Please join me in Romans chapter 5 and verse 8 tonight. Kind of started a little mini-series on the effect that the positive mental attitude movement has had on Christianity. And so we're going to continue along with that idea tonight. In verse eight, Paul wrote to the church at Rome, but God demonstrates his own love toward us. And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I don't know of many more verses in the Bible that could be qualified or said to be more positive than that. I think it's safe to say that the sin of loving self is not a big deal today. It's pretty popular in our culture and it's lost its edge, it's lost its ugliness, it's lost its repulsiveness and the sin of loving self is even celebrated, I think, in our churches today, unfortunately. And I think that we, even as Christians, have been ingrained with the positive mental attitude principle so much that we don't even realize that it's incorporated in our everyday way of thinking. And even to the extent of seeing the gospel, the focus of the positive mental attitude is always self. It's to make self look good. It's to celebrate our abilities. It's to have a positive attitude about all of our talents. all of our powers, and all of that sounds great and it certainly is appealing to the flesh to think that way. And the problem that I have with it is that it's unbalanced. It's not balanced by the truths of the Word of God. And most of the positive mental attitude movement, all of it actually, finds its origin in the occult in mysticism, which has found its way into psychology today. And psychology elevates the power of man and the power of the flesh over the power of God. And we all want to be happy. There's nothing wrong with that. The Bible tells us how to achieve true happiness. We all want to be fulfilled. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. The Bible talks about how we can truly be fulfilled. We all want to feel good about ourselves. We want to be content and joyful. And the Positive Mental Attitude group teaches us that we can achieve all of those things with Jesus' help. With Jesus' help. And that's kind of the thing that's infiltrated, or the thought that's infiltrated our churches today. And you know, I have bad news for those who think that this is the way we're supposed to operate. Jesus did not die on the cross. to help us to achieve those things. That's not what He died on the cross for. He died on the cross for our sins. And I know somebody's going to jump in there and say, well, wait a minute. What about Philippians chapter 4? Well, let's turn to Philippians chapter 4 and let's take a look at Philippians chapter 4. Jesus didn't die to help us to achieve What we want that's that's not why he went to the cross Then a lot of people come to Philippians chapter 4 and they come to verse 13 and they say wait a minute What about this verse in verse 13? What does this say? Well, let's look at it. This is one of the Main verses that they used to prove their point, you know that that Jesus is going to help us to get whatever we want And y'all are aware of the verse. So in Philippians chapter 4 and verse 13, Paul said, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. This is like the flagship verse of the positive mental attitude group here. And so Paul, so what is Paul really saying here? What about this verse? You know, what do I say about this verse? Well, this verse is actually a great example of what I'm talking about. Have you ever studied the context of this verse? Have you really looked at what Paul was saying here? Look back at verse 12 to get the immediate context. We could go back further than that, but verse 12 will serve our purposes tonight. So let's go back to verse 12. A lot of people come to this verse and they totally ignore verse 12. And it's especially true with those who profess the posimental attitude idea. They ignore verse 12. So verse 12 says this. Paul said, I know how to get along with humble means. I also know how to live in prosperity. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering There's nothing in that verse that implies that Paul is asking God to give him what he wanted, whatever he wanted to achieve, that that's what Christ was going to help him to do. Paul is talking about, in verse 12, his life circumstances as dictated by God for preaching the Word of God. That's what verse 12 is all about. Paul is simply describing his circumstances. He says, I've been preaching the gospel. These are some of the circumstances I've been in. Whatever those circumstances were, were dictated by God. That's what he's talking about. Let me give you a full, more expanded, true, contextual translation of verse 13. And it would go like this, and you might want to somehow another file it away in your mind to write it down somewhere. What really Paul is saying then, in light of verse 12, is he's saying, I can do all things that God commands me to do, that God wills for me to do through Him who strengthens me. That's really what he's saying there in verse 13. It's not about Paul just saying, oh, I think I want this, I think I want that, I want to achieve this, I'm going to ask Jesus to help me get whatever I want. That's not what he's saying at all when you put it in context. The object here is doing the will of God. This is not a motivational verse about helping you become a success at your job or becoming a success in life. This is a verse about how to successfully do the will of God. Somehow or another it's gotten skewed and taken out of its context. This is a verse about how you manifest the likeness of Jesus Christ in your life. That's what this verse is about. But that's not the message you hear today. from those who profess the positive mental attitude idea. It has usurped the gospel and our churches have bought into it. So this is just one of many verses of how churches, their thinking has been skewed today by that movement. Well, you realize Satan is always Satan always is going to undermine the truth of the gospel. He knows that as long as the Word of God is our sole source of truth, that God's going to have the upper hand when it comes to disseminating the truth. book, the book that you hold in your hand, this book here that sometimes we take for granted and sometimes we take lightly and this book that we don't spend a whole lot of time in sometimes and that we basically ignore through the week except when Sunday comes, you know, we decide we need to pick up our Bible so that we can go to church. This book is the source of truth. Do you realize that every second of every day Every second of every day, every moment of your life that you are living is going to be based on your faith or lack thereof in the truths of this book. God isn't, when you get to heaven, you die and you go to heaven, God isn't going to pull another book up and say, hey, surprise, here's some things that I have in addition that I wanted you to be, that I wanted you to be faithful to do. He's not going to do that. He's going to use this book. But what has happened is that our culture is bought into this idea that we have all knowledge, we have all wisdom today, we have the power that we need in our minds to accomplish what we want to accomplish, we have the ability to accomplish what we want to accomplish, and the Bible and the power of God is antiquated and it's no longer needed. The Word of God is no longer the sole source of our truth. It's no longer the authority in our lives. And without this book, men lose a consciousness of the sinfulness of the love of self. That's where we are. And even worse today is our churches have bought into it. We don't realize how important self-love is today. We buy into it and we celebrate it today, even in our churches. Why? Because the gospel has been diluted. It's been weakened. It's been adulterated. By elevating man, Paul said in Colossians 2, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. Satan has successfully diluted the gospel by infiltrating it with what Paul calls philosophy and empty deception and tradition of men. This is what is destroying our concept of the true place that man has. We have elevated man today. Philosophy is man-centered. And only the teaching, the only teaching on the face of the earth that is truly God-centered is the gospel. It's the truth. It's found in the Bible. And I'm not saying there are other religions out there that don't talk about God. I'm not saying there's other religions out there that don't talk about humility or the humbleness or the loneliness of man. But I'm saying that none of them really have God at the very center of all All existence, Christianity alone, puts God at the very center of everything. Christianity is built on the belief that God is so perfect, that God is so beautiful, that he can command us to praise him and not be selfish about it. If anybody in here would stand up and say, hey, I want you to look at me, I want you to adore me, I want you to tell me how beautiful I am, I want you to extol everything upon me, That would be selfish in our eyes and rightfully so, but God can do that. God can say, hey, look at me. I am perfect. I deserve for you to praise me because He is that good. That's Christianity. That's Christianity. The truth is, if we are not constantly praising Him, if we are not constantly living our lives with an attitude of worship, if we're not constantly glorifying God in all that we do, we are sinning against God. You say, wait a minute, preacher. Who could possibly do that? Who could constantly have God at the center of everything that they do and constantly be thinking about, how can I please God? How can I do the will of God? Can anybody do that? And the answer is, give me a drum roll. No! Nobody can do that. It's absolutely impossible. As long as we are in these bodies, we cannot do that. In the very beginning, God created Adam and Eve. And in the very beginning, I believe Adam and Eve did serve God. I believe they sought God's will. I believe everything they did was about God. I believe they were God-centered completely and absolutely and totally. And they did do the will of God. But what happened? The Bible tells us that Satan entered the picture and they fell. They fell. You say, well, what does that mean? What does it mean that they fell? That means that they fell from being God-centered to being what? Self-centered. Satan came along and said, hey, wait a minute. You can be like God. That is the source, that is the true beginning of the positive mental attitude movement. When Satan come along and told Adam and Eve, you can be like God. That's the beginning, not only of the positive mental attitude, it's the beginning of the occult, it's the beginning of mysticism, everything, everything is found in that temptation that Satan sold to Eve. What the positive mental attitude group does is it really covers up the sin of the love of self. It really covers up the sin of the love of self. You know, I know today we hear a lot of preaching about reaching our potential, you know, and our great human potential, and how wonderful it is, and reaching for the stars, and how, you know, how to be everything you can be, and on and on and on and on. But the problem with that message is, is that it ignores the reality of sin. They are preaching a false message. Sin affects our thinking. Sin affects how we see ourselves. It affects our minds. It messes up our view of life. You cannot ignore its effect. But that's what the Positive Attitude Movement does. It ignores the effects of sin on the thinking of man. The doctrines of original sin. The doctrine of the total depravity of man has always been unacceptable to unbelievers, but it's even becoming unacceptable to those who claim to be a part of the church. Our sin nature obviously does not want to admit that we are born sinners and that we are totally depraved. Our sin nature rebels against that kind of thinking about ourselves. Our sin nature is a reality. You're not a sinner because you sin. That's not why you're a sinner. You sin because you were born a sinner. And I don't mean to depress you about that. I just want to warn you about that. And our culture is teaching us the opposite. Our culture is saying, oh no, no, no, no. You're born good and everybody is good. And everybody has good potential. It's just that we do some bad things along the line there. No, no, no, no, no. No, no. The Bible says that we are born as sinners. But you say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Don't some men join the military and they go into other countries and they're willing to lay down their lives? Isn't that something extremely good? It is. It is. And you say, wait, aren't there many organizations today that help people, the down-and-out people, and try to get them back on their feet? Yes, there are many organizations like that. I'm not saying that we can't do some good things. I'm not saying there isn't a desire in us to do some good things. But Paul said, I got a desire to do that which is good, but I'm doing that which is evil. The preponderance of evidence is that we are selfish and that we are self-centered and that we are egotistical. A guy by the name of GK Chesterton, if you ever get a chance to read some of his writings, I would encourage you to pick up some of his books or read some of his writings. He's a pretty deep thinker, thinking guy. But he wrote, he made this statement. He said, certain new theologians dispute original sin. which is the only part of Christian theology that can really be proved. And all of you kids here tonight, God blesses you, you all grow up, if God so ordains it, every one of you are probably going to get married. You're going to get married and then you're going to have chilling. And you're going to find out all those children inherited your old sin nature. Those sweet little baby that was born to you, got a sin nature. Got that sin nature from you. said things we wish we hadn't said and done things we wish we hadn't done and wish we'd thought better about it. Given the right circumstances, given the right frustration, given the right motivations, we're all capable of doing some very terrible things, some things that we would never dream we would do. We're all capable of doing them. But more to the point, we're all capable and we all know right now that we're doing things that we don't want to do. things we wish we couldn't didn't do. Now you say well now preacher I don't you know this is this is kind of on the downside here and kind of depressing because now you're making me suspicious of everybody because I know that everybody is a sinner now and I know everybody's into it for themselves you know and and you know and you're just trying to turn me into a pessimist. I'm really not trying to turn you into a pessimist. Some of us are pessimistic as it is. We don't get turned into a pessimist. So how do we balance all this stuff out? How do we get back down to reality here? Man is sinful. We know that. He's got a sinful nature. We know that. So how do we deal with that? Well, here's where 1 Corinthians 13 comes to the rescue. So let's go to 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13. Paul comes to the rescue in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Let's take a look at it. You know this chapter well. You know it's the description of love and particularly the description of God's love. Paul is writing to his Christian brothers here. They know what you know. They know all about man's depraved nature. They know all about original sin. But this is what Paul says. This is interesting. Notice what he says. We're going to begin in verse 4. Paul says, Love is patient. Love is kind and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. bears all things, believes all things, and I think maybe your version says trusts all things if you're new to King James Version, hopes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Paul said this is how you love that depraved sinner. This is how you balance it all out. You realize that that depraved sinner is created in the image of God. When you realize that, when you're looking at somebody and you see in them that they have been created in the image of God, Innately, this kind of love that Paul is describing here is going to swell up and spring up within your soul. This is how you are going to see someone who has been created in the image of God. It is an ate there. God connected the two together. Yes, we understand that they are slaves of sin. Yes, we understand that they have a sinful behavior and they're selfish and they have, you know, some people have a habitual sexual perversions and immorality and greed and they have a violent temper and so on. But we know that they are slaves of sin. We understand that. We see that in them. Our love for others is not naive. We don't naively love people. We understand why people treat us the way they do and why they talk about us like they do and why they say what they say to us. We understand that. We have a biblical understanding of human nature. And that biblical understanding that we have of them also encourages us to love them where they are. Where they are. Let me end by saying none of this is novel. None of this is new. This is the way God operates. This is the way God operates. God is not naive about our sinfulness. He knows what we're like. He knows we're sinners. He knows all of that. He's very well aware of that. He knows how wretched we are. He knows that. He's not surprised by how deceitful and manipulative we are, or how bitter we are, or how self-serving we are. He knows all that stuff about us. And we can deceive ourselves, but we can't deceive God. We don't know the depth of our wickedness. God does. And like Paul wrote to the church at Rome, God still loves us. God still loves us. Even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We take advantage of the grace of God All the time, folks. We get upset when people take advantage of us. We don't like that when people take advantage of us, when they take advantage of our goodness or our kindness, our grace, our mercy, whatever it is. We do it all the time with God. We take advantage of His grace and mercy. We take advantage of His love. God has blessed us with two great eyes. What do we do? We go out and watch some ungodly movie or watch some ungodly show? We have strength in our hands, but what do we do? We use it to build our own empire rather than go out and help somebody who really needs our help. We take advantage of God all the time. We take advantage of His goodness all the time. And I don't say this to, you know, to depress you, I guess, but I say it to encourage you, to awaken you to the reality of God's mercy and God's grace. Don't lose sight of the fact that as a child of God, the most important thing God wants from you is not your self-fulfillment, but for you to be like Jesus Christ. A really positive mental attitude goes like this. You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. That is as positive as we're ever going to get. Well, I appreciate you being here tonight. Appreciate you allowing me to share these thoughts with you this evening. Anything else before we take care of a little business tonight? All right, well let's have a word of prayer and then we'll take care of business. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. We thank you for the goodness in your grace that has allowed us to be here tonight. And to go to your word and be encouraged by what truly is positive, which is to love you. And out of that love will flow love for others, when they need it, love for others when they persecute us, love for others when they mistreat us. I pray, Heavenly Father, today that you draw us very close to you. Awaken within our own hearts and awaken within our own souls a new, fresh recognition of how much you love us. That will do more to encourage us and strengthen us in our walk with you than anything else. Now, Lord, give us wisdom as we take care of whatever business may be for us tonight. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, let's begin with the reading of the minutes.