one through sometimes it's not always easy like i said we are not feel like praising but we can praise him in the storm we will see things happen we will see god move and calm those storms and i'm thankful for that today if you have your bibles with you i invite you to turn to philippians chapter four I feel like today I'm going to preach what I had ready last week to preach. God didn't change things up on me today, so as always, you pray for me. I want to do what God wants me to do, and I feel like that today is where I need to be back in our book of Philippians as we're just about wrapping this up. Now I want to preach to you a message that I titled, A Beautiful Mind. A beautiful mind from Philippians chapter 4, verses 8 and 9. And if you're able to, I'd invite you to stand with me just one last time as we read these two verses together in reverence to God's Word with the respect He deserves. Philippians 4, verses 8 and 9. Paul writes, Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, Whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with father I thank you again in raising of hands and shoutings of amens, Lord, but in the surrender and submission of our hearts to you. Lord, as you speak to us through your word, I pray today that we would respond in faith, whether that's for salvation, for service, or to simply just come and give you glory, honor, and praise for all you do for us, Lord. We love you, and thank you for your goodness to us in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. As we begin, I also want to say something that we do each week, and I don't want to get ahead of myself. We give each new believer who is baptized a new Bible and a certificate. So I'd like to present to Taylor here, since you're in the front row, I'll find yours. Taylor, this is to you on behalf of the church. We thank God for your faith and pray that you'll continue to grow in the Lord. All right? Holly and TJ, where you at? They're way back there. Tell you what, Joe, would you do me a favor? I'm gonna give Joe the honor to take it on back for me to Holly and TJ. We thank God for you guys and look forward to seeing you grow in the Lord, okay? So congratulations. so like i said libyans chapter four verses eight nine a beautiful mind is my title i know the screen not working but i'll try to make sure that i read these off to you and if you're taking notes you can follow along read these for yourself the great author mark twain who is certainly not a believer but he left us with a lot of lies and fifty quotes here's one that i wanted you to hear from mark twain he said what a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words his real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those other things, are his history." I want us to think about how much of an impact our thoughts have on our life, on our emotions, on our actions, on our decisions. And I've said it to you before as we've preached through Philippians, because Paul says a lot about the mind, you can't believe every thought you think. Not everything that enters your mind is biblical. Not everything that enters your mind is true. Not everything that enters your mind is wise. It might be your thought, but it doesn't mean that you should act on it, or even dwell on it. And I believe, I'm going to make a statement that I hope is true, and I believe it is for the most part, every true believer really wants and desires to live a Christian life. I think if you're saved, there is a want to, that is put in your life by the Holy Spirit. That doesn't mean that you're always a ten and that you spring out of bed with joy and excitement to do the things that God wants you to do. It can be a struggle to even get up and get ready for church. It can be a battle to read the Bible. It can be difficult to pray. All those things are true for everyone, including the pastor. But I also believe that deep down in us, if we're saved, we want to do what God wants us to do. We want to obey this Bible. We want to obey the Holy Spirit as He leads us. But I think the struggle becomes from here to here, from here to here, from here to here, right? Many times the thought process is where it begins and ends for us, because our minds get all jumbled up, mixed up, confused, and before you know it, we don't act the way that we ought to act as believers. Someone said, if you sow a thought, you reap an action. You sow an action, you reap a habit. You sow a habit, you reap a character. You sow a character, and you reap a destiny. That's very true. As we listen to our thoughts, and our thoughts begin to shape the way that we live and think and our worldview is, it will affect everything about you, mind, body, and spirit. It most certainly will. In Proverbs 23, verse 7, a very wise guy, much wiser than me, said, As a man thinks in his heart, so he is as a man thinks in his heart so we have that's not the organ pumping blood the heart in the bible most of the time unless it's a literal meaning is symbolic of the seed of emotions of affection your innermost being as a man thinks in his heart so he is our thoughts church are very powerful if you didn't know that i hope that you leave here today understanding just how powerful the mind is for every single one of us. And if it has such power to dictate how we live, not just how we think, but how we live, how we speak, how we act, then shouldn't we do everything possible to program this computer to think godly thoughts, to think biblical thoughts, most of all, to think the truth? I thought about this week about how thoughts impacted people in the Bible in negative ways. I certainly can give you plenty of examples of how it's impacted me in negative ways with my poor thoughts at times, but I want to just throw out a few names that maybe you'll know, maybe you won't. But there was a guy in the book of Genesis by the name of Lot. You've probably heard of him if you've read any time there. Abraham and Lot. Lot was Abraham's nephew. And they got too big for each other. They had so many possessions and cattle and just things that it became contentious for them to hang out in the same neighborhood. And so Abraham said, you know what? I am going to allow you to have your pick of the land. Take anything you want, and then I'll take my choice second. The Bible says that Lot lifted up his eyes and he looked out in an area that you probably have heard of called Sodom and Gomorrah. Probably not a place where believers would want to hang out and buy a house and start a family. But Lot didn't think about the spiritual implications. He didn't think about the ungodliness that was going on there. He saw fertile lands. He saw business opportunities. He saw a place where he could enlarge his stuff. And he moved on out to Sodom and Gomorrah. And I won't relate the whole story to you. You can read in Genesis 13 and 15 about how that worked out. As Lot thought about worldly things, it was a devastating result for him spiritually. And only by the grace of God did he even make it out of that city. I'll give you another name. Not just a person, but a nation. By the name of Israel. God was good to Israel. He heard their cries when they were in Egyptian captivity. He sent a man named Moses and Aaron to deliver them. He performed miracle after miracle for them. He parted the Red Sea and drowned the Egyptians who were following behind him. He provided manna in the desert for them to eat. He gave water from a rock. Over and over, God was good to Israel. And over and over, Israel had ungodly thoughts. as they wandered in the wilderness as god provided and cared for them they complained continually and they finally several times told moses we would rather go back to egypt and die there than follow you and the lord by implication out here in this desert and god gave them to some degree their wish they didn't go back to egypt but they didn't get to go where God had promised them, except Caleb and Joshua. I was the only two from that whole generation that made it into the promised land. God let them have the results of their stinking thinking. I want to give you another one. God, by the name of the prodigal son, had a great home, a good father that loved him, provided for him, cared for him. But his dad had a lot of stuff. Stuff will get you in trouble if it becomes your God. And this prodigal son, said, You know what? Dad's getting older. I'm not getting any younger. I'd like to have my inheritance now so I can go live my life. And his father gave it to him, and the Bible said he journeyed out into a far country to live his life. I saw a quote one time. I've never forgot it. Powerful quote. It said, Long before the prodigal's feet were in the far country, his mind and his heart was already there. before he ever started down that road to spend his father's inheritance. He'd been thinking about it for a long time, and that poor thinking led to some devastating results. Again, only by the grace of God was he welcomed home when he came to his senses. Last but not least was a guy by the name of Judas. Served the Lord Jesus Christ for three and a half years daily. Saw him do the miracles, heard him teach from the scriptures, Watched him raise the dead, give sight to the blind, make the lame walk again. Was the treasurer for that little group of people as he stole money out of the bag all the time that he had that important job. Thirty pieces of silver that he couldn't stop thinking about. He sold the Lord Jesus Christ out. All part of God's plan. God used that act to glorify himself. God can do good out of anything. He did the greatest thing that has ever been done through the evil act of a man named Judas. But nonetheless, we see the terrible results of turning your mind and your heart and your life over to wickedness when you allow those thoughts to control you. We live in a world, church. This month, I've challenged each of us to do a digital detox. For some, that may mean a complete fast from everything. For others, that just may mean putting a little dent in time and things. But whatever you do, it's going to be beneficial. I can promise you that, because we live in a world—I don't think I need to tell you this, but I'll say it anyway—we live in a world where the media and the culture is bombarding you exposing you, programming you, desensitizing you to all sorts of ungodly things. And we see it so much, we watch it so much, we indulge ourselves in it so much, that oftentimes it doesn't even bother us anymore. When we hear about abortions and deaths and murders anymore, there was a time when that would shock us. There was a time when that would drive us to our knees in prayer and repentance. Now, it's just awful, but what do we do? It's just part of our world. That's where we've resolved ourselves to be in. Our thinking has just been drug down into the gutter so far. And the less that we expose ourselves to that, the better off we will be. I'm not saying that it's awful to spend time on social media or to watch a movie or to go places, but you do have to guard your heart against what you're watching, where you're going, who you're listening to, because it is shaping your minds, and it's shaping your mind in negative ways. The Bible says that truth has fallen in the streets, and I believe that to be true now, certainly even more so than almost 3,000 years ago when that was written. So I want to give you real quick three things today, as I normally do, for us to think about. I read to you verses 8 and 9. Paul gives us a list there. And I wanna look at that list in a moment, but first I wanna think about the counterfeit list. So point number one, you can write that down if you're taking notes, there's a counterfeit list. Paul gives us eight things in this verse, specifically in verse eight. But I want you to notice what he starts with. He says, finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are true, truth is the foundation where every other thought has to proceed from. If we have untrue thoughts, then the rest of the things aren't really going to matter. If our thoughts are on untruths, on lies, you will not have a godly, biblical worldview or anything else. He says whatever is true, think on that. That means he is countering something negative. If we're supposed to think on whatever is true, we should not think on whatever is untrue, whatever causes us to doubt, whatever causes us to stray from God. I share this with you often, but I don't think it's ever something you can share too much. This has been the enemy's plan since the beginning. It may look different in our world today, but there's nothing new under the sun. And the enemy has the same old tricks that he keeps using because they work. They work on us. Notice what happens in Genesis chapter 3. I want to read verse 1 and then I'm going to jump ahead to verse 4. It says, Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. And here's what he said to the woman in the garden. Four words. Four words that he says to you all the time. Did God really say? Did God really say? All of you, I hope, if you don't, we'll get you one, all of you have access to this book before you. It contains God's holy, inspired, inerrant, infallible Word. Everything in this book comes from God Himself, written by man, yes, but completely trustworthy, authoritative, and to be obeyed by the Christian. Everything in this book is what you need for wisdom, for godliness, for a relationship with Jesus Christ. And every time you open this book with a desire to seek God, the enemy is right next to you saying, Did God really say? He is here today, in this room, as you worship, as I preach, as we pray, putting in your mind, causing you to doubt, Did God really say? Did God really say? Did God really say? If it's in this book, God really said it. He really said it. The question is, do you believe it? Or do you believe the thoughts echoing in your mind that say, you can't believe it. It's not true. Doubt it. Then he says in verse 4, did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden? And then he says, you will not certainly die if you eat from that. God had already told him. The day you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die. Here comes the enemy with the exact opposite thought. You will not die. In that moment, a decision had to be made. Do I believe God? Do I believe my thoughts? Or a better question would be, do my thoughts line up with what God said? If my thoughts don't line up with what God said, guess who's wrong? You, a hundred percent of the time. You will never be right if it goes against God's Word. Don't ever say, God told me to do this, if God didn't tell you to do it in here. It will always be wrong. A hundred percent of the time. No matter how smart, how good, how wonderful it sounds, you will be wrong. Every time. because oftentimes we feel like there's a spiritual battle going on between God and the devil. I've seen pictures on Facebook and stuff where you see, like, the devil and Jesus and they're arm-wrestling. You ever seen that meme or that picture? You ever seen that? That's about as silly as it gets. There's no arm-wrestling match going on between an all-powerful, sovereign God and a created, fallen being, angelic being like the devil. He is crushed. under the feet of my Savior. That doesn't mean that the devil doesn't have power. That doesn't mean that the devil can't have authority if you allow it into your life. But what it means is greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. But the enemy's saying, uh-uh, no, no, maybe for everybody else, but not for you. Did God really say that to you? And he gets you to doubt. He gets you to believe something else. And as a result, your decisions deviate from God's Word. And you go down the wrong road. And then He gets you to doubt and say, well, this is God's fault. See? God wasn't there for you. God didn't help you. God's right where He always was. You made the choice to do it your way. And God in His grace will let you do it your way. but he'll be waiting for you when you come to your senses. As a child of God, he'll be waiting, just like he did for the prodigal, just like he did for Israel, just like he did for Lot. He'll be waiting for you when you repent and come back. But you may have to go through some rough times because of you, not because of God. The Bible also says, in John 8, 44, Jesus said of the devil, At the end of that passage, I'll just read the end of it, he says, of the devil, he is a liar and the father of lies. That's from the lips of Jesus Christ himself. If he called Satan a liar, that's what he is. If he called him a murderer, that's what he is. Jesus said he came to steal, kill, and destroy. That's what the devil wants for your life. Jesus said, I came to give life and to give it more abundantly. God wants what's good for you. Not what's easy, not what's comfortable, not free of suffering, not free of hardship. But God wants you to have abundant life, and that comes from abiding in Him. That comes from walking with Him. The devil can give you... When the devil tempted Jesus, he offered Him every material thing that there was. You can make these stones become bread and eat until your belly is full. You can have every kingdom as you stand up here on the temple. I'll give it to you if you'll just fall down and worship me. Just because you're successful in the eyes of the world does not mean you're walking with God. There's nothing wrong with having things. If you're wealthy, if you have been blessed with material things, that doesn't mean that you're not living for the Lord. But it's not a sign that you are either. And I have found that oftentimes the things are a bigger detriment to our walk than the poverty and the suffering is. I've drawn much closer to God in my times of nothingness, in the hospital bed, not sure where I was going to go. I've been closer to God in those moments than when I had all this stuff that my heart ever desired. It wasn't pleasing to me because I always wanted more stuff. I was always seeking something else. Jesus will always be enough. It's on our bracelets for those that wear it. Jesus is enough. Do you believe that? Did God really say? That's the struggle. We might say we believe it, but do those thoughts affect our life? The enemy gives us this counterfeit list, and it starts with lies rather than the truth. You've got to stop believing the lies, and you've got to be more cautious about where you get the truth from. When you need answers, where do you turn? Do you go to Google? Do you look on TikTok? Do you get around your lost ungodly friends and they tell you what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear? Come on now. You know it's true, because we wouldn't all be in the messes that we're in if it wasn't. We don't run to God. Oftentimes, we're just like Adam and Eve. We run from God. We jump in the bushes and hide from Him. Think about that. I talked to our young adult Sunday school class this morning. Think about how irrational, how illogical, how stupid, I'll just use that word, how stupid ungodly thoughts make us. Here is an all-knowing, all-powerful God who created you, numbered the very hairs on your head, knows everything you will ever think and do and say from the foundation of the world. And here are these two creatures in the garden that disobey God and sin against Him, and when they hear Him coming, their plan is, let's jump in this bush and hope He doesn't find us. How silly is that? That's how we look, trying to do something outside the will of God, trying to do something that doesn't line up with what God wants us to do. It sounds great. The world may even applaud us and say, you're doing good. And God's looking at you like, your feet are hanging out of the bushes there, I see you. What are you doing? Right? God was calling to them, and they were running from God. And maybe that's you this morning. I'm telling you, you've got to reorganize your thoughts. And when you think the way that God wants you to think, when you know God, as He's revealed Himself in this book, not what you think, not how you project onto Him, not if you had bad upbringing, bad parents, bad friends, bad pastors, bad churches, and you think God is like that. That's not in this book. There's bad churches, bad pastors, bad parents, bad friends. There's not one bad God, because there's only one, and He's good. If you know that God, and you follow that God, Believe that God, and your life is going to change. It will change for the better, because you will walk with Him. Erwin Lutzer, who wrote The Eclipse of God, among other many great books, he said this, I thought this was a great quote. He said, We and our children and grandchildren will be swept away by the rising tides of irrationality and sexual perversion. We cannot stand against Babylon with a Christianity that expects nothing, demands nothing, and stands for nothing. Or to put it differently, we cannot conquer Jericho with a wilderness heart. You've got to know the truth, church, and stand on it and not believe this counterfeit list that the enemy puts before us. Not only is there a counterfeit list, but number two, there's a cultural lie. There is a cultural lie that is constantly put before us and presented to us, and we are getting swept away by it. We often pick on the young generation, but it's not just them. Culture has affected every generation. Every generation, to some degree, has been touched and affected by their culture, even if it's not the current culture. It's the culture that you came out of, and it has impacted you in negative ways. The world has embraced the lie. The world pushes away from Christ. It wants nothing to do with Jesus. You didn't want anything to do with Jesus at one point in your life. Nobody in this room was born saved. Nobody in this room was born seeking God. It was God that sought us. In our sin and our rebellion, He came looking for us. But the Bible said we wanted nothing to do with Him at one point in our life. Ephesians 2, verses 1 and 2 say, Paul was speaking to believers, reminding them of who they used to be. He said, you were, past tense, dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power there, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. The culture has affected us so much, and I believe I'm true when I say this here, people for the most part don't even ask anymore, is that true? What they ask is, does that work? What they do ask is, how will that make me feel? So many times I hear people say, just follow your heart. The Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Don't follow your heart, follow Jesus. Follow the Word. You may feel a certain way. You may be drawn towards a certain person, a certain thing, a certain desire. But before you let those thoughts affect your feet, ask yourself, am I going to be like Lot and wander off into Sodom and Gomorrah? Am I going to be like the prodigal and go into the far country? And I'll have the money in my pockets, and I'll have all the world's applause around me, but spiritually it's killing me. You've got to ask yourself these questions because culture is leading people down the wrong road. And the enemy is taking you down a broad road that leads to destruction. Not as a believer in the spiritual sense of losing your salvation, but you can certainly lose everything as a Christian in this life. You can lose all your stuff. You can lose your church. You can lose your testimony. You can lose your joy. You can lose your assurance. You can lose all that stuff. if you want to keep walking with the enemy and believing a lie. And I don't want you to get to that place. It's a terrible place to see everything that you did for the Lord Jesus Christ be burned up when you stand before Him one day because you didn't live for Him, because you didn't seek Him in the truth. Look what else Paul says in this list. If we start with the truth, we'll be okay. But we've got to also look at the other things real quick and notice how the world confuses us with these things. He says whatever is noble, Some translations say whatever is honest or honorable. We might say whatever is reverent. We've lost the fear of God in this generation. We've lost the reverence. We forget that God is holy and we are not. And there's a certain way that we ought to approach Him. I'm not saying you gotta come to church in a suit and tie and dress down your ankles and have hair that goes down as you step on when you walk. You can't wear jewelry or makeup. Some churches are legalistic like that, and I'm not faulting them for that, but I don't think that's necessary. I don't think that God is concerned about the outward. He's more concerned about the inward, which will affect the outward. If you get your heart right, you'll do what God wants you to do. If that's wear a suit and a tie, then you should wear a suit and a tie. If it's not, then don't worry about it. But I think it will change everything about you when you think godly thoughts, when you think about purity, when you think about modesty, when you think about godliness. It's going to affect the way that you live. It has to. And so he says, be reverent. Life is not just for enjoyment. We live in a time in a society today where people just think that the goal of life is to have fun, to be entertained. We are entertaining ourselves to death. We're bored for five minutes, the internet goes off and we fall apart. We don't know what to do. You tell the kids to go outside for an hour and ride your bike and they don't have any clue what to do. I'm not everybody. I'm not lumping everybody into one group. I'm saying that largely society has impacted us because what do we say? Nobody else does that. Why would I do that? I'm not going to do that. I don't want to be the weirdo. I'm not riding my bike. Everybody else is on their Xbox. I'm not doing that. It's crazy how we let the culture dictate to us how we live. God dictates to us. live reverent thoughts. He says, be just, think just thoughts, right thoughts, be in harmony with God. There used to be a campaign, I'll show my age a little bit, what would Jesus do? Remember that? WWJD? What would Jesus do? I tell you what he would do, what he did do. He was obedient to the Father. He said, everything that the Father has asked me to do, I've done it. I've been sent to glorify his name and I've done that. That's why you're here. You're not here to just have fun. You're not here to just live your life up for you. You're here to bring glory and honor to Jesus Christ. The one that died for you, paid for you, bought you, saved you, promised you heaven. Live for Him. That's the desire of a heart. He says live a pure heart. Think about these things. Uncontaminated and clean. This will step on some toes. We're way too comfortable with filth being set before us. We're way too comfortable with filth. I was trying to stay off social media the other day. Been trying to stay off of it for the most part. But I saw that video of Kendrick Lamar. He's performing at a Super Bowl halftime show with a crown of thorns on his head singing about ungodly things, about abortion is good and all this stuff. And I had to post something on Facebook. I just, I don't know, maybe somebody will read it and think about it, maybe they'll just unfriend me either way, it doesn't matter. I got it off my chest and I felt good about it. Maybe that was the wrong thing, but at the moment, I had that godly anger well up in me and I needed to tell somebody, so I told you all on Facebook, where you shouldn't be on, by the way. But anyway, My point is this, when we see that kind of stuff, are we willing to go into Spotify and delete Kendrick Lamar and say, I'll never play that garbage again? Or do we just say, well, it's just a Super Bowl, and he's probably not going to sing that song, and I'll put the clean version on my phone, how's that, Pastor? I'll get the part that's not explicit. Right? Or we see these celebrities. Listen, Hollywood is 99.9% satanic. I'm just going to be honest. It just is. There is one agenda and one agenda only, and that is to completely counter what this book says. They're not for God, and they're not for you. They're for getting your money, and a lot of you gladly give it to them. And there comes a point in time where if we don't stand up and push back, the world is just going to continue to run wild over us, and unbelievers are going to look at us and say what they've been saying for a long time, and you know what? At that point, they're right. Those folks are a bunch of hypocrites. They sang, Great Are You, Lord, on Sunday, and listened to Kendrick Lamar in their car when they pulled out of the parking lot. You can't have both. And you've got to make a choice. You've got to make a stand. The Bible says that two walk together unless they're agreed. At some point, You gotta take one hand and walk with it. Either the Lord, or did God really say? You gotta make a choice. And Jesus says, think on the things that are pure. He says, whatever is lovely. That's how you treat others. That's how you relate to other people. Do you always look at everybody else and find fault? Is everything that everybody does, everything that this church does, everything that the pastor does, a constant criticism and critique? If that is you, number one, you're sinning. Number two, you're not thinking godly thoughts. If there's something wrong, something negative, something sinful, you need to talk to somebody about that. And the somebody is me. The somebody is the church council. But when you go and have a conference with everybody else but the right people, you're engaging in gossip, you're engaging in slander, you're engaging in sin. And you should be up here today repenting of that. The Bible also says that you should have a good report, that be praiseworthy. Again, not tearing people down. Everybody in this room is a sinner. Everybody in this room is going to drop the ball sometime, including me. I'm going to let you down. I'm going to make decisions sometimes that probably weren't wise, looking back on them. I may unintentionally or intentionally hurt you, and so will other people. But you can't always walk around with a negative, bitter spirit about you. Go to the person if you need to go to them. Talk to the person if you need to talk to them. But forgive the person if they need forgiving. And they do. He says to have virtue. Think on virtue. Not lazy or slothful is what that means. We should try to live our lives in a productive way that brings glory and honor to God. We ought to think about how we act outside of church, and ask if when people see our life, if that draws us to Jesus or pushes people away from Jesus. And lastly, he says, we ought to live and think of things that are worthy of praise. That's the exact opposite of being critical. Look for things that are praiseworthy. Rejoice in the Lord, even in our imperfections. Is Kerusal a perfect church? Not even close. Will we ever be a perfect church? not unless y'all stay home and me too monday through friday when it's empty in here perfect church the moment we unlock the door and i come in or anybody else comes in no longer perfect and never will be but i'll tell you what god has done more in this church in the last few years than i could ever imagine and i'm not bragging on me i'm not bragging on the church i'm bragging on god he's done that i'm gonna tell you over and over and over again we went from a park bench in Milliken Woods to a paid-off building with six acres, chairs that you're sitting in that were given to us free of charge, two vans in the parking lot, one of which was donated to us, we have seen 60, wait, get this right, I don't want to tell you wrong, 52 people baptized in 26 months. Most of them New believers. I would say it's 75% of those new believers. Sunday school classes started. Youth ministry growing. Children's ministry growing. We're getting ready to have a bake sale with enough goodies to feed a small village out there, all donated, raising money so kids can go to camp and hear about Jesus. Over and over, guys. So when you come in here and say, I wouldn't have got that colored carpet. i wouldn't got rid of the pews i'm not saying that they didn't sing the best today they were a little off key didn't sing my favorite song pastor didn't hit a home run today he might have got a triple but he didn't hit a home run like he did the last two weeks listen god is good whether i preach a good message a bad message we sing good sing bad do this do that as long as we're making much of jesus it's a good day it's a good day It all goes back to what you're thinking and what you're expecting and what you're wanting. And that leads to the last thing I'm done, a corrected life. If you get verse 8 right, if you get your thoughts in order, verse 9 is what's going to follow. What did he say in verse 9? Got my glasses now, I had a birthday yesterday. No longer ashamed to say I need these, but I can't read with them on very good. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, two words, These do. These do, he says, and the God of peace will be with you. There's the result. As you think on these things and then do those things, the God of peace, who needs a little peace in this old world today? The God of peace will be with you. He's always with you, but your thoughts don't allow you to feel and experience that truth because you're too busy saying, did God really say that? God said I'm supposed to have peace. I don't have any peace. I wonder why I don't have any peace. It's because you're not thinking on any of the eight things that we've been talking about except in the wrong way. And that's where your peace is going. God didn't leave you. God's peace didn't leave you. You left it by going the wrong direction with your thoughts and your actions. Think right thoughts, right actions will follow. When right actions follow, you will see God at work in your life. Every time. Every time. I found this amazing. The average person, I was looking this up a little bit this week, last week, the average person has 10,000 thoughts a day. I don't know how they came to that conclusion, but that's what they said. I probably shouldn't have went to Google and looked for truth. I hope it's true. 10,000 thoughts a day. Most of those thoughts just come, don't they? If we're honest, you can be right in the middle of a Bible study and have all kinds of thoughts, ungodly thoughts even sometimes, right? They just come in. You don't even know where that... You can have ungodly thoughts right here in this room. Like, I don't want to think about this, but here it comes. Another one, and another one, and another one, and another one. The enemy is going to continue to hurl those things at you, hoping to throw enough stuff at the wall and something will stick. Right? That's what he does with us. He bombards us at times. And in those moments, it's hard to quiet your mind. It's hard to get those things to stop coming. But sometimes, you just gotta open the door and let them pass through. When you try to stop them, they just beat you to a pulp. But when you open the door and it comes in and you say, lust? Nope. Jealousy? Nope. Bitterness? Nope. I'm going to think of these things. Yes, that can stay. That can stay. That can stay. Nope, that's got to go. The more you fight sometimes, the worse it gets. But when you let God fight, you're better. and you just let God's Word fill your heart, you will find out that the battle that He's fighting for you, He's got you, and He's got it. But in the meantime, put things in front of you that are going to aid you in that thing, not be a detriment to you. Don't fill up your life with all kinds of filth, watching, listening, going, surrounding yourself with people who indulge in that stuff. That will not help your thought life. It will drag you the wrong direction. You might need to do a little pruning after today's message. You might need to do some deleting. Not just of phones and apps, but of people. And that's okay. That's okay. Psalm 101, verse 3 says, I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not cling to me. Don't set wicked things before your eyes. Don't set wicked people before your eyes. Think godly thoughts, and let it change the way that you live. Some of you have embraced those lies for too long, and I'm asking you today, as we get ready to do our Song of Invitation, I think Phyllis and Shane are going to come today, and you guys can come on up and get ready. Some of you have allowed your thoughts for a long time to keep you from Jesus. What if, not me, Maybe next week. Over and over, those thoughts have kept you from being saved. And your time's going to run out one of these days. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. And you're waiting to do tomorrow what should be done today. I'm asking you right now in this room, if you died tonight and stood before a holy God, would He let you into His kingdom? And if your answer is not yes, because I've turned from my sins and embraced Jesus Christ, I'm asking you to do that today. I'm asking you when we give this invitation to walk this aisle, let me show you in this Bible or let one of our altar workers show you in this Bible why you need to be saved and how you can be saved today. I'm asking you like I do every week, have your thoughts kept you from doing what God wants you to do? So many people say, well, this is what God wants for me and one of these days I'm going to do it. God didn't call. Unless He's specifically shown you this, God didn't call you to do something and then say, it's on your timetable, whenever you feel like it, whenever you want to, whenever it's convenient, whenever it's easy. If God called you, the question again is, did God really say it? If He did, today is the day to answer the door. Today is the day to obey. If you're struggling with some sin, struggling with some whatever, You're going to have to give it to God and trust Him with it. And I hope you will during this time of invitation. Let's pray. Father God, we love You. And Lord, I thank You for the truth. I thank You that, Lord, while my thoughts have been all over the place, that You aren't the author of confusion. But I can be still for a moment and get in Your Word and find the answers that I need. Because You are what I need. And You are what Your people need. And I pray today, Lord, that they would seek You with all their hearts. And that they would pray and cry out to You. To be the Lord of their life, the Savior of their souls, and the one that leads them each day by giving them the truth that will shape their thoughts so that they can live a life that's pleasing to You and that gives them the godliness, the holiness, the peace, the joy that You've promised. Lord, move in this invitation, move in our hearts, and we want to thank You and praise You in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. As we stand and as we sing,