Speaker 1: 0:00

Is it just me that, even though life can be pretty good, even though life, things can be going in the direction I want it to go, sometimes my mind drifts towards complaining about things? Sometimes I just find myself complaining about things. I complain about things I don't have. I complain about things I do have. I complain about just everything. I find myself complaining. It's so easy in our culture today to complain, to want more.

Speaker 1: 0:31

Have you ever caught yourself dwelling on negative thoughts in your life, on negative things that aren't good? What do we know about our mind? We know that our mind is a battlefield and we know that most of life's battles are won or lost in the mind. In other words, the life that we want is often going towards the thoughts that we are thinking, the thoughts that we think. The life that you want is often the result of the thoughts we think. What comes into your mind tends to come out in your life. If you have a negative mind, it is almost impossible to have a positive life when your mind is consumed with negative thoughts. If you have a negative mind, it's almost impossible to do that.

Speaker 1: 1:16

So the title of today's message is this how do we defeat those negative thoughts? How do we defeat those negative things that pop up in our head, that throws us off at times? Okay, here you go. If you've been with us for the past couple of weeks. We've been talking about how the mind is a powerful and incredibly complex thing that God has made for us. We talked about how the reality that there's this thing called neuropathways, there's this thing called neuropathways that every time you think a thought, you're actually creating patterns or pathways in your brain, and the more often you think a thought, it's easier to think that thought again, which is good when we're thinking good thoughts, but it is not good when we're not thinking good thoughts. So what do we do about this? How do we handle this? What I want to do is I want to expand on an idea that I introduced a while back that may be new to some, may be old to others. I want to talk about this thing called cognitive biases, or another way you can call it, is mental filters. Mental filters what is a cognitive bias? What is a mental filter? Here's a simple definition of it.

Speaker 1: 2:28

A mental filter is a mistake in reasoning based on personal experiences or preferences. It's a mistake in reasoning based on what you've experienced or what you prefer. In other words, if you grew up in a context that something happened, you tend to view the world through that context, through that lens. So if you tend to think about things in that way, that's how it would happen. A lot of us we live our lives with this framework and, as Jesus followers, our goal is to view the world through the lens of Jesus, what we would call a biblical worldview.

Speaker 1: 3:08

For example, if you grew up and you were in, you grew up in a, or you were in or you were in a relationship with an, with an abusive man, if you, if that was your, that was your upbringing, or you had a relationship like, like, like like that, typically you're going to view other men as what Dangerous or be concerned, which makes sense. That makes sense. That that would be your mental filter. Maybe you grew up in a household environment that was always low on money. That was low on money. You always heard mom and dad arguing about bills. You never felt like there was enough. And so now you grow up, you have a mental filter of man there's never enough. There's never enough in a bank account. You know, you kind of view your life that way. Maybe you grew up and someone lied to you and told you that McDonald's chicken nuggets was real meat. So now you just don't trust anybody. Makes sense, because it's not real meat. We don't know what it is, but for real. But if you grew up in an environment like that or if you had something that happened to you, you view the world through that filter. You view the world through that filter and so your filters shape how you see your life. What's interesting is, if you change the filter, it often changes how you feel. If you can change the filter, it will change how you feel.

Speaker 1: 4:33

The problem we all face because of our unique upbringings, because of our circumstances. Our minds have a filter at which we view the world Some good, but some some really bad. This is why two different people can respond totally different to the same exact situation. Have you ever seen this before? Two totally people can respond to the same thing in a totally different way. It's not the facts that are different. What's different? The filter, the filter at which the person or the people view the circumstance.

Speaker 1: 5:10

For example, you might be at your workplace and your supervisor might go and give the exact same feedback in the exact same way and almost the exact same time to two different people and the way the feedback is received can be very different. One person gets offended. Why are you telling me that? Why are you telling me you don't know how valuable I am to this organization? I don't even like you anyways. I hate my job. Now I'm thinking about it. You don't know how much I bring to this company. You don't care. That's how one person can respond. Right, the next person can get the same exact feedback, but have a very different filter. They may say, well, oh, thanks, thank you for that feedback. That was very helpful. I didn't recognize. I did it that way. Now I can do a better job next time. I really appreciate the fact that you value me and you gave me this feedback. You gave me this feedback. Same situation, different and what's different? The filter, the filter.

Speaker 1: 6:11

Two different people can walk into church. They can come together, experience the same service and have two different views about it. One person can walk in the church and they're thinking to themselves all Christians are hypocritical. I don't even know why I'm here. They hear the music. They say, man, this thing sucks, what are we even singing about? They hear the message and they say, man, that guy is horrible. They walk out. They said no one was nice there, someone else walks in. Same person walks in with them, came together. They walk in. They say, wow, you know what I love that church is a place of people who don't have it all together, but they're trying their best. Man, that music made me really connect with the Lord. That guy's preaching Boy is he handsome too? Man, the people were so nice. Same exact thing. Two totally different filters, right, two totally different filters.

Speaker 1: 7:07

And we see this example even through scriptures. Okay, you can see this example throughout scriptures. There's a powerful one. It's actually one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament because it's so funny. When you read the Bible, you laugh a lot, honestly because it's like, wow, this is really weird. But anyways, there's this one story in Numbers in chapter 13 and 14.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Moses sends out 12 spies to explore the land. God said I'm going to give you the promised land, moses. He's freed the Egyptians. I mean he freed the Hebrews out of Egyptian slavery. I mean, he's ready to take this land. There's this land coming up? They had so many obstacles on the way to get into this promised land, and so he sends out 12 spies to check it out, to give them the lowdown on what's going down. Here you go.

Speaker 1: 7:50

12 of them saw the same exact thing, but the reports were entirely different. It wasn't the facts that were different. What was it? The filter, the filter at which the facts were viewed. Two of them came back and said oh my gosh, it's beautiful, it's amazing, it's perfect, the land that God has for us. Man, we're going to take this land and we're going to thrive there. It's going to be awesome.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Ten of them came back, which is funny to me, because 10 out of the 12 were negative. 10 out of the 12 were negative and it's such a good picture of our world today, and it's such a good picture of our mind today, that we tend to lean towards the negative. We tend to actually even find comfort in the negative. We tend to even find comfort when we're talking with other people, talking about someone else who isn't in the room, because it's a negative conversation about somebody else. Why do we tend to lean towards the negative? Well, here's the interesting thing about this story. Ten of them came back and they said this is dangerous. They said, moses, this place is dangerous. This land devours people. There's giants up in this land. They were freaking out, and Numbers says this.

Speaker 1: 9:02

It says we saw giants there and we seem like grasshoppers in their eyes, in the way they viewed us. No, no, no, it actually doesn't say that, does it? We seem like grasshoppers in our own eyes. In our own eyes, the way we view ourselves is actually determining whether or not the promise of God on my life is attainable. The way I view myself is determining the fact of whether or not I'm going to get in marriage, counseling and fix my marriage. The way I view myself is determining the fact if I'm ever going to step out of this problem and step into what God has called me to do. They look like giants in our eyes, in our eyes, and so notice how they counted themselves out, notice that their filter disqualified them before they ever even got started. It's not just the filter that matters, it's also the frame. It's also the frame. You can be in the very same situation and how you frame it determines how you will see it.

Speaker 1: 10:23

I want to be practical here today. I want to give us a tool called reframing. Determines how you will see it. I want to be practical here today. I want to give us a tool called reframing. A very simple definition of that of reframing is this Reframing is creating a different way of looking at a situation or relationship by changing its meaning. Simply creating a different way of interpreting or looking at a situation or relationship by changing its meaning. And here's what I have for us today.

Speaker 1: 10:50

Now we got these two frames and Jesus says something really cool. I like listening to him. He says something really cool. He says large is the road that leads to destruction. Narrow is the road that leads to destruction. Narrow is the road that leads to life. And now, when he's saying narrow, he's not saying narrow-mindedness, but he's saying focused Intentions, focus. Large is the road that leads to destruction. Now, here you go. When it comes to how we frame our lives, this is what tends to happen, isn't it? I got a good example.

Speaker 1: 11:32

I wake up and I determine today's going to suck. Today's not going to be a good day. It's going to be a hard day. Today, you know, I got too much to do. I don't even like the job I go to. I don't even like the people I see there. My task list is never ending. I'm so overwhelmed, I'm so tired because my kids keep waking up in the middle of the night. Life is bad. My spouse sucks, my car stinks. Life is bad. My spouse sucks, my car stinks. Everything is bad. I hate people. I hate myself because I ate Burger King for lunch. I'm going to have a bad day. The frame, same situation, different frame. Same situation, different frame. You wake up, you got a lot going on, but the first thing you say is Jesus, today I give you this day. Then you understand it's going to be hard, but you're thankful that God's with you in it.

Speaker 1: 12:38

I'm not loving everything about work but, man, I'm glad I got a job to provide for my family. People at work drive me crazy sometimes, but the truth is they just need some love and hey, I'm the light of Christ. So I'm going to do that. I'm on mission at my job. It's not just a place to make money, it's a place to spread the light of Jesus. Truthfully, there's a lot of good people there. Today's going to be a good day. I'm going to grind it out. I'm going to drive past the BK Lounge and get a salad today. I get done with work, I go home, I walk into my front door, I step on some toys, ouch, but hey, you know what. I'm glad I got my kids in the house and I'm glad they have a house where they feel safe and secure, because one day they're going to leave. I'm going to be an empty nester. I'm enjoying my family, I'm going to slow down and I'm going to experience God.

Speaker 1: 13:32

How do you frame your day? And you may say, oh well, jacob, I just struggle, I got problems. You know there's so many negative people. That's true. There's a lot of negative people in the world. Have you watched CNN or Fox News? There's a lot of negative people. But one thing that negative people can't do to you is choose how you frame it. Come on, choose how you frame it. There's one thing that people can't do to you because in you, in you, is greater in you than the things against you. The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in you. So if we have resurrection power in us, I'm going to frame it a little differently. Am I preaching to anyone today? We're going to frame it a little differently. I got my preaching pulpit out here today. Got me preaching. Here you go, here you go.

Speaker 1: 14:31

And the truth is we frame God this way too. Often we say God, where are you? I don't see you, god. How did you do this to me? And God's like just focus in on me. Focus in on me, because even that problem, even that problem, I'm trying to teach you something about your character, even that thing that didn't go the way that we wanted it to go. I'm teaching you something in it and I'm going to make all things work for good for those who love the Lord and who are called according to His purpose. Can we start believing the Scriptures? They're more than good Hallmark cards, but they're truths on which we can view our lives and live a biblical worldview. Come on somebody. Here we go. Here we go. Let's continue before I start preaching too much. Instead, we got to start looking at the goodness of God, because you can't control what happens to you, but you can control how you frame it. What you're going to do. What I want you to do is I want you to slow down just for a moment and ask yourself think about your life right now. Ask yourself is this where I want to be in my life? Is this where I want to be in my life?

Speaker 1: 15:46

I wonder how many of you wanted something different in life, but right now, you're experiencing the opposite of what you wanted. You thought by this time you would be such and such and I'll be in this place or have this, or I've accomplished this thing, have this relationship and really want these things. But instead I have the opposite of that. Maybe some of you dreamed about having a great marriage, and that's exactly what you wanted. You prepared for it, you prayed for it, you were pure and you worked towards it. And now you're married. You sort your sweetheart.

Speaker 1: 16:19

Years later, divorce talks are on the table. Maybe for you, you went to college and you studied and you got the degree and you're prepared to leave college and do this thing with your college degree. But all those jobs were taken and they said you need to get a master's degree, and so now you're left doing a job that you don't really want to do, asking yourself is this really life? Maybe for you, at this point in your life, you thought you would be married, you'd be financially out of debt, or you'd be able to travel, have a ministry or a nonprofit that's making a difference, that you would have started a business, or you've been leading your kids somewhere better off. But you find yourself waking up, not liking who you are, what you're doing and where you're going. If you ever wake up and think this isn't what I wanted, I have the exact opposite. I got good news for you.

Speaker 1: 17:14

The apostle Paul knows exactly how you feel, knows exactly how you feel. I hit on this a little bit last week, but Paul felt called to go to Rome and to preach the gospel and he knew that if he could reach the people in Rome, it would be a strategic place to help the gospel spread all over the world. His dream, his bucket list, his top prayer request was going to Rome to preach. And instead of being in Rome preaching, he finds himself in Rome as a prisoner awaiting execution. How does he frame it? How does he frame it? Everything that he wanted, but the exact opposite. And Paul had two different ways to frame the situation he's in. He has two different ways to look at it and it says very interestingly in the NCV version of the Bible, which stands for the New Complainers version of the Bible, this is how Paul would have said it in the new complainer's version.

Speaker 1: 18:23

He would have said now what I want you to know, brothers and sisters that what has happened to me really sucks and as a result of all the hell I'm going through. You won't see me at small group on Tuesday night and I'm going to find a different church because this one obviously ain't working. That's not what he says. That's not what he says. That's not what he says, is it? That's not a real version of the Bible. Just to let you guys know. I made that up, okay, but this is what he does say. He says what has happened to me, brothers and sisters, I want you to know what brothers, what has happened to me. Check this out. That looks really bad.

Speaker 1: 19:00

For most people it's actually served to advance the gospel. Come on, paul, you in prison, you in a Roman prison it ain't nice in there and you're telling me it's served to advance the gospel. As a result, it's become clear to those in the palace guard, it is clear to everyone else, that I am actually in chains for Christ. What's happening here? Paul's saying I'm locked up with a Roman guard. Every eight hours I get a new guard. So every eight hours I get to preach the gospel to a new person that has to listen to me. He said every eight hours I got my best eight-hour sermon going on. Then he continues. He says and because of my chains. Most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord. Can I say something? Can I just say something a little bit?

Speaker 1: 20:01

The way you handle that conflict, the way you handle that disappointment, the way you handle that setback and that thing that tried to take you out, man, there's people all around watching you seeing how you're going to handle that thing. And when you handle that thing, when you take that thing, when you come at that thing and you say I'm going to look towards Jesus in it, the people around you begin to see that God, that's the God I want to follow, his God, because he went through this thing and that thing, and this thing and that thing should have took him out, but he's still worshiping Jesus. See, paul said because of the way he handled that situation. Did you know? You're going to have to learn how to handle your situation? And you're going to handle your situation one of two ways. You're either going to be a complainer and talk about how everyone's against you, or you're going to be someone that says know it, god, I'm going to take this very thing and I'm going to use it to glorify you. And he says, he says, he says they become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear. I'm going to frame it. I'm going to frame it. I'll fix my eyes on Jesus. I'm going to fix my thoughts on Jesus. It's not where I want to be, but thank God, I'm not where I could be. I'm going to frame it. I'm going to frame it on Jesus. It's not the facts that are different, it's how you frame it. And here you go.

Speaker 1: 21:32

I want to be honest with some of you guys today, and here you go. I want to be honest with some of you guys today. Some of you, your facts they suck. Some of you, your facts, man, they're hard. Some of you, you got marriage problems, kid problems, life problems, so on and so on. But here you go.

Speaker 1: 21:54

What I want to do today, as I close, I want to help you reframe your story, reframe your relationships, because many of us are in battles. All of us have battles. All of us have stuff. All of us have home life stuff, spouse stuff, relationship stuff, work stuff, bad news stuff, bad behavior stuff. We got stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, relationship stuff, work stuff, bad news stuff, bad behavior stuff. We got stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff. Don't we, all of us every day go through some stuff. Just because we have stuff doesn't mean that God's not trying to work in our lives. I want to give us three tips, three tips I'm going to close Three tips on how to reframe.

Speaker 1: 22:37

The first one is this Thank God for what didn't happen. You know, I'm starting to think once a quarter. We need to have a church service that's dedicated to thanking God for the things that didn't happen to us. We need to have a whole church service thanking God for the prayers he didn't say yes to. We need to have a whole church service dedicated to the fact that he is provider, protector, sovereign, and even when he says no or later, he's still good. Because I'm going to tell you, guys, we got to get good at thanking God for what didn't happen here.

Speaker 1: 23:14

I got a little story I want to share. I got a story I want to share. I'll give you an example. There's this 20-year-old girl that said mom and dad, I got some really bad news to tell you. Please sit down and just listen to me talk. She said let me tell you the whole story and I just want to tell you to stay calm because it's bad news. It's bad news.

Speaker 1: 23:34

I went out to a bar and I met a guy. Dad said what? Dad just went out to a bar and met a guy. We drank too much. He came back to my apartment, we hooked up and I'm embarrassed to say I'm pregnant. The good news is his probation will be over in a year. He's going to start looking for a job Once he's out of rehab. He's going to consider marrying me, but since we can't afford to get married right now, we're just going to move into your house, mom and dad.

Speaker 1: 24:08

She let that hang for a moment and then she said actually none of that is true. I just got a D on my chemistry exam. Actually, none of that is true. I just got a D on my chemistry exam. I just wanted you to know life could be a whole lot worse. Some of us need to start thanking God for the things our kids didn't do, for how God has provided for us that things could be worse, but God is still working things out. Sometimes we only want to thank God for what he has given us, and that's good. But we need to to thank God for what he has given us, and that's good, but we need to start thanking God for what he has not given us. There's some single people in here who are mad that their last relationship didn't work out, but thank God you're not dating that bum anymore, in Jesus' name. There's some job promotions. You're mad you didn't get, but it would have added stress onto your life that you weren't ready to handle. If you just take a step back every now and then and look at a broader perspective, god, thank you for what didn't happen.

Speaker 1: 25:06

Number two practice pre-framing. Practice pre-framing. What do I mean by this? What I mean by this? How you go into your day thinking about all the bad things that you have. It's going to set the pace for your day. It's going to set the. It's the principle of the first things. Principle of first things, god, I'm going to give you my first thing. That's why I encourage people to spend daily time with God and I encourage you, even if you're not a morning person, to do it in the morning, because it sets the pace of your day, sets the pace and it's about reframing, practicing to reframe.

Speaker 1: 25:44

I remember, for the longest time in my life, one thing I had to really learn how to reframe was I just never felt very smart. Believe it or not, I never felt smart enough, never really felt good enough. I always kind of felt inadequate. In that sense I had this insecurity about me, especially when it came to education, and I just figured I kind of just made a decision in my early 20s that I would just survive through life with my charisma and decent looks. You know, that's kind of what I said, but you know, long story short. I want to share a story about how my frame got changed.

Speaker 1: 26:15

Before we went to start this church, my pastor, pastor Sharon, challenged me to go and get my bachelor's degree. And I said, in the most respectful way ever, I said woman, you're crazy, you know, I said. I said that's not, I'm not doing that. And I said my wife, she's the smart one, she's the moneymaker, she's my sugar mama and I'm good with that, she said. And then she challenged. She said just challenge, I challenge you. Go see what happens. All right, all right. I said okay, pastor Sharon, she hears from God, she's very serious about this.

Speaker 1: 26:44

At this point I already had a two-year leadership biblical leadership degree. So I said you know what? I'm gonna go to community college. Get my associates to compliment now, okay.

Speaker 1: 26:52

So I go down to this community college down in Virginia Beach. I go in there. I'm saying, you know, I go in, I have to take a math and English placement test. And I'm saying I'm thinking to myself, community college, math, english, it's finna be a breeze. You know I got this, you go, I take my test. You know I do my whole test. After the test I go to the counselor's room. She's sitting at her desk. I'm sitting in front of her desk. She has this like concerned look at her on her face. And then finally she looks at me and she says Mr Gaines, your score is so bad you can't go into community college. I didn't even know that was possible. I thought they let everyone into community college. You know it was bad.

Speaker 1: 27:35

So you know, I felt pretty discouraged and again, a frame I lived my life with man you're not good enough, jacob, you're never quite good enough. I went back and I told Pastor Sharon hey, this is what happened. And Pastor Sharon told me something that changed, changed my life forever. To be honest. I don't know if sometimes people say that, but it really did change my life. She said your denial from school is not confirmation of the negative thoughts you had about yourself, but it is confirmation of the battle you need to fight. And I want some people in here to know those negative thoughts that you have, those discouragements that you have, those things that try to take you out, they're not confirmation that you need to give up. They're confirmation of the battle that you need to fight, that you need to give up. They're confirmation of the battle that you need to fight, that you need to go. After Long story short, I ended up looking at Liberty University and they took my Bible college credits signed up.

Speaker 1: 28:27

My Bible college credits actually equaled up to two years at Liberty, so that was great. And so then I took the math English placement test. I made it in and I'm not going to lie, I graduated Liberty University at a 3.9 GPA. Yeah, it's pretty awesome, it's pretty cool, and I share that story because, man, you got to practice reframing, because if you don't practice reframing, you'll live your whole life with that one voice that said to you yeah, you can't do that. You're 12 years old when someone said that to you and now you're in your 30s and 40s still believing that same voice. It's time to change the frame.

Speaker 1: 29:06

And the last one then we'll close with this. The last one is this Look for God's goodness. Be intentional about looking for God's goodness. You can look for God's goodness because I promise you, you will always find what you're looking for. If you're looking for the good, you'll find it. If you look for the bad, you'll find it. If you want to see what's wrong every single day, you'll find what's wrong every single day. If you want to not like people there's tons of reasons not to like people you'll find it. If you want to look for God, if you want to see faith, if you want to see the best, I promise you you'll find what you're looking for.

Speaker 1: 29:43

Yeah, I promise you you'll do it and this is what I want you guys to start doing. This is what I want us all to start doing. We're not going to take our life circumstances and try to see if God's goodness is in it. We're going to start viewing our lives through the goodness of God and seeing that, in every circumstance, god is in it. I'm going to reframe it. I'm going to change my mental filter and I'm going to keep my focus on Jesus. And I'm going to keep my focus on Jesus. Like Jackie Chan told us last week, your focus needs more focus, and what I want to tell you this your focus on Jesus, when you get before him, when you talk with him, when you spend daily time with him, it changes everything.

Speaker 1: 30:40

So, father, jesus, holy Spirit, we thank you for your love, we thank you for your goodness, we thank you, lord, that you are with us, that you are with us, and I just want to pray for those who have been battling just anxiety. Just, I mean your mind is flooded with anxiety. I mean you got worst case after worst case scenario playing through your head and I want to speak with power and I want to say heal in Jesus' name, bring healing to those places, lord, to that fear, to that anxiousness, those who have been struggling with depression. It's like the Holy Spirit saying peace. He wants to release to you that he is powerful. He's powerful even in that thing, and you know you're that thing. Whatever that thing is for you, god is saying he is powerful even in that thing. So, lord, we come to you, help us refrain, help us see you, help us pre-decide to look to you every single day. Lord, we say come, holy Spirit, and if you're in here today and you're like Jacob, that sounds like a good message and that Jesus sounds awesome, but I don't know this Jesus you're talking about. I don't know him personally.

Speaker 1: 32:23

If you want to make a decision to trust Jesus with your life, I just want to lead you in a prayer. Or maybe you have followed Jesus before, but life got in the way you want to make a decision to recommit Just right where you are, I want to lead. Got in the way. You want to make a decision to recommit Just right where you are. I want to lead you in this prayer. Just 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. Let's give God some praise in here today.