0:00

Have you ever noticed how ridiculously, ridiculously your brain can be at times? Like, for example, for example, you can go your whole day having 20 different people tell you amazing things that you've done. Man, you crushed it there. You did so good. I love those shoes of yours. And they can tell you all these nice things. Your spouse, your spouse can look at you. Your wife can look at you and say, "Man, you're just a hunk of man, I love you." You know, your kids can listen to you. on the first time you ask them to do something. That would be a miracle. You're gonna have all these great things happen, but one person, one person walks by you, and they say something slightly weird, something slightly critical. And guess what's happening to you at 11 o'clock at night when you're trying to go to bed. You're thinking about that one person that said that slight critical thing to you instead of all the great things that were said about you. Isn't that how that happens? Our brain does that. You'll stay up all night thinking about that thing. And not only will you be thinking about it, you'll create an entire Netflix series based on that one conversation. Episode one, they're mad at me. Episode two, everybody's mad at me. Episode three, I'm gonna get fired. You'll create a whole series. Nothing has happened, but your mind has taken you on this journey. Or have you ever been laying in bed and your brain randomly says, "Hey, you remember that one embarrassing thing "you did eight years ago?"People are probably still judging you about that, "just to let you know." You know, like why? No one's talking about it. Why am I thinking about it? That's how powerful our thoughts are. And here's what we've been discovering throughout the book of Philippians. Paul is writing about joy, and he's not writing from a joyful circumstance. He's in prison. His future is unknown. There's problems happening in the local church in Philippi. And there's people causing trouble around him. Yet somehow Paul keeps coming back to this theme of joy, this theme of joy, this value, this character of joy. But why? Why does he keep doing this? How does he keep doing this? How does he keep coming back to joy? Because Paul, Paul discovered something. Paul discovered something in his trials, in his hardship. And this is what I want some people to know today. Sometimes the hardest moments in your life, God can begin to speak the clearest to you. Sometimes when we're going through trials and troubles and heartaches and pains and problems and challenges, those are the moments where God's voice becomes a lot clearer for our future. I'm preaching today. And so how does Paul do this? because Paul discovered that joy isn't controlled by everything that's happening around you. Joy isn't controlled by everything that's happening around you. He essentially says, "Do you want to learn"how to live this kind of life?"Let me give you some steps." It's almost like Paul wants to teach us the joyful three-step. Who in here likes to dance? Who in here can cut a rug? Who in here has some twinkle toes? Who in here can get low, get low, get low, get low to the window? Okay, I won't say that. I never listened to that song either 'cause I'm a Christian. But today I wanna talk about three movements that we can practice when worry comes, when our thoughts start running wild, when life isn't going the way we hope. Because here's the big idea I want you to remember today. Joy is not something you wait to feel. Joy is something you learn to practice. You learn to practice. So let's learn this joyful three step. Step one is this, give my worries to God. I'm gonna give my worries to God.

Philippians 4: 3:56

6 says this, don't worry about anything. everyone say instead. Pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all that He has done. We talked about that last week. And didn't Isaiah do such a great job? Come on. He crushed it. And what I want to highlight though is this word instead. Instead. See, Paul's not saying don't have worries. He's not preaching, pretend like everything is all fine. He's acknowledging the teaching of Jesus. Matthew six, Jesus says, "Do not worry." He doesn't say it's a good idea not to worry. He says, "Do not worry," which is a command and to break a command is a sin. And so Jesus says, when we worry, we fall into a place of sin. And you may be like, Jacob, then I'm the chief sinner. Me too. And the reason why Jesus is so clear about this is because when we worry, what we do, when we worry, when we have anxious thoughts, what happens is we take from God and bring it back on ourselves. We take the things that God wants to handle, God wants to work with, And we say, God, actually, I'm God about this thing. Actually, I can be God over this problem and that person and that thing, and I'm worried about it. And so Jesus is very honest why he doesn't want you to worry. He says, don't take it out of the hands of God. And Jesus' solution to not worry isn't to pretend like everything is fine. Jesus' solution for you and for me on how not to worry is to look at the little birds. Like Jesus, you want us to look at birds? You want us to go on a nature walk, Jesus? That's what you want us to do?

Check this out, Matthew 6: 5:41

26. He says, "Look at the birds of the air."They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, "yet your heavenly Father feeds them. "Are you not much more valuable than they?" Jesus says, "You're worried, go on a nature walk." Now, here you go, in our BC days, Erin and I's BC days before children. Before children days, Erin and I went on a cruise to the Bahamas, and we signed up for this tropical excursion, sightseeing excursion, right? So we get off the boat, we go to the place, and I'm hoping to see some exotic tropical things. I don't even know what that means, like Froot Loops or something, I don't know. But I wanna see some tropical exotic creatures or trees or leaves or something. And so here we go, we go to the guy, and the guy who's in charge of it, he's pretty sketchy, I'm not gonna lie, he was at a kind of, we weren't entirely sure if he actually worked for the excursion place. You know, but he took a few of us, so there's like a couple people, so I guess he ain't gonna take us alone. So we went with them, and we're going down this pathway that wasn't paved, and we're like, this doesn't look safe, and he's showing us trees that look like just regular trees. He's like, look at this big tree, look at this small tree, look at this medium-sized tree. I'm like, I've seen these trees before. And then halfway in, I can't make this up, halfway into this nature walk, another man comes, and he's clearly trying to sell us drugs. This is happening, and I'm feeling a little unsafe, and I'm like, where's Liam Neeson when I need him? 'Cause I don't wanna be taken part three, you know? But then, he eventually just goes on. Then Erin gets bit by some fire ants on her toes while we're there. Then I get bit by a mosquito, and I cannot make this up. My hand tripled in size. And so the funny part was, it's funny now, it wasn't funny back then, the funny part now, at that time, we were trying to get pregnant, and that's when the Zika virus was going on, and the main thing that happened was through mosquito bites. And so Erin was like, "Don't touch me." I was like, "What?" So then the sightseeing didn't take away my worries, Jesus, is what I'm trying to say. The nature walk added to my worries on this situation, you know, so so. But yeah, but why? Why is Jesus saying, look at the birds? Why? Why is he saying to do that? Here's what Paul and Jesus are both saying. When we have worries, it's a good time to take a pause. When there's worries in our life, we're feeling overwhelmed with anxiety. That is the time to call a T and pause and pray. To pause and pray. That's what they're saying to Paul. We got to pause and pray. You got a lot going on in your brain and in your heart. You pause. You look at the birds. Look at the wildflowers. Jesus is saying just pause. Don't worry about anything. Here comes the word instead. Instead. We gotta get good at the instead. We have, see, the instead is where your transformation happens. The instead is where you go from constantly putting yourself down to finding the freedom that God has for you. Going, it's that the instead, where you go from, I'm never gonna do this, this is never gonna work out, this is gonna be a problem, instead I'm gonna pray about it and watch God be faithful in my life. The instead is where the power happens. Get good at the instead. Because the instead is the pause. You pause and you pray. And you should expect worry to happen. It happens. You are going to have bad news. Life is gonna throw you curve balls. But we pause and pray. We look at the birds and we know and this is the best part. We know we're more valuable than they are. And yet our Heavenly Father takes care of them. So, of course, He's going to take care of us. Of course, He's going to take care of what's going on in our lives. And our God is not against us. So which leads us to the second step. You can write this down on your outline. Choose what gets my attention. Choose what gets my attention. See, joy grows where your attention goes. Joy grows wherever your attention goes. And how do we do that? We capture it, we challenge it, and we redirect it. We capture it, we challenge it, and we redirect it. We capture our thoughts, we challenge our thoughts, and then we redirect those thoughts. Paul is showing us that we can acknowledge what is broken without allowing brokenness to become the only story we're telling ourselves. And see, and this is the thing, this is the thing, this is why Paul's always talking about your thoughts. He's always talking about your thought life, because sometimes we have thoughts that we think are from God, or we think they're from ourselves, but there is a real spiritual enemy that would love to implant thoughts in your head. Like if you have thoughts, like man, I hate my spouse. Man, I hate my kids, they drive me crazy. Man, no one ever cares about me. No one loves me. Those thoughts, see the problem is sometimes we think those thoughts are just thoughts that are coming, We think they're just regular thoughts. But may I say today that those thoughts don't sound like the voice of God. And if they don't and the problem is we're not very good at discerning our thoughts with the word of God. And so if we're not good at discerning the thoughts that are coming in with God's word, we can take thoughts that the enemy puts on our heads and we can and we can think that those things are coming from God. And what and what happens is and what happens is if we take those thoughts, we can build monuments and we can build our whole lives on a thought that came from our spiritual enemy. Oh no one loves me. Nobody cares about me. No one's here for me. And we can begin to build our whole lives on something if you put it up against the Word of God that's not true. And so Paul, Paul is constantly telling us to to look at the thoughts that are coming in because here's the thing a lot of things want your attention and a lot of things will take your attention without your permission and Paul is saying finally brothers and sisters whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about those things think about those things. Now the key phrase there is think about those things. Think about such things. Paul understood the influence of one's thoughts on one's life. We must allow God to occupy our thought life. We must allow Him to do it. So because whatever occupies our minds will sooner or later determine how we behave. So let's be honest, this is one of those verses that sounds really good. We love it yeah that's so great yeah whatever is good yeah man whatever is pure yeah man whatever is admirable I'm gonna think about those things man it's so good but most of us read this Bible verse from the KRV version of the Bible that's the keeping it real version of the Bible.

Philippians 4: 12:44

8 and the keeping it real version says it more like this finally brothers and sisters whatever is frustrating, whatever is scary, whatever is wrong with your spouse, whatever your co-worker said, whatever the news is yelling about, whatever keeps you awake at 2 a.m., think about those things. That's what we really do, don't we? We think about those things and again, Paul knew the battlefield was in the mind. Joyce Meyer says in her book, "The Battlefield of the Mind," you cannot have a positive life and a negative mind. You can't have a positive life with a mind that is filled with negativity and that means when we're constantly judging people, when we're constantly looking at other people and finding faults with them, finding problems with them, when we're constantly allowing negative things to come into our mind, how is our life going to be positive? And so we have to surrender them. Another way to put it is this, your life is heading the direction of your strongest thoughts. Your life is always heading in the direction of your strongest thoughts. So how? How? How do I train my attention? The first thing I said, we capture it. We capture it. And again, Paul is writing this letter while in prison under Roman authority with this future uncertain. And I don't know about you guys, sometimes my thoughts dwell on the negative when I don't really have that much crazy things happening in my life. When I just kind of got normal things happen, I can still lean towards the negative. But Paul is literally in jail, waiting execution, and He's able to bring his thoughts back to Jesus. For example, this is a good example. For example, there's this person that our kids drop off and I was walking to the kids drop off at Gordon, come on, Gordon Patriots. And I was walking to the kids drop off and there's this lady that was walking by me. And I wouldn't even consider us friends, you know, we're just like hi people, you know, you got those people in your life, you say hi, you know, he's like friendly. She's one of those hi people. and I'm walking and I go and I say hi to her and she doesn't say hi back to me she walks right past me and instantly I thought to myself man did I do something to make her mad like I wonder what I did I wonder why she was so mad at me and then my thought went from I wonder why she's so mad to me, to she has no reason to be mad at me I didn't do anything wrong she has problems and so that's how that's how my mind went right it went to this like all of a sudden you know in a way like why did my mind go there but here's the art of taking your thoughts captive because because this lady she was actually running after her toddler who is on her on his scooter near the cars so she probably wasn't thinking about me she is she probably had other things in her life and so the reality was the reality was I was being so self-centered and so righteous to think that this person should be thinking about me when they're thinking about other things. If I'm just being honest today. And sometimes we do that. We're so self-centered and self-righteous that we're judging people and we don't really even know what they're going through. We're judging people's motives and their intentions and all this stuff. Oh, you must be like this. But the truth is we gotta take our thoughts captive. It actually says more about me than it did her. It said about me, well, Jacob, you need to still learn the freedom of self-forgetfulness. That you need to learn that you're not the main thing around here. That other people have things. And again, and again, Paul is showing the importance of our thought life. And he says this to the church in Corinth. He says this. He says, "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought and we make it obedient to Christ." Taking the thought captive doesn't mean that doesn't just mean you're noticing the thought. It doesn't mean you're just noticing it. It means you bring that thought before Jesus. You grab that thought, you capture that thought and you bring it towards Jesus. Paul is acknowledging that there is a spiritual enemy that wants to get into your thought life. Because if your life is moving towards the direction of your strongest thoughts, well, the enemy will say, let me get up in that thought life and jack it all up and head you towards that direction. Come on, come on, come on. Are you guys hearing what I'm saying today? There's a spiritual enemy that wants to get up in your thought life, wants you to get it all jacked up, wants you to sell yourself short, to cancel on your family, to give up on your dreams, to say you can't and you won't and God's not for you. There's an enemy that wants to get into your thought life and keep directing you and driving you and moving you towards that life. And Paul says, "No, no, no, no, no, no, not today." He says, "Not today." Those thoughts that come in, we take those things by, we capture those things, we grab those things, we pull those things. And then He doesn't say we just pull them and look at them. Oh, that's a bad thought. No, we pull it and we say, "Christ is this from you. Jesus is this from you. I make it obedient to Christ." So we take our thoughts captive. And again, I love this. I love that Paul says this, "We take our thoughts captive and we make our thoughts obedient to Christ." Paul, he's saying there's value in a team. There's value in people coming around you. And again, also listen to this. Paul is using offense type language here. He's not on a defense. He's not, this is not a defensive move. This is all offense. We demolish them, we take them. And this is why it's so important to take an audit of your life. To step back and say, what am I allowing to come into my thought life? What shows and music and movies and media and news outlets and people am I allowing to speak into my thoughts? And I love how Paul says this. So we got to evaluate it. And then the second thing is this, we challenge it. We challenge it. See, my daughter, she had the tendency to worry, especially over school assignments. And a few weeks ago, she was she was worried about a quiz that she might or might not have to take at school that day. And so she was dwelling on it during, you know, during getting ready for the morning and she's normally a pretty chipper kid and she was just really stressing out about it. And she's like, "Well, what if I get every answer wrong? What if this happens?" And I just listened to her. I sat with her and I listened to her and I said, "Hey, hey, what if you get every answer right. Like what if you just think about that? What if you get, what if that happens? What if that happens? Because anxiety will try to convince you that your worries are reality right now. That they're reality. Worry has a way of making an imagined future feel like it's a present reality. And so the challenge, so we challenge the thought by asking this, and it's what Paul says, "Whatever is true." Well ask, "Is that actually true? Is this thought in my head true? Everyone's mad at me, is that true? My kid is gonna fail, is that true? My marriage will never change. Do I really know that? God has forgotten me, is that true?" And then ask yourself these two questions. What does the evidence tell me? Has the thing you're afraid of happened before? How many times has it not happened? What does the evidence tell you about how likely this will happen now? And usually the thing you're afraid of almost never really happens. But worry still tries to convince you that it always happens to you. And then the second thing you want to question is this. And even if something difficult happens, what do I still know to be true about my God? Much like when Nick was talking about during worship. That's why we write thankfulness journals. Not just because I needed something to do at night, but because I'm reminding myself of the faithfulness of God. Because when there's times that come up where I'm like, God, are you around? Are you close? I can review and look, God, you've been faithful back then. You're going to be faithful tomorrow. Come on. Come on. So good. Hope I'm being practical for us today. And that leads us to the third way to choose your attention. You redirect it. And then Paul said to the church in Rome, do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We capture our thoughts, we challenge our thoughts, and then we redirect them by renewing them. And then with joy, we say,"No." We say, "This hasn't happened yet."I'm not going to allow the enemy "to win my thought life anymore." And the brain, our brains, the brain is built over time and it starts at birth, and then it starts to evolve. And what happens is the brain, it makes all these connections, simple connections that are called neural pathways. And your brain gets more efficient and it starts to think in patterns. In other words, once you think a thought, it's easier to think that thought again. And it's like this mental pathway that's easier to continue to think those thoughts. Repeated thoughts, hear this, repeated thoughts become easier thoughts to think. That's great when those thoughts are healthy, but it's dangerous when those thoughts are not. Scripture calls this renewing your mind. Transformation happens when our thought lives become healthy but that's but here's what's beautiful. Paul doesn't only tell you what to stop thinking about he tells you what to start paying attention to. Whatever is true. What corresponds with reality not assumptions and gossip and imagined disasters, or the story you made up in your head. Whatever is true, you think about that. Whatever is noble, whatever has weight and dignity, what deserves your attention. Whatever is right, what reflects God's justice and good purposes. Whatever is pure, what isn't polluted by selfish motives and all the junk around us and all the individualism around us. Whatever is lovely, and I love this one because Paul tells Christians to pay attention to beauty. He says, "Pay attention to the beauty around you." He says, "Whatever is admirable, where you see graciousness, faithfulness, courage, generosity, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy," Paul is teaching us to learn to see God's goodness everywhere, that God's goodness is all around us. God's goodness is in a sunset or your kid laughing or a beautiful piece of music or a good cooked dinner because life is too short for bad dinners. Somebody be incredibly generous, someone standing up for what's right, a marriage beginning to heal, a friend staying faithful, a person sacrificing for someone else, truth and beauty and goodness and justice. Paul says, think about those things because worry trains our eyes to look for what could go wrong. Fear trains our eyes to look for danger. Being offended trains our eyes to look for another insult. Cynicism trains our eyes to look for what's wrong with everybody else. And Paul says, train your eyes to notice what is true, beautiful, good and where God is at work in your life. See, and joy grows where your attention goes. And my last step that you can write on your outline is this. put it into practice. We got to put it into practice. We just put it. That's how we do the joyful three-step. We put it into practice. And here's the truth. You just don't think your way into a joyful life. You practice your way into it. Paul says this. He says, he says, "Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you." See, some of us, we're waiting until we feel peaceful to pray. we're waiting until we feel joyful to worship, we're waiting until we can feel that trust in God before we surrender to God. We're waiting to get that person to say sorry before we start to forgive. And Paul says, "No, you just put it into practice now." He says, "Pray while you're worried. Worship while you're discouraged. Open Scripture when your thoughts are racing. Serve when you're tempted to be self-focused. Forgive while you're still working through the pain. Practice the way of Jesus. And don't miss the end of verse 9. And Paul says, "And the God of peace will be with you." Will be with you. That's powerful because Paul doesn't say, "Do all of this and your problems will disappear." He doesn't say that. He doesn't say that. Paul never promises that you, you, you think about these things, you, you put attention to them, then all your problems will go away. Away, away, away. No, no, he says put it into practice. And what you will discover is something that's even a little bit better than everything going away. It's that you will discover that God is with you. And so while I'm dealing with the heartache, while I'm dealing with the pain, while I'm working through the problem, my God is beside me. I discover that my God actually has a relationship with me, that He cares about me, that we're in step together on this thing, that I am not alone, but my God has designed me and made me and He is with me. And since He is with me, nothing can separate me from His love. And so that's why I'm putting into practice. And that's why spending daily time with God is so important because when you spend time with God, you discover the most beautiful thing, that God, the creator of the universe, the God who put every creature in the sea, the God who hung up every star in the galaxy, that God, that God is right with you. And friends, this is my this is our motivation. This is our drive because we know there's people all around us searching for hope, searching for truth, searching for something, and God is desperate to get close to them. And so we say, God, use our lives. We put into practice these things so that my life can be a testimony and a message to all those around me. And so I think about these things, practice this way of life, and discover the presence of God, and the peace of God in the middle of your problem. So tomorrow when worry shows up, and it will, do the joyful three-step. We're going to give our worries to God. We're going to choose where my attention goes, and I'm going to put it into practice. So God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, thank you so much for your goodness and your favor. Thank you for your love, that you're near us, that you're around us, come Holy Spirit. Even right now I just feel like the Holy Spirit wants to challenge some of those thoughts that you have been allowing to linger way too long. thoughts of doubt, self-doubt. Specifically I hear this one of the Holy Spirit saying, "I'm the only one. I'm the only one going through this." And I feel like the Holy Spirit wants to speak directly to that thought and say, "Stop believing the lie of the enemy that you are rejected and abandoned. You are not because Jesus went to a cross and died for you, yep, he rose again so you can be in relationship with your Father God and since you can be in relationship with Father God you are never alone. Come Holy Spirit. Yeah this thought is a self-doubt. We rebuke those things in Jesus' name. And God we say we replace them with whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is excellent or praiseworthy. I feel like the Holy Spirit is saying right now, you are wonderfully and fearfully made in the image of God, so why would you doubt? God, give us the ability to discern those thoughts against your word, Lord, and what you say about us. So we say yes to you, Jesus. We say yes to you. That's for the Holy Spirit saying that He is with you. May the peace of God be with you, be near you, Come, Holy Spirit. We love you in this place today. In Jesus' name, the church says, amen, amen, amen, amen.