Defeat Your Negative Thoughts

i wonder how many of you are in the middle of a pretty decent life for the most part but still find yourself complaining a lot why is that that our lives can be pretty special most of the time and our minds can drift to the things that we don't like or the things we want to complain about what do we know about our minds our mind is a battlefield and most of life's battles are won or lost in the minds in other words the life that we have in so many different aspects is a result of the thoughts that we think what comes into your mind tends to come out in your life if you have a negative mind it's almost impossible to have a positive life when your mind is consumed with negative thoughts i want to review today as we start our message on my book winning the war in your mind i want to review a key thought from second corinthians chapter 10 verses three through five when the apostle paul said this he said for though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world on the contrary our weapons they have divine power to demolish strongholds what is a stronghold it's a wrong pattern of thinking many of us are held hostage by the lies that we believe he says we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of god and we take captive somebody say we take captive type it in the chat we take captive what do we do we take captive every thought to make it obedient to christ the title of today's message is defeat your negative thoughts and with that let's go before god in prayer father we ask that by the power of your word and the presence of your spirit you would renew our minds with truth demolish every stronghold every argument every pretension in our minds god that sets itself up against the knowledge of truth give us the power of god to grab the negative hurtful toxic lies capture them and replace them with truth god give us your mind that we can live according to your will we pray this in jesus name and everybody said amen amen if you've been with us over the past couple of weeks we've been talking about the power of the mind as god created the mind the mind is so incredibly powerful and we talked about the reality that it's incredibly complex but we have something that's called neural pathways what's so interesting is every time you think a thought you're actually creating patterns or pathways in your brain and the more often you think a thought the easier it is to think that thought again i want to expand on that idea today and introduce what will be a some idea to some of you i want to talk to you about what people call cognitive biases or it's often called a mental filter what is a cognitive bias a a very simple definition for a cognitive bias is a mistake in reasoning based on personal experiences or preferences it's a mistake in reasoning based on what you've experienced or what you prefer we could call it a mental filter or a mental framework in your life in other words if you grew up in a context and you had something really bad happen to you a lot of times you have a framework of thinking or a filter through which you might see a situation inaccurately for example maybe unfortunately there are many of you that grew up around very abusive men and so because you were hurt and abused by men now a lot of times when you see men all men aren't hurtful and all of them aren't abusive but because of what you endured your filter tends to shape how you see men and because of what happened to you oftentimes you may make an inaccurate judgment about someone around you or for example you might have grown up with parents who said uh bad things about wealthy people like all wealthy people are bad they're evil they're whatever and then you find yourself starting to succeed financially later in life and you might feel guilty or ashamed and it's not that it's bad but your filter shapes how you see it the filters you have shape how you see life what's interesting is if you change the filter it often changes how you feel change the filter changes the feel and we know that uh if you're posting a photo that's not very good on social media but you change the filter how many of you have ever done that before i liked this picture that i had of um amy and me until one of my kids got a hold of it and changed the filter and when you change the filter it completely changes the feel right it's same not just in a photo but it's very true in your life change the filter it changes the feel what is a cognitive bias a cognitive bias is what we might call a default filter it's when our brain is pre-wired to think in a certain way or to pre it pre-wired to interpret a situation even if our interpretation isn't completely accurate uh this is why two different people can respond totally differently to the exact same situation it's not the facts that are different what is it it's the filter for example uh you you might be at your workplace and your supervisor might go and give the exact same feedback in the exact same way almost in the exact same time to do two different people and the way they receive the feedback can be very very different one person gets offended why are you telling me that you don't know how valuable i am i don't even like you anyway who do you think you are giving me that feedback you don't know how much i bring to this company and the next person with the same exact feedback and a different filter may say well thank you that was really helpful now i can do a better job i really appreciate the fact that you valued me thank you for that feedback it's not the facts that are different what is it it's the filter type that in the chat it's the filter two different people can walk into a church two people together and one can walk in convinced that all christians are hypocrites i hate the music this place is stupid i never want to come back and right next to that person can be someone else who experiences the very same thing that says these people are amazing they're so loving i love the music maybe i'm here because god wants me here it's not the facts that are different what is it it's the filter uh depending on what news sources you consume you can read or watch some news sources and you can be convinced that the vaccine is the answer to every problem this year or if you read different sources you can be convinced it's the most dangerous thing that will kill you and it probably has a chip in it to track you right it's not the i know i'm getting into dangerous territory but just work with me okay just work i know your side is right whatever it is you're right i know you're right because i'm not informed but you're right okay you're right it's not the facts that are different what is it it's the filter it's what you take in you can see examples of this even through scripture there's a powerful one if you want to read about this in the old testament it's in numbers chapter 13 and 14 when moses sent 12 spies out to explore the land 12 of them went out saw the same exact thing but the reports were entirely different it wasn't the facts that were different what was it it was the filter two of them came back and said oh my gosh it's beautiful it's amazing it's perfect god has given us let's go take the land ten came back which is funny to me there was ten out of 12 that were negative almost perhaps representative of hopefully not our church but a lot of places out there where there's where it's way more easy to be negative afraid and critical than it is to fight for a positive attitude tim came back and said this is dangerous the land devours people which is really funny the land devours people and they're giants and we are like grasshoppers in their eyes what i promise you is nobody went up and interviewed one of these giants what happened is their filter changed their perception of how they felt and they felt like grasshoppers in the eyes of everyone else it wasn't the facts that were different what was it it was the filter but it's not just the filter that matters it's also the frame you can be in the very same situation and how you frame something determines how you see it and i want to give you a tool that i've worked with my counselor on that that's called reframing let's adapt a tool called reframing and i'm going to give you a simple definition of reframing what does it mean to reframe a situation or reframe a relationship reframing is creating a different way of looking at a situation or relationship by changing its meaning is simply creating a different way of interpreting or looking at a situation or a relationship by changing its meaning and i'll give you an example of how you can reframe a day let's say you wake up and you determine ahead of time this is going to be a bad day if you frame a day like this you can say very easily this is going to be a hard day i got so much to do today i work with these people that drive me crazy today i don't know how i'm going to get it all done i'm so overwhelmed i'm so tired life is hard life is bad oh my gosh what am i doing my husband driving me crazy this kid why do we have all these kids sick of my stupid car i hate the people i work with i hate my job the very same day you can have a bad day if you frame it the wrong way if instead you take the exact exact same situation and you reframe it you may wake up and say oh i've got a lot going today but i'm so thankful my god is with me i'm thankful that he's for me i'm thankful he's given me a job i'm thankful for my old clunker that gets me to this job even though some people drive me crazy at work i'm actually thankful for them because they're pretty good people i believe today is going to be a good day we're going to grind it out we're going to get a lot done it's not the facts that change but it's how you frame it i'm afraid that there are so many people that start to frame even god by saying i don't like what's going on god rather than looking for the goodness of god in the day it's not just the facts that are different it's often the filter or it's often the frame and what do we know about what goes on in life you can't control what happens to you but you can control how you frame it you can't control what happens to you but the good news is you can control how you frame it what i want to do is slow this down for just a moment and ask you think about your life right now think even about the expectations that you often have in your mind and i wonder how many of you wanted something in life but right now you're experiencing the opposite you thought that by this time i would be doing such and such or i would be in this place i would have this or i would have accomplished this or i would have had this relationship and you really really wanted something but instead of achieving or accomplishing or or having or being where you wanted instead you're maybe at the exact opposite maybe some of you you dreamed about having a great marriage and that's exactly what you wanted and you prepared for it and you prayed about it and and you were pure and you work toward with everything in you and you married your sweetheart and then years later you ended up where you never wanted to be brokenhearted and divorced maybe for you you went to college and studied and got the degree and felt like you were prepared to do something that would be meaningful and now instead of being in a job that you love you're in an unrelated job that seems like it's way beneath your education and you wonder how in the world did i get here maybe for you it was that you got to a point in your life where you thought i'd be married or i'd be financially out of debt or i'd be able to travel or i'd have a ministry or i'd be making a difference or i'd be i would have started my business or i'd be leading the business or my kids would have been better off and you find yourself waking up going why am i not where i wanted to be and you're so confused by it if you ever wake up and think this isn't what i wanted i wanted the exact opposite the apostle paul knows exactly what you feel like in fact his story is incredibly emotional to me because he had a heart for god and only wanted to serve god and only wanted to please god and he felt called to go to rome to preach the gospel and he knew if he could reach the people in rome that would be the strategic place to help the gospel spread all over the world so his dream his bucket list his top prayer list his greatest desire his calling was to go to rome to preach and instead of being in rome preaching he finds himself in rome as a prisoner locked up in house arrest awaiting possible execution everything that he wanted and he got the exact opposite paul could have framed the situation in one of different ways he could have framed it on the negative side and this is what he would have said if he had framed it that way from philippians chapter 1 verses 12 and 13 from the nwv version nwv stands for the new whiners version he could have said this he could have said now i want you to know brothers and sisters that what's happened to me really sucks as a result of all the hell i've been through i'm quitting life group and i'm never going back to church that's what he could have said in the nwv now for those of you that are new to church i just want you to know that's not a real version of the bible i just feel like i should say that you're like on your you version about where's the end of your video i can't find it where's my favorite version okay that's not real what he did though is he reframed it and i want to read you the verse this is what the verse says he said i want you to know brothers and sisters that what has happened to me although it may really look bad to most people it is actually served to advance the gospel he said this give me the next verse he said it's be as a result it's become clear to those in the palace guard guess what even though it looks like i'm in bad shape when i reframe it it is clear to everyone else that i'm actually in chains for christ what's happening i'm locked up to a roman guard eight hours every eight hours i get a new one who do you think the real prisoner is here i'm getting to preach to a captive audience and i get a new influential person every eight hours who has to sit there and listen to my eight-hour sermon on how good jesus says verse 14 he says this and because of my chains most of the brothers and sisters have become even more confident in the lord and guess what it looks bad but because i'm in chains they are daring to proclaim the gospel even more boldly without fear it's not the facts that are different is how you frame it and what i want to do today is i want to talk to you about how you can reframe your story and your relationships because what i know right now many of you you got a battle going on in your mind your life may have some complications guess what we all do we all have stuff every single one of us there hasn't been a day without some stuff it's stuff in your family it's stuff with your kids it's tough with your neighbors it's stuff with the people you work with stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff bad doctor report stuff bad behavior stuff fighting with your spouse stuff financial problem stuff fear stuff bad news on the news stuff bad news in your family stuff bad news in your extended family stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff and so often so much of life is generally pretty decent but often it's the small part of the stuff that ends up taking us out of god's perfect will i want to talk to you about reframing your story and relationships and i'll give you three specific tools that can help us renew our minds win the war in our minds so god can change our thinking which will change our life let me give you three really simple tools the first thing is number one is i want to encourage you occasionally to thank god for what didn't happen to thank god for what didn't happen i'll give you an example of this there was a um a 20 year old girl that said mom and dad i've got really bad news to tell you i need you to sit down and she said let me tell the whole story and i just want you to stay calm but it's really bad news i went out to a bar i met a guy we drank too much he came back to my apartment we hooked up and i'm embarrassed to say i'm pregnant the good news is that his probation will be over in a year and he's going to start looking for a job once he's out of rehab and he'll consider marrying me but since we can't afford to get married now he's just going to move in right now and she let it hang for a moment then she said actually none of that's true the truth is i got a d on my chemistry exam and i just wanted you to know it could be a whole lot worse there may be a time where some of you ought to thank god for what didn't happen in your kid's life right i don't know what it would be but maybe you uh missed your goal at work and you had a target so you could get your bonus and you ended up not getting your bonus you feel devastated by that but you can thank god that in a very challenging compromised economy that you didn't actually lose your job and suddenly you're reframing the situation rather than just focusing on what's wrong you can actually see what's right you might get in a car wreck one of my kids not too long ago get a little fender bender oh my gosh it's gonna be expensive and there's an insurance hassle and a deductible we're not gonna be in a car or you can say you know what thank god nobody got hurt thank god that it wasn't that big of a deal in the whole scheme of things there are some things that are a big deal but so often it's things that aren't that end up taking us off and if you'll take a step back every now and then and look with a broader perspective instead of focusing on what you hate you may just change the frame and say god i thank you for what didn't happen there are so many good things i'm not going to let this one category take me off of being encouraged by your will thank god for what didn't happen the second thing you can do is practice what we call pre-framing pre-framing deciding how you'll frame a situation before you engage in the situation why does this matter because our thoughts or frames often shape what we experience if you go in and say this meeting's going to be horrible i hate these people it's so dull you think you have a good beating you're going to have a bad me if you go in instead and say you know what we're going to do our best we're gonna be productive we're gonna enjoy the people that we're around it's gonna change oh we're going out i hate all this i hate these stupid events it's gonna be a pain these people oh you know what i'm thankful i'm with some people that i love we're gonna have a good time the way you frame it often changes how you perceive it and i'll give you an example of how i reframed a failure back in high school one of the sports i played was tennis and i've got some pictures of evidently all i knew how to do was hit a backhand in the pictures but i i my sophomore year i played number one singles for a little ardmore oklahoma and in the state finals i was in the quarterfinals i was playing against the number four ranked seed a guy named mandy ochoa who is a legend so i'm an unranked unseated nobody against a senior i'm a sophomore and he was a legend and somehow we split sets one said to him one said to me in the third set i was up five games to one 40 love against the number four ranked player in the state big crowd massive crowd of like 12 people gathered to watch this potential upset and i if i won any of the three next points they're called match points you win any one and i win the match well i didn't win those he went on to do's i ended up having seven match points in the third set i was up 5-1 40 love with seven match points i lost them all and mandy ochoa came back to beat me seven five in the third set um and i developed a reputation and a nickname called grochoka if groschell gets in a tight match he's going to tighten up and he's going to choke and i started to own a very negative label thankfully i had a great mentor and a coach who sometime later got up into my business and essentially he didn't use this term but essentially he said we're going to reframe that what i want you to realize is you've been in some of the tightest matches around and what have you learned i said i learned what doesn't work he said what does it work whenever you get tense whenever you don't hit out so what do you do in a tight match he said he said ask me he said you go for it you bring more into it you let loose you bring your you bring your energy you you excel and you you bring your best you bring your all and so what i want you to do is essentially reframe your situation because of your experience now you are prepared to become a great pressure player that very simple little thing i'm telling you i was just a kid it has stayed with me to this day hey i may have i may have choked in some tight situations but listen to me because of my experience god has enabled me to be great under pressure in the most complicated leadership situations when i visualize how i will lead i never see myself choking never see myself failing i see myself walking in with the power of god his spirit within me completely confident i will lead well because i'm a pressure player i've already pre-framed it some of you you're pre-framing your failure before you ever get there take whatever shortcoming you have learn from it pre-frame it and walk in believing that god will enable you to be successful what can you do you can thank god for what didn't happen you can pre-frame a situation and the third thing is you can look for god's goodness you can look for god's goodness because i promise you you will always find what you're looking for if you look for the good you can find good if you look for the bad you'll find bad if you want to see what's wrong every single day you can find what's wrong every single day if you want to not like people you can find a ton of reasons not like people but if you want to look for god if you want to see faith if you want to see the best you can it's just like the difference between a vulture and a hummingbird what does a vulture find every day vulture flies around what does a vulture find dead stuff dead things roadkill but what does a hummingbird find every day the hummingbird finds sweet things i promise you you will always find whatever you're looking for if you want to see what's wrong what's bad what's not working what's wrong with the world you can live a really depressed negative life but instead if you want to look for where god is working you can see he's still on the throne and he's still good and he's still powerful and he still answers prayers it's called cognitive reframing and a good therapist will do a tool with you cognitive reframing is is empowering you to decide the meaning of an event you decide i'm going to take it up a level and say this let's not just do cognitive reframing where you decide but let's let jesus help you decide the meaning of a situation let's let jesus frame it for you and i'll show you um what this means to me uh amy and i were at an event recently i spoke at a pastor's event with uh there were probably 125 pastors of um what would be considered the most prominent churches in the country many of you would know many of the pastors who were there it was interesting is almost to every single one when we talked privately they said last year was the worst year ever and their spouses talked to amy on it was it was the worst year ever and there was just this this heaviness and this um a sense from some almost of hopelessness of how do we recover in the church world and i looked back over last year and have had those thoughts and every single one of you in your own way had your own version of this and so i don't want to pretend like my year was worse than yours but you had some version my version was you know quarantined as like one of the first people in the country back in february and then the church shut down and there's this massive fear of like what do you do when you can't meet how do you even navigate through that for almost three months then there was the well if you reopen you're dangerous was what some of you thought if you don't reopen you got no faith is what others if you thought and then there was a whole mask thing like meaning if you wear a mask you're a flaming liberal if you don't wear a mask you're dangerous to the world and i mean we're talking about like hatred from christians and then there was the um the growing awareness of the racial tension and even with the purest of intentions of trying to love people well it doesn't seem like any of us got that exactly right then the political divide which we all know so well and here we find ourselves in the middle of a very difficult situation looking going this was the worst year ever or was it because when i started looking back through my old pictures on my phone i didn't see any of that bad stuff and i'll show you just a small glimpse of what i saw i was one of the first people quarantined and i was exposed to the virus in germany in february came back and for 14 days didn't see amy this is the closest i got to as this photo this is me the guy on the right down the bottom with a mask on and a shirt over his head for some reason i thought that would help the virus from jumping across the yard to get her and i'm telling you right now is um it was the most intimate spiritual meaningful time with amy we facetimed and talked from across the house and i fell more in love with her not being with her and it's amazing how much i loved her then my married daughters were quarantined back in like march and april i don't know what they were doing but somehow we ended up getting these two amazing little blessings and then at church we had some restructuring which enabled my son-in-law luke to get promoted to a youth pastor job at his church in the greater tulsa area and anna and luke bought their first house and they didn't have a baby they had a dog and then this is doesn't mean anything but amy learned to cut hair which i thought was funny but i got more time with my kids and instead of working out in the gym i worked out with my sons and had more time with them and then i had what i call adventures with joy where we went all over the place and we found some sort of a skull here we're not sure if it's a cow head or a dinosaur head we think it's probably a dinosaur head but as i look back over the last year it's easy at first glance to think it was the worst year ever but actually i see so many incredible blessings when i reframe it and when you look at the church that had to close down for months and yet and then attendance is like half of what it used to be but somehow in the middle of that my god who was always faithful managed to see more people come to jesus last year than any year previous and now when i look back it doesn't seem so bad it doesn't seem so bad it's reframing in other words if god is working in all things for good then it's time to reject the unhealthy thoughts do away with those frames that tell you can't and you won't and you're nothing and you're a failure and you're not smart and we're going to reframe it and what we're doing is we're not we're not passively receiving circumstances but we're actively interpreting it and guess what we're not interpreting the goodness of god through our circumstances but we're interpreting our circumstances through the goodness of god what has happened has actually served to advance the gospel because you cannot control what happens to you but you can control how you frame it do not be conformed to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind and when you know the truth the truth will set you free so father we ask today that by your power in your spirit you would help us reframe some things going on in our lives right now god renew our minds any area god we're filled with the stuff we're confused we're hurting we're disappointed we're afraid god help us to see you in it all of our churches as you're praying today those who say yes god help me maybe maybe reframe and see your goodness would you lift up your hands right now you need to reframe something father i thank you that you're working god even as people are watching online god renew our minds with truth i know there are real significant burdens that people are facing right now real significant burdens and god even in the middle of those trials i pray we could experience your grace that sustains us your strength that carries us and your spirit god that comforts us help us to see you even when we're hurting god give us the power to see your goodness to sense your presence and to do your will god in all that we do as you keep praying today at all of our different churches and those of you that are watching online some of you may say well i really don't see god working in any area of my life and if i could submit to you maybe it's because you don't have god in your life in a real way you don't have a real relationship with god let me tell you about how much he loves you he loves you so much that he became one of you he didn't shout his love from heaven but he showed his love on earth he became one of us in the person of jesus it was god in in human form god in the flesh jesus was without sin he was perfect in every way and he's called the lamb of god he was the innocent sacrifice he was the sinless one who went to the cross for the forgiveness of all of our sins jesus gave his life and the power of god raised jesus from the dead so that anyone this includes you it doesn't matter how dark your life feels how bad you've been how much you've done wrong anyone who calls on that name that is above every name the name of jesus your sins would be forgiven and you would be made brand new today at all of our churches or watching online those who say i want that what do we do we're simply going to turn away from our old life we're going to repent of our sinfulness and we're going to turn toward jesus we're going to call on him and when we do he hears our prayers he forgives our sins and he makes us new today at all of our churches or or online those who say yes jesus i want you yes jesus save me yes i'm turning for my sins i'm giving my life to you jesus today i surrender my life if that's your prayer lift your hands high now all over the place and say yes that's me i'm surrendering my life to jesus those of you online just type it in the chat we'll celebrate with you say i'm giving my life to jesus i'm giving my life to jesus and as we have people in in countries from around the world and all of our churches finding new life in christ would you just pray with those around you in a moment we're going to celebrate new birth through the power of jesus just pray aloud pray heavenly father please forgive me for all of my sins change me fill me with your spirit and make me new my life is not mine i give it to you change my mind cleanse my heart direct my steps i surrender my life completely to you use me to show your love in jesus name i pray could you celebrate big right now welcome those today born into god's family you

Channel: Life.Church

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Keywords: Craig Groeschel, Sermon, Life.Church, Lifechurch, life church, life church sermons, craig rochelle, groeschel craig, church sermons 2021, positive thinking, negative thoughts, change your thinking, stop negative thoughts, how to stop negative thoughts, overcome negative thoughts, eliminate negative thoughts, overcoming negative thoughts, negative thinking, negative thought, stop thinking negatively, overcoming negative thinking, negative thinking patterns, positive thoughts

Id: CwINTJAaPR0

Length: 35min 19sec (2119 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021