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7.7.21 Empowered Session #4 Carla Anderson · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  So here we are. I think I know most of you, but if you don't know me, my name is Carla Anderson. I'm the worship director here and also married to Nathan, who is the family pastor. And we have three kids, Lucy and Jane and Oren, and they will be 12 and 10 and 8 in the next few weeks. So we just have those three kiddos.
• 0:26
  And today I'm excited to speak about this topic because it's something I'm passionate about because God has had to teach me a lot about it. And so before we start, I'll just pray for us again. God, I just want to commit this time to you and thank you for it. Thank you for just giving us time to come together and get into your word to learn from
• 0:53
  for those who have gone before us and to just dig into the gems of truth and resources and equipment that you provide for us through your word. And I just pray that you would bless this time, help it to be beneficial for our spiritual growth. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, before I start, I want to share a story with you.
• 1:22
  So Nathan and I met when we went to a Bible school in England together. And after school was over, I had the opportunity to travel around Europe for a month with two of my friends, Pam and Renee. And so we bought a Eurorail pass, which meant we could basically take as many trains as we wanted to for a whole month around several countries. So we just tried to see as much as we could while we were there.
• 1:46
  So at one point we were trying to get across Italy to get to Greece, and it was a pretty long train ride. And so we thought, well, let's just take a night train, and then we can sleep all the way there, and we can wake up and catch our ferry and stuff. So we found a good train that we could catch.
• 2:07
  And we were definitely mindful that we were a pack of North American females traveling alone. And so wherever we went, we kind of tried to be mindful about safety and stuff. So when our train came in that night to Pompeii, we right away looked for an empty compartment that we could have all to ourselves so we didn't have to share it with anyone.
• 2:28
  And so the train cars on this train had a long hallway that went all the way down the whole train, and then there were compartments along the side with double doors, and then three seats kind of faced each other, and you could pull them across to make a bed to sleep on. And there were three of us, and so we were overjoyed to find a dark and empty compartment, and we couldn't believe our great luck that we didn't have to share our space with a stranger so we could just spread out and have our own space for the night.
• 2:57
  So we flipped the lights on, got busy putting our stuff away under the seats and on the overhead racks and stuff, and we asked the train worker what would be the best way to lock the doors so that ideally no weirdos would come by in the night to bother us or steal our stuff. So he suggested that we use a belt to strap the door handles closed from the inside so that they couldn't be opened from the hallway.
• 3:26
  So the three of us worked together to make the belt situation as bad guy proof as we could, and we tied the door shut really well. So we pulled the seats out, made our beds, got all settled in. We slept so well. I think it was one of the best nights of sleep we had the whole time. So in the morning, we got close to our station, and we started gathering our stuff.
• 3:50
  And I had just finished getting my bag from under the seat, and I reached back one more time to just make sure I didn't miss anything, and I felt a leather jacket. And I thought, I did not bring my leather jacket. And then I reached back again, and I tried to pull it out, and there was an arm in the leather jacket. And I looked at my friends, and I said, there's a body under the seat.
• 4:18
  So my friends Pam and Renee had, we all represented three very different personalities. Renee was the kind who takes everything in stride and she's always ready for entertainment. I was the kind to be scared and totally incapable of any rational thought or decision making whatsoever. And my friend Pam was the aggressive take care of business kind. So thank the Lord for Pam.
• 4:44
  So my friend Renee, who was busy munching on a baguette, she just kept on eating, watching the floor in front of the seats, and I huddled up in a ball in a very productive and helpful way next to her, while our friend Pam began screaming at the body to get up and get out. Well, out comes this gigantic man with a big black leather coat and black pants, who we then realized had been laying against the wall under our seats all night long.
• 5:13
  And he towered over Pam, and with her hand still in her pocket, she popped open her pocket knife, and she began yelling that he empty all of his pockets and show her his wallet. So I just have to say that although this was a big dude, he was not feeling very big. Standing up next to Pam, he was absolutely worried.
• 5:34
  She went to town looking through all of his pockets and his whole wallet. She made him take off his jacket so she could search it and then satisfied that he had not taken anything from us, she finally released him. So we could all see he was downright relieved to have escaped without losing an arm or a leg.
• 5:58
  So when Hallie first asked us to teach and she mentioned some ideas for character qualities of an empowered Christian woman, I immediately connected with her idea of the incredible need to have self-control in our thought life and to examine how to use God's word as a powerful tool to measure our beliefs, emotions, and even thought patterns against.
• 6:22
  I grew up in a family where we were very legalistically vigilant about our outward behavior, but were often at the mercy of our thoughts and emotions. And what was going on in our minds did not always match up with our outward acceptable actions. This led to hypocrisy and unhealthy thought patterns, damaged relationships, and emotional sickness. All of these things ultimately sapped our strength as believers and as children of God.
• 6:51
  Thankfully, we and our family are not all in that same place, and God is faithful, and God has had to teach me a lot since those growing up years. I decided to share this story about our train experience because I've noticed that as believers, it can be easy to put a lot of energy into controlling our outward lives, kind of like we were so focused on the dangers that might be walking around in the train hallway.
• 7:15
  But we can often forget to take regular inventory of the compartment of our mind where actually our sins and weaknesses really stem from. On the train that night, it didn't do much good for us girls to lock out the bad guys if we didn't check out our compartment first. And today, I would like to talk about the character trait of self-controlled thinking.
• 7:38
  When we are taking good care of what belongs and doesn't belong in our minds, we can radically impact our abilities to walk as empowered women in Christ. Proverbs 4.23 says, And Proverbs 23.7, Think of a woman right now who loves Jesus, who is someone you admire and look up to.
• 8:07
  Can you think of the way she handles discouragement, trials, and hurts in unexpected circumstances? If you're recalling that your woman in mind doesn't seem easily overwhelmed, thrown off course, or discouraged, it's probably not because she is naturally good at life, but likely because she has worked hard to discipline her thought life. Tonight I will be, or this morning, I will be using some different Bible verses, Bible versions here and there, just
• 8:36
  to make some of them a little more clear and save time. So 1 Corinthians 10.13 says, You have never been tempted to sin in any different way than other people. God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted more than you can take. But when you are tempted, he will make a way for you to keep from falling into sin.
• 8:57
  This verse shows that when we are sinking into wrong thinking, God has a way for us to keep from spiraling into these pits and being thrown off track by them. To be clear, this self-controlled, spirit-led thinking isn't about positive self-talk or about denying reality. It's about steeping ourselves in eternal reality.
• 9:22
  We have women seated right around us who have learned to apply God's word to their thinking in empowering ways. And later on, we're going to hear from some of them. During our time now, I want to look at two women of the Bible who had an opportunity to practice self-controlled thinking and then examine how the outflow of their thinking affected their actions and the people around them. The first woman we're going to look at today has two names. They are Manoah's wife and Samson's mom.
• 9:54
  So this woman does not have a name that's given in the Bible. So the Bible doesn't tell us her real name, so we're just going to call her Manoah's wife today. We'll read about her in Judges 13. So if you want to turn to that in your Bibles, I'll give a little context. So Judges chapter 13. So Manoah's wife, or Samson's mom,
• 10:18
  comes onto the scene just a few short decades earlier than Abigail from last week, just before Israel's first king and during the time of the judges. The Bible describes the time of the judges like this. Judges 2 says, Whenever the Lord raised up a judge over Israel, he was with that judge and rescued the people from their enemies throughout the judge's lifetime. But when the judge died, the people returned to their corrupt ways, behaving worse than those who had lived before them.
• 10:49
  They went after other gods, serving and worshipping them, and they refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways. So there were 12 judges during this time and Samson was actually the last of the 12. So when we are reading about Samson's family here, this verse is telling us that the morality and the corruption of the culture was the worst it had ever been.
• 11:11
  Judges 19 tells a horrible story to illustrate how far the nation had fallen from God's ways. And we will not read that now, but if you like horrible stories, you can read that in other times. So let's look at Manoah's wife in Judges chapter 13. So it says again in verse 1, Again the Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight. So the Lord handed them over to the Philistines who oppressed them for 40 years.
• 11:39
  In those days a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. His wife was unable to become pregnant and they had no children. The angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah's wife and said, Even though you have been unable to have children, you will soon become pregnant and give birth to a son. So be careful. You must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink nor eat any forbidden food.
• 12:03
  You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and his hair must never be cut, for he will be dedicated to God as a Nazarite from birth. He will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines.
• 12:16
  The woman ran and told her husband, A man of God appeared to me. He looked like one of God's angels, terrifying to see. I didn't ask where he was from, and he didn't tell me his name. But he told me, You will become pregnant and give birth to a son. You must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink, nor eat any forbidden food. For your son will be dedicated to God as a Nazarite from the moment of his birth until the day of his death.
• 12:40
  Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, saying, Lord, please let the man of God come back to us again and give us more instructions about this son who is to be born. God answered Manoah's prayer, and the angel of God appeared once again to his wife as she was sitting in the field. But her husband Manoah was not with her, so she quickly ran and told her husband, The man who appeared to me the other day is here again. Manoah ran back with his wife and asked, Are you the man who spoke to my wife the other day? Yes, he replied, I am.
• 13:10
  So Manoah asked him, When your words come true, what kind of rules should govern the boy's life and work? The angel of the Lord replied, Be sure your wife follows the instructions I gave her. She must not eat grapes or raisins, drink wine or any other alcoholic drink, or eat any forbidden food. Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, Please stay here until we can prepare a young goat for you to eat.
• 13:37
  I will stay, the angel of the Lord replied, but I will not eat anything. However, you may prepare a burnt offering as a sacrifice to the Lord. Manoah didn't realize it was the angel of the Lord. Then Manoah asked the angel of the Lord, What is your name? For when all this comes true, we want to honor you. Why do you ask my name? The angel of the Lord replied, It is too wonderful for you to understand.
• 14:03
  Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered it on a rock as a sacrifice to the Lord. And as Manoah and his wife watched, the Lord did an amazing thing. As the flames from the altar shot up toward the sky, the angel of the Lord ascended in the fire. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell with their faces to the ground. The angel did not appear again to Manoah and his wife. Manoah finally realized it was the angel of the Lord, and he said to his wife,
• 14:33
  We will certainly die, for we have seen God. But his wife said, if the Lord were going to kill us, he wouldn't have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering. He wouldn't have appeared to us and told us this wonderful thing and done these miracles. When her son was born, she named him Samson, and the Lord blessed him as he grew up.
• 14:54
  So I really appreciate the description of Manoah's wife in this account. She was living in a messy and immoral time where the majority of the people around her were living in horrible sin and rejecting God. And she stands out as someone who is choosing otherwise. Her response to the angel stands out to me in these ways. First, she gave her full attention to the right conversation.
• 15:22
  When the angel of the Lord appeared, she stopped and she listened and she paid attention. If you go back to compare the angel's words, his original words, with how she recounted the message to her husband, she did a really good job remembering the exact details of what he told her. Secondly, she believed God. Many scholars believe that this angel of the Lord was even Jesus himself, and that is why he would not give his name.
• 15:51
  Maybe you can remember other times when an angel appeared with a promise to someone and those people didn't believe right away or they wanted more information or signs before putting their faith in God's words. But Manoah's wife had a heart that was already soft toward God and so right then and there she believed what he said. Also, she called her husband toward the source of her belief.
• 16:16
  I bet she couldn't run fast enough when the man appears a second time, hoping that the man would wait for her while she went to get her husband so they could hear the words of God together. Throughout this account, we see that she influenced her husband toward a perspective of belief and hope for the future.
• 16:34
  The woman of Proverbs 31 is mentioned with a similar attitude. We read that the heart of her husband trusts in her, that she does him good, not harm, all the days of her life, that she laughs at the time to come, meaning she's not living in fear, and that she fears the Lord. Whether you are married or not, we can all be women that call the people in our lives to greater belief and hope in God.
• 17:01
  Fourth, she was filled with a strong confidence in God and his character and his promises. After the angel disappears and they realize they have seen God, Manoah really did have a good reason to freak out when he realizes who has been with him. Manoah's wife could have responded in fear the same way.
• 17:22
  The Jews believed that no one could look up on God and live, and we see others who were filled with fear for their lives in the Bible in the presence of the angel of the Lord. However, I love Manoah's wife's response. You can hear in her words how deeply she believed in God's promise, and you can hear the evidence that she'd already been thinking through the implications of the angel's promise to them.
• 17:46
  When Manoah fears for their lives, she says, if the Lord were going to kill us, he wouldn't have accepted our burnt offering and grain offering, and he wouldn't have appeared to us and told us this wonderful thing and done these miracles. Warren Wiersbe summarizes her response by saying that basically Manoah's wife convinced him they couldn't really die and fulfill God's promises at the same time.
• 18:13
  Manoah's wife really camped out on the word of God and the character of God. And because of all of that, Manoah and his wife obeyed God and they were blessed and they got to see the miracle that God was working out in their lives. So we find a similar situation earlier in Israelite history with Abraham and Sarah, if you remember that. They were also told by an angel that they would have a miracle baby.
• 18:40
  And Genesis 15, 6 says, Abram believed the Lord and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith. Notice that God viewed Abraham as walking in righteousness before Abraham even did anything. This shows that the mental and emotional process of putting our trust in God and his word is truly at the very core of choosing spirit-led, empowered lives.
• 19:08
  Manoah's wife wasn't only being asked to believe God's word, though. She actually did have to show the evidence of her belief right away. Before even physically feeling or discovering she was actually pregnant, remember they didn't have pregnancy tests back then? She was given specific instructions on how she needed to start eating and on her diet. So that in itself was an act of faith. Imagine her quitting eating raisins and her sister saying, I thought you loved raisins. And she responds with,
• 19:37
  well, I don't know if I'm pregnant yet, but I'm going to be, and I'm not supposed to eat raisins while I'm pregnant, whenever that will be. That's a little bit awkward. And then during pregnancy, she had to continue her diet through all of nine months, and many of us know that's not always an easy task to be disciplined in. Manoah's wife had to make a conscious daily commitment to believe God even in her breakfast and her lunch and her dinner.
• 20:05
  The angel of the Lord truly asked Manoah's wife for self-control in the nature of his instructions themselves. And doesn't it make sense that she was already a woman of self-control and the Lord knew that she would be up to the task? Her internal response to God's command resulted in a strong, confident, joyful, and peaceful attitude that covered her through the adventure of a miracle pregnancy of a child set aside for the Lord.
• 20:34
  Can you ladies think of another woman in the Bible who was also given special instruction on what to eat, who needed to have internal and external self-control, and who influenced her husband toward her thinking as well? Anybody? No? Eve. Yes. Good old Eve.
• 20:57
  the mother of all humanity, so famous for not only being the first woman ever to exist in creation, but also the first human being to mess things up. So let's turn to Genesis 3, and we're going to look at Eve today as well, and we'll read about the conversation that brought about the transition on earth from complete perfection, order, and life to corruption, disorder.
• 21:24
  and death. So Genesis 3 verses 1 to 13, and this will be in the ESV. All right, so now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.
• 21:54
  Neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
• 22:20
  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself.
• 22:49
  He said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate.
• 23:12
  So, so far in Genesis, and also if you've been keeping up with our Sunday morning sermons, we see that Adam and Eve are the first humans created, that all of the earth has been given to them to enjoy and tend, and that God has a personal relationship with them where they are able to walk and talk with God in physical form. All the food and perfection and goodness on the earth is available to them, but God gave one single rule.
• 23:38
  In Genesis 2.16, he says, The conversation in Genesis 3 begins with a crafty serpent who has just appeared on the scene. The Bible does credit him with craftiness, which seems to hint that he may have seemed pretty believable.
• 24:03
  He begins right off the bat in approaching Eve and questioning and twisting God's command just a little by asking, did God really say? The enemy not only twists God's words just slightly at first, but he puts a seed of doubt in the mind of Eve here, tempting her to doubt the word of God.
• 24:24
  And Eve sadly gives us a pretty good example of red flags to be watching for when we begin to be tempted or notice thoughts in our minds that are untrue. In contrast to Manoah's wife, let's look at some observations from Eve's response to the temptation and invitation to doubt God's word. So observations from Eve. She first responds by first engaging. She joins the wrong conversation.
• 24:54
  It's a conversation that is not good. How often do we have a wrong thought come into our mind that is way out of left field or maybe catches us by surprise? And especially in times where we might be tired or overwhelmed or angry or lonely or weak in some way, instead of disregarding it, we play with it and engage it a little bit. We think, I'm not actually doing anything. I'm just thinking.
• 25:22
  Or maybe you might not have a habit started yet to flag those thoughts and catch them before they gain ground. Maybe it's imagining something horrible that might happen in the future to you or someone in your family, or Googling you or your loved one's latest health concern at 11 p.m. at night, or berating yourself for something in the past you wish you could change.
• 25:45
  or imagining doing something wildly wrong, or wallowing in guilt about something you know that God has already forgiven you for. Engaging these kinds of thoughts is kind of like us girls in Italy locking that creepy guy up with us in our train compartment all night long. I hope he didn't have to go to the bathroom. I've thought about that. It's probably a miserable night for him. But it's dangerous to allow these thoughts to have game time in our brains.
• 26:13
  We have been given a powerful tool, right, in God's word to hold up against our thoughts and to help us capture the ones that don't belong in there. 2 Corinthians 10.5 says, We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
• 26:36
  There are many, many gems in the word of God to help us stay on our feet and not be knocked down when we feel this battle of the mind. Secondly, Eve believed her own judgment. So after she engaged the conversation of doubt, she considered the words of doubt and then trusted her own judgment and feelings as a higher priority than God's own words to her.
• 27:03
  The Bible says that after the snake told her that she actually could disobey God's commands, she saw that the fruit he was offering her was good. Can you think of some other verses earlier in Genesis that use that phrase, saw that it was good? It's God, right, about creation. Over and over as God creates the world and animal life, the Bible says God saw that it was good.
• 27:32
  So these words coming from Eve's perspective now ring pretty hollow in comparison because we know she's not thinking properly since she has been engaging in a conversation with her enemy and has not been camping out on the words of God, her creator. The creator of the world who knows all things, has power over all things, and is sovereign over all things, he has the authority to pronounce if something is good. But what about Eve? Did she know all things?
• 28:02
  Does she have power over all things or sovereignty over all things? Only God himself had the authority to make this kind of a judgment. But Eve trusted her own perceptions in this moment. Jeremiah 17, 9 says, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? That's why when our kids and I have walked by those cute pillows at Ross that say, Follow your heart.
• 28:30
  I've taught our kids to say, lies, all lies. If you need just one quick example of how our perceptions can fail us, just remember one time when you had a first impression of someone, only to find out later your impression was totally wrong. We have to understand that we as sinful humans cannot trust our feelings or perceptions. We cannot even trust our thoughts.
• 28:57
  but praise God for Hebrews 4.12. For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing the soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Isn't that good news? That means when we aren't sure if our thoughts or feelings are correct about something,
• 29:23
  or when we feel super confused, or we have no clue how to get unstuck from an area of struggle, or if we have a disagreement with someone who is equally positive that they are right, God's word is alive and active and is the exact tool that we need to show us how to think clearly and see what is true and walk in the peace of God. Thirdly, Eve calls her husband toward the source of her doubt.
• 29:51
  What began as just an idea had begun snowballing into the enemy's desired outcome. Proverbs 25, 28 says that a person without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. Boy, Eve let her uncontrolled thinking lead straight down the path that left all of humankind broken into by the destructive power of sin. Because Eve doubted God, she influenced Adam to doubt God right along with her.
• 30:21
  Eve's first decision to entertain doubt about God's word affected not only just her, but her husband and her family and all of humankind. While thankfully our failures do not generally have the capacity to affect all of humankind, praise the Lord, and God's grace does indeed cover even the biggest sins, the way we choose to walk in our faith does have an impact on others.
• 30:47
  We have a responsibility not just to ourselves, but to our families and coworkers and even our church family to be women who live by walking in truth. Next, and I think this is really important because this gets missed often, what really starts to happen here is that Eve accepted lies about God's character and his promises while she was on this path.
• 31:15
  When Eve chose to engage with the enemy in a conversation of doubt and then believed her own judgment, she ended up accepting the following assumptions. God's word shouldn't be trusted. God's command isn't accurate. God's character and motives are not looking out for my good. Do you see how quickly Eve came to believe these lies? By listening to the created rather than the creator.
• 31:46
  She was soon thinking, I am not enough without this, and God is wrong. When we trust in our own understanding without acknowledging God, we can easily adopt, so easily adopt things into our beliefs that will lead us way out of God's good plan and desires for us, and into spiritual and emotional and even physical danger. Last, Eve and Adam sinned, and they came under the curse of sin.
• 32:15
  So that was a very quick and very incredible end to something that started out so very small. It all started out with Eve just engaging with one little idea. Holly Gerth is a Christian counselor and an author who wrote this book that several years ago I came across and totally changed my life and first helped me learn that I could treat my thoughts and emotions objectively.
• 32:43
  She teaches that we all have ways and patterns of thinking that we maybe grew up with in our families of origin or that we have adopted over time. We can all adopt ways of thinking that regularly include doubt, fear, despair, worry, perfectionism, insecurity, bitterness, anger, jealousy, covetousness, loneliness, pride, and other things.
• 33:11
  Jesus himself even mentions a list with some of these things in Mark 7 where he says these things come from within and out of the heart of man. Holly has written many books to help women see that our normal ways of thinking can actually be retrained. While it sure may not feel like it, we actually don't have to stay stuck thinking in the ways we feel are most natural to us.
• 33:36
  After talking about this in her book, Holly says, At this point, you may be feeling a little guilty about some of the thoughts running through your mind, but we are human and we all struggle with our thoughts. That's why we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. She says, I love the word captive because it shows that God understands how our thoughts can be like little wild things that don't do what we like at all.
• 34:04
  We can also make our thoughts obedient. They don't do so willingly. One by one, we've got to take control of them, and that takes time and effort and a lot of practice. The good news is that the outcome of going through this process is that you will begin to live in joy more and more, even in challenging times, and this will, at first, take a lot of work.
• 34:28
  But at some point when you least expect it, you will truly learn new ways of thinking and they will become automatic. I want to share with you an incredible scripture that has protected me from losing my faith and falling into complete despair during some of the darkest and most awful seasons of my life so far. Philippians 4.8. I'm sure you've heard this.
• 34:54
  Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, and if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things and the God of peace will be with you. This has become a powerful tool for me as I've learned to use it. I'm still not...
• 35:17
  Perfect at it, but it's been so helpful. It applies to so many situations and can help us guard our hearts and minds so that the things we do will flow naturally and peacefully from it. When I am tempted to engage in worrying about my kids, which, trust me, is so often, things like worrying if they're going to overcome a current hardship or marry the wrong person or grow up to love Jesus or, yes, feeling tempted to Google some horrible disease late at night,
• 35:47
  I can catch these thoughts by stopping to ask, am I thinking about what is true right now? Is it true that my kids are going to turn away from God or be overcome by sin? Is it true that since she had a headache all afternoon, she clearly has a brain tumor? No. At this very minute on July 7th, 2021, I am making all that up. Are these thoughts lovely about my kids?
• 36:14
  Are they excellent or praiseworthy? No. So I need to stop my thoughts right then and there, and I replace them with this. Thank you, Lord, for the things you are doing in my kids' lives right now to draw them to you. Thank you for the people you've put around them to be good examples to them. Thank you that no matter what comes into their lives, you will chase them down. You will be faithful to them just like you have been to me.
• 36:43
  Or when I'm tempted to look back on the past and say, wow, I wish I could have done that differently. I wish I didn't have that failure in my past. I wish I would have been a better parent. Or I wish I would have known, fill in the blank. I can think, is this thought right? Is it possible to go back and change the past? No.
• 37:06
  By engaging these thoughts, am I trusting that God was with me and sovereign in those moments? No. Am I believing that because I failed in this way or missed the mark or didn't know then what I know now, that I had the power in that moment to thwart God's power to redeem? I'm going to say that one again. Am I believing right now that I had the power to thwart God's power to redeem?
• 37:38
  Did I have the power in the past to wreck God's promises to work everything out for my good? Am I expecting myself to know everything like only God can, or be perfect like only God is? Or am I trusting that even in experiences that are marred by sin, I can rest in the sovereignty of God? Or when I'm tempted to engage fear and worry, if I stop to think, is this excellent?
• 38:08
  Is this thought praiseworthy? Easy? No. That fear doesn't get to stay. And I replace that with, thank you, Jesus, for bringing me through so many difficult things in my life. Thank you for the peace that you've given me in times that were not peaceful, for the strength you've given me when I knew I had none, and for the way you proved yourself faithful and strong and loving and kind, even in that hard experience in my past.
• 38:34
  I know you'll be the same God for the things ahead of me too. Ladies, sometimes our thoughts and emotions in life can be so powerful that it is all we can do to keep our heads above water and we can feel the heavy spiral pulling us down.
• 38:50
  In these times, I have asked God for scripture. I have begged him for scripture. I have posted it on walls in our home. I have played worship music and sermons at full blast and said those scriptures out loud over and over, sometimes all at the same time. I have written down four pages worth of scripture with exact truths to combat specific lies when my thoughts get darkest, and I keep these verses next to my bed to read out loud from start to finish.
• 39:19
  God has never once left me in the dark as I have turned to his word in these moments, and he has been faithful to over and over pull me out of the muck and the mire. To take this a step further, Elizabeth George, in her book, not quite there yet, Loving God with All Her Mind, I'll show you a picture of that later if you want to look at it, notes that Philippians 4.8
• 39:44
  is not just a suggestion or a nice idea, but it's an actual command. After going through a really dark time in her own life, she says, how can we obey this command from scripture? Here's how I began. Right away, it helped me to think it is a sin to not obey this command. I didn't want to sin, and I'm sure you don't either. So I reasoned, if the Bible says that I should think only on what is true and real, then to think outside of these biblical boundaries is sin.
• 40:14
  If I want my thoughts to measure up to God's standard of true and real, then I have to accept that my thinking is either right or wrong. I feel that I have to be this rigid if I am to give up my destructive thought patterns and obey God by thinking on what is true and real. God will never ask us to do something he knows is impossible.
• 40:38
  We are instructed to be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Our minds should and can be daily renewed to become like Christ's. Romans 8, 6 says, Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death.
• 41:07
  but the mind governed by the spirit is life and peace. I hope this encourages you as it does me because it means that God is not just about the business of empowering us to act like Jesus, but also to think like Jesus. As I hope we can see, it becomes so much easier to genuinely act like Jesus when we are already thinking like him, when we are already trusting God instead of doubting him.
• 41:33
  Already feeling compassion towards someone who has hurt us rather than judgment. Already believing in God's character rather than questioning his motives. Already trusting in God's promises and enablement rather than believing we need to get by on our own strength. Think of the power and security and confidence and joy that will result in our lives. 2 Timothy 1.7, for God gave us a spirit not of fear.
• 42:03
  but of power and love and self-control. 1 Peter 1.13, Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. These practices can only become true of us by working hard today to do the hard work of preparing our minds for a naturally resulting outflow of righteousness.
• 42:32
  working toward habits of thinking that will eventually become well-worn paths of Christ-like thinking. As Holly says, at first it will be hard and it won't feel very great because change is hard and you're not doing it on your own. You have the very spirit of Christ in you and the word of God available to you so that by it you can be complete and equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3.17
• 43:02
  One last verse of encouragement. Galatians 5.25 says that since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. If you can imagine a big, kind, strong daddy walking down a path and his little girl skipping along beside him, sometimes she might stop to look at a flower or a little bug on the way, but eventually she will look up and see that he is ahead and she will run to quickly catch up.
• 43:29
  This verse encourages me because it reveals that the art of keeping in step with the Spirit is an ongoing and daily decision. When we get off track, as we all will because we are all sinners, every moment is a new opportunity to be getting into God's Word, crying out a quick prayer for help, and asking Him right in that moment to be renewing our minds again to be thinking like the Spirit. To close,
• 43:59
  I believe that an empowered Christian woman is known for self-control in her inward life, guided by God's word, which is evidence in an authentically grounded, confident, strong, joyful, spirit-led demeanor that pulls others to Jesus as she follows him too. All right, well, we might have time for discussion today too, but right now,
• 44:30
  Instead of going into discussion right away, I mentioned earlier that we're going to hear from some women in our church who I think can encourage us by sharing some of the behind-the-scenes ways that they choose to capture their thoughts when faced with things that we all struggle with at different points in our lives.
• 44:50
  Titus tells us women to be purposefully encouraging one another by example, and this is an area where it's hard to see what's going on in someone else's mind unless you ask them, right? Outwardly, we get to witness these women as people who serve in our church and are joyful, caring for others, thankful, gracious, hard to throw for a loop, and who walk through trials with resilience.
• 45:14
  And today some of these ladies and friends have agreed to let us in a little bit on what goes on in their thinking and how God's word helps empower them to walk with him. So I would like to call up Nancy and Hallie and Linda and Val.
• 45:33
  I know there's lots of you who have things to share, but I'm thankful for these four and their willingness to prepare for this morning to share with you. So I'm just going to ask kind of three different areas of life, circumstances, and seasons. This one is so huge for all of us. I think we've all struggled with insecurity and relationship struggles.
• 45:59
  Could one of you or two of you share a time where you struggled against lies or doubt in your mind in your relationship with your spouse or others? How did God's word help pull you back into healthy thinking on what was true and right?
• 46:15
  I was in a season of transition, you know, and that kind of seems like when you're most vulnerable a lot of times is when you're moving from one season to another because it kind of feels unstable. But I had a person in my life, it was a family member, so I couldn't distance myself from them. Sometimes if you have a rocky relationship, you can just, you know, stay away. But I couldn't because it was family, so they were there all the time.
• 46:40
  Real difficult. I'd get these phone calls, and there would be these accusations that I wasn't enough, I wasn't doing what was right, and all of the stuff that you get sometimes. And even though I recognized that this person was in a difficult season in their life, and I was the safe person, so I was getting a bunch of the vomit that comes a lot of times with the difficult people, there was enough real part of it that I thought, well, you know, that's really true.
• 47:10
  And so you can pick up. Saint always has a little bit of, you know, truth to make you take the hook. And so I was taking the hook, and it was causing a downward cycle about who I was and how I felt about myself. And a friend of mine said, Linda, what you've got to do, because you can't hang up on this person because they were a...
• 47:32
  close family I just couldn't and I well I did that a couple of times because I just get mad and said I'm done goodbye I hung up on him which was bad then I felt worse like like you know but she said don't do that just just start forgiving him so I did the person would call and the tirade would start again and you know you didn't do this and you weren't that and I go you're right
• 47:52
  And then I just start saying, Father, I forgive her. I forgive her. I forgive her. I forgive her. And it was so powerful for me because it's kind of like you were talking about thinking on things that are lovely. I thought, you know what, there is a truth, but it's not all truth. And so I need to forgive her. And my emphasis was not on me as much at that point as starting to forgive. I forgive. I forgive. And it was the washing of the water of the word over my life. It just was a cleansing time.
• 48:20
  the stuff came, and the calls didn't necessarily stop, but I was able to not hang up on her, and somehow the bitterness didn't stick.
• 48:34
  And it was just a washing by just saying, Father, your word is so good. And the power of forgiveness is so much bigger than the accusations or the hook that the enemy would want to take. And sometimes I can't even blame it on the enemy. Sometimes it's my own stinking thinking, you know, that comes and says, yep, yep, that's who you are. Yep, that's what you do. And I still, I love to say, you know, I've conquered that whole self.
• 49:01
  image thing and I and I really do believe that you all love me all the time and you think I'm wonderful well I don't you know a lot of times I think you guys don't really like me and I'm the outside and Satan still comes because that's a rear guard that I have to protect and say no no and so
• 49:20
  Something I've been doing lately, because I know that's a rear guard and I have to protect it. When I'm driving, I'm saying it out loud. I didn't realize that until just lately, how powerful it is when you speak it out loud. So when I'm driving, I'm saying, yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. And that's been so powerful to fight off.
• 49:47
  Those thoughts that want to come and keep me frozen and unable to do what God's called me to do. I can talk on relationship, marriage. I'm married to a wonderful man most of the time. I've been married 34 years. And back somewhere around 20 years, 21 years being married, we had a close...
• 50:16
  Couple who had been married longer than us and they were getting divorced and I was shocked at how this could happen Like it don't you have it after 20 years like isn't it easy then? And what I realized was they had allowed she the wife had asked for this divorce She had allowed resentment to Be the seed that she desired to nurture and grow
• 50:46
  And it started so innocently. It started with just thoughts about her husband's behavior and what she thought he was doing. As simple as he left his socks on the floor, obviously he doesn't love me. And it sounds small and it sounds simple, but that's the reality of it.
• 51:11
  It starts with something so small, and then next it's, well, he obviously was late this evening because I didn't matter to him. And I thought, how do I protect myself from that? Because I spent a lot of years growing that same resentment, and it became apparent to me how it happened in other people's lives because it's taken me.
• 51:42
  I don't know, probably a year of really focusing on working through resentment. When you've been married for that long, we've raised three kids, we put them through school, we worked, we're self-employed, we're all of those things. And it became easier to believe the negative things than it did the positive things.
• 52:08
  And so I just want to encourage you that when you look at your spouse and you have one of those negative thoughts of, yeah, that's why he left his socks on the floor because what I asked him to do wasn't important today. Maybe he just left his socks on the floor and it wasn't anything to do about you. And so it's true. We make those things about us and it really has nothing to do with us. They just left their socks on the floor. So I've had to work.
• 52:40
  very diligently on making sure that resentment wasn't the feeling that I was having in my marriage. I think one of the things that I hate that I struggle with, and I think a lot of women do, but it took me by surprise maybe in relationship, is that comparing portion and the jealousy.
• 53:02
  part, and the Lord keeps always giving me lots of opportunities to work on this, and it's so basic for me. What I need to set my mind on is that we rejoice with others who rejoice. That really is what the Bible says.
• 53:21
  And if I love people and care about people, then I'm going to rejoice with them, even if they get to do something or be something or used in some way that I don't. And I hate that. I mean, here I am admitting this sin to you. It's gross. I don't like it. And I often think about 1 Corinthians 13, how it talks about love is not jealous.
• 53:43
  And those are the practical verses that I use when I feel those things. Hallie, do you love this person? Well, you do, absolutely. Well, then you don't if you're being jealous of them, right? And I try to use that to help with that sin. Okay, the next kind of area I was going to ask you ladies about is, can you share a time when you struggled against lies or doubt in your mind in your parenting?
• 54:11
  How did God's word help pull you back into healthy thinking on what was true and right? Just a recent thing that I think the devil has really tried to just bother me with. Many of you know I have an adult daughter. She's almost 30. She moved to Australia just a little over three years ago. We're very close. We're still very close, even though she's in Australia.
• 54:43
  For some reason, my brain was convinced that she moved to Australia because she didn't want to be close to me. And that was so hard. It was so hard to allow her to live her life as the adult that she wanted to be and not take that personally. And so in parenting her, I had to really focus on not...
• 55:09
  Not being manipulative, not saying things that would make her feel guilty for moving away. She's living her life, and I needed to allow her to do that and really just focus on not being hurt by her decisions and not trying to manipulate my children. I think sometimes we get...
• 55:30
  into a place that we think if we say certain things or we do certain things that it can control the situation and most likely our kids will do the opposite of what we're trying to manipulate so that's been really important for me hi there um it's kind of hard when you have an adult child that you've raised and shown all you know all your love and raised him up in the church sorry
• 56:02
  And recently, I found out that my son, who I love dearly, had become a severe alcoholic. He came very close to dying because of his alcoholism. Now, what kind of parent wouldn't guide your child to keep that out of their life? I mean, I've really messed up. That's where I was. So I went to see him.
• 56:38
  And when I saw him, I was frightened because he was in such bad shape in the hospital, but I was also angry. And I thought, no, I didn't do this. I didn't do this. But being a mom, I thought, okay, there is something I can do. God, you've brought me here. There's something that you want me to do. So he has come home with me. He's divorced. He was alone.
• 57:12
  Locked himself up in an apartment for months and drank himself almost to death. He couldn't walk. He couldn't talk. He hadn't had a haircut in six months. I meant this is what I walked into in the hospital. He could do absolutely nothing for himself. So now he's living with me. And I had asked him and his wife, ex-wife, what is my son's relationship with Christ? What happened?
• 57:45
  Well, it became not important. So he came home with me. And he attends church with me all the time. He prays now constantly. He's attending Bible study with the men on Wednesday nights. And he can walk by himself now. He is able to carry on a conversation. And God has just healed his body so much. And his heart's been opened.
• 58:21
  I wasn't a failure, but God was at work all the time, every minute. Could any of you share struggles with little, tiny people during that season? I think you talked about it when you were speaking. I think when our kids are little, it is hard to do anything else, think about anything else. It's all consuming.
• 58:53
  This is maybe an aside, but I think it applies to all of us. And that, because it is all-consuming, it is easy for me to understand how moms get to the end of raising their kids and have nothing left. They have no relationship with their husband or relationship with the Lord because it becomes all-consuming. It is hard from the time they're tiny or studying them and trying to understand them so that they'll just sleep.
• 59:23
  Right. And so it does. It becomes that. And I think one way that I would encourage young moms is to remember that it isn't your all consuming. I mean, it is a big job, but you have to maintain and spend time with the Lord and with other people and tether yourself to outside things so that.
• 59:45
  it doesn't become your life. It doesn't become what you're living for. And there's a million verses that come to mind about that. And I'm sure you can think of what those are. But that we are a child of God first, right? And pursuing our relationship with the Lord first. So that when we get to the end of raising our kids, we don't, are left empty because we've lived our life for them instead of for the Lord. And I would say,
• 1:00:15
  uh, worry. I think you, and you talked about this, that for me, um, as those thoughts creep in, one way that I try to be, um, um, attentive and, and not to give in to what Satan would do or whatever is, um, to remember that God calls me, like you said, to pray. He tells me to pray.
• 1:00:38
  cast my cares upon him and so lately one of the things I've been concerned about is that Chase is 11 and Zach is 16 and and there's there's a newness to their relationship because they've they're five years apart and I start to feel anxious like I purposely made Chase be five years apart from Zach I didn't do that God did that and so I remember to think
• 1:01:04
  That's the Lord's plan. I better trust that plan. So in all of those areas with little kids, to remember that the Lord doesn't want you to worry. He wants you to tell him, to cast your cares upon him. And then I think about in James that we are called to ask for wisdom. And as a young mom, as a not-so-young mom,
• 1:01:25
  We are called to ask for wisdom and he will give it to us. He promises us that. And so those are two of the scriptures or ideas that I use to battle against the worry and anxiety and consumingness of being a mom. An interesting perspective. We have a six-year-old granddaughter and she stays with us part of the time. And I will tell you that your relationship that you maintain with God is so important because
• 1:01:52
  You need to have the faith and the confidence in what you're doing because it's hard, obviously, but do the hard things early. She has, my granddaughter Avery has a very strong will and she's made it very apparent to me that I need to be, I need to be correct with her. I need to make her do the correct things and do those things early because if not, then later she's a wreck.
• 1:02:22
  And she's made that hard for us to do sometimes, but it really just concreted it into my brain that I have to do the correct things early, otherwise later there won't be an opportunity to do those things. And something about the worry, combating worry, whenever you worry into the future, if you worry like your kids are going to drop out of school or...
• 1:02:48
  They're not going to get the job they want. Those are things that you make up in your head. You can equally make up something else in your head that isn't happening yet either, like they're going to grow up and be a doctor. Just give it equal weight, the good and the bad. You can have those worries, but set them aside and replace them with something that would be equally as good. Thank you. And just trusting God that he is sovereign, right?
• 1:03:22
  Our kids' well-being does not depend on us doing it best or screwing it up, right? And it feels so much like that in different times. But just trusting that we're not that powerful. All right, last one. Can you share a time where you struggled against lies or doubt as you went through or looked ahead to a life change or a new season?
• 1:03:49
  How did God's word help pull you back into healthy thinking on what was true and right? Okay, this is the tough part. I was asked to share, but I think I can do it. Several years ago, I became a widow. And let me back up. We became members of this church in 2014. And I knew I was led here. I just could feel it.
• 1:04:25
  We started attending. My husband was deep into music, and he was able to play his guitar here at church. That was his lifelong dream. We became active. We did things. And all the time, we knew that my husband was very ill. But we kept on and on, and things were going well. Well, then he got...
• 1:04:53
  extremely ill and couldn't attend church anymore. But we had time together and we were able to prepare for his death, which sounds awful. But God gave us that time together. My husband had 10 brothers and sisters and sad to say they are not believers. But during this time, they all wanted to come and say goodbye to their brother.
• 1:05:24
  During this time, my husband was able to witness and talk about God's love and the peace he had in his heart. He wasn't afraid of death. He knew where he was going to go. He just didn't want to leave me. That was his only fear. We had many things that we had to take care of, legal things, home things. We didn't need a new car. My car was 20 years old.
• 1:05:56
  My husband was very concerned and taking care of me when I was gone, or when he was gone. And lo and behold, we went to Subaru, not knowing a thing about that car. Who was our salesman? Dale Jackson's nephew, a wonderful Christian man. He still is in contact with me. And during that time also, many of our church members would come and visit him. And that was such a blessing to see my husband.
• 1:06:33
  Talk about Christ and become closer and closer to him. And to see his family members see the love of God was in him and comforting him. That was tremendous. Then when he passed, that was a whole different story. Some of you know from experience what happened in your heart. Your life is totally destroyed. Your heart is totally broken.
• 1:07:12
  And you are lost. You have your church friends that love you dearly. You have your children that love you dearly. But you're alone. And what do you do? Do you close your bedroom door and stay in there and cry all day? No. That would be easy. But I tell you, so many, many days and nights. Yeah, I went to that bedroom. But I was on my knees.
• 1:07:50
  The Lord gave me strength. I cried out deep, deep, loud prayers. He probably got sick of listening to me, but he was always there. I prayed and I read the word. I read the Bible so many times. Psalms became my best friend. So many comforting, beautiful voices and messages. And that's where I got my strength. It's God's word.
• 1:08:22
  And the deep, deep prayers were answered. My family and friends saw me through this. And they knew that God could do it. Jesus would lead me if I would just open my heart and follow. And that's what I've done. It hasn't been easy. But I've found such great joy in being a church lady. And that's what I've wanted to be.
• 1:08:56
  many, many years as a church lady, being used by the Lord, whatever reason there is. I wondered about a purpose, but it was answered. My purpose was answered. Thank you so much, Nancy. What an encouragement. Just your smile every single time I see you has encouraged me right from the moment I've met you.
• 1:09:24
  And thank you for giving us a glimpse into the strength that you get from the Lord. Feel silly after, Nancy? Okay. Well, the point is, God is big enough and strong enough, and he loves us so much. And he will equip us for everything that we need through our entire lives if we go to him.
• 1:09:47
  And we ask him. And there's nothing that any of us struggle with in our minds that are not common to man. The Bible says that. And so whether these are things that have hit us to this point or are yet to come, I just wanted you ladies to hear how God's word works in real life, to see these women who walk by you with a smile on Sundays and to know that they're not just good at life. They're not just happy.
• 1:10:14
  people, they really are getting their strength from the Lord. And so I hope that encourages you today that every single one of us can walk in that. So as we close, thank you so much, ladies. Do you guys want to just clap for them and thank them? And then I'll just pray to close us. Heavenly Father, we're so thankful that no matter how old we are, there's still more of you to know.
• 1:10:45
  There is still more of you to experience and understand. We are so thankful that you are never satisfied with us where we are because you know that there is more peace and more joy and more blessing as we follow you daily throughout our entire lives. We are thankful that you lived a life on earth where you know the struggle of the mind. You know the struggle of temptation and you lived.
• 1:11:13
  this life on earth perfectly to show us what walking in the spirit looks like. And so make us more like you, Lord, we ask. Teach us your ways. Help us to live lives that are empowered by your strength for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.