So, things haven't turned out as you hoped.
Life took a turn, a bump, a darkened sky.
And at times it may have seemed there was no hope.
But here's the good news.
Our God is the God of fresh starts.
Our God is the God of new beginnings.
Our God brings new mercies, new compassion, not just once a year.
Not just when things are bad, but every single morning.
This season has been tough.
And for many of us, things will never be the same.
But we are here breathing, maybe smiling, or crying, or shouting, or laughing, but we
are here feeling, maybe fighting, or cheering, or seeking, or grieving.
We are here living, and we are not alone.
Our God is here.
Our God is with us.
And our God is the God of new creations.
Good morning.
Appreciate you being here today.
Today is part two in our four week series reset.
Jesus changes everything.
Our mission as a church is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
And sometimes we all need a reset to keep us growing like we should.
To reset something means to restore it to its original purpose.
All of us who have smartphones, or computers, or electronic gadgets know that they get out
of whack, and sometimes they need to be reset so they function at their best.
And the same is true of our spiritual life.
We're going to focus on four resets in this series.
Each reset is actually a simple prayer.
Last week, our prayer was, Jesus, reset my heart.
This is the resetting of our faith.
This is where all resets begin.
Today, Jesus reset my mind.
This is the resetting of our faults, the center of what we believe.
Next week, we're going to look at Jesus reset my voice, the resetting of our words, what
we say, and why we say it.
And then we'll wrap up on week four with Jesus reset my hands, the resetting of what we do
and why we do it.
So today's prayer, Jesus reset my mind.
Jesus taught us that we must love God with everything we have, our heart, our soul, our
mind, and our body.
Jesus said it this way in Mark 12, verse 30, love the Lord your God with all your heart,
all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.
We talked a lot last week about the heart and what does Jesus mean when he says, the
love the Lord your God with all your heart.
He's not talking about that organ in our chest that pumps blood.
He's talking about what's deep, deep down inside of us, who we really are.
So first, we must reset our heart.
Last week, we looked at three steps that will help us reset our heart.
I reset my heart by committing to purity.
I reset my heart by trusting in Jesus alone.
I reset my heart by living in God's presence, and when we do that, Jesus changes everything.
Once we reset our heart to stay in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, the next step
would be to reset our mind.
Jesus said this about our mind in Matthew 15 and verse 19, out of the mind come evil
thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual sins, stealing, lying, and speaking evil of others.
You know, that's a pretty tough list, but Jesus said it so we know it's true, but who
would have thought that all of that mess could come out of our mind?
And that's why our mind needs to be reset.
Our mind is kind of like an air traffic control center.
The air traffic control's job is to communicate with the pilots, to help them take off, to
help them fly and stay on course, and then to help them land safely.
And it's the same with our mind.
Our mind is constantly sending information to us, telling us how to live, what to do,
how to stay safe.
Another name for your mind is your conscience.
Your conscience can be a very good thing.
Your conscience can be a guardrail that will protect you, but also our conscience can get
messed up, and it can become unreliable.
So it also needs to be reset.
Titus chapter 1 verse 15, to those who are pure, all things are pure.
But to those who are full of sin and do not believe, nothing is pure.
Both their minds and their consciences have been ruined.
That's why it's so important for us to reset our mind.
This is what a reset does for our mind.
We see it in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 23, to be made new in the attitude of your
minds.
A reset of our mind gives us a brand new attitude.
I heard someone say that life is 10% everything else and 90% attitude.
If the information in your brain is messed up, then it influences our mind and weakens
our conscience and will eventually mess up who we are.
One of the primary purposes of the Bible is to help us properly analyze the thoughts in
our mind.
If the thoughts in our mind are in opposition to what God teaches, then those thoughts will
need to be replaced.
If we go ahead and do those things that God teaches are wrong, then that weakens our conscience
and will eventually corrupt who we are.
Ezekiel 18, 31, get rid of all the sins you have done and get for yourselves a new heart
and a new way of thinking.
Why do you want to die?
The Bible is a book of life.
It's the truth that we need to protect our heart and our mind and our soul.
When your thinking is based on truth, then you will have the right information fed into
your thoughts which will cause your life to be blessed more than you can say.
Our mind is a very special gift from God.
He created the brain, that's the physical organ that allows us to think and to function.
Our central nervous system sends out billions of messages and receives billions of messages.
Our thoughts are how we interpret those signals and it helps us to process what's going on
in our world.
That's why it's so important that we receive and understand correct data.
Bad data leads to wrong decisions which will ultimately lead us to do wrong things.
That's why we need to reset our mind.
Did you know that we are responsible to God for even what we think?
Hebrews chapter 4 verse 13, nothing in all the world can be hidden from God.
Everything is clear and lies open before Him.
To Him we must explain the way we have lived.
God knows what we think about and our thought life is very important to Him.
We see that in Psalm 19 verse 14.
May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord,
my Rock and my Redeemer.
The meditation of our heart is the things that we think about the most.
See God would not hold us responsible for something that we absolutely cannot change
or have no control over.
We use the excuse that we can't help what we think about, but that's not true.
The Bible encourages us over and over again to protect our thoughts and to guard our heart.
Proverbs chapter 4 verse 23, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows
from it.
The new century version says it this way.
Be careful what you think because your thoughts run your life.
Be careful what you think because your thoughts run your life.
We choose what we allow our mind to dwell on.
We can't control every thought that comes into our mind, but we can control what we
allow to stay there.
That's why it's so important for all of us today to ask Jesus to reset our minds.
Our mind basically has five parts.
One part is what I call our smarts.
This is our intelligence, our ability to learn, our creativity.
Creativity is the ability to see things in your mind.
Our memory, some of us, if we get a little older, start struggling with this.
Our ability to recall information and remember what we've recalled.
Our feelings are a part of our mind.
Our feelings are the voice of our thoughts, and because our feelings can be affected by
so many factors, stress, sickness, lack of nutrition, lack of rest, hormonal changes.
Because our feelings can be affected by so many factors, our feelings cannot be trusted.
It's not wise to make major decisions based on how you feel about it, and we do this all
the time.
Another part of our mind is our will, our ability to choose.
And though we love to blame our choices on other people, my mother said this, and my
mother was always right.
People do what they want to do.
You are what you think, Proverbs 23-7.
For as he thanks in his heart, so is he.
Whatever we allow to control our thoughts will eventually control our life.
Think about it.
Whatever is going on in your life today is a result of the things that we allowed in
our mind yesterday.
The good news is, if you don't like what's going on in your life today, you can change
it.
If you reset your mind, you reset your life.
So how can we reset our mind today?
Well, thank you for asking.
I'm going to give you five steps that will help us all to reset our mind.
First, take responsibility for your own fault life.
We can't change anything as long as we keep blaming it on somebody else.
Become aware of what you think about.
What are the bad thoughts that keep coming to you every day?
When left alone in your thoughts, what is your pattern of thinking?
Take responsibility for your own fault life.
Second, test your thoughts by studying your feelings.
Our feelings come from how we think.
So during the day, make a note of your feelings and then ask, what made me feel that way?
What are those thoughts, fear, anger, lust, jealousy?
They all come from our thoughts.
And then make a list of three things that you would like to see happen in your life
today, write it down and then think on those things instead.
Maybe you would like to have a better relationship with your kids.
Write it down and then think on those things.
Maybe you'd like to be closer to your spouse.
Maybe you would like to become more generous.
Maybe you'd like to become a better listener.
Maybe you'd like to grow in grace and be more forgiving.
Write that down and then think on these things.
Third, take time to meditate.
Psalm 1914, may these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in
your sight, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
David realized that his thoughts mattered to God, so he prayed and asked God to give
him thoughts that would be pleasing to God.
Psalm 119, 148, my eyes stay open through the watches of the night that I may meditate
on your promises.
As Christians, we should meditate, but not like the gurus of other religions.
In those religions, they teach that the object of meditation is to empty your mind, but the
Bible never tells us to empty our mind.
Instead, it tells us to fill our mind up with His Word, and one of the best ways to do that
is memorizing Scripture.
Biblical meditation is when we focus our thoughts on Jesus and we slow down and we get quiet
and we reflect and remember all of His wonderful promises God has given us.
Non-Christian philosophies teach that meditation is something that takes years to master and
to learn, but the truth is we can all benefit from biblical meditation as soon as we start
doing it.
Number four, break the habit of worry.
The Bible says a lot about how worry can negatively affect us.
Worry is actually negative meditation.
It's when we focus on the worst thing that might happen.
Jesus said this in Matthew 6, 25, therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear, and just in case
you weren't listening, He said it again in Matthew 6, 31.
So do not worry saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear?
Three basic needs that we all have, food, water, and clothes.
Then Jesus said in Matthew 6, 34, therefore do not worry about tomorrow.
When we worry, we waste the power of our mind as we imagine the worst thing that could happen
in every situation.
Worry destroys our faith.
We become obsessed with fear instead of focusing on God.
Worry keeps us trapped in fear.
It never solves or resolves anything.
And so like Lee Roy encouraged us this morning, fear not.
Instead of letting fear take over our minds, we are to take action by bringing our fear
to God in prayer.
God can change our circumstances.
Prayer changes things.
He exchanges our fear and our worry for peace in our mind.
And then number five, put your mind on a diet.
When we diet, our body takes on the character of the food that we eat.
That's why I'm a big Twinkie.
Seriously.
When we put our mind on a diet, it will take on the character of the thoughts that we feed
it.
Bringing our mind on a diet can be difficult because it takes discipline.
It's hard to cut out the mental junk food.
It's hard to cut out the unhealthy thoughts.
It's hard to cut out the high calorie negativity.
As we get rid of the bad stuff, then we need to replace it with good stuff.
Paul gives us a diet of healthy mind food to help get our mind in shape in Philippians
chapter four and verse eight.
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 or praise worthy, think about such things.
Paul here gives us eight servings of mind food to feed our thoughts.
Everything we are tempted to mentally eat needs to be weighed against this diet for
a healthy mind.
If some of your thoughts don't pass the test, reject them and replace them with thoughts
that do.
Thank true thoughts.
Our mind needs the truth, the facts of the word of God.
The opposite of truth is lies and deception.
Thank noble thoughts.
Noble thoughts are honorable, reliable, ethical and dependable.
Thoughts that aren't noble are deceitful, disgraceful and shady.
Thank right thoughts.
Our mind needs to feed on things that reflect righteousness and justice.
Corrupt, illegal and wrong thoughts should be rejected.
Thank pure thoughts, pure thoughts are authentic, simple, clear, transparent.
Pure thoughts will never be immoral, lustful or sexually impure.
Thank lovely thoughts.
Lovely thoughts are beautiful, magnificent, wonderful things.
Learn to refuse the ugly thoughts.
Thank admirable thoughts.
People and things that we admire bring respect.
We need to find people and things that inspire respect in us because we are drawn to what
we respect.
Thank admirable thoughts.
Thank excellent thoughts.
Our mind needs a quality diet.
We need to read books, hang around with people and be in environments that challenge us to
be our very best and to achieve our full potential.
Thank praise worthy thoughts.
One way to get rid of the bad habits of thanking is to focus on being thankful and praising
God.
If your mind tends to be negative, immediately replace that with a thought with something
that you can thank God and praise God for.
Begin to give God your praise and your thanks and that will lead you to be grateful.
This one practice alone has the power to reset your mind.
May this be our prayer today.
Jesus, reset my mind.
Would you pray this in your heart to God as I pray it out loud?
Dear God, in Jesus' name, I take responsibility for my mind.
My mind is a gift from you and I choose to fill it with things that are good, godly,
and right.
I will thank true thoughts, noble thoughts, right thoughts.
I will thank pure thoughts, lovely thoughts, admirable thoughts.
I will thank excellent thoughts and praise worthy thoughts.
I will think about such things, Jesus, reset my mind, amen.
Jesus changes everything.
I've heard it, you've heard it.
It's time for a new beginning.
Time to start a fresh page or paint a new picture with our life.
It's great in theory, but it can seem impossible.
Life is messy.
The lines have gotten blurred.
Maybe we just don't know where to start.
We look at the canvas of our lives and see mistake after mistake after mistake.
It's overwhelming.
When I look at my life with these messy lines and scribbles, it makes me think, is this as
good as it gets?
There's no eraser that can make this life make sense, but what if?
What if there was someone that could make sense of our mess?
They could take all our scribbles, all our mistakes, all our missed opportunities, and
make them into a masterpiece.
And then I remember, there is Jesus.
He gives us a new life.
Every day is new.
Every day is a blank canvas full of possibility and promise.
He takes our canvases, our lives, that have been filled up with shortcomings, secrets,
tragedies, and embarrassments, and he helps them make sense.
When I look at the canvas of my life and I see nothing but disorder and chaos, I have
to remember this.
God is not a God of disorder.
He's a God of peace, and you know what?
He wants to take my hand and bring peace to the canvas of my life, so as we seek to make
our mark, let us give God all our scribbles, all our mistakes, all our hurts, and trust
that he will turn our messy lives into a masterpiece, his masterpiece.
