WHAT MUST I DO? YOU MUST BELIEVE
JAMES 1:5-7; HEBREWS 11:6
Big Idea: Strengthening our faith and growing spiritually is predicated upon allowing the Scriptures to expand our understanding of God … allowing God to show us there is more to him that we have here-to-fore understood.
JAMES 1:5-7
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he MUST believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord;
HEBREWS 11:1-6
1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. 4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. 5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him MUST believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
INTRO
I want you to place the fingers of your left and right hands on your temple. What goes on between the 6 inch space between those two hands determines the course and outlook of your life.
Proverbs 23: 7 says, “For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he....” When it comes to spiritual matters this is so very true.
A lesson from Golf
I was playing golf with two of my friends last summer and just could not “break through.” I was close but struggling. I had a lot of bogies that could have been pars. I stood on the 7th green (after a double bogey) and said to Kevin, “I just cannot break through today.”
You know what happened after that? The next two holes were atrocious! I mean epic bad! And the back nine was not much better.
A few days later I was playing a round on my day off (by myself) and I had the same thing happen. Again I said, “I just can’t break through today!” and then, almost immediately I challenged my self-talk and said, “Yes I can. I can do this. I have before and I can do it again” and you know what happened? I did. I slowed down, found my tempo, focused, relaxed and started playing golf at the level I am capable of.
In “spiritual language, we often talk about “the heart” … the inner self. We are fond of saying things like, “When God changes our heart the world around us can change too.” That is true. But that is also true of your mind. When God transforms and renews the mind the world around you will change too.
I see it all the time. People “lock in” to a particular way of thinking and it colors every decision, every perspective, every conclusion, and every behavior.
• “I am unlovable. Nobody will ever love me.”
• “I am simply not smart enough to do that.”
• “My boss hates me … I will never get a promotion.”
• “Everybody is out to get me – the deck is stacked against me.”
• “The world is evil; there is nothing good out there.”
• “People are evil and cannot be trusted.”
More times than naught, the voice we listen to inside our head becomes the voice that dictates the future. Our opinions, predictions, and conclusions can easily become self-fulfilling prophecies.
One man has called it “stinkin’ thinkin’.”
“The Top Ten Types of “Stinkin’ Thinkin’.”
David Burns wrote an article titled “The Top Ten Types of “Stinkin’ Thinkin’.” I’d like to summarize them for you.
(source: http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-top-10-types-of-stinkin-thinkin/00010)
1. All-or-nothing thinking – You see things in black-or-white categories. If a situation falls short of perfect, you see it as a total failure.
2. Over-generalization – You see a single negative event, such as a romantic rejection or a career reversal, as a never-ending pattern of defeat by using words such as “always” or “never” when you think about it.
3. Mental Filter – You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors a beaker of water.
4. Discounting the Positive – You reject positive experiences by insisting that they “don’t count.”
5. Jumping to Conclusions – You interpret things negatively when there are no facts to support your conclusion.
6. Magnification – You exaggerate the importance of your problems and shortcomings, or you minimize the importance of your desirable qualities.
7. Emotional Reasoning – You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are. For example, “I feel terrified about going on airplanes. It must be very dangerous to fly.”
8. “Should” Statements – You tell yourself that things should be the way you hoped or expected them to be.
9. Labeling – Instead of saying “I made a mistake,” you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.”
10. Personalization and Blame - You hold yourself personally responsible for something that isn’t entirely under your control.
As I said, more times than naught, the voice we listen to inside our head becomes the voice that dictates the future. Our opinions, predictions, and conclusions can easily become self-fulfilling prophecies.
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AND THAT’S NOT ONLY TRUE IN RELATION TO YOUR VIEW OF YOURSELF AND THE WORLD AROUND YOU … THAT IS TRUE OF YOUR VIEW AND RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD TOO.
I see it all the time. People “lock in” on a limited view of God and it colors every decision, perspective, conclusion, and behavior!
Now let’s be clear; everyone has a limited view of God. God is much more than you or I can ever conceive. SO … SPIRITUAL GROWTH AND WELL-BEING IS MOSTLY PREDICATED UPON ALLOWING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF GOD TO GROW … ALLOWING GOD TO SHOW US THERE IS MORE TO HIM THAT WE HAVE HERE-TO-FORE UNDERSTOOD. And, as our understanding of God grows our faith grows and our lives can begin to be transformed and conform to that new understanding.
Think about this … if God is the same today as he was to you 10 years ago you are not growing – you are stuck!
I dare say that in every case – for each of us – there is more to God as disclosed in the Scriptures that we have grasped as of today. Notice I am referring to the Scriptures. They are the “self-disclosure” of God. It is within the pages of Scripture that we discover God; and the Scriptures teach us emphatically, without hesitation and without wavering, that the fullest view of God that you will ever find is in the person of Jesus Christ. In fact, they teach us that to see Jesus is to see a perfect expression of God and His character because Jesus is himself God.
• The Scriptures quote Jesus as saying “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9)
• The Writer of Hebrews says, “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3)
• Paul twice tells us that to see Jesus is to see God (1 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15).
We all have notions about God that are less-than-perfect; notions that have been influenced by something other than the Scriptures.
• Some people have a God-concept that is extracted by how they view their father or another authority figure.
• Some have their understanding of God influenced by nature.
• Others are influenced by academics.
The list goes on and on but the Scriptures are the only trustworthy source that always and accurately informs and transforms our grasp of God.
The way you understand God (as, hopefully, seen in Jesus Christ) influences how you live, how you serve, how you understand humanity and how you understand the world around you. And as your mind is renewed and your understanding of God grows – your faith does too.
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Hebrews chapter 11 is a very unique chapter in the Bible. It talks about faith and it talks about it via characters from the Bible. Each character’s name would immediately bring a story to the Jewish reader’s mind. And catch this; each Bible character is the story of someone whose understanding of God influenced their behavior and then, afterward, saw their faith grow and their understanding of God grow even further.
Think about it … “By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did.” But after offering the sacrifice Abel learned new thing things about the person and character of God didn’t he? He learned things he might not have learned otherwise if he did not act upon (obey) the knowledge and faith he had at present. That is true of all these characters. Is it not the case with Moses? Abraham? Gideon?
My point is that our understanding of God should continually be growing and as it grows our faith grows and as our faith grows our understanding of God grows even further and in the process those “locked in” worldviews that dictate our every decision, perspective, conclusion, and behavior – change.
As I see it, the key to changing our thinking and the self-fulfilling prophecies that our thinking brings is to reflect upon and look to the proper sources for input and growth.
• If the main course of your daily input is national and local news – it will influence you in ways you cannot imagine.
• If the main course of your daily input is fantasy or sci-fi literature it will influence you in ways you cannot imagine.
• If the main course of your daily input is first person video gaming it will influence you in ways you cannot imagine.
• If the main course of your daily input is secular music it will influence you in ways you cannot imagine.
• The list goes on and on
Now there is a place for each of these. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of them but allowing them to become the main course of your daily input is disastrous. It’s the “garbage in and garbage out” concept and it breeds “stinkin’ thinkin’.”
I never cease to be amazed at the changes I see in people when they begin to read God’s Word regularly and when they begin to add faith-based literature and music to their routine. Their faith grows and their view of life and living becomes more proactive and positive.
Let me ask you some questions.
• Does your daily existence seem dull and burdensome?
• Do you think the world is a bad place to be?
• Do you think things always go bad for you?
• Are you suspicious of everyone and everything?
• Do you feel like a failure … like nothing good ever happens to you?
Did you know that none of those things are true? You have ingrained the thought process into your mind so deeply that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is the old “if you think the whole world stinks you might want to see what’s stuck in your mustache” concept.
Paul makes a very interesting comment in Titus 1:5. I fear we gloss over it too quickly. He says “To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.”
It’s Paul’s way of restating Proverbs 4:23. “For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he....”
Did you know God wants you to have a faith-filled and positive outlook on life?
Did you know that it is only through living with a sense of hope and anticipation that you will ever acknowledge that God is doing something wonderful within you and around you?
Read Paul’s prison epistles from that vantage point and you will discover that even while in chains and enduring severe suffering Paul confesses that God is good and God does good things. Paul confesses that God is doing something good in His world and that we, His people, can make a difference in our world!
It was fact, within those letters that Paul said: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. (Philippians 4:8)
You not only CAN change your “stinkin’ thinkin’” … God wants you too! He wants your mind renewed and faith-filled! It is very important to your spiritual well-being.
JAMES 1:5-7
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he MUST believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord;
And what God’s Word says you MUST do, he knows you CAN do!
God’s blessings on you today!
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This sermon is provided by Dr. Kenneth Pell
Potsdam Church of the Nazarene
Potsdam, New York
www.potsdam-naz.org
