What were you thinking? Good evening, friends, and welcome to Freedom at Faith. We are a ministry of Faith Baptist Church here in Taylor, South Carolina. We're a chapter of Freedom That Lasts, a national ministry. I just want to thank you so much for joining us. My name is Pastor Caleb Friske. I'm the assistant director here at our ministry. Pastor Dean is out of town, and so I'm going to be continuing our series on our thoughts. Of course, as you know, over the past several weeks, we've been discussing that important topic of renewing your mind. You'll see up there at the top of the screen, Romans 12.2, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And so we've been going through this important topic of learning to tell ourselves the truth. A lot of this series is based on this book by William Backus, Our goal here is to really tell ourselves the truth as we're seeking to win in this battle against addiction. And so, as we've discussed a couple of times here at Freedom and Faith, we're not just interested in cognitive behavioral therapy, right? This is not what we're doing. Instead, we're looking for what we could call truth therapy. And so we have feelings and emotions that emanate from what and how we think. Changing our thoughts by renewing our minds is God's plan for changing our lives and regulating our emotions. Of course, I'm sure you're familiar with this diagram as we've gone through it several weeks now. We start with our core beliefs. From that springs our thinking patterns, our meditations, what we think about. From that comes our feelings, our emotions, and then finally, that addictive choice that we are seeking to avoid. Now, here's the problem, alright? We have well-established thinking patterns that can lead back to our addiction and our life-dominating sins. In week one of our study, We looked at the video of the backwards bicycle. If you haven't seen it, I'm going to put a link to the video in the description of this one. But it's a really good example and examination of just how important our thinking patterns are and just how easy it is to fall back into our addictive choices. because we have those thinking patterns that can, in some cases, become more intense when chemicals are involved, whether they're artificial or natural. Now, I'm going to show you a tree, and I'm sure you are very familiar with this at this point. Of course, there at the bottom, we have our core beliefs, right? The things that we believe. These lead to, you know, they can be about our relationships, they can be about ourself, they can be about God, about our mental habits, forgiveness, and eternal purpose. Whatever it is, those core beliefs lead to our meditations or our thoughts, which then leads to our emotions, and finally, our addictive choices. Now, Jesus says, if you continue in my word, you will be my disciple, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. And that's really what we're seeking to do here in this study. Now we're looking for truth about ourself. We're looking to be open to hearing truth directly from God and from God through others, embracing that objective truth in humility, and speaking truth to self, God, and others, whether we feel it or not. And so this evening, we're gonna look specifically at the truth about ourselves and about God. And we're gonna start, very good place to start, right at the beginning. So if you have your Bibles, why don't you go ahead and turn to Genesis chapter one, and we're gonna be looking at God, mankind, and rest. And we're gonna be looking at some of the truth behind those three things. Now, rest might seem like an interesting topic to throw in here, but we'll get to how it ties in in a little bit. Well, we're starting here in Genesis 1, and I'm sure you're all familiar with this verse. Genesis 1, 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We have the six days of creation. We have day one, where God creates light. Day two, he makes the sea and sky. Day three, he makes the land and the vegetation. Day four, he creates the sun, the moon, and the stars. And I just love that picture. It's so beautiful. Day five, he creates birds and sea creatures. Day six, he makes earth creatures and finally mankind there at the end of Genesis chapter one. And here, I don't know if you've noticed this, but it's interesting how God goes from speaking things into existence, things like light, things like the sun, moon, and stars, things like the land. He goes from speaking these things into existence And then, all of a sudden, when God creates man, we see him slow down. And the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And so here we see just how important mankind, really people, how important people are to God. And I want to point out a couple things, a couple truths about ourselves from this passage. Now, I'm a little proud of this diagram. I think it turned out pretty well. First of all, we see that we are physical. That is very clear in Genesis 2, where God formed man of dust. This physical matter, right? We are physical. But we're not just physical, we're also spiritual. If we were just physical, we'd really be no different from the animals. We just act on instinct. There wouldn't be any reason behind what we do or why we do it. But we're not just physical, we're also spiritual. Because God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, right? And he became a living creature. We're one whole made up of those things, both physical and spiritual. Now, I'm sure you can already think of some implications of that, right? If we're one whole, well, maybe those two parts affect each other, and you are exactly right. Our physical problems will affect our spiritual self. And likewise, our spiritual problems will affect our physical self. In some ways, all physical problems are rooted in sin, and all problems have a spiritual purpose. We know this, that final point, all problems have a spiritual purpose to be true because of the truths of Romans 8, 28, where we see that all things work together for good to them who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose, of course, predestined to become conformed to the image of his son. All of our problems ultimately have that spiritual purpose. But like I said, they're all problems at some point are rooted in sin. even if that's just the sin that was committed at the fall. Because in Genesis 3, we see Adam and Eve, they broke the one rule that God gave them, right? It's like, come on guys, you had one job, right? But here in Romans 5, Paul writes that sin came into the world through one man and death through sin. And so death spread to all men because all sins. But thankfully, As one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. And so, even though there is sin, even though we are all affected by sin, God made a way, and it was through the death of his Son. And that really is where our growth starts. So friend, if you have not trusted Christ as your Savior, I would encourage you to do so tonight. All of our actions, all of everything we do starts with the heart. And the only way to fix that is to get right with God. Now, if you're astute, you will have noticed that there are seven days in a week and there was the creation week and we did not cover the seventh day. Well, let's get to that now. And here is, in my mind, whenever I read Genesis 1 and 2 is where things get a little bit interesting. On day seven, we see that God rests from the work that he had done. Now this is kind of interesting when you think about it, right? From what we know so far, as we're reading in Genesis, we know that God is the creator. We know that he has to sustain his creation. We know that, that he's all powerful, right? Who else could speak these things into existence? We know that, um, he's, he's infinite, right? He, he was in the beginning, he was, and he created everything. So we know all these things about God. And so now we see him take a day off, which I think is kind of interesting. And, uh, perhaps, uh, particularly in our American minds, right? God taking a day off. Well here, here's a couple of questions maybe for us to think of as we look at this. Why did God take six days to create everything? Was God perhaps a workaholic? Why didn't he just say, let there be light, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, let the dry land appear, let the earth sprout vegetation, let there be lights in the heavens, let there be waters with living creatures, and let birds fly in the skies, let the earth be filled with living creatures, and let us make man in our image, and be done with it in a matter of minutes. Why not? Why didn't he just snap his fingers and everything was created? Well, also, why did God rest on the seventh day? Was God lazy? As we see here in Genesis 2, on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. And so here we see this third component of our discussion. Right? We've talked about, about mankind, who we are. We've talked about God. And here we see this third thing about rest, but through it, I think we can learn some important differences between us and God. So why is rest important? Well, quite simply, our bodies aren't designed for constant fight or flight. I don't know if this image was photoshopped or actually real, but I think it's hilarious, right? Our bodies weren't designed to constantly be in a state of running from danger, right? We weren't made for that. And especially in this present day, stress and information overload, they're almost ever present. Without regular rest and relaxation, our bodies will eventually break down because of constant stress. And so here we see a very important part of our existence as humans, and it's this issue of rest and sleep. Now, how does this play into God and mankind and what we know and what we think about them? Well, again, we know that God does not need rest, and yet we do. Some of the benefits of regular rest is that it can slow our heart rate, it can lower our blood pressure, improve digestion, slows our breathing, relax our muscles, reduces pain, strengthens our immune system, Even some of the benefits of sleep. I don't know if any of you have been sleep deprived before. There was this one semester at college where I had a 7-15 Greek class four days a week, which was just an excellent time to learn a dead language. But I had that four days a week, I had Devo's the nights before, and so for a whole year of school, I wasn't getting very good sleep. And I can tell you the effects of it were pretty awful, right? The recommended amount of sleep for most people is between seven and nine hours. Now, as I was originally researching for this presentation, that number was just a slap in the face because I wasn't getting that then and I'm not getting that now, right? But these are important things. There are a lot of potential issues if we don't get good sleep. There are plenty of things that cause it as well, medical conditions, it can be sleep disorders, it can be uncomfortable sleeping environments. Um, there are again, a lot of issues that can come with sleep, including, um, our brains not being able to process things as easily as they should. And so in some ways it ties into our current discussion of our thoughts. If we're trying to fix our thinking patterns, and if we're not getting proper rest and sleep, we may fail in that just based on that alone. Now again, an important thing to consider is how does rest, how does the importance of rest Remind me of myself and of God. Well, biblical rest recognizes our limitations. We are not God. Biblical rest may look different at different times and seasons. It honors the example that God set. It sets aside regular periods for rest, and it sets aside extra time as needed. There's a really good book that I've just finished reading called Zeal Without Burnout. Here the author states that the rest of God in Genesis 2 does not mean that he takes a break from governing the universe. It is the rest of having completed the creation He has made. But God works tirelessly to sustain creation, to feed creation, and to govern creation by His providence. He does not sleep and He does not take Sabbath rests, but we must. If we neglect this, we are implicitly claiming an affinity with God that mortals cannot claim. In some ways, if we refuse to rest, if we refuse to take breaks, we're claiming that affinity with God. In some ways, we might think that we are on God's level, whether we admit it or not. But as we've discussed, we're made of dust. We're finite. We're limited. We cannot function like God. Another important thing, as we wrap up our discussion of Genesis 1-3, is found here in Genesis 1 verse 26, when God said, And so, How well do we image God in our work, and how well do we image God in our rest? This concept of image-bearing, of reflecting certain attributes of God, it's inherent to who we are as people. And so how well are we doing that? So just to wrap up our discussion here, Who is God? Well, we discovered that God is the infinite creator and sustainer of everything. God loves his creation and wants what's best for it. I think that's somewhat implied again in the fact that God took a day of rest. The infinite, all-powerful God took a day off in some ways to set an example for us to follow. God desires genuine love and obedience, not forced servitude. He gave Adam and Eve a choice in the garden. And God does not expect us to be Him. We cannot be infinite because there is only one being who is. There is only one being that can claim that, and that is God. Well, who is God, but also who am I? Well, first of all, I'm not God, right? I am a created being, not a creating being. I am made in God's likeness, and so I am valuable to God, and I should value others who are also made in his likeness. Importantly, I can have a relationship with my sovereign creator. One of the neat things about Adam and Eve during their time in the garden is that they were able to walk with God. Now, sin broke that relationship, but God seeks to restore that through the death, burial, and resurrection of his son. Because if you come to faith in him as your Lord and Savior, you can have a restoration of that relationship. You know, I am also both a physical and spiritual being, and so I need to keep both in mind as I live my life. Now the spiritual is ultimately what's important, but there is also that physical aspect, whether that's my thought patterns or perhaps my health, whatever it is, that physical aspect does play a role. Well, let's review. Have you taken the first step of coming to Jesus for his forgiveness and new identity? Friend, you need a miracle, right? It'd take a miracle. How do you view yourself? How do you view God? Hopefully this content was helpful for you. If you want to go back and review it, you are absolutely welcome to. You know, there are many misbeliefs out there, especially when it comes to God and man. What are some that you might wrestle with? Can you be honest about what needs to change in your meditation? Of course, if you want help with these questions or any others, we are always available to help you. We meet here every Friday night here in Taylor, South Carolina at Faith Baptist Church at 7 p.m. We would love to have you come and join us. If you want to check out Faith Baptist Church as well, we'd love to have you join us on a Sunday or a Wednesday. We'd just love to have you out. And of course, as always, there's my cell number. Again, I'm Pastor Caleb Friske, the Assistant Director of Our Freedom That Lasts Ministry. Thank you so much for joining us. We would love to have you out. Thanks for being here.