Renew Your Mind Pt. 1

under all generations it's good to see those of you who are here and we will of course move methodically forward but we are just so grateful that you took the time to share with us in this hour of fellowship it's been quite some time now since the 25th of march and god has been good he has been good to bring us back to the house of the lord where we can serve and praise uh his holy name so just good to see all of you i'm sure that uh you have gotten your instructions with regards to how we're going to do this and we will certainly be most appreciative to all of our members if you will follow instructions whatever they are again you should have gotten something out there at the front desk that uh acquaints you with uh with uh with procedure and uh and we would like that all of all of us follow those procedures because we certainly want to be as judicious and as efficacious as we possibly can in terms of doing what it is we need to do to make sure that we are in the safety zone now you you know as members of the church and you've been looking at your television and you have been reading uh your information on your phone and and and you know what the uh guidelines are you know what they are and um you know that as much as we love each other uh you know we can't be hugging and uh but we love you you understand all that good stuff i i don't have to go through that and uh you're going to be as careful as you possibly can as we move forward uh with our uh service this morning we will not be here for an e long gated point of time or duration of time uh sister washington the first lady is on her way uh should be on her way i was here a little early and uh but one of the men of the church have gone to pick her up and so surely hopefully she'll be here as soon as as she possibly can i want to thank the building committee that works so indeed fatiguably to get the church ready for you uh to come in on sunday morning they work really hard to get the job done and um in desensitizing or sanitizing the building and getting everything ready for you and you are as safe as we can possibly make it within the guidelines of the center of disease control and the broward county health department so you're safe in the building everything has been uh well i won't say everything because that's um that's to assume that nothing has been missed but we have prepared the building and we have done all that we felt we could do to protect everyone uh from anything that probably could uh uh affect uh your worship today and for the rest uh for the rest of the year so just relax should be and just know that um all efforts have been carefully done in order to make sure that all of us including myself including our loved ones is safe or are safe when you come into the building now there will not be uh wednesday night service our wednesday bible class we're going to hold off on that for a while we will be announcing it so you will get the announcement with regards to wednesday night bible study and uh streaming online uh we will get that announced so you will just know how we're going to do that we had a system set up [Music] before today that we would do in double time we were doing streaming online for you on sunday morning and then we were using the streaming online to dovetail it into our worldwide television program the uh the tech team did an excellent job in putting all of that together but now that we're back in the building we're going to have to see just how we can uh do this and uh to make sure that those of our members who are not able to come to worship they may be able to get the streaming online and hopefully the tech team will work that out and i'll make the i make the announcements our worldwide television program is uh still intact for the time being and um we want to thank all of our members you included that made sure that you got your lay-by in and we were able to carry on the business of the church for the last year uh in terms of radio television and i never missed a sunday and i never missed a bill and uh never missed a financial obligation because of your stipulativeness to make sure that everything went well so i want to thank you all the members of the church uh and i don't even know whether we're streaming online this morning i have no idea the tech team didn't tell me but i guess we are uh and if we're not i'm saying anyway those who are at home members of of the heights who are at home uh just know that we appreciate you and all of the great things that you have done and again the building committee that took care of this big building to make sure that everything was was okay for you when you came in this morning we want to thank them again and they are still out there running all over the place making sure that uh your needs are taken care of and and making sure that we stay in sync with uh all of the uh guidelines that we're supposed to say stay in sync with so it's just good to see you and uh and uh to share with you this morning and uh it's been a long time it's been a long time and you're not sitting in your regular seats either uh some of you in your regular seats but uh a lot of you're not in your regular seats i know where you're supposed to be sitting and but that's okay you're free to sit wherever you want to sit and uh but it's just it's just good to see you and uh we're looking forward to the time that all of this will be over and we can come together again uh in a closer fellowship uh in in the lord so god bless you and and god keep you and i want and i'm waving at everybody every everybody i'm waving at i'm waving at i'm waving it every day you go way back at me i'm waving at everybody waving the praise and say thank you god bless you and may god keep you uh in his uh in his care now i'm we're going to have a word of prayer uh not only for our church because we've already had our devotional prayer but we're going to have a devotional prayer here another prayer and we're going to be praying not only for members of our church not only for members of the heights but we're going to be praying for members around the world in our media church and in our worldwide church we're going to be praying for you that god will continue to bless you and keep you because god has been so good to us i mean he has been so good to us and we do not have words in our vocabulary to express how much we appreciate the goodness and the mercy and the grace of our god i mean he is a loving god and and we cannot say uh we cannot say that enough so i'm going to ask every hit be bowed as we approach the mighty throne of god one more time our father and i god we come before you recognizing who you are recognizing that you are the god of the universe recognizing that you hold this world in the hollow of your hand and we just thank you our father for being our father we thank you our father for watching over us and bringing us back to this building we thank you our father that you watched over us while we were out of this building and you kept us and you loved us and you cared for us and you brought us back again to fellowship one with another and if we remember your word that is if we uh walk in fellowship with one another we will be in fellowship with you and your son and your holy spirit and we just thank you for allowing us to fellowship one more time and we pray our father that you will continue to bless us to continue to fellowship one with another in the mighty mighty name of jesus thank you now for your holy spirit thank you for the leadership of your holy spirit thank you for your holy spirit that guides us and opened up our minds that we might understand more clearly your divine word and now our father will call on you to bless uh those in our church who are sick and those in our church who are afflicted those in our church who wanted to be here this morning but were but were unable to be here we would ask that you would bless them there's all of those in our church who are sick and those who are afflicted and those who are in poor health bless them and keep them safe give them what they need for what they needed for bless all of those families uh in our church who have lost loved ones bless all of those families in the household of faith everywhere that have lost loved ones give them the strength that they need for what they needed for and we'll be grateful to give you all the glory all the honor and all the praise in the mighty name of jesus everybody said amen god bless now uh i jot it down if i jot it down a few notes and um that i want to share with you uh with with with this church i want to give you uh some encouragement uh as we move forward in 2021 god has blessed us to live through 2020 and he has brought us to the very doorstep of 2021 now i want to share some things with you and um and and i would hope that you will share what i'm sharing with you with your family and with your friends and uh co-workers or whatever the case is just jotted down a few notes and um i wanted to share with you as a church uh this morning because i wanted to be sure that you have some principles to live by as you move from day to day in 2021. uh 2021 uh of course is going to have its ups and downs 2021 is going to have its difficulties 2021 uh is going uh to be most difficult to some of us but i want to just give you uh some principles as to have a better 2021 than you had in 2020 first thing uh that uh i jotted down here for the church uh this morning is in order to have and listen to me carefully in order to have uh a productive 20 21 you're gonna have to as a child of god you're gonna have to unclutter your mind you're gonna have to unclutter your mind because 20 21 is not going to be as productive for you as a child of god uh even though you are a child of god if you don't practice how to unclutter your mind i'll tell you why i'm saying that romans uh chapter 12 and verse 1 you know what it says i beseech you therefore brethren by the mercy of god that you present your body is a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto god which is your reasonable service be not conformed to this world but be your transformed by the renewing of your mind uncluttering your mind now those of you who are listening to me this morning those of you who may be listening around the world in the media church wherever you are and particularly those of you who are with us this morning in the auditorium uh unclutter your mind because everything in 2021 depends and hear me clearly depends upon your ability to unclutter your mind and that's what paul meant when he said i beseech you therefore brothering by the mercy of god and that you present your body as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to the god which is a reasonable service and be not conformed to this world that that's how that's how 2021 uh is going to be uh uh acceptable uh not only acceptable that's not 2021 is going to allow you to be the the the productive member uh or the productive person that god would have you be that's the first thing first thing is uncluttery mine your mind now what do you mean uh doc about uncluttering your mind 2021 is going to present to you some challenges there will be challenges in 2021 just like there were challenges in 2020. in 2020 you made mistakes in 2020 uh you committed sin uh in 2020 and uh you may have had uh relationship problems in in 2020 you you may have had a loss of loved ones in 2020 you've had difficulties in 2020 i submit to you that you're going to have similar challenges in 2021 because certain things are not going to go away the devil is not going to go away his satanic activities are not going to cease death is not going to go away relationships will still be strained sickness you will still have all of these things will occur in 2021 they occurred in 2020. so we we need to prepare ourselves for these things and not only prepare ourselves for these things but understand that disappointments are going to come sicknesses are going to come there's going to be difficulty with relationships in your life friends will walk away from you folk that you thought were your friends may walk away from you all of these things uh are going to happen there may be loss of job loss of a job there there may be economic downturns all of these things will happen in 2021 but i'm going to give you in the next few minutes uh a remedy of how to deal with these difficulties that you had to deal with in 2020 but you're going to deal with them you're going to have them in 2021 because the devil is a roaring lamb going about seeking whom he may devour he's not going away he's not going away and and many of you are if you're not careful you will allow the difficulties and the disappointments in 2021 to paralyze you now when i say paralyze you uh to make you ineffective in life and effective in your job and effective uh as uh as a mother ineffective as a husband and effectively uh effective uh as a worker and and and employee uh the challenges will cause all of that to happen and not only will these challenges cause of that to happen but if you don't know how to deal with these challenges in 2021 then of course uh you will not uh be able to live that abundant life that jesus says that i have come that you might have uh abundant life how do you deal with these things doc how do you deal with these with these problems it's a mindset and you know i preached on that for years it's a mindset and and what i mean by a mindset is that you have to say to yourself and listen to me carefully you have to say to yourself uh lord i know watch this now because this is a principle lord i know you have some things that are better for me all right now you got to get that down in your spirit you got to get that down in your spirit now if you those of you who are here this morning watching me and encouraging me just know that you have to come to the point that you have to reach a position in life as a child of god where you will say and admit lord i know you have some better things for me in life that's powerful stuff you see the the the difficulty that you're going to be going through the hardships that you're going to be going through and they're going to come i i know some of us may have our degrees and some have money and some have families and some of all that other good stuff and health and all that other good stuff but let me tell you something difficulty will come in your life and if you're not careful it will trip you up if you're not careful it will cause you to have mental problems it will cause you to be strength-less against the demons of the world so here's what you're gonna have to do uh to have a better 21 than you had in 20 just say lord i know you have something better in life for me now it's not because he does not it is because he does have some things better for you in life you remember zechariah zechariah said that the god has a blessing a new blessing for you every morning every morning you get up god has something new god has a remedy for you every morning that you get up and so how do you deal with the institutes of life how do you deal with with with the hades that's going on in your life how do you deal with family difficulties how do you deal with the uh the angel of death how do you deal with losing uh your job how do you deal uh with economic downturns how do you how do you deal with uh not having enough money to pay your rent or how do you deal and how long uh are you gonna have to deal with that well you don't know so here's what you do you say to yourself you say to your mind lord i know because he said it he said he has a uh a new blessing for you that's new every morning so here's what you have to do you have to accept that you have to accept you have to say to yourself lord i know you have something better for me in life and you have to believe that because god is your father not only is he your father but he will take care of you and not only that but what god listen to me what god has for you that's new every morning is for your good but you have to come to that that uh that decision you have to make that decision god doesn't have anything bad for you everything that god has for us as a child of god as children of god everything he has for us is good so whatever is disturbing your life whatever uh is upset in your life whatever is causing you to have headaches whatever is causing you uh not to not be able to sleep whatever it is is causing you to have sleepless nights just know that's not god that's not god because all god was for you are good things understand that understand that the enemy is the enemy it's the enemy your disappointment the the the the difficulty that you are experiencing in your mind that's not god because all god wants for you is good you see uh i'm hoping you're getting this you see all god wants all god wants watch this now because i'm because i'm going to make a transition all god wants for you is good that's all well if there are some bad things happening get this if there are some bad things happening to you here's what you need to know in 21 it's not of god it's not of god if you're going through hell in your life if you're going through difficulties and disappointments in your life challenges and changes in your life and it looks like everywhere you go everything you do all hell is breaking loose that's not god but you have to come to that decision because all god wants for you is good you see all of the blessings of life are good that comes from god now watch this and this may be my number three um negative thoughts get this negative thoughts takes up space that god has provided for your life negative thoughts takes up space good space positive space that god has provided for your life now if you will remember that if you will remember in 21 that god has given us joy peace contentment he's given us that you have that as a child of god joy peace contentment but if you allow negativism if you allow foolishness if you allow stuff to come into your life get this it will take up space that god has provided for you listen what i just said to you all god wants for you is good so what has he done he has given you through the holy spirit joy peace contentment but if you allow this negativism that you're going to face in 21 to set up residency in your head and in your heart it closes out and takes up the space that god has provided for you in your life now you may not realize it you are you say well doc i'm telling you since you have been saved god has intended only good for you if any man be in christ he's a new creature what do you mean no he has new joy new peace new contentment what does the devil want to do the devil wants to get you to get rid of what god has given you so when you allow when you allow that uh those challenges from the devil to set up residency in your head in your heart once you allow that it takes up the joy space it takes up the of space it takes up the contentment space and that's why you in so many instances you're not making it that's why you can take all the medicine you want you can drink all the castor oil in the bottle but it's not going to bring peace it's not going to hear what i'm saying to you it's not going to bring joy it's not going to bring contentment because only joy and peace and contentment comes from god and the devil understands that and what the devil will do the devil will try to fill up your joy fill up your peace fill up your contentment with a lot of mess so when you're walking around drunk from mess you're walking around and and from stuff that's going on in your life that you didn't start that you were not a part of and means nothing to you that's the devil trying to take your joy take your peace and take your contentment that's what that is trying to help you here for 21. trying to help you for 21. you're not going to make it in 21 that is in terms of having a positive life unless you understand the dynamics of your life and understand what it is that you should be doing now also understand that you only have limited space you only have limited space joy there's only so much space there contentment only so much space joy contentment peace only only uh limited space now if you allow if you allow the enemy to come into your life into your head and start pouring stuff in your head what is he doing he is taking up your joy space he is taking up that space that's been rejoined that's been reserved for joy he he is taking up that space that's been reserved for peace he is taking up that space that's been reserved for contentment and so as a result we walk around drunk now we just drunk we're losing our mind we we we we're stumbling over everything we everything is dark and we don't trust anybody anymore everything is going wrong in our lives and i mean as a child of god and you can get to that point i am telling you when you as a child of god allow yourself to get to that point it is because you have let some stuff come into your heart and taken up the beautiful space and the beautiful joy and the beautiful peace and the beautiful contentment that god has given you as his child that's what i'm saying to you now you can go you can come to me as a psychologist and i'll do my best to help you you can go to the doctor whatever the case is you have problems that doctor don't know what the problem is and we've given you everything i've written all kind of prescription for you but it doesn't work it just may be it just may be that you are not living the abundant life and you have not truly accepted what god has for you because see god get this god only has peace joy contentment for his children now to the degree that you accept that it will be to that degree that you will have the abundant life to the degree that you accept that it will be to that degree that you will get all of that cut out of your life you see when you're walking around drunk are you you're seeing things you're hearing things and and you're imagining things and and you can't get it together and every day is a difficult day for you i mean you're stumbling around i don't mean physically i don't mean because if you you know if he's old as i am you're stumbling around and it doesn't mean that you're drunk on something but that's not what i'm talking about what i'm talking about is uh you haven't you you haven't uh tasted any whiskey you haven't uh tasted drugs you haven't tasted any of that stuff but but every day you're drunk you you you you if you seem like you're not gonna make it if you seem like demons or in your house it just seems like demons or in your life uh every day is a bad day every day is a difficult day i tell you what's wrong with you that medicine sometimes cannot take care of and that is it's your mind it's your mind you have i'm not fussing at you because it's good to see you i i'm not fussing at you uh what i'm saying to you is when god saved you when god gave you life in his son he gave you the ability to deal with the the institutes of life and so those of us as children of god those of us who have obeyed the gospel of jesus christ we need to be clear on how we ought to conduct our lives and what we are to let in our hearts um now the final thing my final notes getting difficult to read here um you can control what's in the container joy peace contentment you can control that joy peace contentment that's what god gives see god gives joy peace contentment and if you're not experiencing joy peace and contentment it is because of the fact your mind is not set on the lord because god doesn't give doom and gloom and hail to his people he doesn't do that understand that god gives joy peace and contentment that's what he gives that's what he gives joy peace contentment that's what he gives yeah but i'm experiencing difficulty i'm experiencing hades in my life i mean i can't sleep at night i i i stagger and stumble during the day i mean all hell is breaking loose in my life i don't know what i'm gonna do i'm losing my mind yeah because you don't realize that you have let the devil come into your life and fill up your space that god gave you you see if you never allow the devil to fill up your space of joy and peace and contentment then you never have to worry about him you see because what you can do [Music] as a child of god what you have to do in 21 is just make up in your mind that you are a child of god i am a child of god and because i am a child of god what is in me is greater than that which is outside of me now that's a mindset and if you allow uh golden heights if you allow yourself to live by the principles that i have just articulated here if you if you allow yourself to live by those principles you'll be a better person you'll be a better person here's what i'm saying to you it doesn't matter whether you own the job off the job at home or in the street wherever you are they're going to be difficulties and challenges for you but i'm saying as a child of god you can deal with it and there's no such thing as i can't deal with it yes you can or you can deal with it all you have to do is make up in your mind make them in your mind that these are things i need to deal with and it starts with who i am to your stars with watch this it starts with it starts with who i am and whose i am so when you understand that dynamic when you understand that you're a child of god 2021 is not going to be as difficult as it was in in 2020 when you understand that when you use these principles that i have just articulated you'll be a better christian you'll be better child of god you'll be a better person when you understand that whatever i am going through whatever i am going through that's negative god didn't send it whatever it is that's going on in your life that's negative god didn't send that that came from the devil understand that dynamic because all god wants for you as his child is good he wants his child he wants his children to have good and if you're experiencing bad that's not from god so what do you need to do you need to recognize who you are and where this stuff is coming from and then give yourself to god give yourself to god told it to god give yourself to god lord here am i and i need your help lord and i'm going to put my faith and my trust in you and though he slay me yet will i trust him out of all of the days of my pointed time i'm gonna wait until my change come now those are just things that that we need to know not only do we need i thought you needed to know that because paul says i beseech you i beg you by the mercies of god that you present your bodies are living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto god which is your reasonable service be not conformed that's all i've been talking about be not conformed to this world be your choice from so go out now go away from here go out now meet 2021 with the understanding that devil get under my feet there's no way you're going to handle me in 21 because if if if something happens to me if i find myself in a position of difficulty of negativism if i find myself in that condition i know it is not from god now if you allow that attitude to permeate your life if you allow that attitude to permeate uh your lifestyle you'll be fine i'm not saying all this stuff ain't going to come to you it's going to come i'm telling you how to deal with it i'm saying i deal with it so if you stagger anything around your house and you don't know what to do and you're scared to death you're scared to go to sleep you're scared to go in the kitchen you scared to go i'm trying to help you here i'm trying to help you because he that is in you is greater than he that's in the world that's how you meet 21 that's how you put 21. that's how you meet the challenges of 21. that's how you meet the child because you're gonna have challenges right there in your house you're gonna have challenges but just know god gave me that which was good he didn't give me any bad stuff everything god gave me and everything he gives me is good so if i can't sleep at night praise the name of jesus then that's not good so it ain't from god with this mindset i would want you to move forward in 2021 as strong children of god knowing that you can do all things through christ that strengthened you now if there were those of you in the house uh this morning that may not be a member of the church of christ who may not have said yes to jesus christ and you're in an unsafe position then he is what the lord will want you to do he would want you to believe that his son came to bring salvation to the whole world he would want you to make up in your mind to accept him at the time but this is what god went there but now commands all men everywhere to repent and then he will want you to confess with your mouth i believe jesus christ is the son of god and then he would want you to be baptized for our mission of sins and he then will add you to the church and send you those things that i've been talking about that joy peace and contentment and then he will send you strength to enable you to keep the devil from stealing your joy your contentment he'll do that for you and if there is anybody in the house who want to be a christian who want to be a child of god who want to be a member of the church of christ then what we're going to do we we're just going to ask you to stand if you want to be a member of the body of christ we're just going to ask you to stand where you are and we'll go from there uh if you're in the house if you're in the building if you're in the room and you're not a christian you're not a child of god and you want to be a child of god you want to say yes to jesus christ you want to get your life in position that god will give you this joy this peace and this contentment if you're in this house and you in this room and you want to do that and you want to receive that then we're going to ask you to stand up right now and and we'll have someone come to you and and and talk to you for a minute and we'll do what the lord requires us to do now if if there was someone in the house this morning who needs to make a confession who wants to make a confession of sin and you want to ask the church to pray for you then what we're going to do we're going to ask you to stand by where you are if if you uh are in the house and you're in the building and you're in this room and you want to make a confession of sin brothers and sisters i have sinned and i asked the church to pray for me that kind of confession if you want to do that if you want to do because we're not going to line up down here so if you're waiting for a lineup we're not going to have a lineup down here that's too close together we're not going to do that but but but if on your seat and in your heart you want to make a confession uh then i'm going to ask you to please stand and we're going to recognize you if you if there's anybody in the house who want to make a confession of sin we're going to ask you to stand up right now because this is god bless you this is your opportunity there will not be another opportunity in this service to do that so if you want to make a confession of sins we're going to ask you so we can identify you so we can identify you now for all of those of you who want to be who want to be prayed for we'll get to you later but right now we're dealing with those uh with with two classes those who may have wanted to be baptized and become a member of the church of christ now the ones who are standing now are the ones who want to make a confession of sins who want to say to us brothers and sisters i've sinned and i repented and i'm asking the church to please pray for me those are the ones who are standing right now and this is the uh this is this is the way we are doing this because of of of our circumstances all right now if that's why you're standing if that is why you're standing you're standing because you want to make the confession in your heart you want to make that confession that you've sinned and you're asking the church to pray for you and you want us to pray for you that's why you're standing so the message that you are sending to us is church i need you all to pray for me because i've sinned and i've repented now if that's why you're standing then that's what we're going to do we're going to pray for you that god will give you what you need for what you need it for now we're going to begin uh over there uh in the in the corner uh with my brother just go ahead where you are

Channel: New Golden Heights Church of Christ

Views: 3,267

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Keywords: Jesus, Church of Christ, Dr. W.F. Washington, Fort Lauderdale FL, Word, Bible Study, Dr WF Washington

Id: hLVB0CzHlVg

Length: 54min 14sec (3254 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 03 2021