Monday Through Saturday

Demystify the Holy Spirit in Real Life

If you have your Bibles, invite you to turn with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 4. Ecclesiastes chapter 4. And while you’re doing that, I just want to mention you just saw the trailer, but I’m starting next week a new series that I have entitled Demystify the Holy Spirit in Real Life. And I think a lot of people know God the Father and we follow Jesus, but the Holy Spirit is like kind of this weird thing. But I don’t know if you knew this, but the Holy Spirit is not just there to give you goosebumps in a church service. But the Holy Spirit is there to empower us and to provide us power for our everyday lives. And so the Holy Spirit provides us power when it comes to relationships, when it comes to decision making. The Holy Spirit wants to help you at your work, in your family, in your house. And we’d say what we’re saying around here is this that a lot of people, you can, it’s possible to get through the Christian life without the Holy Spirit. But why would you want to?

So we’re gonna be talking about it, and you have some invite cards that you’re gonna get on the way out. It’s just a little pack of cards, and what we want to ask you to do is to build up in you the courage to make the invite. You know, part of what it is to follow Jesus and reach the city that we’re called to is getting through the discomfort of inviting people to church. And so we would love for you to do that, pray about who you would bring, and again, it starts next weekend. We’re really excited about it.

Also, we have my beautiful wife up here. Y’all, can you put your hands together? You know, I was gonna say I was gonna say that with you up here, the wisdom up here is doubled. Oh. But let’s be honest, it’s probably tripled. I don’t know. That’s true. And so we’re just really grateful to have you. Also, I’m just gonna point out that Jordan, this is her very first time preaching from her iPad, and so she’s pretty nervous, so let her know if it if it crashes and burns. If it’s paper next time, you know it’s a bad idea. You know it wasn’t here.

Fall Palooza and Prayer

And this is a big week coming up. Yeah, just to put it back out there, Fall Palooza is Tuesday night. And let’s go today after service, there’s some real exciting things happening with competition already in the building, okay? So competition is big, and we know it makes gets people excited. So that’s starting today, and you’re not gonna want to miss what that’s for, but I’m not gonna tell you that part. But we brought back the costume contest, which used to bring out quite a bit of creativity in people. And so we’re hoping that you will get creative and not buy a costume, but make a costume. And I’m not gonna lie, we had to enlist help to do that. I couldn’t do it. I had to enlist the Grace is coming in hot, so y’all be watching out. Uh, because I was like, I don’t know how to do that. And Grace said, What are we doing? Right. So, but it’s an opportunity to get creative to do some fun things. We’ve got great prizes for that. Like you saw, we’ve got the pumpkin derby. That’s bring your own pumpkin and see how it does. We think it’ll be really fun, and so we hope that you’re planning to be here inviting people to come. It’s not just for the kids, it’s for the whole family. We’ve got stuff for everybody, so we hope you’ll come Tuesday night, 6 p.m.

Yeah, so it’s this Tuesday. Yep, this is two days. It’s the it’s Halloween week. So that’s right. This is our this is our opportunity to do something in church for the kids. There’s plenty of candy, your kids will have a blast. That’s right.

Also, we want us to let you know at the end of service, what we’re planning to do is we are going to be opening up the front of the sanctuary to come and receive prayer. What we’re wanting is to pray with people who are the way that we’ve decided to say it are in a mental battle. I don’t know if you know this, but everyone fights mental battles. And so coming up for prayer doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong. It doesn’t mean you’ve been unwise. But we think that there’s something powerful about coming and receiving prayer together. So me, Jordan, Marshall, and Cindy, we’re prayed up and we’re ready to pray with you at the end of service and believe God with you that breakthrough is coming. Anybody believe that?

Lost in Thought

Okay, so before that though, we are gonna have a conversation. Uh, Jordan and I, we’re gonna talk about uh as we close. This is week four of a series that we’ve entitled Lost in Thought, and we have talked, there’s been a lot of material. A lot of material. A lot of material. And so what we’re wanting to do for the final week is just talk about maybe in a real practical way, uh, even kind of like systems that we have in our life. We’re gonna let you peek behind the curtain a little bit for us in how we maybe implement some of these things that help us win the battle in our mind.

And I’m just gonna give you a super brief review of the past three weeks. It’s only gonna take uh I’m gonna say 90 seconds, but buckle up. This is all the things that we’ve covered. And so, since you’ve taken great notes, I’m sure you remember all of this already. But just in case, for the other people. Here we go. Review the past three weeks. Week one uh was entitled You Don’t Have to Live This Way. And in week one, we talked about this: the battle of life is won and lost in your mind. And we learned three foundational truths. One, the battle in your mind is the most important battle in your life. It’s not just one battle among any, among many, it’s the battle that determines all the others. Two, you are the thinker of your thoughts. You are not a victim of your circumstances, you have authority over what takes residence in your mind. And point number three was you can’t have a positive life with a negative mind. Even as a Christian, negative thinking will produce a negative life. The good news is God has given you the tools to win the battle in your mind. So that’s week one.

Okay, here we go. Week two, it was called Tear It Down. And we talked about strongholds. If you remember that. We we said this that strongholds are well-defended lies built brick by brick. You have divine power to demolish them brick by brick. And we learned the four R’s, if you recall. Number one, recognize, see the stronghold for what it is, even when it feels real to you. Two, reject, stop it immediately with not in my house. Don’t let it build a nest. Three, replace, fill your mind with God’s truth because you can’t just empty your mind. Four, retrain, build new neural pathways through repetition until right thoughts become automatic.

And then week number three. So this was last week. Uh, we did a message called What to Do in the Moment. God has given you a powerful weapon to win the war in your mind. Faith. F-A-I-T-H. F. Focus on the positive. Run your thoughts through God’s filter. Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. A, affirm yourself. Speak what God says about you, not what you feel about you. I imagine God doing something good. Use your imagination to build faith, not fear. T. Trust God in everything. Choose to trust before you see the outcome. And lastly, H, hope for the best. Hold confident expectation that God is working all things for your good. Review over. Okay, y’all survived. Way to go. Oh, round of applause for yourselves. Way to go.

The Battle for Your Mind

And I want to start off by saying this that Jordan and I, uh, we’ve been married 17 years now. We’ve been together for oh, thank you. We’ve been together for 23, something like that. And uh we are incredibly blessed. We are, and we love the life that we live, and we tell you that often. But we don’t want you to mistake that or confuse that with our lives being easy. Because our lives aren’t easy. Uh we’re we’re parents, we’re bosses, we’re pastors of a church, and all of those roles come with their own stresses, their own disappointments, and their own aggravations. And so the reason I tell you that is that the battle for your mind is not a theoretical concept for us. It’s not like I’m talking about how to be married as an unmarried person. Like this battle that we’re talking about, we’re talking about our own lives and our own journey. That the when we’re preaching these messages, we’re also incorporating them in our own lives.

Um, and I don’t know if you can think about it like this, but do you know how you know how interpersonal relationships are the thing that make your uh job hard? Yeah, right. Working is one thing, getting along with everybody is another. Yeah. Anybody? Well, that that reality is exactly what makes pastoring hard. Because whatever whatever you feel like the relational dynamic is, I promise you, it’s like that times 10. Because our whole job, our whole our whole livelihood, our whole profession, our whole calling is around people. And so listen to this a Berna study um that came out this year, Barna study, excuse me, came out this year says this. The average tenure of a lead pastor has dropped to 6.8 years versus 10 years a decade ago. And 47% of polled pastors, quote, seriously, 47%, quote, seriously considered quitting ministry because of stress, loneliness, or division in their churches.

So the reason that I tell you that is that if you think like, well, easy for them to say it’s not easy for us to say. That that what we’re preaching is our life too. Yep. And it’s decisions that we make. I think it’s just so important for every one of us to recognize that the battle in our minds is something we all have to battle. It’s not no one is exempt from that in this room. Not one person. The reality is we can’t escape our own mind. Like it’s there, every single one of us has one. And as a result of that, we all have this battle we have to fight. But we don’t always recognize what a big battle it is, and how important it is to live in a reality that how you think and learning how to take your thoughts captive is something you have to do daily, and it’s not something you ever master.

Right. It’s something that is got to become a part of your daily life in a way that brings you true transformation. That scripture is talking about transforming your life. And I think a lot of times we discount how important that is. And we also sometimes will just say, I don’t know how to do it, so it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s a huge deal. Right. And every single one of us has to learn how to fight that battle. Right. Every single one of us. And here’s what we know. We know that it’s very possible for many of us to have a fantastic Sunday and a terrible Monday. Anybody. Yep. Right? That you you can you can be in faith on Sunday and fear on Monday. You can worship on Sunday and worry on Monday. And so today what we’re going to do is we’re going to talk about what it looks like Monday through Sunday. Not just not just Sunday, the whole week. And that’s in fact our title this morning is Monday through Sunday.

Because how many people all know in here that you can have you knowing the right tools is not the same as using the right tools. Why? Because knowing and doing are two different things. And the gap between knowing and doing is where most of us live. Yep. And and the gap between knowing and doing is where the battle is won or lost. And so what we’re wanting to do is we’re we have three things that we’re hoping is going to help you bridge the gap and help you actually live it. We have three Ps, three letters that three words that start with the letter P. And we want to say this, it’s not three more things to add to the list because you’re like, I’m drowning in lists here. Yeah. Pastor David, that you got so many lists. Well, this list, we’re hoping, is once you, once you establish it in your life, it’s not something you have to think about, but it’s just three areas that really affect the Monday through Sunday that help us.

And so Jordan’s gonna help me uh with some of these because honestly, she’s much better than I am at them. Uh Jordan is the one that builds rhythms into our family. She’s the one that keeps us consistent. She’s the one that stops me and uh Grace from being dead, basically. That’s her primary job. Uh without her heart, our our without our house would be like the Lord of the Flies. You know, me and Gray, we no shirts, just war paint on, eating bugs. I wish I could say that’s not true, but it is true. It is true. She doesn’t just get Grace ready, she gets me ready too. Time to put on your clothes, Dave. Okay, yeah, no, no, no. I did say that last week. I know. Um, but she’s really good at the practical stuff for everyday life. And so we’re gonna go through the three P’s.

Winning the War Monday through Sunday is about People

And the first one, if you’re taking notes, I want you to write this down. Winning the war Monday through Sunday is about people. People. You know, a lot of people think the battle in their mind and the people they surround themselves with don’t have anything in common. But that’s crazy. Look at this. Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verse 9. It says this two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

And so, of course, we read this verse in weddings. I searched for in my notes. I’ve used this verse, I think, three times, and they’ve all been at weddings or talking about marriage. But this is more than about marriage. Right? You don’t win the battle in your mind by yourself. And that might sound counterintuitive because for a lot of people, when when they’re struggling mentally, their first instinct is to isolate. That’s right. To pull back. And like, I don’t want to bother anyone with my problems. But isolation is exactly what the enemy wants. Because when you’re alone with your thoughts, that’s when they’re the loudest. That’s right. I’m gonna say when you’re alone with your thoughts, that’s when they’re the loudest.

You know, I told you all last week about the health scare um with my mom, and I wanted to clarify because multiple people asked, yes, I did get permission to tell that story. Um but if you recall, uh, you know, my mom is totally fine, but it scared the living daylights out of us because we weren’t sure what was going on, and it was scary. And I told you about the call that I got when I had my trash in my hand in the garage, and I told you how I pulled out my phone and I went through the F-A-I-T-H. And that’s true, but what I didn’t tell you is this what I did immediately after that. So I wrote the F-I-T-H, it probably took you know two minutes, something like that. And then what I did, you know, the very first thing that I did after that was this. I started texting people. The first people that I texted was uh the pastoral staff here at the church and the and the rest of the staff. Why? To get people praying. To get people praying. I I texted some close friends. Why? To get people praying.

And uh what I thought was so um amazing is that in those moments, they write you back, and it’s them, it’s them agreeing with you. In fact, I have a few that I kind of that I pinned. These were messages that I got back when I texted about my mom. Are you ready? I’m gonna read. Okay. Uh Pastor Cindy said this to me. Well, to God. She said this. Father, please put Carol under the care of very attentive, capable nurses and doctors and technicians, so they order exactly the tests she needs to uh she needs for an accurate and complete diagnosis. And while all that is in the works, thank you, Lord, for your do uh for doing your work to heal and bring her complete recovery. Pastor Shirley texted this. Father, we release the power in the name of Jesus over Carol, and we decree that the power in the blood of Jesus is bringing aid to the restoration of her body. We thank you that the angels uh that the angels that you assign to her are surrounding her and manifesting their power on her behalf. Give Carol gifted, anointed and skilled doctors, nurses, and technicians that diagnose her condition with the highest level of accuracy and the most appropriate treatment. Grace Carol with the supernatural power of your hand at work on her behalf in Jesus’ name.

Preston, my friend right over here, he texted this. Just a couple scriptures for you to write uh on your heart tonight as a concerned son. He said, feels funny for me to tell you all uh of all people, but as your friend who you have pastored, I want to share the same with you. Isaiah 41, 10. So do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous hand. And lastly, Psalm 46, one through uh one and two, he says this: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear.

So do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous hand.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear.

Okay, so so here’s what I’m trying to get at. So when I went and I saw my mom in the emergency room. So of course I was praying, but also what I did when I went over to her, I told her that people are praying, and I pulled out my phone and I read those prayers to her when she was in the emergency room. I read those scriptures over her. And I just want to give you a little bit of advice as one of your pastors, if you would allow me. It’s this. When people ask you to pray, take the opportunity to actually pray. Yes. But also, this is this is the best piece of advice you might get all week. This is how you can help people in a huge way. Don’t just say, I’m praying, brother. And that’s fine. It’s not bad. I’m praying praying for it, praying, brother. Praying for your mom, brother. That’s fine, but it is a missed opportunity. Right? Because what you’re doing is you’re letting them know that you’re praying for them, but what you’re not doing is you’re not praying with them. And there’s a difference.

And so it’s an opportunity for you to pray with them. And so it’s much more powerful to like write it out. Shoot, shoot it in a text. I think texting a prayer is so powerful. Like this is an actual positive use of technology if you’re writing something. Because like when you’re in the thick of it, we’ve learned this multiple times in our lives. I don’t have the right prayers. I have beautiful prayers when you’re in the emergency room. But when my mom’s in the emergency room, I just pray so dumb all of a sudden, because like I’m in the mix. The emotions are hitting, and all this, I’m feeling all this stuff. And so that’s the time when you can use words that can help me. And so it’s just a little piece of advice, but I think it’s so um, it’s so important and so powerful. I want us to be a church that does this for each other. It’s like Preston. He he he sent me a prayer request last night. It was it wasn’t even anything major, it was just something positive, but he wanted to pray. And so I wrote a prayer and I sent it to him. And I prayed it while I was writing it. Uh Kiyazi’s traveling to Tokyo today, and so he called me last night and he wanted me to pray. So I prayed with him. I’m not praying for you, brother. But I just want us to be a pe uh group of people that actually prays not just for each other, but with each other. Because I think there’s something powerful about standing in agreement together. No, not just knowing that you have prayers out there, which is still a good thing, but that you have people that are praying with me.

And so we want to ask you is this simple question: who are the people that will actually pray with you when you reach out to them? Right. I think I think a lot of times people ask the question, they like know they need that, but they’re like, Well, who are those people? The first question that comes to your mind, well, who are those people? Well, you’ve got a ton of people in this room, but can I encourage you to look at the fruit of people’s lives? The people who are calm, who are at peace, who when you are overwhelmed, come to you with scripture. They don’t enter the battle with you and spiral with you. They have the scripture for you right there. They have the prayer for you right there. And why is that important? Because those are the people who will actually pray. Right. Those are the people who will actually text. And listen, you may not get it right the first time or the second time, practice. Because the perfect words are not what it’s about, but it is about this stepping into a place of agreement with each other.

And if you remember last week, Pastor Cindy stepped up and had us pray one for another. And she said something in that moment. She said, When I’m praying for someone else, I feel strengthened. Right, right, right, right. And that’s the beautiful thing. It’s cyclical. That’s what spiritual community people is all about. It’s not about, oh, gimme, gimme, gimme. It’s about, oh, I’m receiving, so I’m giving. Yeah. And then two more people are jumping in with me. It’s this beautiful cycle that we should be in with one another. It’s this thing that has to occur in our lives for us to get strengthened. And listen, this week we’ve had our own spiritual mental battles to deal with. But I found myself so encouraged at opportunity to pray for other people. Right. To encourage other people. And what did it do? It brought me strength to keep fighting the battle I was in. Nobody was had the specifics on that, but God was giving me strength in that moment. And we have to see the beauty in that.

And earlier you touched on isolation. The truth is the enemy wants us isolated. Right. Right. He wants us isolated. He wants, and not isolated in the sense of like, oh, I won’t go anywhere. That’s one piece. But isolated in our minds. And here’s what that’s gonna sound like in your mind. You said it. I don’t want to bother people. That’s just a thought. Right. A lot of people are happy to be bothered. Yeah. To support you. And that could be a stronghold. It could be for sure. A lie that you believe. Another thought that comes in there is oh, I’ve got this. Right. I can handle it myself. Why? Why do you need to handle it yourself? Right. That’s a shame mentality. It’s a shame mentality that the enemy wants to keep you trapped in. And listen, I think we could all agree with this. That when our minds are a scary place. Like just be honest with yourself. It can get messy and wild and not pretty up there. But have you ever been in that state and then said something out loud, and one, you heard how ridiculous it was. So the stronghold was broken, or two, someone spoke directly to that. Right. But the minute you say it out loud, it’s a lot less scary. And it’s a lot less powerful.

And so I think that we just have to understand that the people aspect of winning the battle in our mind is key and so powerful to breaking off the strongholds that we have in our mind. And so ask yourself the question, going back to the Monday through Sunday, how do I build a community? Right. Through the like actually build that into my life. Here’s a few things. Seek out healthy people. Who are those people who are calm, who are peaceful, who write those prayers. Seek those people out. Okay, this is a big one, and it’s gonna be on you. Actually ask for help. Yeah, yeah. David had to send a text. David had to message people. He had to ask. We tell our kids this, we have to tell ourselves this. People don’t know what’s going on in our minds unless we say it out loud. Come on. So you have to actually ask. And then when you ask, be quick to communicate. Be quick. Because the sooner you catch the spiral that’s going on, the sooner it can get broken. So don’t hang on to it. Say yes to people when they offer help. That’s the other side. You actually have to receive the help. And then it’s okay to bother people. And in return, let people bother you. Yep. That’s right. Very good.

Patterns

It’ll change your community. Okay, I’ve got one more example of a Monday through Sunday community and why it’s important, and then we’ll move on to the second, uh, the second P. But it’s this, James chapter 5, verse 16. It says this, therefore, confess your sins, listen to this, to each other. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. Isn’t that interesting? That’s an interesting confess your sins to each other so that you may be healed. And this is what I this is what I’ve learned. I’ve learned, I’ve learned I go to God for forgiveness, but sometimes healing requires you. That’s right. God forgives instantly. But but healing sometimes needs community. And the word sin here in this verse, James chapter five, it just means this to wander from God. To wander from God. And so you need people who you can confess to when you’re wandering before it starts being destructive. You know what I’m saying? Right? Because like once it’s destructive, everybody knows. But but you need people that you can confess your wandering to before you’ve made a mess. Like you not waiting until your life blows up and you’ve made a big mistake. But but having like godly friends who you can go with and saying, like, man, I’ve been wandering from God. To say that, like, I’m not in the word like I should be. I’m I’m I’m drifting. Listen, I’m drifting from my spouse. Like say it then. Don’t just wait until all this damage and destruction has happened. Right? My thought life is getting dark. Uh, and if you confess your wandering to a trusted friend, you can stop the destructive behavior before it starts. Right. So, like a Monday through Sunday community is people who know you well enough to catch you when you start to drift, not just when you’re already drowning. Right? So it’s important. So if you want to win the war in your thought life, one of the ways that that’s really important and that you do that Monday through Sunday in a real practical way is surround yourself by the right people.

Okay, number one, people. Number two, patterns. And uh it it it just it just gets worse from here for me, because pattern, this is not I’m an eifert. So we f we just roll with stuff, we’re very intuitive. That’s a nice way of saying we’re not great uh planners, we’re not we’re not good at thinking ahead in the same way that Jordan isn’t, so she’s gonna talk to you. And this is something that I think is so amazing about Jordan, but um how much progress she’s made in this. So tell us about patterns, Jordan.

I think that we misunderstand how patterns start. We blame our our patterns, and by that it can be habits, it can be all kinds of things. We blame that on our actions, which is true, but those actions, where do those actions come from? Those actions come from our thought life. Right. And so we think, oh, I’m just, I don’t have patterns. Oh, you have patterns. You for sure have patterns. Everybody in this room has patterns. The question is, are they good? Uh-huh. And are they healthy? And are they deliberate? And are they deliberate? And are they, are they, do you take the time to think about where those patterns came from? Because I think a lot of us in the room can say, oh, I don’t like that about myself. But you don’t know how to change it. You think it’s just an action. It’s an action, but it’s got to start in your mind. Right. If you want to truly change something, the patterns in your mind are where it starts.

And I had to learn this firsthand. I very much so used to live by how I felt. And so my day would start one way and then it would end another way. It would look like this, it would look like that. And I I got really tired of it. And I didn’t understand why I was living that way until I understood it started in my thoughts. It started in how I was thinking. And so Romans 12, 2, we know this verse, it’s it’s paramount to the Christian faith. It’s one of my script favorite scriptures. I quote it all the time, but it says, do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So the patterns are the things that we do. Those are the patterns. But we’re supposed to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. And so being transformed here is saying, I need to be made new, I need to be restored, and I’m gonna do that by transforming up here. If you want out here to change, you’ve got to start in your mind.

And so now you’re saying, okay, great, I get that. What does that look like? It’s a really key thing, and it sounds so simple, but it’s an interrupting thought every time you start to spiral into a pattern or a routine or something that you’re not happy with. It’s very simple to say, and it’s very hard to do. But the the thing is, I have a choice. Right, right. Say it out loud. I have a choice. We think we don’t have choices in a lot of circumstances. Something happened to us, someone did something to us. The reality of it is you can’t control them, and you know that, but you still have a choice. You still have a choice. And so if everything starts in our minds, and we have to learn how to catch a thought and say, wait, I have a choice here. What is that gonna result in if we stop ourselves before it turns into an action? Well, our patterns will change.

You know, David has talked about week after week that we have these pathways in our mind, and we’ve created them. And how do we how do we change those pathways? It’s by refusing to stay stuck in that groove. Right. And the way you get out of being in that groove is you say over and over, I have a choice. That’s how you break the pattern. And when you start to do that, your external patterns will start to change too. Right. And so for me, I David’s right. I’ve got routines. I’ve got rhythms. I’ve got routines for my routines. Right. Subroutine. I’ve got A, B, C, D, it’s it’s comical. Um, but let me tell you something. Yes, there’s parts of it that are natural for me because I’m an organized person, but a lot of it I have spent years, years training my mind to do. Really training my mind. Wow.

And so here’s some things that are like just super practical. For me, Sunday is the first day of the week. Okay, you guys know this about me. I’m a calendar person. Calendars that start on Monday bug me. What is Zingland? They make me angry. Like they shouldn’t, but they actually do make me angry. But here’s why. I don’t end my week on Sunday. I start my week on Sunday. Come on. Yeah. That’s not the end of my week. That’s the beginning of my week. But here’s the thing about Sunday, and this is probably just because some of it’s because this has been my whole life, but some of it came with me choosing. Sundays are the exact same every single week. That’s right. Every single week. I wake up, I come to church, I go to lunch with my family, I go home and take a nap, I prepare for the week, we have family dinner. It looks the exact same every week. I never wonder what’s happening on Sunday. And Sundays are a restorative day for me. That’s right. They restore what the week maybe took from me. They help me see where things were off. But I keep it the same, and that’s intentional. We don’t wake up and say, what are we doing today? Right. Nope. This is Sundays. And David doesn’t know it, but I created a pattern for him too. Yeah, see. Oh, the second, the fourth P is something about marrying the right person. Give me a minute, I’ll come over the P.

But here’s the thing, here’s the other piece of that. Mondays, Mondays are the key to my success. Mondays are the key to my success. And I had to change the way I thought about Mondays. Yeah, that’s right. I had to change it. You all know the common I hate Mondays. You see it on social media, you hear people say it. You do realize that’s just a thought. It’s not a reality. It’s just a thought. Right. Or I hear this one all the time. I’m not a morning person. Right. Also just a thought. That’s right. That you can change. Right. Right. And for me, Mondays are the day that I it’s like a fresh start. It’s just fresh. It’s in it’s a week, a new week. It’s fresh. I’m built up from Sunday and I’m ready to carry it into Monday. And Monday mornings is the morning I do the most stuff before anyone gets up. I’ve gotten up, I’ve had my coffee, I’ve dug into my quiet time, I’ve prayed, I’ve gone for a walk, I’ve stretched, and that’s all before he’s even out of bed. Or Grace. Grace is still in bed too.

But here’s what that does for me. I start calm, I start peaceful, and I start my day with the Lord. And the Lord directs my path. And when I start my day that way, I know that whatever comes my way, the Holy Spirit is in me, and I have all that I need right in front of me. And you might be thinking, okay, I can’t do all that. It’s a thought. What’s gonna be the thing for you that helps you change the patterns? Right. Because in order for the grooves in your brain to change, you’re actually gonna have to do something different. If you wake up every day and just do the exact same thing and you’re unhappy with what you’re doing, you have to change something, and you have a choice. And so those are two days. If you can nail down Sunday and Monday, you’re off to a great start. But then you still have Tuesday through Saturday. And here’s the thing you just have to learn how to get reflective. You have to start asking yourself the hard questions. What am I happy with about my life? What didn’t go well? And it’s, I’ll be honest with you, it can be painful. It can be painful to come face to face with those things. But I think a lot of times we just spend so much of our time blaming circumstances that we never pull back and say, What could I have done? And a lot of times we put that into our actions, what we do with our hands, or what we do with our words. But the first place you start is, what was I thinking about? What was I thinking about that brought me to that place?

And when I learned how to do this, and I do have one more list. Sorry, everybody. Oh, that’s good. Um I know what it is, it’s very good. This, I got this from this book. I’ll talk about it more, but it’s this is now instinctual to me. I do this all day long, and I don’t even realize I’m doing it. But it’s these four things that you can ask yourself. The first thing is grab the thought. Grab the thought. And if you need to be literal about it, sometimes I’d be like, okay, grab it. Like, do something to help you. But you’re asking yourself, what is it? What is that thought? And I think, believe it or not, we’re actually most of us in the room are probably good at that because we repeat the same thoughts over and over. Right. So we know the thought. We know the thought that’s causing us problems. But then what do we do? The second thing we do is diagnose the thought. We diagnose the thought. Is that thought true? It’s going back to Philippians 4:8. Think on these things, whatever is true, whatever is, you know, it’s all of those pieces. But the piece of that about is this true? Truth is the most powerful thing you have. It’s the most powerful weapon you have. If this is not a true statement, then you need to remove it. Right, right. You need to remove it.

And so, how do you do that? How do I know? Is this true? You take it to God. You take that thought to God and you say, Is this true? And how do you discover it? You dig into your Bible. Come on. You learn what God says about you. You learn what God says about other people, about your family, who He says that he is. And if that thought does not line up with those things, then we have a choice in that moment. So good. And that’s the fourth one. Make a choice. Am I gonna believe God? Or am I gonna believe the emotion or the feeling? Because if we choose the emotion, then the roller coaster begins. If we choose God and his ways, we begin to look more like him. And so that’s a huge piece of it, those four things. And I’m not kidding you. I spent years doing this on paper, in my phone, different ways. And now it’s a reflex to me. But all of those things, like genuinely, I mean this. I have changed a lot of patterns in my life in the last several years. And now it’s a joke. I have a plan for my week. I have a plan for my day, but I also have a plan for my morning, afternoon, and evening. And it’s not about the things I do, it’s about a check-in to say, What am I thinking about? Is my life producing what I want it to produce? Yes, I yes, I like routines, and yes, I like patterns, but I created those patterns to control my thought life. Yeah. Because everything I do starts up here. So good. Beautiful.

Persistence

Okay, my uh our last P, and then uh we’re gonna get ready to pray for folks, is uh persistence. Persistence. Galatians chapter 6, verse 9 says this. Let us not become weary in doing good. For at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. And this is something I’m sure hopefully you picked up from Jordan is that is that retraining your mind is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. And I I know some people probably came in here, you know, a month ago. It’s like, all right, I’m gonna fix my mind in a month. And here you are, we’re at the end of the series, and you’re thinking, like, didn’t work. Series is a bust, it’s it’s a fake. Um it it it’s it is working. It just takes time. And almost everything in life that’s worth anything takes time. Yeah, I I always apparently everything comes back to the gym for me. That’s you know, the one play I go to I go to the church, the gym, my house, you know. What’s your one pattern? It’s oh, I’ve got a pattern. I go to the gym. You go to the gym.

Okay, uh, yeah, so almost everything for me is the gym, but but I think building mental strength is like building physical muscle. So the first time that you go to the gym, you probably like get the 10-pound dumbbells, and you’re like, man, this is heavy. I I can’t even barely do this. Well, if you keep doing it, you keep showing up day after day after day, week after week after week before you know it, like the 10 pounds feels super light. Yep. And and your mind is the same way. Like the first time you are rejecting negative thoughts, it feels like I can’t do this. I’m so weak, it feels impossible. But you keep showing up, and what you’re doing is uh the way that I think about it, you’re doing mental reps. That’s right. Doing you’re you’re doing reps, and it gets easier um as time goes on.

I I said that I I’ve I’ve talked about this before. The little kid book that David read a couple of weeks ago is the kids’ version of this book. She reads the adult version, I read the kid version. Quit bragging. It’s called Get Out of Your Head. I’ve read this book several times. This is my second copy because I’ve broken it in its spine so badly the first time I read it. And this is my notebook of what my notes look like from this book. And I’ve torn out pages and I’ve done all kinds of things. And what that did for me was it helped me learn and truly study how to change my mind. And I cannot emphasize enough for you to do something like this to change your mind. It’s gonna take work. It’s gonna take dedication. It’s gonna take people, but it’s training. And when I tell you what my life looked like probably three to four years ago to what it looks like now, it’s completely different because of my mind. I used to have thoughts all the time that were not godly thoughts. They were negative about myself, negative about other people. I felt so up and down. And it honestly wasn’t until recently that I realized how much my mind has changed. Because I have allowed God to interrupt my thoughts now. Wow. Yeah. And I’ve had to, but but to say that that just happened overnight is crazy. Right.

And so yes, it’s funny. I’ve beaten up two of these books. And yes, it’s I have these notebooks all over our house. That is one of my bad ones. I’ve got notebooks everywhere because I’m always writing stuff down. But the reason I do that is because that’s how I learn. And that’s how God speaks to me. And so whatever that is for you, do that. It’s training. Yep. It’s going to the gym. It’s it’s gonna be the thing that makes your life look different because it all starts in your thoughts. One last verse that we have for you, uh, last of the morning and last of the series is Philippians chapter one, verse six. It says this being confident in this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. And we want you, we just want you to get that is you’re you’re not failing your training. Yeah, and and every time you recognize a stronghold, that’s a rep. And every time you you reject a negative thought, that’s a rep. Every time you replace it with the truth, that’s a rep. Every time you choose to focus on the positive, that’s a rep. Every time you affirm yourself with God’s work, that’s a rep. And so you’re not you’re not having to start over, you’re building strength.

And we want you to know this you’re gonna have bad days. You’re gonna you’re gonna spiral back into your old patterns for sure. It doesn’t mean you lost, it means you’re growing. Right. And just like I said at week one, I think I’ve said it every week, you got here thought by thought, and you’re getting out thought by thought. So if you have a bad day, don’t say don’t say it didn’t work. You just you just start again. That’s right, and then you celebrate progress, not perfection. That’s right. Because otherwise you will never celebrate. That’s right. And so, and so, like maybe maybe maybe four weeks ago, you were having panic attacks every day, and now you just have them once a week. It’s like that’s progress, and that’s something to celebrate. And we celebrate with you. That’s right. Like maybe maybe now you can recognize strongholds in your mind, even if you don’t always stop them yet. That’s progress. That’s right. It’s something to celebrate, and it’s something we celebrate with you. It’s not where you want to be yet, but it’s not where you were, and that’s worth celebrating.

And so, man, this is our encouragement as we move on is from this series to talk about other stuff. If you if you’re still like in the battle of your mind, keep showing up. Keep doing reps, keep using tools that God has given you. And then I think just like just like Jordan said, you’re gonna look back and realize that you’ve won. But it takes time if you don’t give up. It doesn’t mean you never have a negative thought, it doesn’t mean your life just instantly gets easier, but you learn to fight and not give up. I think it’s so important to remember this this piece. That the ultimate goal here in learning to take every thought captive is so that we begin to train our minds to think like Christ. That’s what we’re doing. Do you know that as believers, we have the mind of Christ? And so we don’t have to live by every thought, by every emotion. We don’t have to live that way because we have the mind of Christ. That’s what makes us different. And so we have something other people miss, which is we can, instead of scrolling, instead of watching the news all the time, instead of, we can pick up God’s word. And it will begin to change our mind.

And so we know this, but we must start to apply it, right? Scripture tells us, seek ye first. So when we begin to seek God first in every way that we can, our mind will become more like him. It will begin to be transformed. And so this quote has meant a lot to me over the years, but I think it will help many of us. Because this feels like a daunting task, right? It feels daunting to change our minds. But it kind of comes down to starting here. If God is exalted, a thousand minor problems will be solved. When we put our attention on our creator, on our Father, and we exalt Him first, our problems will start to be solved. Do you see the power in that? And so learning to think the thoughts of God, learning all of those things while they take practice and they take work. They start by exalting God first. Amen.

Here’s our closing uh closing statement for the morning. Winning the war in your mind requires closing the gap between knowing and doing Monday through Sunday. One, people, you can’t win this battle alone. Build a community that prays with you, not just for you. Because isolation makes lies louder. Number two, patterns. Start your day with God’s word instead of scrolling. Daily rhythms create a framework that supports you when feelings can’t be trusted. Three, persistence. You’re not failing, you’re training. Every mental rep builds strength, and daily choices compound into breakthrough. You got here thought by thought. You’re getting out thought by thought. Come on, somebody.