Preframe Reframe

Thank you. Hey Salt Church. Good morning. It's so good to see everyone. I'm so glad that Pastor Leon can be stress-free today, wherever he is, surfing in the world, out there somewhere, maybe in Costa Rica.

El Salvador. And so he's stress-free. He passed on the stress to me. He said, he was thinking, who is the most stressed pastor in Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads and Tidewater that I can get to come in here? And so he said, I know it's Michael Simone.

So he brought me in for this stressed out series. And I'm stressed out all the time. As a matter of fact, I'm stressed out right now because of the New York Yankees. They are killing me. Any Yankee fans out there?

The Yankees are killing me with their, their, their loss record is below, you know, they have below 500 records since the All-Star break. We're hanging on the first place by a thread. We're trying to get our guys back who are out on the injured reserve list. So, so welcome to the prayer meeting for the New York Yankees. Let's pray.

I'm sorry. Another thing that makes me stressed out is when I go camping, because I am not a camper. Anybody not a camper? Not a camper. Campers, make some noise.

If you're a camper, make some noise. Okay, they're the campers. I'm not a camper. And my wife is a camper. So last weekend, we were camping in Hershey, Pennsylvania, at Hershey Park at the campground.

And one of the things that stresses you out is you have to make a fire every night, and then everybody sits around the fire. So I have, I bought this up at the, the Do It Center up at the Hilltop. Sure start fire lighting solutions, squares. This is a solution to your challenge of stress of starting a fire. Who needs this to start their next fire in your backyard?

Who needs this to take all the stress out? You need this? Can you catch it? Ready? Here it comes.

Boom. There you go. Take the stress out of that. All right. So we're going to start off in a very unusual way.

And I like to start things off in unusual ways. So you're going to sing with me an old Credence Clearwater revival song. The lyrics are going to come up, and you're going to sing it with me. I need you to sing this out loud so you drown me out. Everybody stand up.

Everybody standing for singing. Ready? One, two, three. Someone told me long ago. I don't hear you.

There's a calm before the storm. I know. It's been coming for some time. When it's over, so they say. It'll rain a sunny day.

I know. Shining down like water. Here's the big chorus. I want to hear this big. I want to hear it big.

Ready? I want to hear it big. I want to know. Have you ever seen the rain? One more time.

I want to know. Have you ever seen the rain? Coming down on a sunny day. All right. You may be seated.

Thanks, too. Basic Credence Clearwater Revival, we have those words, have you ever seen the rain, means have pain, have difficulty, have stress impacted your life, and the answer is always yes. I want to talk to you about that this morning. I want to give credit to my good friend Craig Groeschel, he wrote a book called Winning the War in Your Mind, and I did a series on this last year, I felt really good about it, and so what I did is I took one of my messages and I kind of repurposed it for you today because Craig had some great insight on understanding how we can move through emotional stress, how we can move through the pain of difficult times in our lives, so it's a great book. If you are looking for a good book to do for a small group or you just need a good book for yourself for growing the edge of your Christian life, I highly recommend Winning the War in Your Mind by Craig Groeschel.

I'm going to teach you something today that will not eliminate stress in our lives because we can't do that, but it will help you deal with it better. Here, I'm going to guess that you are stuck somewhere. You're either stuck in a relational thing or you're stuck in an emotional thing. Maybe you're stuck in a financial thing or in a business thing, but I'm going to guess that you're stuck somewhere because most of us are stuck somewhere most of the time. We're either kind of coming out of being stuck or going into being stuck or just figuring out stuck or praying about stuck.

So I want to give you four powerful words for the stuckness of your life. Yesterday's message is being brought to you by Stucky's. I just threw that in sideways. It wasn't that good. I will not do it at the next service.

There is not another service. Okay, so four powerful words for your life today. Ready? Reframe, preframe, and collateral goodness. Reframe, preframe, and collateral goodness.

Reframe is about the past. Preframe is about the future. And collateral goodness is about now. It's about right now. I want to take you to Ephesians.

We're going back a couple thousand years to a letter that Paul wrote to Ephesus, the church there, the believers there. I'll take you to Ephesians chapter 4. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, open up this passage to us. Give us understanding.

Help us to know your heartbeat this morning. Help us to gain wisdom that we can take out of these doors into the reality of our lives, into our places where maybe we're stuck. Father, give us... Your wisdom now, from your word. In Jesus' name, amen.

So I tell you this. It comes straight at you. So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. Now when he said, in the futility of their thinking, everybody understood that. What was he referring to?

What was he thinking about? What did everybody know? The futility of the thinking of the culture that they were living in was kind of like this. I mainly think of what I want. I mainly think of what's coming to me.

How do I get stuff? What do I get out of this? And my anger runs free. I let my anger run free. Just don't get in my way, because I'll run right over you.

I hurt others who hurt me. You hurt me, I will hurt you back. And I will catch you probably when you're not looking in some kind of an ambush. I demand to be served. I'm not going to serve you.

I demand that you serve me. Whether it's in the home or in the marketplace, you better serve me, because it's all about me all the time. And I will manipulate relationships, so I always get what I want. I will manipulate you. That was the futility of the cultural thinking that surrounded this time in the first century.

Does that sound familiar in any way? Yeah, it kind of still surrounds us in the 21st century. So Paul is saying, you must no longer, because they were doing some of the same stuff, you must no longer live like that in futility of the way your mind works. That is not the way. That, however, is not the way of life you learn, so you have to learn a way out of this.

That's not the way of life you learn when you heard about Christ and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. Jesus embodied the truth. He lived the truth. He spoke the truth.

He had truthful attitudes. He had truthful actions. He was a model of truth. And so as we look at Him and listen to Him, we learn how to think. We learn how to think outside of what are futile ways of thinking.

We go to verses 22 and 24. You were taught. Again, this is a teaching thing. You learned. You were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, the same idea of the futility, to be made new in the attitude of your mind.

So you want to park that word attitude. Attitude right over here on the left side of your brain is going to transfer to the right side of your brain in just a few minutes. Park that word attitude right there to be made new in the attitude. It takes an attitude to get to this newness and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. And that biblical word righteousness is a big word.

It's a big Sunday school word. It's an old fashioned Baptist word. It just means you think like God. You act like God. When you show up, you do what God would do in that situation.

So here are the questions. How am I made new in my mind? How does that happen? Well, we know it has something to do with attitude because Paul wrote about attitude to be made new in the attitude of your mind. How am I made new in my mind?

It has something to do with our attitudes. Second question is how do I put on the new self? How do I put on the new self? And sometimes there's errant theology sometimes that runs across churches and denominations and in the Christian culture. And the errant theology is this, that God is just going to zap you and get it done.

You don't even have to do anything. You don't have to think about it. God's just going to zap the new self into you and boom, it's just going to happen. And that is absolutely not true. It's a lie because God wants to do something in you and through you.

But it's an organic relationship. When Jesus said, I'm the vine, you're the branches. The branch is what bears the fruit, right? But it has to be connected vitally to the vine. It's a two-pronged growth process.

The growth comes up through the vine. Water and nutrients come up from the vine. They go into the branch and then good things come out of that. But that happens together. God's not zapping you.

You have to want to grow. You have to want to be on top of your Christian life, at the cutting edge of your Christian life. It's an attitude, Paul is saying, that you are taking. And Craig Rochelle put it this way in winning the war in your mind. He put it this way.

Our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts. What we think shapes who we are. Our minds are moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts. What we think shapes who we are. So what are you thinking about?

How can you be made new? How do you put on the new self? In the book Winning, it says this, I cannot control what has happened to me. These are the three key statements here, okay? I cannot control what has happened to me.

I cannot control what will happen to me. I cannot control what has happened to me. I cannot control what has happened to me. I cannot control how I perceive. I can't control how I perceive it and how I respond.

I can't control what happened. I can't control what will happen. I can't control how I perceive it and how I respond to it. And that's what we're going to come back to reframe, preframe collateral goodness. First century, middle of first century, Paul is in prison in Rome.

He's in prison. It was not in his life plan to be in prison. If he wanted to go to Rome, he was going there for the Italian food. He was not going to be in prison. It wasn't his plan.

Paul's circumstances were out of his control. Circumstances are almost always out of our control. You've been where Paul was. If I get this degree, I'll get the job. You didn't get the job.

You planned on being married by now. You're not married by now. You planned on being married forever. You're not. You're praying for a prodigal adult child.

You're still praying. You've been where Paul was. But hear the words of Paul from Philippians chapter one. He says, I want you to know, I want you to know that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the good news. He says everything.

He doesn't say, well, most of it or some of it or there's a few things that have helped me learn something. No, he says everything. He's in jail. He's in prison. Everything that has happened to me here has helped me.

It's helped me spread the good news. It's helped me present this message that God sent into the world through Christ. It's helping me everything for everyone here, including the whole palace guard knows that I am in chains because of Christ. Christ. And here's the key thing.

This is how you change your circumstances. You can't change your circumstances, but this is how you reframe your circumstances. Paul didn't see himself as a captive. He saw himself as having a captive audience. That is the big shift that changes everything.

He reframed it. He reframed it. He didn't see himself as a captive or a prisoner. He saw himself with a captive audience. And then he says, and because of my imprisonment, most of the believers here have gained confidence and boldly speak God's message without fear because others saw him as a role model, still standing for Christ, even while being in prison.

They said, if Paul can do that, I can do that, too. I can be a light. Thank you. In the world that Jesus gave himself for. And whenever you go out of this church, see this is the locker room, this is where we get to talk and have a strategy.

Whenever you go out of this church, you are carrying the message with you, in you, through you. And God wants to speak his truth into the lives of the people out here riding up and down Laskin Road, riding all around Hilltop, riding down 264. Wherever you go, you are a person who is carrying the light, because that's how you reframe all the circumstances of life for God's glory. So, what we want to look at is how you can't control what happens to you, but you can't control how you reframe it. Reframe, preframe, collateral goodness.

Reframe is about the past. Preframe is about the future. Collateral goodness is about what's happening right now. And let's look in the Bible to say, is that really true? Is that really happening all the time in these biblical stories?

It is. I want you to take those words, reframe, preframe, collateral goodness. I want you to keep them in your back pocket. I want you to keep them close to your heart, because it's happening all the time. It's the way God has always worked.

What Craig Rochelle did was he found a biblical set of principles that was already there. He just said, let's just pull this out and let's put some names on it and let's just give it away as a gift. Moses. He had to reframe his life. Then God had to preframe his life.

And the collateral goodness was they finally, he didn't get to go into the promised land, but he got to go into the promised land. And part of the collateral goodness was the manna that God provided each and every day. Esther. Esther had to reframe her life. God pre-framed her relationship with the king to save her people.

The collateral goodness was the people got saved and they went on to have a glorious life in the kingdom. Nehemiah had to reframe what happened with the captivity. And then he had to pre-frame it when he went to the king and said, I want to go back and rebuild the wall. And the collateral goodness was they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and they were able to reestablish their community. Mary and Joseph.

One of the one of the biggest reframe pre-frames going on in history. Hey, this is supposed to be a simple wedding. A simple. I love you. Will you marry me?

And then an angel shows up and everything shifts. OK, it's not simple anymore. They had to reframe it. Then they had to pre-frame it for what was going to happen in Bethlehem. And then the collateral goodness was for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

That whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And all the things that God wants to do in your life. So all these reframe, pre-frame stories are in the Bible. And your life can be a reframe. Preframe Collateral Goodness Story 2, as God does what He needs to do in you and through you.

Here's a verse that kind of drives it home. It's a great reframe, preframe, collateral goodness verse. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 7. But we have this treasure in jars of clay. The treasure is the reframe.

What He's reframing is the jar of clay. You're a human being. You have weaknesses. You have great weaknesses. You are easily broken.

You're fragile. But within that fragile flower pot of your life, God has put a treasure. He reframes it. You have this treasure. We have this treasure in jars of clay.

And here comes the collateral goodness in the preframe to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. The future is based upon what God wants to do in you and through you, what God needs to do in you and through you, how God often grows you through times of stress, how God often grows you through times of trouble, how God often grows you through times of a heartache or a disappointment, a great disappointment. And so these are the biblical parameters of how you can deal with stressful situations. Stress is never going to go away. Anxiety doesn't just fly out the window, but you reframe it, you preframe it, and you embrace the collateral goodness, and you walk with God into the newness of life, into the way that your mind can shift and change because of God's grace.

I just think this is something very, very powerful for each of us, and it's very, very powerful for the church. You can say, what do we, as Salt Church, need to reframe? How do we need to see something different about who we are? What do we, as Salt Church, need to reframe? What do we need to say, this is what the future is going to look like by God's grace?

And what, as Salt Church, are you going to celebrate as the collateral goodness of God's grace and outpouring of good things to you right now? So it's a powerful paradigm. It's a powerful formula, and it's always at work in our lives. Let me tell you my story of a reframe and a preframe. I told this story at Boat Church a couple weeks ago, and I enjoyed telling it so much that I said, God, can I tell that story again today?

God said, yes, you can tell the story again today at Salt Church. So when I was the associate pastor up here... At the Virginia Beach Community Chapel, just a hop, skip, and a jump, one of my jobs was to create single adult ministry, and I did that, and we brought together single parents. I did a single parent family retreat at the 4-8 Center off of 460. I did single adult small groups.

I did single adult Bible studies. We had single adult conferences where I'd bring in a speaker, and we'd have a whole weekend. We invited other churches. So, you know, I was immersed in single adult ministry, and I wrote a chapter and a book for single adults. It was a devotional book for single adults.

To speak at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, right next to Pasadena, where Robert Shuler was the pastor. He started out in a drive-in movie theater. It became an international phenomenon and spoke all over the world. I got invited to speak at Garden Grove at the National Single Adult Convention, and I was really excited about it. I said, yay, I get to speak at this convention.

I get to fly to the West Coast. Then I said, oh, this is not going to work because there's no way I can afford to do that. It wasn't that the church was doing it. It was like I just got this invitation. So I thought, okay, it looks like that's just, I can't do it.

It's just not going to happen. Then I get this phone call. And I don't think they do this anymore, but in the olden days of the Neptune Festival, there was a Neptune Festival prayer breakfast. And I got a phone call from the Neptune Festival committee, and they said, would you say grace at the Neptune Festival prayer breakfast? And the speaker this year is Robert Shuler.

I thought, that's it. God has opened the door. I'm going to meet big Bobby Shuler. He's going to take care of this for me. We're going to be at the head table together.

I'm going to walk with him and get to know him. And I thought, this is it. So I get out there, and we line up to go in. And I thought, this is my chance. Here's Robert Shuler.

Here's me. I said, Pastor Shuler, I've been invited to speak at your church at the National Single Adult Leadership Conference, and I'm so excited about that. But I have a problem. I can't go because I don't have the funds to get me there. And I thought, that's his cue.

He's the pastor. Pastors figure things out. He's going to handle this for me. He's got a friend. He's going to put me in his friend's house.

He's going to have me sleep on his couch. He's going to take care of it. He's Robert Shuler, the Crystal Cathedral. He wrote the book, Tough Times Don't Last, Tough People Do. He's going to handle it.

And he looked at me like I was out of my mind. He didn't say anything. And then he turned around, and he walked away. I mean, you heard that old song, just walk away, Renee. Okay, this was just walk away, Robert Shuler.

And he walked away. It was like, it was, it was stunning. And I thought, I didn't know what to do. I was frozen. He got about five feet away from me.

He turned around. He looked me right in the eye, right in the eye, like looking right through me. And he said these words, only words Robert Truller ever said to me personally. Last words Robert Truller ever said to me personally. And he said this, you don't have a problem.

You just have to make a decision. In that moment, he reframed and he pre-framed my life. And I went out and I prayed. And he gave a talk about how the most powerful word in the world has changed. And I went home.

And I thought, he said, I just have to make a decision. And you know what I did? I said, I'm going. I'm going to speak at this conference. I still didn't have the money.

I didn't have the resources. I didn't have the funds. I just said, I'm going to go. But when you reframe, here's one of the keys for you this morning. When you embrace the reframe, and you embrace the pre-frame, God embraces you.

And so we were having a conference. We were having a weekend. We called it homecoming at the chapel. And I always got a speaker to come in. It was a big family weekend, kind of like your pumpkin thing that you got going on here.

And it was homecoming, but we didn't have pumpkins. And so I invited this speaker. And he came. And when he got here, I learned that he was from Pasadena, California. And his name was Terry.

And I said, Terry, I got invited. He goes, you come out, you got my apartment. He said, you come out, you take me to the airport, because I have a speaking engagement, you have my car. He had a Mercedes Benz. So I'm out in Pasadena.

I'm driving a Mercedes. I'm waving at everybody. And I got an apartment right there in Pasadena, where I could just drive over to the Crystal Cathedral. And I still didn't have the money, right? But I had the reframe.

And I had the pre-frame. And the collateral goodness was the experience that I had being at the National Single Adult Leadership Conference. This is real stuff. This is how God works in our lives. You will always have stress and anxiety.

That's why Peter wrote this. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. When you embrace the reframe, when you embrace the pre-frame, God embraces you. Look in to your life.

Find out what you've got to reframe. Look up. Ask God for the help with the pre-frame. And look beyond to get the picture of the collateral goodness. Good.

Thank you. You know, when Jesus talked about prayer, they said, teach us to pray. And when he said this, when he said, our Father who art in heaven, it was a giant reframe. What was it a reframe from? From paganism, where they had all these gods and they were using a whole lot of words.

In a second, he reframed that. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. And then, when he went down and talked about, give us this day our daily bread, that was collateral goodness of God's provision. And at the end, the kingdom and the glory forever, that was the preframe of what God is going to do. In Hebrews 13, 14, it says, for here we do not have a lasting city, but we're seeking the city that is to come.

That's a giant reframe and a preframe. And the collateral goodness is we get to do this together in the body of Christ, in the church. Reframe is about the past. Say that with me. Reframe is about the past.

Come on, everybody. Wake up. Reframe is about the past. Preframe is about the future. Preframe is about the future.

Collateral goodness is about right now. Collateral goodness is about right now. Now, in the summer of 2020, at the Olympics, a gentleman named Caleb Dressel won five gold medals. And he's a Christian young man, and he had an outstanding Olympics. On his shoulder, you can sort of see part of it there, he has a giant tattoo of an eagle's wing.

Because he reframes and he preframes everything in his life with this verse from Isaiah 40, 31. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will swim and not grow weary.

They will walk and not be faint. And so that's his view of everything. And that tattoo reminds him of that scripture. It reminds him of who he belongs to. So when he was interviewed by Lester Holt, he had an interesting answer for Lester Holt's statement.

Lester Holt looked at him. NBC, Nightly News, looking right at him. And Lester said, you are the man. Because he had won, you know, all these gold medals. You are the man.

But Caleb knew who he was and who he serves. Caleb said, I am not the man. I just want to swim the best that I can. And then he wrote this mission statement. I offer it to you as you might want to think about your mission statement.

He said, I will strive to be better. I will strive to be a better, wiser man than I was yesterday. Never will I be complacent. And I will always challenge myself. I appreciate any obstacle, kind of sounds like Paul, knowing it will make me stronger.

I take pride in my craft and will continue to master it. I set my own standard and compare myself to no one. It's just here's the standard in Christ and he just has to think about what am I doing to serve him today. I know my habits define me and I'll make good works of them. I'm aware the only thing I control in my life are my thoughts.

You can use the word attitude. Paul used the word attitude. I'm aware the only thing I control in my life are my thoughts and my choices, not my circumstances. Not my circumstances. He reframes.

He pre-frames. He embraces the collateral goodness and the God of all glory embraces him. Let me give you some closing questions because you need to have some questions to drive you into the future of your life. First, is there a circumstance or a relationship you know is difficult? Right now it's just difficult and you can ask God to help you reframe or pre-frame it.

Some circumstance or some relationship that's difficult. You need God's wisdom and understanding grace to reframe it or pre-frame it. Second question, how do you need God to change your perspective or how do you need God to change your attitude today where your attitude is pulling you down, where your attitude is pulling you off course? How do you need God to help you have that new mind, to help you put on that new self? How do you want to be better connected to the vine so that apart from him you can do nothing?

Paul wrote to be made new in the attitude of your minds, to be made new in the attitude of your minds. And he was saying you got to reframe it, you got to pre-frame it, you got to embrace the collateral goodness so God can embrace you. And you're going to have homework today because I'm a teaching kind of a guy, teaching pastor. So your homework you're going to get on the way out, it's going to be a sheet that looks like this. And your homework is to fill in the blanks and then think about this or talk to somebody about this.

You can even do this in a group together. I call this my Psalm of God's presence and peace. And to prepare to do this, you're going to read Psalm 27, which is a Psalm of God's presence and peace. You're going to fill in these blanks. God is with me even when I feel, fill in the blank, anxious, stressed, whatever that is, sad.

My worries about fill in the blank are not more powerful than the Lord. The promise from God's word I will cling to. During times of stress and panic is this. Caleb Dressel, gold medalist five times from the Olympics, he clings to that verse in Isaiah. Craig in the book calls that a trench of truth.

You dig out a trench of truth from God's Word in something that can hold you and sustain you and keep your feet planted firmly in His will. The promise from God's Word I will cling to during times of stress and panic is this. You know what it is for me? Isaiah 66-2. You can check that out later if you'd like to.

Isaiah 66-2. Knowing how much God loves me and how close He is to me right now, I can focus on this rather than that. Okay? That's your homework. You're going to fill that in.

It's going to help you to move forward in your life. It's going to help you to grow to be the person God needs you to be. God wants you to be. God is connected to your life every single day. Credence Clearwater Revival wrote these words.

They were kind of prophetic. I want to know, have you ever seen the rain? And we've all seen the rain. The rain, don't stop. But I want to challenge you this morning to reframe, to pre-frame, and to embrace your collateral goodness.

And if you will do this, then you will change your life. And if you change your life, guess what happens? You change the world. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the words of Paul that reach out across 2,000 years and help us to understand, reframe, pre-frame collateral goodness. We thank you for all the good work that you're doing here at Salt Church, Father.

We lift it all up to you. Put your hands of blessing upon this church. Guide this church into the collateral goodness of your favor, Father. For in this community, a light needs to shine. Let Salt Church shine.

In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you. Check.

Okay, cool. I guess we'll do it like this. Thank you so much for being here with us this morning, Pastor Michael Smona. If we can give him one more round of applause for being here in place of Pastor Leon this morning. Again, thank you so much for being here with us this morning.

It means so much that you would come and choose whether you're online or here in person to worship with us. Thank you so much for having us free up for that moment. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you.

A giving slide up on the screen. You have a couple of ways to give. There's a box out in the lobby. You can text or you can give through online at saltchurch.org.

And as you are heading out, I believe Pastor Michael and Miss Barb have a table out there. You can go see a little bit more about what they do with the Togo Network and see how you might be able to get involved. But with that being said, thank you again so much for joining us and have a great Sunday afternoon.