybe you wanted to be nice to your spouse. You knew you were mean to your spouse or whatever, and so you said you wanted to make it up. You went, you got flowers, you did the whole deal. You go home, you're going to give flowers, you're going to apologize. You have every intention to apologize. You give the flowers, but instead of making up what happens, you guys end up fighting some more. You're like why am I arguing even more?

Speaker 1: 4:17

Or maybe you want to save money. You're looking at your bank account, you're getting kind of stressed out and you say man, I want to save money, I'm going to do that, but the thought of saving money begins to stress you out. You begin to feel anxious about your paycheck. Then, instead of saving money, what do you do? You pull up the Target app and you buy something. You buy something to comfort yourself. Here you go, you want to trust God with something, but instead you just worry and worry, and worry and worry and you play out fake scenarios of the situation that haven't happened yet. And your scenarios are so good that you can be a screenplay writer.

Speaker 1: 4:55

And it makes me wonder sometimes why is it that we want one thing but we decide to do something completely different? Well, here you go, we're continuing a series called Winning the War in your Mind, where, as everyday people who are learning how to become Jesus followers, we're learning what does it look like to be transformed by the renewing of our minds Like? What does that mean and how can we do that? And so the question I have to ask today is why do we behave so irrationally at times? Why is it that we behave so irrationally often? And the reason is because our minds often have wires crossed. We have wires crossed. What do I mean by that?

Speaker 1: 5:36

See, if you were with us last week, we talked about the neural pathways that take place in our brain. In other words, every time you think a thought, you're creating a pattern of thought, a new pathway, almost like a mental trail in your mind. Your experiences or your thoughts are wiring or programming your brain. For example, it starts very young. If a little baby smiles, right, a little baby, they smile and then their mom says goo-goo-ga-ga, and the baby's like goo-goo-ga-ga and the baby loves it. Right, the baby's brain creates a little pathway that says smiling is good, smiling brings me good results. If a toddler touches something hot, like a hot stove, the body feels pain and the toddler brain creates what A pathway that says hot stove's bad. Maybe a baby wants a sucker and says I want a sucker, and the parent says no, sucker too much Red 40. And the baby starts to cry and the parent gives the baby a sucker and the baby brain creates a pathway that says crying gets me a sucker. And now the parent gives the baby a sucker and the baby brain creates a pathway that says crying gets me a sucker. And now the parent is the sucker.

Speaker 1: 6:52

Here's what happens when we think a thought. Our brain is creating new neural pathways. The more we think a thought, the easier it is to think that thought again, which is good when we're thinking about things that are true, when we're thinking about things that are noble and praiseworthy. But man, who knows that? It's not good when our brain, when our mind, continues to think about things that are damaging, that are hurtful, those lies that we tend to believe. The more dominant the thought becomes, the easier it is to begin to think.

Speaker 1: 7:32

So why do we behave so irrationally? Many times we have wires crossed in our minds. We have wires crossed. So what do we know about our mind? Our mind is a battlefield and most of life's battles are won or lost in the mind. 2 Corinthians 10,. I'll summarize it for you.

Speaker 1: 7:48

When the apostle Paul said this, he said we live in the world, but we do not wage war like the world does. As followers of Jesus, we have spiritual weapons, and they are not the same weapons of this world. Our weapons have divine power to demolish strongholds. Now again, what is a stronghold? That's not something that we say every day in our lives, man, I got so many strongholds going on, you know. But what is a stronghold? A stronghold is a pattern of thought. It's a pattern of thinking that we constantly go to. It's a place where the wires in our brain have been crossed. Therefore, we demolish arguments and every pretension, every wrongly cross wire that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive, which is an action statement. It's an offensive term. We take captive our thoughts and make them obedient to Christ.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Now, why does every thought matter? It matters because your life, your life, my life, our lives, your life is always moving in the direction of your strongest thought. It's always moving in the direction of your strongest thought. What comes in your mind tends to come out in your life. You cannot have a positive life when you have a what negative mindset. If you don't control what you think, you'll never, never be able to control what you do.

Speaker 1: 9:11

So how do you train your minds? How do you train your minds? Now, you probably never thought, oh, I need to train my mind, like that's probably not a thought that probably went through your head. I need to learn how to train my mind. I mean, we all know we need to train our dog, skippy. When we get a dog, you know, give me Paul. You know, we all know we need to do that. We all know we need to train our bodies. You know, we need to hit the gym, we need to exercise, we need to do that. But training our mind, that's kind of interesting, right, here you go.

Speaker 1: 9:40

For example, for years I thought training your body was all about exercise, right, how can I run, how can I jump? How many push-ups can I do to get these guns? You're supposed to say, wow, big, okay, I haven't done a lot of push-ups. Then, how many sit-ups? You know, I thought that was all the training was about what you do, right. But when I was about 32 years old, that's when I hit the moment in my life when I couldn't just eat pizza and drink beer and not see any consequences from it. You know, that's when I hit that moment. I discovered that training isn't just about what you do with your body. It's also about what you put in your body, do with your body. It's also about what you put in your body and when it comes to our minds, when it comes to our thought, lives, when it comes to us being everyday people who are learning how to follow Jesus, it's not about just what we do on the outside, but what are we putting in, what are we watching, what are we listening to what are we believing? Whose voice is the loudest in our lives? Now, it's not just about what you do with it, but what you put in it.

Speaker 1: 10:55

We're going to look at Philippians, chapter 4, and we're going to start at verse 8. And, to give a little context, we're going to look at Apostle Paul again, but Paul, he's writing from a Roman prison. This is not a good place to be. Okay, he's not just writing in his little cozy, little, you know little spot in his sunroom, you know drinking his coffee, his Dunkin' Donuts coffee. I don't know why he would drink Dunkin', though, but he's writing in a Roman prison. He's locked up on house arrest Not an ideal situation. In fact, he is awaiting execution. That is, his next step in life is execution, unless something miraculous happens, which it didn't, and this was worst case scenario for him.

Speaker 1: 11:37

But check out what he had to say. Check this out. Philippians 4 says this. Now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. This is the last thing he's going to say. He said one final thing I got to tell you. And notice what he doesn't say. He didn't say God, let me down. He didn't say God, let me down. He could have done something, but he didn't. He didn't say I can't go on with life anymore, I didn't get what I deserve. He didn't say things couldn't get any worse. No, no, he said this. Check this out. While in a Roman prison, he said fix your thoughts on what is true. Wait, hold on, hold on. Hold on one second. Hold on one second.

Speaker 1: 12:16

He's in a Roman prison not because he was like the shoplifting or something. He's in a Roman prison because he was trying to do the work that God called him to do. He's in a Roman prison because he's trying to live out his purpose. He's in a Roman prison because he was trying to do the work that God called him to do. He's in a Roman prison because he's trying to live out his purpose. He's trying to do the right thing. I just got a question for some people in here today have you ever been trying to do the right thing but the wrong results happen? Have you ever been trying your best to be a good parent, to be a good spouse, to be a good co-worker, but the wrong results just keep happening and it leaves you wondering God, are you really there for me? God, do you really care about my situation right now? God, are you here in this.

Speaker 1: 12:54

Here is the apostle Paul trying to do the right thing and now he's ending up in a Roman prison. And he says one final thing. That's why I let you know those who this letter reaches, which reaches us today. He says fix your thoughts, take control of your mind. Fix your thoughts on what is true, on what is honorable, right and pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. And I don't know about you guys, but that's not where my mind goes most of the time. Love, praise, and I don't know about you guys, but that's not where my mind goes most of the time. My mind goes most of the time of when am I going to get the opportunity to uppercut that person? My mind goes to the situation I try to play out and I say I can't believe someone would do that to me, playing the victim. I ain't no victim, but my mind likes to tell me I am, doesn't it? He said fix your thoughts. He didn't say fix your thoughts on worst case scenarios, on what you hate or what you're afraid of or what could go wrong, but fix your mind on what is good. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

Speaker 1: 13:58

I like the way that the King James puts it. The old King James puts it. It says Meditate, meditate, meditate. Wait a second. Isn't meditation some kind of new age, spooky, you'd be floating in the air kind of thing? Isn't that what meditation? What are you talking about, pastor Jake? Meditate, what is that? What do you mean? Meditate, here you go.

Speaker 1: 14:29

I want to give you the definition of meditation, because when you look through Scripture throughout Scripture the Bible tells us to meditate on God's Word, throughout Scripture. It tells us, and it's healthy. But check this out. The definition, simple definition, is this to engage in mental exercise to focus one's thoughts. That's what it means to meditate. It's just to focus. If you look at Scripture, there are examples of godly people meditating on things that are true and lovely and pure and admirable and excellent. Meditate on God's word. Check this out. The psalm writer says this I meditate on your precepts and I consider your ways. So another psalm says I meditate on all your works and consider what your hand has done.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Like I mentioned earlier, we do what we call a family fun day with my wife and kids, and it's kind of like our Sabbath and what we do. We light three candles to start our Sabbath practice, and the reason why? Because the first candle we do and we say we remember all that God has done, and I'll list a couple of things that God has done for us that week. The second candle we light is we're present in the moment. We say God, we're going to be present with you right now. And the third candle we light for the kids and for us, is have fun. But the fun part is when you remember what God has done.

Speaker 1: 15:40

When you're present, what God is doing, dude, you begin to enjoy life. It's easier to enjoy life when you're remembering that, hey, life ain't where I want to be. But shoot, god brought me from that thing, he saved me from that thing, he got me out of that problem. So I'm going to remember that, because if he got me out of that, he's going to get me out of this thing too. And so, since he got me out of that, I'm going to be present where I am today. I can't change everybody, I can't change everything, but I can be present right here, right now, in this moment, and give God all the glory. And when I do, man, life just seems a little bit better. Come on, am I preaching to anyone today? Okay, here you go, here you go.

Speaker 1: 16:27

It says see, here you go. You got to meditate. See, eastern meditation may have a different focus. I'm no expert, but hold on, I got thirsty. Okay, eastern meditation may have a different focus. You know, I've been told often in Eastern meditation you empty your mind and you try to focus on nothing and kind of stay in a state of calm and such. But with Christian meditation it's not about emptying your mind. Instead it's filling your mind with God's word. It's filling your mind with God's truth. It's fixing your mind on Jesus. Here you go.

Speaker 1: 16:58

Over the past few years I started a regular spiritual habit in my life, a habit of silence. Now I'm a pretty extroverted person. Silence is hard. You know, silence is hard. I got kids in my house. Silence is definitely hard. But here you go.

Speaker 1: 17:15

If we're being honest, silence is something that we do not easily have access to in our culture. We don't have access to silence. If we're being honest, I was mentoring a young adult student one time who hated silence. She hated silence so much so that if you were like in a room with her and everyone was just like whatever, just not talking, all of a sudden you would hear like motion picture theme music coming, like yo, where's Jaws at? You know, like you're all of a sudden hearing music and there she was. She would start playing music on her phone. I'm like what are you doing? She's like it was too silent. I was like that's weird, don't do that. But she would walk around with music all the time because she hated silence. But you know, she might be an extreme case, but if we're honest today, how many of us constantly keep our smartphones next to us, constantly keep our smartphones in our pockets and if they are, say, we're kind of in the kitchen but our smartphone's in the living room?

Speaker 1: 18:11

How often do you think about it? Is someone texting me? Is someone notifying me about something? Did Target send me another ad? How often do we even sleep with our phones right next to us? Now, what I discovered is this is that God is not silent. He speaks. We just have so much noise and notifications we can't hear him. Or actually another way to think about it God speaks, but we just begin to think that Google is a more precise and accurate God, and so we'll ask Google before we even go to prayer. Can I just be honest today. Ain't nothing wrong with Google hey Google, if you're watching online, I just made your thing talk. But here you go.

Speaker 1: 19:06

A great theologian, jackie Chan, once said your focus needs more focus. Your focus needs more focus. Some of you, if I can just be honest, if I can be honest with you right now your focus needs more focus. Your focus needs more focus. Your mind needs to uncross the wires that have been programmed to believe something that's not true about you and about your life, and we all need to focus on what is true. Fix your minds on things of God, because when our minds drift this is again, this may just be me when my mind begins to drift, my mind doesn't drift towards positive things. My mind when I'm just kind of like drifting oh, this is so lovely, life is so wonderful, life is great. No, no, when my mind drifts, if I'm not intentional, my mind drifts towards the negative. It tends to drift towards things that towards my own insecurities and my own fears, worst case scenarios and the lies that the enemy has tried to tell me about myself. See, this is what we always got to be. We got to remember, we got to fix our minds, we got to be intentional about what God is doing.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Okay, I'm going to give you an exercise. All right, I'm going to give us an exercise today that, honestly, I believe can be a game changer in your life. Okay, I'm going to show you how I've grown in my own thought life and I'm going to repeat this truth over and over, how I repeated this certain truth over and over in my life to create a new, narrow pathway to renew my mind. All right, I'm going to show you that. So, new, narrow pathway to renew my mind. All right, I'm going to show you that. So I believe, with the power of the Holy Spirit, he's going to do something in you. Here you go.

Speaker 1: 20:38

The first one is this what we need to do is this you got to ask yourself this question what stronghold is holding you back? That's the first thing we got to ask. What stronghold is holding you back? What thought pattern, what way of thinking has been holding you back from receiving the results that you want in your life, from getting the results that you want? What, would you say, is the top wrong mindset that's holding you hostage and I use that word hostage intentionally, because a hostage is someone who doesn't want to be somewhere, but they're trapped In your thought process. You probably don't want to be where sometimes your thoughts bring you, but you feel trapped. You feel like you can't get out and you need help. And this is what we're going to do. We're going to try. We're going to do that. Okay, we're going to identify where your wires have been crossed in your brain.

Speaker 1: 21:22

For some of you, it might just be that one lie holding you back. Maybe you grew up in a family that always struggled financially. So you say to yourself well, I always will struggle financially. We'll never get out of debt. That's just the way life is. Maybe you grew up in a situation where you were thinking I'm never going to beat this addiction. I've been battling this addiction for years. I'm never going to beat it, I'm just going to have to learn to live with it. Maybe that's what you begin to tell yourself. Maybe you convince yourself I'll never be healthy. My family's not healthy. My great grandparents weren't healthy. No one was healthy. I'm not going to be healthy either. Maybe you thought. Maybe you thought I try to get close to God, but after you spend one minute with God, you start thinking about the sports game and you said see, I can't even be close to God, you know. So you give up on that. Or maybe you're telling yourself I'm never going to get married, or even if I do get married, my marriage is going to be ruined anyway, so why would I even try?

Speaker 1: 22:18

Whatever the case may be, whatever your thought, life is going, what's the dominant stronghold in your mind? Where are your mental wires crossed? Where has the enemy trained you to believe something about yourself that simply isn't true? And here you go. Here's the first part of the assignment. The second part is the answer to the question what spiritual truth from God demolishes that stronghold? What spiritual truth from God demolishes that stronghold? Now, this is the question we have to ask ourselves what is the spiritual truth that gets rid of that stronghold?

Speaker 1: 22:51

Then, what we're going to do?

Speaker 1: 22:53

We're going to take a spiritual truth that's empowered by God's Spirit and we're going to learn to live on that truth. We're going to replace that lie with the truth. We're going to let His Word renew our minds. And what I want you to do, and what I want you to do, I want you to write out some truth. Here you go, I got an assignment for you guys.

Speaker 1: 23:12

Okay, I want you to write out some truth in your life, whatever it is that demolishes the stronghold in your life. I want to encourage you to not just write a simple sentence, but I want you to think about it, meditate on it and let it be born out of God's Word, and write a statement that creates an emotional energy towards the truth of God, because, for some of you, we've been believing the lie for way too long. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to write it, then we're going to start thinking on it and I'm going to encourage you to confess it until God starts to renew your mind. This is what we're going to do. We're going to write it, think it, confess it until we believe it. We're going to write it, think it, confess it until we believe it. We're going to write it, think it, confess it until we believe it.

Speaker 1: 24:02

And here's the truth. We have been writing down lies, We've been thinking our lies, we've been confessing lies and we've been believing in lies for way too long. Some of you, you've been believing lies that, like I mentioned, that have been spoken over you since you were a kid, and that's the same thing that you keep going to. For some of you, the moment life gets hard or there's a challenge, the moment your heart gets hurt, you go back to a thing that you said you would never do again. That's because in our hearts, in our brains and our hearts, we wrote it, we think it, we confess it and we believe it, even if it's a lie. What I want us to do, friends, what I want us to do because there's freedom in God, there's victory for your life, there's hope for your tomorrow we're going to replace lies and we're going to write it, we're going to think it, we're going to confess it to others and to ourselves, and we're going to believe it until it becomes our reality that we live by. I got some examples for you.

Speaker 1: 25:09

Maybe you're struggling to know God's will in your life. Maybe you just you don't know what's my purpose, what's the meaning to all of this. You're going to write down. You'll begin to say my life belongs to God. Daily I seek Him. Daily he directs my steps, I know His voice and he leads me to His perfect will. I'm going to write it, I'm going to think it, I'm going to confess it until I believe it. Maybe it's lack of confidence for you and you're going to write down. You're going to say my confidence is in Jesus and in Jesus alone. Because his spirit lives within me. I can do everything he calls me to do.

Speaker 1: 25:50

Maybe you're fighting lustful thoughts. Maybe, for some of you, you're at the brink. You're at the decision. You're one or two bad decisions away from ruining your relationships for doing things that you wish you wouldn't do. And you have been struggling with this. And so you're going to say I'm not a slave to lustful thoughts, because God has purified my mind. I will honor Him with my eyes and thoughts. My God is faithful. Even if I'm tempted, he always gives me a way out.

Speaker 1: 26:23

You're going to write it, you're going to think it, you're going to confess it. Until you believe it. Maybe you find comfort in food. You say when I'm stressed, I'm going to turn to God, not food. I come to Jesus because he is what I need. In Him I find strength and comfort. Maybe you're battling worry. Maybe you just worry so much about tomorrow, and so you say this because of Jesus, I'm not anxious about anything. I cast my cares on God because he cares for me. I have the peace of God dwelling in my heart and ruling my mind. I'm going to write it, think it, confess it until I believe it. Until I believe it, until I believe who God has called me to be, until I believe who God has said I am. And so what's the stronghold? Where are the wires crossed? What is the spiritual truth that will set you free? You're going to write it, think it, confess it until you believe it, and you'll create a new, narrow pathways according to God's truth in your life, and God is renewing your mind because of it.

Speaker 1: 27:34

So today, today, as you can see, we're doing something a little different, because we have this nice jacuzzi up top in front of the stage, we have this nice baptismal pool. Today, we have people getting baptized man, and what a wonderful thing this is about to be. So, if you've been coming to our church for a while, we normally do baptisms in the front of this church, but today we want to do it different. We want to start doing it in the service, because our services on Sundays are opportunities for us to be with Jesus, to connect to God's heart, and there is no better way to connect with God's heart than to see people who are confessing and saying I am a new creation in Christ. And so we're going to celebrate with people today as they do that. So I'm super excited for that. And so, since we believe, and then on top of that, since we believe the best way to become like Jesus is through authentic community, we have our small group showcase happening at the end of the service. The small group semester is happening, so that's happening right after we dismiss.

Speaker 1: 28:41

So here you go, if you can with me, if you can stand up at your chairs. We're about to enter into a time of worship again and we're going to watch everyone and celebrate the people being baptized. But here you go. There's one other thing I want you to do. The worship team can join me on the stage. There's one other thing that I want to do as we go into this time of baptism, what I want us to do as we celebrate this new decision, this declaration of new life that people are making, I believe that a lot of us, in our mind, in our heart, god wants to make a new declaration for you too. God wants to do something new in your mind as well.

Speaker 1: 29:29

If I can be transparent again with you guys, for the longest time I battled with the insecurity. I battled with the thought of I'm never good enough. I'm always second best. I don't have what it takes. I don't have what it takes, and that led me to make a lot of decisions that you know, honestly, I wasn't very proud of. Like our youth are joining us to watch the baptism Come on, come on in. My ADD had to say something to that. Just let everyone know. Okay. So anyways, wow, that really got me. I'm glad they're in here.

Speaker 1: 30:12

I've always battled thoughts of inadequacy, feeling like I wasn't good enough, feeling like I was less than, and it wasn't until I started to spend daily time with God, until I started to really get before the Lord and had to write it down. I had to think it, I had to confess it until I believed it. And then what I had to believe was that my value didn't come for what I do. My value comes that I'm a child of the most high God, that he loves me, not for what I do, but because he made me. He has a plan for me. So, friends, when I did that, when things come up that maybe I feel like I failed at or didn't do that good at, that's not going to have my identity anymore, because I'm a child of the most high God. And then I begin to do this and what I do every day.

Speaker 1: 31:11

I have a daily decoration that I say over myself every day. And I say it every day because I want to write it, I want to think it, I have to confess it until I believe it, and I would say I'm still in the process of believing everything I declare. But every day I write this and I say this out loud before the Lord. I say Jesus, you are first in my life. I exist to love, serve and glorify you. I love Aaron and I'll lay down my life to serve her. I love Kingsley, jameson and Hayden and they will know they are loved by God and by me. I will show my family by my deeds and words that living for Jesus is the best life possible. I will deposit in them the truth that they can do anything for God's kingdom and that they can be agents of change to this world.

Speaker 1: 31:59

I am a path. I lead a flock. I commit to being a good leader. Today I am with us. Every day I am anointed, called and set apart to reach people who are far from God. My words, thoughts and imagination are given to God. I take all thoughts captive and make them. Obedient to Jesus, I wake up with purpose, direction and meaning every day of my life.

Speaker 1: 32:25

I love people and I will believe the best about people. Sometimes I say that one about 10 times. I am disciplined. Christ in me is stronger than the wrong desires in me. I am anointed, innovative, creative, focused and blessed beyond measure because of the Holy Spirit in me.

Speaker 1: 32:47

I love people. That's not something I do. That's why I am here and I say that one 10 times too. I do my best and then some I am pure, I am honest, I am kind, I am joyful, I am playful. The world will be different and better because I serve Jesus. Today, I am a servant of the Most High God. Jesus died and rose again because he loves me.

Speaker 1: 33:13

I have to write it, I have to think it, I have to confess it until I believe it. And, friends, I'm going to tell you this. You got to write it, you got to think it, you got to confess it until you believe it, because the world will love to tell you who you are and what you are and what you can do and what you can't do. But there is a God who sent His one and only Son that went on a cross for you that rose again for you, defeated death, grave and hell for you, so that you can live a life free of sin, free of shame, free of the agonizing thought of I never can, but a life full of freedom, but a life full of freedom. And that's what he does for you. And so what I'm gonna do, we're gonna pray and I'm gonna declare some new thoughts over us today, and after I pray, man, we're gonna watch some people get baptized and we're gonna celebrate all that God is doing. So come on, let's pray.

Speaker 1: 34:13

Father, jesus, holy Spirit, we thank you for your love, we thank you for your goodness, we thank you for your mercy, and I just feel right now the Holy Spirit saying to people you are strong and mighty. You have the same power that raised Christ from the dead dwelling inside of you. You are a weapon of righteousness in a world of darkness. I feel the Lord saying you are not your past, you are not what you did. You are who God says you are. He says you are forgiven, you are redeemed and you are free. You are not a hostage to your unhealthy thoughts. The weapons you fight with are not weapons of this world. You have divine power to demolish strongholds.

Speaker 1: 35:05

In Jesus' name, you have the mind of Christ directing your thoughts. You have the word of God guiding your steps. Worry is not your master. You have the word of God guiding your steps. Worry is not your master. You trust in God. His peace guards your heart, guards your mind and guards your soul.

Speaker 1: 35:19

In Christ Jesus, the Lord is your helper. You will not be afraid. You are not a slave to your habits. You are not a prisoner to addiction. You have been rescued from the power of darkness and you have been brought into the kingdom of God's wonderful light. And God will bless you abundantly so that in all things and at all times, having all you need, you will abound in every good work and nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. So, god, we pray those things over our mind today. We pray your freedom. And if you're in here today and you don't know this Jesus I'm talking about, but you want to make a decision to trust Jesus with your life, I just want to lead you in a prayer, right where you are. Just say to you, just say it. You can say it out loud or say it in your heart. You can say Jesus, forgive me for my sins, make me new Today. I trust you with my life Today. I follow you In Jesus' name. Amen, amen, amen, amen.