Demolishing Anxious Thoughts

But we're in a series, and we're actually finishing the series today, Winning the War in Your Mind. The idea of the series comes from a book by Craig Groeschel that came out not too long ago, actually a few months ago, and just really wanted to talk about the thought patterns of people and how we interact in our thought patterns and how the battle is always happening in our head, in our mind. In fact, the battle is won and lost in the mind. The battle is won and lost in the mind. Most battles are won and lost in the mind, and you can't have a positive life with a negative thought process.

You need positivity to live out those things. But the problem is, and just to kind of set it up for today, the problem is, like me, I'm sure that many of our thoughts run kind of haywire sometimes, right? We just go, they go off the left field. They run away thoughts. We get irrational when we think about things from time to time.

And we have this unnecessary worry that comes into our hearts and comes into our lives as a result of our runaway thoughts. I'm not sure about you, but I can take something very small that isn't a very big deal and just my thoughts can run away with it. And next thing I know is I'm thinking that the world's coming to an end. Let's just take, for example, your child gets a bad grade and you're like, oh, no, they'll never make it to college. And then they won't get the right job.

And then they'll marry the wrong person because they don't get the right job. And then they'll have the wrong type of kids. And then then they'll have as a result, they'll have crooked teeth and and they'll have to get braces. And then they won't be able to afford my grandchildren won't be able to afford school, you know, college. And they'll have to result to a life of crime.

And then they'll have to go to prison. And then, you know, it gives it gives you a headache just thinking about those things. Oh, by the way, do I have a brain tumor because I have a headache? How many of you can relate to that kind of pattern of thinking where we go from one level to another because of our worry? It could be the news we get on TV.

It could be the marriage, our marriage and the things we're dealing with when we're in our marriage. It could be a job situation. But so easily we allow our minds to race and be over overwhelmed with worry and fear. And that's what I want to talk about today. How do we demolish fear?

How do we demolish worry? How do we demolish those things? Because anxiety is an epidemic in our nation, in our country with all the runaway thoughts going on. And here's what Paul says as he's in a prison cell. Somebody who would probably know a little bit about fear, who would know a little bit about anxiety, because he was in one of the worst places you could possibly be under prison, in prison, under arrest.

And he said this to the church. He pens this down. He writes this to the church. He says, do not be anxious about anything. But in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, it's not understandable at all, will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent and praiseworthy, what do we do? What do we do? Think about such things. And he goes on to say, and the peace of God, the God of peace, will be with you.

We can, in fact, have peace. So the title of this message is about calm my anxious thoughts, killing the anxious thoughts that we have, abolishing those anxious thoughts. Let's just go to the Lord in prayer and ask him to come into our presence together as we embark on this journey of killing anxiety. God, we just ask that your presence be with us, that your word be true and real, that we would just calm our minds even for this moment. That we would allow all the distractions of everything that's going on around us to cease to be for just a moment, Lord, so that we can hear what you have to say to us.

So, God, we're leaning into you. Our minds are open. Our hearts are open to receive what you've given us here in Scripture. We ask this in your name. Amen.

Amen. Y'all ready for some Bible? So your life is always moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts is the idea of this series. Craig Rochelle put that down. Now, the good news is if you have good thoughts, then you're probably having good outcomes in life.

But if you have negative thoughts, then you're going to have negative outcomes. So what do we know about the mind? Well, we know that God and science kind of go hand in hand. We've been talking about that for weeks, so we're going to do a little more of psychology here. We're going to dig a little bit deeper at 101, 102, psychology 101 and 102.

And we're going to talk about the brain because God has designed our brains to work in such a way. And it's beautiful. In fact, we have these little almond shaped things in the back of our or in our brain that are called the amygdala. And what the amygdala does, it is wired for survival. We actually have something in us that's wired for survival.

And when you feel that you're in danger, when you feel that something comes in your path, the amygdala kicks in and it begins to protect you. It sends signals through your body whether to fight or flight, you know, like step back or go at it or whatever it is. And it sends this adrenaline through your body. It rushes through your body. It's a protective piece of our brains that God actually designed so that we could learn to react.

Say you see a snake. What happens when you see a snake? It's like, well, some of you like go for the snake. But I run for the snake because I'm not a fan of snakes. I can handle bugs and spiders and all that.

Some people are spider haters. Some are snake haters. I do not like snakes. OK, so if I see a snake in the house, I'm calling one of you guys to come out and kill the snake for me. I do not want to touch snakes.

OK, so that's so what happens. Your body automatically reacts. A child in danger, like your children, they're in danger. What happens? You react.

You react. You're willing to step in front of a bullet. You get that rush of energy, that adrenaline that comes out. Right. When you're faced with that or maybe you're asleep and the alarm goes off.

What happens when the alarm goes off? Bam! You just. Wake up and you're ready to go, right? What's going on?

What's happening? You know, I remember when I was a youth pastor, my kids decided to play a trick on me, because that's what teenagers do. You know, they're always looking for ways to get the youth, the pastor or whatever. And we were on a, on a trip at a conference and, and I fell asleep in the room before they did. I was, I was over on the bed and they, you know how they do the little, I guess the, the, the cream or the, the, the whipped cream and they put it on you or shaving cream and they try to tickle, tickle your ears.

So they, they walk in and I'm asleep and, and they're like, Oh God, we're going to get them. And you just kind of put it on there and they touch it. And I'm telling you, when they touched me, I woke up immediately and it wasn't a slap. You know, you're supposed to slap yourself in the face and get cream all over you and all that. I took out five guys at one time.

I was like, what's going on? They're like flying all over the place. What's going on? I was like, why guys, what in the world? You know, what happened?

I'm looking around. I'm like, what, what, what? And they're, they're like, oh, there was someone running in the room. There's like this really young kid. He was hopping over to the bed and like trying to go to the next, what's going on?

And it was like the, the, the joking topic for months and months. They still talk about it that day. In fact, they nicknamed me Brett Norris because I'm a, I'm a cross between Brett Favre and Chuck Norris. And they actually, and you can actually go on Facebook and find Brett Norris. You'll find an old picture of me that they set up because I'm, because of that one event.

Because for some reason I felt like I was under attack. I woke up and I was looking around. I didn't know where I was because the amygdala kicked in and I began to put up my protective weapons and, and take care of myself. So the problem is though, is the amygdala is not objective. It's hardwired to protect and it triggers at any moment and anything, any place, any experience can trigger that.

So based on your experiences, you can have these triggers that take place. And for example, some people have experiences in life. Maybe something tragic happens. Maybe there was a drama, maybe PTSD from war or whatever. And every time they feel or hear or experience something, it scares them.

Maybe it's a blue van because of something that happened when they were a kid in their neighborhood. And they see that and automatically puts fear in their heart because the man who committed that crime or whatever drove a blue van. For me, I never had anything that crazy happen. But when I was young, I remember seeing a horror movie trailer and there was this, this lady running down the hallway. Like, ah, you know how they kind of aim the camera at you and you're kind of, they're going backwards.

Ah, and there were these little creatures coming out or they look like dwarfs or trolls. I can't even remember the movie. It was back in the eighties or something like that. And there was this brown paneling. Remember the brown paneling that's sort of coming back that I forbid to be in my house because of this very scene.

But this brown paneling is coming, going down the hallway and the person was, ah, I was like five or six years old at the time. And I'm seeing this and these things are jumping on her and it's like, ah, and the scene goes off and goes, whatever, you know, whatever the horror movie is. I can't even remember the name of it. But to this day, I can remember that scene and how it scared me, like freaked me out. And every time I was in a room or in a home with paneling, I automatically was triggered.

This, this is not the place I want to be. This is kind of crazy. This is kind of scary, you know? And, and for, for many of us, it might be something like that, that triggers those things. Or, or maybe for you, it's, it's a tragedy that happened in your life.

Maybe it's some person that was in your life that caused something. Maybe it was an experience you had. Maybe it was a place, something around you that reminds you and it triggers your, your amygdala to kick in. It is not objective, but we also have this thing in our brain called the prefrontal cortex, the prefrontal cortex. And because of the amygdala needs help, right?

So the prefrontal cortex is the logical part of your brain. So when, when you wake up in the middle of the night and you're like, oh, there's a noise. Somebody's breaking in and we're going to all get killed. Then your prefrontal cortex kicks in. It says, it's probably just a raccoon.

It's probably just the wind. And usually that's the case because the prefrontal cortex is the logical part of your brain. So when the amygdala responds, according to that pre-programming, you have the, the, the prefrontal cortex kicks in. So what does that all mean? Let's just go back to scripture here.

And I want to show you how all of this really relates that, that God actually knew what he was doing. So if we go back to scripture, as, as Paul was talking about in Romans and, and, and Philippians four, he says, do not be anxious about anything. But in every situation, every situation, what, what is anything? What is anything? Can y'all say that with me?

Do not be anxious for anything. What does that mean? Anything, whether it's a small project, whether it's a big project, whether it's a, it's a, it's a job interview, whether it's some kind of financial fear, what, however big, however small it is. He says, if it's on the, on your mind, it's in God's heart. If it's on your mind, it's in God's heart.

He cares about everything. He says, do not be anxious for anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests and prayers to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ. So his peace will guard your mind. His peace will guard your heart. He says, do not be anxious about anything.

And it's interesting how we belittle prayer. He says, by prayer and petition, as I was mentioning earlier, as we were in the worship set, is that, is that it's amazing that people think last about prayer, that, that prayer isn't powerful, that prayer really doesn't do things, but prayer is powerful. In fact, God makes it, through Paul, makes it available, makes him available to us, that we can actually align ourselves with God, and he hears. Prayer should be our first resort, not our last resort. I mean, we go, we go through things, well, I'll know everything's falling apart.

What are we going to do now? Well, all we got. I mean, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through things, we go through To do is pray. Now all we have is prayer now. Have you ever heard people say that?

They say that over and over again or do that. Well, I guess we'll just pray. Why are you guessing to pray? You should have been praying from the very beginning, right when the issue came into play. Even before that, you need to be praying, praying without ceasing.

It should be our weapon, our major, it is our greatest weapon when we're struggling with fear. It is our greatest weapon when we're struggling with the adversary, when we're struggling with our thought process. It should be the greatest weapon. In fact, Hebrews says, boldly you come before the throne of God. Well, how do you do that?

Through prayer. We have available to us a God who wants to hear us, who wants to speak to us, who wants to listen to us, who wants to dialogue with us. Prayer is powerful. In fact, James says it himself, you do not have not because you ask not. And we often don't ask, right?

Because we don't believe that prayer works. But God says prayer works. Prayer is powerful. Not only does prayer move the heart of God, but it changes the chemistry in your brain. Prayer changes the chemistry in your brain.

For decades, neurologists believed that the brain stopped changing at adolescence. That as soon as soon as you got old enough, thank God, that's not true now, okay? I mean, if I still thought like I did when I was 18 years old, and it stopped there, or 21, or 25, or whatever, we decided at adolescence stops, I would be a mess. I would be in trouble. But here's the deal.

Now, we know that the brain is continually changing, that it's continually being rewired. Did you know that? That your brain is evolving all the time, that you're rewiring, you're putting away the last three weeks, we talked about ways to do that, but we're always evolving, it's always changing. And we call this neuroplasticity. And then we have this statement called in Christianity, or in theology actually, it's called neurotheology.

Neurotheology, also known as spiritual neuroscience. Spiritual neuroscience. And it's the study of the relationship between the brain and belief in God. So, prayer actually changes your brain. What you learn through science and God is that prayer actually starts doing something psychologically inside of you, chemically inside of you, medically inside of you.

God works practically through the way we are designed, but spiritually it connects practically with us and begins to change our chemistry. In fact, there is a lady named Dr. Caroline Leaf. She wrote a book called Switch on Your Brain. You need to write that down and read this book, Switch on Your Brain by Dr.

Caroline Leaf. And she made this statement. It has been found that 12 minutes of daily focused prayer over an eight-week period can change the brain to such an extent that it can be measured on a brain scan. That there actually is scientific evidence that prayer changes things. Just as toxic thoughts and negative thoughts changes and hurts the brain, prayer heals the brain.

Prayer causes the brain. Prayer causes the brain to transform. Prayer renews the mind. Hey, scripture kind of works, right? Prayer renews the mind.

So, why do we worry? Why do we panic? Why do we have anxiety? There's many reasons. Science, the amygdala hijacks our brains and we go, you know, way overboard.

But really what it comes down to. And here's what God says about it. God would say it like this. The mind is dominated by sinful thinking. We're dominated by sinful thinking.

And that's where worry comes in. And here's a good definition of worry. What is worry? Worry is the sin of not trusting God's promises or His power. The sin of not trusting God's promises or His power.

We don't trust that what He says He is going to follow through with. And we don't trust that He is capable of changing things, of making things, of following through what He says. He is all-powerful. And that's the sin of allowing our thoughts and ourselves overcome or put ourselves above who God actually says is the very nature of God. The sin of not trusting God's promises and power.

And instead of letting, but here's what we're going to, instead of letting my sinful nature control my mind when I have fears, I'm going to choose to let the Spirit of God direct my thinking. Instead of letting my head direct my thinking, let my own heart direct my thinking, I'm going to allow the Spirit of God direct my thinking. So let the logical part of your brain choose what is spiritual. Let the logical part, the prefrontal cortex, begin to focus on what is logical, our thinking, processing our thinking and seeing things in a spiritual thing, what is true, what is right, what is admirable. We develop our brain.

We do that. In fact, here's what Paul says. Those who are dominated by sinful nature think about sinful things, right? But those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. We're constantly, our brains are rewired to please the Spirit.

So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to what? Life and peace. It leads to life and it leads to peace. So take every thought captive.

That's what he means by taking every thought captive. It is a choice that we make when we begin to have those thoughts about ourselves or about others or about the world or whatever it is that simply pulls us that way. We begin to take it back. When our amygdala kicks in, we take that thing by the tail and throw it back under our prefrontal cortex and we make it subject to the Spirit of God. And our minds begin to change.

We begin to be rewired. We begin to thank God for what we have. And we have these, this thing takes place that is beautiful and lovely and we begin to see things consistently in a certain way. Take, for instance, if you're concerned about your teenagers or you're concerned about your job or you're concerned about your future, your health, what do you do? You take those worries and you begin to cast them.

It says, cast your cares upon God and you put those cares on him. It says, cast your cares on him. It says, cast your cares on him. Thank you. And what do you do?

You begin to give Him the power. You begin to give Him the authority over those things. And it goes on to say, Paul talks about, and your life is hidden with God in Jesus Christ, meaning He transforms you and He makes you see things differently. And those worries and those cares begin to go away. Here's three things that, just real quick, I want to give you, that's practical.

The first thing is, when you're faced with worry, when you're faced with fear, when you're faced with anxiety, the first thing you need to do is do what you're able to do. I can only do what I'm able to do. If I need to eat right, then I need to eat right, right? If I'm overweight, I can do my part. I can change my diet.

I can exercise. I can do things like that. If I need this big test coming up and I'm worried about it, what can I do? I can study for it, right? I can get ready for it.

I can study the best that I can, the best of my knowledge and my wisdom and be able to do that. If I have problems with finances, what can I do on my end? I can budget. I can spend correctly. I can save correctly.

I can do the right things. I can give to God and do all those things. I can do what I can do on my end. Do what you are able to do. I can do what I'm able to do and then give God what I'm not able to do.

You give God what you're not able to do and then trust God no matter what. Trust God no matter what. Imagine having a heart of peace. Imagine having a heart filled with overwhelming joy. Imagine having a peace of mind.

Trust trusting in God and trusting in him. Imagine your life being that way where you don't no longer worry that you just have complete trust and you walk in confidence. It is available to you, but it's a choice. It's a choice you make. It's a choice you do.

So I want to review what we've shared through this series as we close the series just to give you, you know, just to fill that in. First of all, if your life is always moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts, do you like the direction that your thoughts are going? Do you like the direction of your life? That's the first question. If you don't control your thinking, you'll never control your actions.

We talked about that in week one. We talked about identifying the lies in our lives, those strongholds that are in our lives, those fortresses that we build up in our minds. We find the truth in scripture of what speaks against those, those lies that we have. And what do we do it? We, we, we write it.

We think it, we confess it until we believe it. We write it. We think it, we confess it until we believe it. We write it. We think it, we confess it until we believe it.

Say it with me. We can write it and thank it, confess it until we believe it. And you can believe it. And if it's, if it's, you're struggling put, you know, with, with how you, how you put Jesus in your life, you say, Jesus is first in my life. I exist to serve and glorify him.

If you're, if you're dealing with, with, um, um, you know, desires, wrong desires, you can say, I am disciplined. Christ in me is stronger than my, the wrong desires within me. If I, if I feel like I'm just far from God or far from Christ, you can just repeat this and say this and do your part. But I am growing closer to Jesus every day because of Christ. My family's closer.

My body is stronger. My faith is deeper. My leadership is sharper. You can say, I am creative. I'm innovative.

I'm driven. I am focused. I'm blessed beyond measure because of the Holy spirit who dwells within me. You declare those truths, write it, think it, confess it, believe it. If you're, if you're, if you're dealing with unhealthy thoughts, you can say things like this.

You are not a hostage to your unhealthy thoughts. The weapons you fight with are not the weapons of this war, right? You can claim that and you can believe it. You can write it. You can think it, confess it, believe it.

If you're dealing with, uh, you know, strongholds in your life, those divine powers to, you have the power to demolish those strongholds. Uh, worry is not your master. You can trust in God and not be a slave to the habits that you have. You can write it, think it, confess it, believe it until you believe it. And you can believe it and you can conquer those strongholds.

And the next thing we talked about is you can't, if you can't control what happens to you, you can control how you frame it. That's what we talked about last week. You can frame things in such a way that they make sense. They're clearer. And, and, and we don't interpret God through our circumstances, right?

We interpret our circumstances through the goodness of God reframing. And then we cover everything in prayer. We cover everything in prayer. And I'm not going to have anxious thoughts anymore. I'm not going to, to deal with the worries of this life because I'm going to go to God in prayer because prayer actually has the power to change my mind, to change my thought process, that I can actually live the way and a way that God has designed me to live a child of his, a child of God.

And I can walk in this. It is through prayer and petition and presenting my requests to God and what will happen as a result. The peace of God that transcends all understanding guards our hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. Amen. If I could have, yeah, if I could have, position's come up and maybe you're ending the series, um, just some, some final last thoughts and final in my, there I am.

Okay. I'm good. Devil's trying to hinder this moment. And that's true, right? This is a very important period.

This is a very important moment. And for many of you, you struggle, you struggled with God, whether you're close to God or whether God even cares about you, or maybe you feel like you've just done so many things in your life that you're just so far in that that's your thought process. Those are the strongholds in your life. For others of you, it is just battling worry and it's battling anxiety. There's different levels of, of, of things that we're all dealing with in life.

But there's one solution and that's Jesus. There's one solution solution and that's Jesus Christ. And what He did on the cross, what He did on that hill, and what He did when that stone was rolled away, the battle was won. The battle for your thoughts was won. The battle for your heart was won.

The battle for your 100% who you are, who we were really made to be, was won because He conquered death and the grave and rose again. And today, you need to believe that. Some of you are believers here today, some of you aren't. You're still kind of kicking the tires. You're trying to figure out who Jesus is.

But here, I just want to pray over everyone with all heads bowed and all eyes closed. If you're struggling, if you're struggling with worry, you might even be physically sick because of your fight, your battle, your thoughts. And it hits you on every level that you can't even imagine. You don't even know where you're going or what you're doing or what you're thinking. I want to pray for you today.

I ask the Spirit just to begin to speak to you and begin to just heal you from the inside out. Father, I just pray over this congregation, God. I pray for every soul, every person represented here, Lord, that you're a precious child. And if it's on their minds, it's on your heart. And you deeply care for every small thing that they're going through.

So today, Lord, I pray that you would begin to strengthen them, that you would begin to touch them, that you would help them process those things about you, God, that your goodness, your goodness is there available to them, that it might be dark, it might hurt, it might be painful. You might be going through some very, very difficult things, but your goodness is there. Others may be bad. Others may be hateful. Others may be wronging you, but there's the goodness of God.

And finances might be hard. It might not look like no end in sight, but there's your goodness. We could focus on your goodness, Lord. So today, help us see the goodness in you, Lord, the goodness that is available to us, Lord Jesus. The goodness that is you.

It isn't something you do. It is who you are. It is your very nature. So we surrender our thoughts. We surrender our hearts to you today.

And with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, if you are somebody who's ready to take the next step to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, he wants to be your friend. If you would just say this with me. Paul says, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, you will be saved. And he will do that for you today. If you have not surrendered your life to Christ, if you do not know him as personal Savior, you can believe that today.

You can receive that today by simply just confessing your sin to him. Lord, I believe I am a sinner, but I believe that you are the Son of God and you died on the cross for my sin. Today, I give you my life. That I no longer have to be a slave to my sin. I no longer have to be a slave to my past and my hurt.

I no longer have to be a slave to my thoughts, to my mind, to my anxiety and all those things that I deal with daily. But I can surrender them to you because you were that good. So today, come into my heart. Make me new. Fill me from the inside out, Lord.

I give you my life today. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. If we could give God a big old praise.

Amen. We thank you, Jesus. You are great. You are awesome. We're going to celebrate you, Lord.

Let's just celebrate him for just a second. Look, we got hands lifted up here. We got limbs lifted all over this place. Lift your hands. Lift your arms to him.

He's cleaning out the anxiety. He's cleaning out the hurt. He's cleaning out the deep pains in your life because he can heal and he continues to heal. Thank you, Jesus, for that. Amen.

Amen. Hallelujah. We got one more thing we're going to do if you would just remain there. We don't normally end the service this way, but today is a special person's birthday. I'm going to drop that.

Special person's birthday. If you don't know, my wife's birthday is today, Miranda. If she would come up. Come on up, baby. And I just wanted to celebrate her for a minute.

She doesn't get celebrated a whole lot. She's speaking next week, and she hasn't put up with me, so it's a lot. And she's kind of, you know, even the church just goes along with me. So she's a mother and sister to so many people here and has ministered with me. And I just wanted to celebrate you today, baby, because you are so, you are everything to me.

And so we have some macarons for you. That's her favorite dessert. And we got you some flowers, too. This is just something for you. Yeah, it's a little heavy.

Can you all just give Miranda a happy birthday clap? Yeah, no, you get the day off. You get the ending off. Okay. Amen.

All right. If everybody would stand with me. Thank you for being with us again. We don't take up a plate. We have some things outside.

If you want to drop in the kiosk, you want to drop some physical giving there, you can. But most of our stuff is done online. You can give three ways. You can give online. Give in the kiosk.

Give online at saltchurch.org slash give. Everything's there. Or you can text give, right, that number right there on the screen if you want to give today. Thank you so much for your giving and all that you do, guys.

It is incredible. Y'all have been rocking it. And we're gearing up. We're working on a permanent place. We're already searching for a permanent place for our church to move forward.

So we've been growing, guys. It's been amazing. And you've been doing your part. You've been inviting people, sharing the gospel with people. And keep doing that, guys.

Don't give up. Don't lose heart in sharing the gospel. And we'll do that together. Amen. God bless you guys.

God, just be over this congregation. Be over every family represented here today. Go in the name of Jesus and peace and love in his name. Amen. Have a great day.

We'll see you next week for Mother's Day. Welcome to Mother's Day Service.