SPEAKER_00 0:01

Thanks for listening to the His Hands Church podcast. If you're using the His Hands Church mobile app, please turn off the auto lock on your phone's general settings so that you can listen to the message uninterrupted. And thank you for being part of what God is doing at His Hands.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

I'm loving the bluegrass uh worship. Even though worship's always uh great, one of the highlights of my week. Um and we got one great song we're gonna sing to end the morning that uh will be the perfect uh uh uh song to to leave on, I guess. We're Susan, are you coming over? The um lost my train of thought because of my beautiful bride. But uh um I know, welcome. It's nice having everyone back. You know, we had some of us traveling on spring break and just to all be back together uh is uh is great. We got a lot of uh stuff coming up. Um we talked about briefly uh last Sunday, uh, but on May 5th is Baptism Sunday. It's such a uh great day and uh memorable for so many of us. Uh we do baptisms a couple times each year, uh every now and then uh a different time, but generally speaking, in May and November. And so more than 50 of us have gotten baptized every single time. And it's just an exciting uh day. The Holy Spirit moves, there's just so much uh joy, and you know, it's just baptism is a very cool thing. It's something Jesus did that we get to do the exact same uh thing, really the exact same way. And it's a statement. You know, it's uh it's not a ritual, it's just a statement. I'm all in, you know, Jesus, you and I, we're gonna spend um our lives together. You know, we cheer and and uh it's just a blast. You can ask someone else, someone uh a believer that's meaningful in your life, if you you'd like them to baptize you, uh that's always uh great. Or I or Susan or Justin or anyone uh would be thrilled uh as well. If you want to know more about baptism uh at the info desk, first of all, you could sign up if you know you want to be baptized. If you just want to know more, there's a uh message CD called uh All In. Those are free, and you can just grab one and listen to it and just learn more about baptism. The next Sunday is uh Mother's Day.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

I'm distracting him.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

She she always distracts me. But just uh anyway, so Mother's Day is the next uh what does that mean? Next Sunday. And uh and so that'll be great because we have just so many great moms here, and not just you know, uh physical moms. We we've got great moms, I guess you'd call spiritual moms, who have just uh taken so many of us under their wings and and loved us and and helped us. So we'll get to celebrate that, but then Tommy Newberry will be back. We're doing 40 days to a joy-filled life, and that'll be uh just toward the end. We'll have like three or four days left, and so Tommy's gonna speak and and not just kind of wrap things up, but really give us a track uh to have just meaningful joy as a mark of our life for the rest of our lives. And so that'll be uh May 12th, May 19th is the very next Sunday is blessed the bikes, and that's always a blast. We've got a great motorcycle group, and we've got a lot a lot of us that ride and friends that ride, and so um on that day we'll ride in and we'll just have a regular Sunday, and then afterwards we'll have food and we'll have music and uh we'll have a bit of a bike show, and uh, but mostly we'll get to pray and just bless, really pray for the safety and blessings of everyone that rides, but also just blessings for everyone that's there. And so that's uh May 19th. Wanted to mention giving real quick. Um, you know, we don't pass a plate if uh if you're new here, there's giving stations in the back. We can give uh online uh the the app, the his hands app. There's over 500 of us using the His Hands app now, and it's just really a great way to communicate prayer requests and and uh what's going on and all that. But there's a giving part on that too. Um but we decided, you know, as a group, we're doing something kind of special this year, and and that's there's three ministries in the area that we're taking 15% of our collective giving and sharing it uh with them. It's Papa's Pantry, which is a uh a ministry that feeds the hungry, but then also does job training, and so they uh can become self-sufficient. There's the Hope Center, uh and that's uh works with moms and their babies and uh that are in crisis uh pregnancy situations. And then the Cherokee Center for Family Violence, which just does a great work for women and their kids who are in abusive situations. So from our giving uh from March, we were able to send each of them a check for just under $4,000 um for this month. And it means so much uh to them, just just encouraging that we'd want to be involved, but also we're gonna make a a real difference uh with our giving too. So thank you very much for your generosity. And now a special announcement from Susan.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

It's always scared, okay. She's moving in, she's setting up shot, Greg go, I'm moving the stand.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

It's a little scary. It's a little scary.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Don't take up all my time. Look at the time. 1038. Okay, we are good. I have two minutes. I think I can talk really fast. So I just wanted to share something. So so who here has ever walked through the front doors and gotten a hug? How about a giant big smile? How about a now this is important, a sincere and authentic, I guess you would say. Um, I am so happy to see you. I am so glad you were here. Okay, how does that feel? Okay, so that is like I really think they should be called something else, but they're the welcome team. That's way too generic for what they do because they really aren't. So okay, Joanna, she leads that welcome team, so she's already helping. Um I should I think they should be called the Love Squad. Okay, but that name is already taken by the awesome loving people that take meals to people when they're sick. So, okay, they got to keep the name. But actually, I'm looking around at these people that come every week, because you know, this is a volunteer church, we all know that. And um, and I'm looking around at, you know, there's Chuck back there at people seating people, people running the tech stuff. There's even people missing out. They're in the back running the lyrics in the videos. There are awesome loving people watching our kids back there in his kids in nursery. There's people over there praying for people. I mean, everybody that helps out here could be the love squad, really. I mean, so so anyway. Okay, so I want to share a couple verses. Oh, he moved it back down. All right, he's got better eyesight than I do. I'm like, whoa, whoa, I can't see them. Okay, so um, and these are a couple, actually, both of our favorite verses, and it's in Ephesians 5. And here's what they say: watch what God does, and then you do it. Like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Not a big list of rules and regulations. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us, but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. So the reason I'm even up here talking right now is because Joanna, who loves on and supports the welcome team love squad, we would like to invite any extravagant lovers in here to come be part of that. But I know anybody who's usually an extravagant lover, they're kind of party animal types, you know what I'm saying? And the attention span just is not there, okay? Okay, so we have a meeting at 11:30 in classroom two. Wait a minute. A little party, excuse me. It's not a meeting, it's a little party. It's coffee cake and conversation. It's even decorated, and there's music, coffee house music. So it's 20 minutes starting at 11:30. And if you have if you want to come to that to check out what's going on with the welcome team and meet Joanna, meet me, I mean 20 minutes. That's it. And and what we're looking for, I'll let I always call it the self-filter. Here's what we're looking for. We are all uniquely gifted. We are all uniquely made by God. We don't all have to do everything, okay? But if you happen to be an extravagant lover type person, super warm, super loving, and you could commit to two Sundays a month from 9:30 to 10:15 doing extravagant love out there, then come to that meeting. And I encourage everybody who's already a part of the welcome team, because we are gonna make a small yet powerful team with 20 people to create that. And and I'm super excited. So who's who's excited?

unknown 9:09

Yay!

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Okay. So uh thank you in advance. Did I did I miss anything? That was fast. I'm impressed. No, I'm just kidding. Okay, you start.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Wait, wait a gold. Usually when Susan and I speak together, I get like five minutes at the very end. So this is uh this is a big day for me. Um so I want to want to pray. You know, one of the cool things that uh really amazing thing that God does is is uh when we're together, the Holy Spirit uh teaches us and thankfully often translates what I may say uh to something meaningful. But but there's so many mornings I know that we leave and we're like, wow, that verse was just for me, or or that you know, something from the message, that was just for me, or I needed that this this morning. So that's one thing that that we pray. Um as we as we finish, uh I'm gonna read uh several verses. I'm gonna ask the Holy Spirit to give each of us one of them that we'll know that you know what, this is the the verse for me um this week. And so we'll just ask for that. Father, just praise you. Thank you. Thank you for being such a great um daddy, you know, for wanting us to call you Abba Father, Daddy Father, and for adopting us as your very own children. And Holy Spirit, we do thank you for being our teacher and counselor and ask that you just give each of us something special from you uh today. And Jesus, we praise you for being our Savior and our brother and our friend and our Lord. And uh this is our prayer in your name. Amen. So if you've been gone or this is your first time here, we've been, well, Tommy Newberry wrote a book. It's it's called uh the 4-8 principle. And uh it's a book about Philippians 4-8 and just how to really apply that uh piece of God's word to um our lives. And it says this summing it up, summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious, the best, not the worst, the beautiful, not the ugly, things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me and what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God who makes everything work together will work you into his most excellent harmonies. And so Tommy uh followed that book up with a book called 40 Days to a Joy-Filled Life. And um and it's just a way to a little bit each day kind of instill uh right thinking, I guess, and um as uh an outcome, joy into our lives. And so he was here on April 7th, which uh which was really nice and kind of kicked kicked everything off. And um, and then back last week talking about some of the the principles. And we have uh books, we had um about 800, we've had 920 something books have been bought, and I'm sure there'll be more this morning. So there'll be about a thousand of us doing this uh together. To me, it's exciting and it helps keep me on track a little bit uh every morning, but it's just been wonderful um for me. And so those books we got at cost from the publisher, they're ten dollars, and so if you don't have one and want one, you can get one uh in the lobby as we leave. If you can't afford one, just let them know and and uh and just uh take one because we want everybody um to be able to do it together. And so we started on April 8th, some others started uh last Monday, and I'm sure there'll be some that start uh this Monday. That doesn't really matter. The point is that we've been able to do the um the 40 days. And you know, the Jesus promises us an abundant life. Uh He promises to give us rest. Jesus uh it says was anointed with more joy than uh than anyone ever. And as we follow him, uh that joy can be ours as well. And it starts with with really connecting uh with God through Jesus. He came, Jesus came for a lot of reasons. Um He came to show us what God's really like. You know, for everyone that had thought that God's mean and angry and and ready to pounce, Jesus showed us exactly what God's like. In fact, it says that he's the exact uh representation of our Father. He showed us, he came and he showed us what love really looks like. Um what it means to give yourself and to serve and to love. Um and he also came so we could be reconnected with our Father. And it is such a simple thing. Religion makes things so difficult, um, and God makes things so simple. And so it's simply in our own words, in our own way, you know, saying, Jesus, I need you. Jesus, I want you to be part of my life, Jesus, I want to follow you, whatever, whatever it is. And one of the greatest truths in each of our lives individually is that we're all created in the image of God, which is really a profound thing and hard to totally understand. But part of that is that like God, we have a spirit. And so when we put our faith in Jesus, our spirit comes alive and connects with God's spirit, and then he starts changing us. You know, we can't change and then come to God. It's God that starts uh changing us from the inside out. And in that process, so much of that change, every now and then he'll zap us, which is uh cool and a lot easier and exciting when that happens. Um, but most of that change is uh changing the way we think. In Romans 12, it says, Don't copy the behavior and the customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. And so we're all in a process of uh change. That's why none of us can have any pretense of having it all together, because we are in a lifelong process of God transforming us from the inside out. And the thing about thinking, and we're talking about um, you know, thinking good and loving and pure and positive types of thought. Uh that's easier for some of us than it is for others. You know, it's kind of how God does things. It's like metabolism. You know, some people can eat cake all day and you know, and and not gain a pound. Uh some of us look at a piece of cake and we gain three pounds. And and so this is gonna be more of a struggle. There's gonna be more resistance for some of us, and some of us it comes easier. Um, but it it's a process of learning to have really the mind of Christ to change uh the way that that we think. And so this past Thursday, Tommy and I got together and we kind of planned out the next four weeks, and we're gonna talk about really three principles, one each week. And this this morning, uh it's a pretty simple um principle. And you can kind of see the principle uh in the company Amazon. Does anybody use Amazon.com? The prime members all raise their hand, but um it uh you know there's been different things that have just really changed um America in a way. You know, uh Henry Ford and and uh and cars did. Uh one of the biggest changes in the last century was uh when a man named Carrier invented the air conditioning air conditioner because it moved shifted a whole population down to the south where people can have lived comfortably before. And then there's Microsoft and and Apple, and and Amazon has changed the face of retail um dramatically. And other companies had done what Amazon did. You probably remember like uh, I mean it could be a catalog, like Sears Catalog, or or it was uh Land's Ann or LL Bean where you could order um things online. But but the big thing that Amazon did is they made it easy to re return an exchange. Because it used to be such a hassle. If you bought something, then it was the wrong color or the wrong size. I mean, it was a big deal. You had to figure out how to return it, you had to go somewhere to mail it. Um, but they put labels in, and all you had to do was slap, put it back in the box, slap on the label, they'd pick it up the next day, and it wouldn't cost you anything. And that simple change really kind of re transformed the retail environment of America. And God created us in his own image. You know, he's got a lot more for each of us than than he does uh for a company like Amazon, but we can learn from them if we can just get good at making returns and exchanges. In day 19 of uh 40 days to a joyful life, uh the topic is uh just exchange it, the joy of an easy return policy. So we can get good at returning and exchanging, especially our thoughts. You know, our first opportunity is to catch a negative thought. And it's like, okay, that's negative. I don't want to think that anymore. Um but the real opportunity, the big opportunity is to actually exchange that thought uh with the truth. Tommy calls this the law of exchange and says that we cannot effectively eliminate negative thoughts until we learn to exchange them with positive thoughts. And so last Monday morning, I'm getting up uh it it's pretty early. I've got to leave uh before six to go to the airport. I'm getting ready. And the week before last week we had a big week at work, and it was really a pretty long week, and we had customers in all day Saturday, and then Sunday was a um was a busy day, and so now it's Monday morning, and I need to fly to Phoenix and get there for a meeting that starts at noon, and it's gonna go to 10 o'clock Phoenix time, which is one o'clock um our time. And so I got a cup of coffee and I'm like, man, this is really gonna be a long day. And but then because Tommy had focused on it the day before, I recognized that as kind of an eight-four thought, you know, the opposite of a four-eight thought. It was negative. I thought, you know, that's kind of a negative thought. And so I just tried to think of what kind of day it it it could be, you know, and all of a sudden I was thankful uh for the business opportunity that that I was flying out there for. I was thankful that I was going to Phoenix, not Newark, you know. And I was thankful that uh that I was flying out there with someone, uh one a business partner that I really enjoy being with. You know, and and in those 30 seconds, my whole day changed. You know, the traffic was better than it would have seemed, the security line was shorter than it would have seemed. And at the end of the day, I went to bed and I said, you know, that was a that was a pretty good day. And it happened because I just didn't catch a negative thought, you know, because I'm more aware, I was able to uh return that negative thought and exchange it um with a positive thought. And that's true for all of us, you know, it's actually just true in life. The greatest example I think is uh sports, and I probably notice it more because I like sports so much, but uh you know, in the NFL, if a field goal kicker misses the first field goal of the day, you just know there's a good chance they're gonna miss another one and it and it's not because they haven't kicked 10,000 field goals, it's because now they've got a negative thought in their head. And they start thinking, you know, I don't want to pull this one, or I don't want to push this one, or I can't afford to miss another one, and then they do two or three um in a row, and it happens all the time. And the greatest kickers are the ones that have that thought, you know. I hope I don't miss this one, immediately recognizes and exchanges that thought with, you know, I know I can make this fo goal, I've made 10,000 of them. And uh and and that's the difference. The last week when Adam uh scared. Scott, one of the masters. He had two super hard putts in a short period of time. He seems like a really nice guy, so it was good to see him win. But he had a putt on 18 that is almost never made. It's been made a couple times, but a very difficult putt that he made. And then in the second playoff hole to win, he made a putt that broke like a foot. It was very difficult. And so he became the master's champion, which is one of the greatest accomplishments in all of sports. And six months ago, Adam Scott was leading the British Open by three strokes with four holes to play. And all he needed to do was par one of the holes to tie, or par two of the holes to win outright. And instead, he bogeied our all four holes, and Ernie Ells uh won instead. And on those four holes, he had two very makeable putts. Um one was only three feet, and he missed them both, and he lost. And so after he wins the Masters, you know, that type of thing shatters a lot of people in sports. They don't can't recover from it because it's just so disappointing and so devastating. Um they asked him about his putts to win the masters, and he said I only had um one thought, and that was just I was gonna show everyone how much I want to win this. And so his thought wasn't really uh I I don't want to miss, or it wasn't I really want to make it. But he on both putts, he said, the only thing, only thought in my head was I'm just gonna show everybody how much um I want to uh to win this. And uh, and you know, with that thought, he did what he needed to do and um and made the putt. And it's no different, I mean that's just sports. It's it's no different in um in life that if we can have strong minds and if we can uh have great thoughts, we can reach the potential. I mean, not alone, but that's a key component in living the lives that uh God created us to live. And so we're gonna talk about three uh types of thoughts just really quickly, and thoughts that we can return and thoughts that we can um exchange. You know, negative thoughts about others uh is is a big one. You know, in my marriage, I can think uh, you know, Susan's grumpy one day. I can think, man, she Susan's really hard to get along with. Um and you know, if I embrace that thought, and that's my thought for 365 days in a row, how well are we gonna get along? I mean, not but but but say if uh Susan was grumpy one day, and I thought, boy, she's really hard to get along with. But then I caught that and decided to return in exchange that thought um with something like, you know, she's God's daughter. You know, I love her. There must be something troubling her. You know, maybe, maybe I can figure out a way to help. Now, if I did that for 365 days in a row, you know, it's obvious that we would have a more loving, more life-giving uh relationship. And and one of the antidotes for bad thoughts about others, negative thoughts, harmful thoughts, eight-four type of thoughts, one of the andotes is one is the characteristic that Jesus displayed the most often. And that's simply compassion. You know, it all the time with Jesus, you know, he had compassion. He was filled with compassion as he helped other people. And so we can apply that and we can have compassion on others. You know, probably the the stereotypical example is when someone cuts us off in traffic, and it's stereotypical for good reason because it makes us mad. And um, and I'm not sure exactly what that is. I guess it's kind of disrespectful if we've got our family in the car, they've kind of put maybe them at risk a little bit. And um and so it just makes us, you know, we might be thinking, oh, what a jerk, or you know, again, eight four type of thoughts. Um but if we could apply a little compassion, because we really don't know the situation. You know, it might be that they're rushing to a hospital. It might be that that someone was told that if they were ever late again, they were going to lose their job and they really had, you know, have that job. But we just take us out of our situation and just apply some compassion um to whatever is going on. And that's certainly most true in our homes with our kids, you know, at uh work, having compassion for people, even if they act poorly. And so then our thoughts don't have to be negative. You know, they can be loving, that we can we can pray, we can hope the best, we can um see the best. You know, thoughts express negative thoughts about people can turn into negative talking about people, you know, because a lot of times our thoughts turn into um conversations. And it's probably the best example of how joy and our thinking are combined. Because when we have a negative conversation about someone, I mean, don't you just like feel worse and worse and worse? You know, and even if it's true or it's in some sort of guise or honest honesty about trying to help someone, after a while you're like, hey, you know what, let's just talk about something else. Because it literally drains the joy out of us when we have critical conversations about other people. And it's not enough to just recognize it. Uh to really um have joy, we have to return in exchange. You know that quickly the flip side's also true. I mean, if we have a positive conversation about someone, if we say, hey, did you know uh Jim and Bob and Ron went over and repaired Sally's house because she couldn't afford to have it done, we're gonna immediately feel more joy. You know, but but the opposite's true. And so in a conversation that's not positive, and especially if it's about someone else, the the only way to return an exchange is to defend. It's just to defend the person. You know, maybe someone says, um, you know, because typically if we don't like those type of conversations, and I definitely don't, you know, we might just ignore it and hope it stops or let people know we're not really interested. But the return and exchange policy would be to defend. And so do you know so-and-so did whatever? And it's like, yeah, you know, I have uh, man, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. Or, you know, when you live as long as I have, uh, you know, there's still you know a lot more information to every story, you know, or um, you know, they're really a great person. I hope God turns that to something really good in their life. And so that's the way we can uh return an exchange during conversations, is step up and defend. And uh when we do that three or four times, at least that same person's not going to be uh uh robbing our joy by sharing those um those thoughts with us. But the one I really wanted to talk about this morning, and it's probably the most important um thoughts, is uh the thoughts we have about ourselves. You know, speaking the truth to ourselves about ourselves. Solomon said in Proverbs that as we think in our hearts, so are we. And the way we think about ourselves often is what we become. You know, and so if we can get a hold of those thoughts, so here's the truth about you and me. It's in 1 John 3. See how very much our Father loves us. For he calls us his children, and that is what we are. That's the truth about us. Look how much God loves us. Look how much God loves you. He's not given up on you, he's not mad at you. He loves you so much so that he calls us his children, because that is what we are. But sometimes that's not how we talk to ourselves. You know, in fact, I would say if we have 50,000 thoughts a day, we we could catch ourselves telling ourselves a lot of lies. Um I'll give you an example, and it's kind of a sad example, it's about me. Um but uh so we've been his hands, we've been together now for a little bit over seven years. And before we started his hands, I had spoken at church sometimes, you know, for different things, but not very much. And I'm God created me a little uh introverted, so I've kind of had to try and work through that. And so on Sunday mornings, after I shared uh whatever I shared, I would beat myself up so bad. Because every week I forget one of my main points. And um or I might go on a rant, especially at especially at the first, the first couple of years, I'd go on some rant and not express either the right thing or express it the right um way. And so every Sunday afternoon it was the same thing. It was like, you're an idiot. Why can't you I mean, what's wrong with you? Why can't you remember what you're gonna say? You forgot your main point. You probably ruined everybody's lives. No one's gonna be back next Sunday. And I mean, it was depressing for me, but torture for Susan. I mean, you can imagine how horrible that would be. And uh, but literally for for I mean she probably knows exactly, but the for three or four years it was like that every every Sunday afternoon. And um, and so finally she couldn't stand it anymore and said, hey, you gotta just stop telling yourself lies and start telling yourself the truth. Because I would catch those thoughts and say, oh, that's not true or whatever. But what I didn't do is I didn't return an exchange. I just tried to stop the thought. And so I remember specifically going to Kroger after after church and and getting something for lunch, and I had forgot one of the really important things I wanted to share, and I'm like, you are such an idiot. And and I said, No, that's not true. I'm not an idiot. I am God's son. You know, he's proud of me. All I can do is is share my best. The Holy Spirit's gonna translate it and make it work out anyway. And and it took a while because I had gotten in the habit of having those kind of thoughts. But again, it wouldn't have been enough to just try and stop them. I had to return them and exchange them with what the truth is. And I'll say now, I mean, rarely. I mean, I gotta do something really stupid to beat myself up now. Um, and I look forward to Sunday afternoons, but imagine that. It like there's only seven days a week, and and and imagine ruining half of one of those days yourself just by how we think, just by how I thought. And what a great learning, stretching opportunity it was for me to kind of take those thoughts captive first, but then exchange them with um with God's truth. And um, it's just so true, I know, in all of our lives, you know, because we think so many thoughts, and some of them are I'm fat, some of them are I'm ugly, some of them are, you know, we're gonna always be broke. You know, we just can't get along, our marriage is ruined, our kids are in trouble, I hate my job. You know, it's not enough to just uh try and stop those thoughts. We've got to return and exchange those thoughts if we want to have a life with joy. Because, like Tommy talks about, it is literally impossible to have a negative thought and joy at the same time. And so the more we can exchange those thoughts, you know, the more joy we're gonna have. And the cool thing, you know, like Amazon doing the return and exchange thing, you know, what's cool is that we can not only just return and exchange, but we get to trade up. So imagine if I bought a 32-inch color TV from Amazon. Um I looked last night, the cheapest one's $169. And so let's say I ordered that, it shows up a few days later, I get it out of uh the box, and I just don't like it. You know, the color's not that good, and and uh it's a little bigger than I thought it was gonna be. And so I send it back. And so they exchange it with an 80-inch high-def 3D ready flat screen TV. I mean, that would be a pretty sweet deal. But there's a special kind of exchange that we can make that works the same way. It's a big trade-up. And it's when we replace our own bad, negative, self-defeating thoughts with God's truth. In Hebrews 4 12, it says God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful word is sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God's word. We can't get away from it no matter what. It is the best opportunity of all for us to make an exchange, replace a negative, poor, self-defeating thought with uh God's word. And so here's what I want to do is I'm gonna read ten verses from the Bible. All of them are a trade-up. It would be a trade-up from a lie or a negative thought that we would have about ourselves or about our situation. You know, whether it's we're worried, whether it's we're troubled, whether we got too much going on, um, negative thoughts about our spouse or our marriage or our children or our job or our future, any of those things we can trade up to a powerful thought, a word from God. And so this is what I'd love for you to do is uh if you have a piece of paper and pencil, take that out. If not, maybe your phone. And um, and I'm gonna read each of these verses and just ask the Holy Spirit to see which one might be for you. And so this week, just for one week, and you don't need to write down the verse, just you know, if it's uh Psalms 46.1, just write PS 46.1, and then you know, when you get home or whatever, you can Google it or Bible Gateway or and uh and then you'll have it, and you can have it in the in the translation you like the best. But just for one week, if we can make that our verse, whatever it is, whichever one God shows us. And so when we have a negative thought about anything, we can say, no, this is God's word. God's word, because nothing is impervious to God's word. Certainly not our thoughts. Um here we go, you ready? Psalms 46.1. God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. Romans 8 31. What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Psalm 73, 24. You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust God from the bottom of your heart. Don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go. He's the one who will keep you on track. Matthew 11, 28. Are you tired, worn out, burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me, and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me, and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. Jeremiah 29, 11 through 13. For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. John 14, 27. I am leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid. For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago. Philippians 4 13. For I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength. And then finally, nope, not finally, two more. Matthew 6 30 through 33. If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers, most of which you are never even seen, don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things. But you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God's reality, God initiative, God provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. And then Romans 8.28. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside, helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans, he knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. So this week, we don't have to even just return in exchange. We can return and trade up uh and apply God's word to whatever eight-four type of thoughts that we're having and turn them into Philippians 4-8 type of thoughts. You know, renewing our minds, changing uh the way we think. We do that, we're just gonna have more and more and more joy. And one thing I love about us together is there's just so much love and joy already, you know, and imagine uh what it's gonna be like as we grab those thoughts, return, exchange, trade up to a whole new way of thinking. So if the worship team will come up, we will uh pray in a second, then we'll sing one last uh song together. Um, you know, the the great news in all of this is uh we don't have to do this on our own. You know, God always does the heavy lifting. And it's tough. You know, if we've been conditioned by our families or just ourselves or or whatever the situation to think certain ways, you know, and and and we struggle with negative or or critical thoughts, we can ask God to help, you know, and and he does. He always does. Anything like that, um, we can just ask God to help us, to change us, to remind us, to show us. Holy Spirit will show us. If we say, hey, I don't want to have these kind of thoughts, show me. He'll show us. You know, when we have them, we'll be like, oops. Um, like Brittany Spears would say, oops, I did it again. Um but uh and then he'll remind us with the truth, with his word, of what we're gonna apply, what the what the trade-up's gonna be. And it's just uh it's a transforming thing. You know, it's something we don't really think about. That's why I think the the these books are are um so effective as we think about how are we gonna affect our outside conditions without realizing that if we just change the way we think, you know, that we'll change from the inside out, and then eventually everything around us will change too. So um let's pray. Thank you, Father, for being such a good God. Thank you for giving us your word uh to for inspiring it and preserving it, and then showing us how we can apply it uh to change our lives into what you've created us to be. So this week, Father, we just ask uh that you would help us identify thoughts that are destructive uh um or maybe just not productive in our lives. Just thoughts that you would want us to change and replace with uh your word and your truth. And we thank you for that, and we love you in Jesus' name. Amen. So love you all. Hope you have a great week.