I want to pick up where we left off last Sunday, and I want to talk to you, I want to continue to talk to you about the miracle of a right mind. Really, today is the power of a right mind, the power of a right mind. And I want to talk to you about how to be convinced of God's love. A right mind means being convinced of God's love. And I'll tell you what I mean by that as we go through this. But we're living in a very broken world. We're living in a very broken, damaged society. And the reason why our society is damaged is because that we have damaged souls. A damaged soul produces a damaged society. And so what we can do our part, what we can do is we can take care of our soul, like I can take care of my soul. You can take care of your soul when you're born again. Your spirit is brand new, but your soul goes through a restoration process. It's being transformed day by day through the word of God. And that's why it's so important to be here every time the doors are open. Not so that you can check the box and say, I went to church. I went to church. I went to church. I went to church. But it's so that you can you can be in the environment where your mind is being renewed and your life is being transformed. And that's why we come together consistently, because that's when we begin to see the transformation happen from the inside out. So in you remember the the miracle that Jesus did in delivering this man of this demon possession in Luke Chapter eight verse? Well, he had a legion of demons, right, Luke? Chapter eight, verse thirty five tells us what happened at the end. But he had this legion of demons and Jesus cast out this these demons, thousands of them, somewhere between two thousand and six thousand demons. And they enter into the swine remember. And then the swine run off the cliff and are drowned in the sea. And this man was completely set free by Jesus. And when the man who was remember, he was naked, he was living in the tombs, he was cutting himself. He was breaking through the chains and the shackles that nobody could contain him. He was hurting himself. He was hurting people. And that's the result of a broken soul. That's the result of a damaged soul that the that the devil has ravaged. And listen, the devil doesn't need to possess you with demons, because if you're born again, you can't be possessed by demons. You're possessed by a Holy Spirit. Come on now. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you when you're born again. But what what keeps us damaged is our soul remains under the control of wrong thinking and wrong mindsets that are contrary to God's word. And so that's why we need to get in our right mind. We need to get born again, but then we need to get in our right mind. Well, we'll look at what happened after Jesus cast this cast this Legion of demons out of this man. It says then they went out to see what had happened and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had departed. What was he doing? What was he doing versus thirty five sitting at the feet of Jesus and what was his condition as a result? He was closed and in his right mind prior to this. Prior to this, he was naked and out of his mind. Now he's clothed and in his right mind. What was the difference? What made the difference? The difference was he had an encounter with Jesus. He had an encounter, if I could say this, he had an encounter with the love of Jesus. Because if you think about it, this man was damaged for years. He was demon possessed for years. Everybody was had gotten used to him being crazy and him being out of his mind. And we're living in a crazy world. You know, the studies say that that one out of every three people have some sort of mental illness in America today and in many of the populated areas of the world, one out of every three or one out of every four people have a mental illness. You know what that means, right? You need to check your two or three closest friends. And if they're normal, you're the crazy one, right? I know I only get to use that joke once a year, my kids only allow once a year. So this was my one time, you know, wait till twenty nineteen. All right. But. But we're living in a society that is that is that is out of its mind and wrong thinking produces wrong choices. It's you see the whole the whole outcome of our life is built upon the decisions that we make. Your life is built upon the choices of the decisions you make. And your decisions are controlled by your thinking, your thoughts, your way of thinking is what determines the decisions that you make and the decisions that you make determine the outcome of your life. And so, you know, we can we can make this we can kind of make this this chart where your thoughts lead to your decisions, your decisions lead to your habits, your habits lead to your character, your character leads to your destiny. And so many people are trying to fulfill their their God given destiny. But you know what? You don't have to worry about your destiny. Your destiny will take care of itself if you deal with the root of your life is your thought life, because if you get your thinking right, it will straighten out your decisions and then it'll straighten out your habits and then your character and then your destiny. You will fulfill your destiny. Not by going to a destiny conference. You will fulfill your destiny, not by studying destiny. You'll fulfill your destiny by renewing your mind to God's word, as it says in Romans Chapter 12, verse two Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind or fasting from wrong thinking. And then what does he say will happen that you may prove that you may enter into or that you may demonstrate the good, acceptable and perfect will of God? You end up in the will of God. When you renew your mind, you end up in the will of God. When you take thoughts captive, you end up in the will of God when you have a right mind. And Jesus put this man in his right mind. And by the way, notice how he describes the will of God. He describes it in three stages. He describes it the good, the acceptable and the perfect will of God. In other words, God's plan in your life and God's will for your life is progressive. So you don't have to be worried or nervous if you're not walking in the perfect will of God. Yet you start out in the good will of God and you continue to renew your mind, and then you make progress to the acceptable will of God and you continue to renew your mind and you end up finding yourself in a perfect will of God for your life. You don't have to search for God's will. You don't have to seek for God's will. You don't even have to pray for God's will. If you do what this scripture says, you don't be conformed. Don't change the way the world changes from the outside in be transformed from the inside out by the renewing of your mind, which is what happens to a caterpillar when he builds a cocoon around him, he he is transformed on the inside. His creator takes care of transforming him. All he does is get in the cocoon. When you come to church, when you're listening to God's word, when you fast from wrong thinking, guess what? You're building a cocoon around yourself. And instead of you crawling the rest of your life, all you need to do is crawl into that cocoon and out. And what will happen in that cocoon is from within inside of you. The colors are already in you, the wings are already in you. The DNA of your destiny is already in you. The ability to fly is already in you. All you've known how to do is crawl. But inside of you is the ability to fly and soar and be beautiful and be amazing and have all these colors and have all this freedom and go to heights that you never would have imagined you could go to. But what has to happen? You don't have to change yourself. All you got to do is get in the cocoon and inside of the cocoon, your creator transforms you by the renewing of your mind. That's what we're doing. We're wrapping our thinking with God's word. God's word is the cocoon. And you wrap your mind with it, you wrap your mind in it and it will change you. Transformation happens to you, not by you. Are you hearing this OK? OK, now, now. Look. We all need help in renewing our minds. Reminds me of a guy, he was a mild mannered man he was tired of. He was married. He was tired of being bossed around by his wife. So he went to a psychiatrist because he knew he needed help. So the psychiatrist said he needed to build his self-esteem. So he gave him a book on self-esteem and assertiveness, which he read on his way home. I don't know how he did it, but on his way home, maybe he had an auto driver and car. Maybe he had a self-driving car. I don't know, maybe he took a Uber, but he finished the book by the time he reached his home and he stormed into the house and walked right up to his wife, pointed his finger in her face and said, from now on, I want you to know that I'm the man of this house. My word is law. I want you to prepare a gourmet meal tonight. And when I'm finished eating the meal, I want a sumptuous dessert afterwards. And after dinner, you're going to draw me a bath so I can relax. And when I'm finished with my bath, guess who's going to dress me and comb my hair? His wife looked at him and replied, the funeral director. So you really don't need a psychiatrist, you need a pastor. Maybe you do need a psychiatrist. I don't want to stop you from that, but. But this man, Luke, 35. He was in his right mind, he was in his right mind, why? Because he was sitting at the feet of Jesus. He was sitting the number, remember, the number one perpetrator of the sick condition of this world, the murder, the terrorism, the killings, the shootings, the violence, the abuse, the racism, you you name anything that's evil in this world. And the number one perpetrator of all of that evil is damage minds and damaged hearts. That's why God comes to do two things. Once we're born again, heal the broken heart and renew the mind, heal the broken heart and renew the mind. Heal the broken heart and renew the mind. You say, well, shouldn't we go out and evangelize and shouldn't you get us all busy being holy and coming and praying and fasting, heal the broken heart and renew the mind. And people will get saved through your life, heal the broken heart or renew the mind. And people's lives will be changed through your life. Heal the broken heart or renew the mind. And you'll pray with power that you've never experienced before. Heal them, heal the heal the heart and renew the mind. Not you, but God heals the heart and renews our minds. Will we renew our minds by submitting our thought life to God's word? But that's what changes us. That's what brings us in to our right mind. And a right minded person makes right decisions and right decisions produce a high quality of life. Bad decisions produce a poor quality of life. It's just that simple, that spiritual warfare. We're not fighting the devil. He's already been defeated. What we're doing is we are at war with wrong thinking. We are at war with mindsets that limit us. We are at war with mindsets. I'm not talking about bad thoughts like, oh, I had a bad thought. I got to renew my mind. You know, everybody has bad thoughts. In fact, studies show that that the average person has thirty thousand thoughts per day and eighty percent of them are negative. That's why we need to submit ourselves to a process of renewing our mind to drive the negativity, it's negative thinking that we need to be fasting from not just, oh, I can't lust and I can't be jealous and I can't it's not about these individual sinful thoughts or these individual fleshly thoughts. It's about being set free from a wrong concept of God. In your mind, any wrong concept of self in its beginning is seeing God, who he really is and seeing yourself, who you really are and seeing life from God's point of view. Remember, we talked a couple of weeks ago about perspective. It's all about perspective. So again, thoughts through an uncontrolled thought life. Listen, through an uncontrolled thought life, we create the conditions for illness in our lives. Emotional illness, physical illness. Research shows that fear, fear, just fear alone. Fear all on its own triggers more than fourteen hundred known physical and chemical responses and activates more than 30 different hormones. So there are intellectual and medical reasons to renew our mind and get control of our thought life. You see, this is the problem with religion. Religion doesn't deal with people's thinking. Religion deals with people's behavior. Stop this and stop that and don't do this and don't do that. And you know, somebody somebody took a picture of something they found in the church parking lot last Sunday. They found a six pack of Michelob. I think it was Michelob. I don't know. My favorite is Heineken, but I'm just saying I'm just kidding. It used to be. It used to be. I haven't had a beer and, you know, I don't know. A couple of days ago, I just bought this kid, and it really has been years, it has it has been years. I'm not bragging or anything like I've done a whole lot worse than that since I since I've been saved. So I'm not trying to say anything about me. But anyway, I was just thinking I was just laughing. You know, he took a picture of this empty six pack in between services last Sunday. And I thought, that's awesome that whoever whoever had that six pack was willing to drop it off in the parking lot and come in to church anyway. And listen, some Christians are like, oh, that guy better get his life together before, you know, this is how he's going to get his life together, get in church anyway. I don't care if you've been drunk. I don't care if you've been smoking reefer. I see some of you. I see some of you. I've seen some of you on your way out of the church as I'm pulling out. And you're going like this. And you know what? I'm just. But we've had people come and bring all their paraphernalia and their drugs to the altar at times, and and I you know, and it was gathered up, you know, we I've seen like I remember I was addicted. I was I was on drugs and selling drugs at 16 years old. So people brought all their paraphernalia and all their stuff up to the altar because they laying it down at the feet of Jesus. But it just happened to be my feet, too. And, you know. I'm like, I'm, you know, my flesh was like, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus, thank you. My spirit was like, Oh no, I will never touch that again. My flesh is like. Has the Lord blessed me? Now, you know, I'm playing, but but you understand the world is sick because of the way we think and people are sick because of the way they think and fear. Listen, the enemy wants to control people through fear. That's how bad decisions are made. That's how evil works. Murder, terrorism, abuse, violence all over all of the things we do against others. It's all rooted in fear. All of our addictions are rooted in fear. All of our hatred towards somebody else is rooted in fear. We we hate because we feel threatened by somebody else's success. So we hate because we think we'll never be able to achieve that. Or we we hate because we we we are afraid that will never amount to our destiny and fulfill our purpose. And so hatred is a cover up and anger is a cover up for fear. And God delivers us from fear when we realize who he is and who we are and what he's given us, that God hasn't given us the spirit of fear, but power, love and a sound mind. And so we see Jesus giving this man a right mind, a right mind. And you know what? He never hurts himself or hurts anybody else another time after this, because when you're in your right mind. You don't do stupid stuff. He was clothed with love and he was in his right mind and I want to say this, so I'm going to give you a list if I can get through it as much as I can. But a right mind begins with a mind that is convinced of God's love. A right mind is a mind that is convinced of God's love. Now, can you imagine this man who is demon possessed all these years? And that Jesus would take the time. And ignore everything else that was going on around and focus on this man and his freedom after he had been found all of these years and everybody else in this man's life had given up on him, everybody else had defined him as the legion of demons that will never, ever be normal again. And maybe you felt like you'll never be normal again. And maybe you've fallen so many times that you feel like you could never get up again. But the Bible says a righteous man falls seven times, but he keeps getting up. And seven is the number of completion, which just means just keep getting up until God completes his work in you. But it says it. I mean, I'm just I kind of I just kind of picture this this happening and everybody else has given up on this guy and everybody else is just knows this guy is he's the demon possessed guy that lives among the tombs and he'll never be different and he'll never get better. But Jesus, you know what? He never gives up on us. And I love what I love how it describes Jesus in Matthew, chapter 12, verse 20. Probably one of my favorite descriptions of Jesus is in Matthew, chapter 12, verse 20. And look at what it says. It says, a bruised read, a bruised branch he will not break. And a smoking flaks, he will not quench or a dimly burning, a dimly burning candle he will not quench. Have you ever felt like your. Candle was just dimly burning. Have you ever felt like you were down to the last little bit of wick? And in the light of your life and the candle of am I in the right place here today? Have you ever felt like you were bruised and damaged in this guy, must have felt so bruised and so damaged but now so loved? What put him in his right mind was love. That Jesus said, you know what? I don't define you. By what you've allowed to happen in your life, I don't define you by the demonic power that has ruled over your life. I don't define you by the tombs you've been living in. I don't define you by the abuse you've been applying to yourself and to others. I will never break your damaged life. I will heal it. I will never put out your dimly burning wick. I will fan the flame of it no matter how dim know how, no matter how dim your flame is, God says I will fan your flame no matter how bruised your life is. God says I will not break the damaged branch. I will heal in. I will heal it. That's love. That's love, I like what he says and John, I think it's John 15 nine where Jesus says, maybe I'm wrong in that verse, I I'll try to get you the right verse. But he says, as the father has loved me. So I also have loved you. Abidin, my love. This kind of love is what Jesus showed this man, this kind of love is what Jesus is showing you. This is the kind of love that Jesus showed that woman caught in adultery when he said, I don't condemn you. He didn't say go and sin no more and then I won't condemn you, he said. Even caught in your sin, I don't condemn you now that I don't condemn you, you have the power to go and sin no more. The power to go and sin no more is found in the love of God and the freedom from condemnation and guilt and shame, and he said, as the father loved me. Not I'm not loving you with, like, a little inferior love, I'm not loving you with a fraction of the father's love, he said the very love the father has for me was love. When he comes up out of the waters of baptism in Mark 111, God says, You are my dearly loved son and you bring me great joy. That love that the father has for Jesus. Is the same love that Jesus has for you, not a different love, the same. Oh, but he's Jesus. God loves him because he's Jesus, he's perfect. God loves him because God is love and God loves him because Jesus is his son. And God loves you because God is love and God loves you because you're his son or daughter. In fact, God loves you. Before you were his son or daughter. God loved you while you were his enemy. God loves you when you were a child of the devil and he saved you. And even when you were a child of the devil, the devil couldn't stop you from getting saved. That's how much God's love is more powerful than death, God's love is more powerful than the devil. God's love is more powerful than your past. God's love is more powerful than anything you've been through. Listen, this is what being in your right mind is a right mind. Look in Luke, eight thirty five. It says he was sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. What does that mean to be in your right mind? It means a right mind begins with a mind that is convinced of God's love for him or God's love for her. Can anybody say amen to that? And by the way, when it says he was sitting at the feet of Jesus, I want to say something about that. He's sitting at the feet of Jesus, not because he learned religion. Oh, I guess we're supposed to sit at the feet of Jesus because that's the religious thing to do. Him sitting at the feet of Jesus was not a ritual. Him sitting at the feet of Jesus was a reflex of having encountered the love of Jesus. He saw Jesus. Jesus cast the devil out of him. Jesus talked to him. Jesus ministered to him. Jesus asked him his name. Jesus delivered him from all the demonic influence in his life. And can you see this is why he sat at the feet of Jesus. Jesus comes up to him, talks to him, ministers to him, cast the devil out of him, delivers him, sets him free, kind of similar to what he did for you and me. And as a result, as a reflex to what Jesus did for this man, this man is like looking at Jesus, wow. He loved me when everybody gave up on me, cast the devil out of me. I got to I got to sit down and just and just stare at this man, listen to everything he's got to say. This is this is love in person. This is this is love in the flesh. This is this is this is God. No one else could have loved me like God is real. God is alive. God is in this man. God is this man. This man is God. He's got to be. I'm going to sit at his feet. You see him sitting at the feet of Jesus was a reflex to an encounter with God's love. Number two, number two, number two is the number one, a right mind is a mind convinced of God's love for him or her number. Number two. Number two, a right mind is a mind full of Thanksgiving for what God has done. You see? Whenever we see I like to use the example of the 10 lepers, all of them were cleansed, but in Luke seventeen verse fifteen, one of them. When he saw that he was healed, returned and with a loud voice, glorified God, nobody had to say to him, come on, shout louder. You know how sometimes, you know, I grew up in church where I didn't grow up in church, but when I got saved, I would go to churches where they would try to rev you up. Come on, shout louder, shout louder, shout louder. This guy didn't have to learn to shout louder. This guy saw, well, I was a leper and now I'm healed. And he began to cry out and glorify God with a loud voice. His loud voice was once again, his loud voice was a reflex to what Jesus has done for him. It wasn't a ritual of loud praise. Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving. It says in verse 16, it says in the next verse, and he fell down on his face and he at Jesus feet and gave him thanks and gave him thanks because he was a Samaritan. He wasn't a Jewish. He didn't he knew. He knew he didn't have a covenant where he deserved to be healed. He was thankful that Jesus healed him. He saw that he was healed. What do you focused on? It says in verse 15, he saw that he was healed. All ten of them were healed, but nine of them focused on what they didn't have. One of them focused on what he did have. He saw that he was healed. You see that he saw when he saw that he was healed, he repented, he returned, he turned to God, he turned to Jesus. When he saw that he was healed. We don't repent. And then God is good. US God shows his goodness before we ever repent. That's what leads us to repentance is God's goodness, God's love, God's mercy. So he's grateful. He's thankful. You know, my prayer for this church, my greatest desire for this church, my greatest desire for the people who are connected to this ministry in any way is that we would be a people who are in our right mind because we're convinced of God's love and that we would be a people who are in our right mind because we're thankful for what God has already done. You know, in Romans, chapter one, verse 21, it says, though they knew God, Romans, chapter one, verse 21, it says, though, they knew God. They did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful, and then look at what happens, they became feudal in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. What caused them to be futile in their thoughts? What caused them to be? Well, you could say being futile in your thoughts is being wrong minded rather than being in your right mind. They they were in the wrong mind. Right. Come on, I got one all right here, am I right, they. And so if they're futile in their thoughts, by the way, that word futile means without purpose, they had no sense of purpose for their life. They had no why did they have no sense of purpose for their life? Because when you're unthankful, you're constantly searching for something to make you feel better about your life. You're not you're not fulfilling your purpose. You're focused on you rather than focused on others. But when you are thankful for what God has already done, you are no longer futile. Your life is no longer futile. Your life is no longer a waste. Your life is no longer aborted. Your life is no longer just a just existing and mediocrity and just trying to make it through to another day. But you your life is your life is lived on purpose because you're and that's what causes you to get in your right mind, is that you are thankful. What puts you in your right, what puts you in your wrong mind is being unthankful. What puts you in your right mind is being thankful. And listen, you might say, well, I just don't have that much to be thankful for. That's because you don't see you don't see. When he saw that he was cleansed, when he saw that he was healed, he turned in with a loud voice, glorified God. It's not because God hasn't done a million great things in your life. It's because your focus is on what you don't have rather than what God has already done for you. Come on. Is anybody here? And this is the third thing. Thankful, thankfulness. Thanks is the antidote, it's the remedy to counteract the effects of poison, bitterness, disease, pride, unbelief, unhappiness. Thanks is the antidote for all that makes us unhappy and all that makes us depressed and all that makes us selfish. Thanks. For what God has already done, a bless the Lord, all my soul, someone with three says and forget none of his benefits. And he makes a list, we should make a list, Oprah said the greatest thing that ever happened to her was when she started making a gratitude list. I'm not preaching the gospel of Oprah. But she is in the book of Gideon, there is there is an Oprah name named in the Book of Gideon or for something like that, I don't know. Gratitude, thankfulness. You know, you were created to worship God. Your destiny begins with worship. You know, if I can say this is the third thing that puts us in our right mind is having a mind to worship. Having a mind to worship it puts us in our right mind, you know, when we're when we worship God, it puts us in a right mind. Remember when Saul was King Saul was was afflicted with demonic power and he would call David in and David would play the harp and minister in worship. And the Bible says the evil spirits left him. The evil spirits left Saul whenever David came in with a psalm. And with his harp and began to worship because because worship. Puts you in your right mind. And you were created to worship. You were created to worship and worship is not just singing. But worship, as I mentioned last week, may be your time before that, it's not lifting our hands to God, although that's awesome and beautiful and a good thing to do. Worship is lifting our thought life. To God's way of thinking. It's lifting our thought life to God's way of thinking that's true worship, because that's why he says in Romans 12 one, he says, By the mercies of God, I beseech you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable, which is your if you can put the maybe the King James version says which is your which is your worship or the new American standard. If you guys can find one of those versions, it says it's your worship, it's your spiritual service of worship. So he said, when we present our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, in other words, presenting your body to die for God, you know, if you're you know, if you become a martyr for God, that's beautiful and powerful. But that's not what God's asking of us. He's asking us to bring a living sacrifice. And what gives us life is our brain, our heart, our mind, our thoughts. So he's saying, present your thoughts, sacrifice your old way of thinking and accept God's way of thinking. And that's true worship. And then he explains how it happens in verse two, which we already we already went over verse two, which is to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. OK, I've got several more here, but for time's sake, I'll just say. Oh, right, mind. Is a mind to worship, a mind to worship, you know, we have to decide. Are we going to be a dead worshiper or a living worshiper and dead worship is just worshiping God as a ritual. Living worship is worshiping God because we're so thankful. For what he's done in our life. We're so thankful. I've got a lot of dreams, I've got a lot of hopes, I've got a lot of desires, but whenever I'm focused on my dreams, my hopes and my desires, I'm unhappy. But when I focus on what God has already done for me, I'm very happy. I'm not saying that I don't want those goals to be reached. I don't want those dreams to be fulfilled. I do. But I know that those will take care of themselves as I focus on what God has already done for me.
