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Welcome everybody. I feel a bit like a reformed Joel Osteen this morning with my topic. But hopefully we'll stick by the truth. I've been married for about 21 years to Shona, who's from the Isle of Lewis, one of these tiny little islands up off the edge of the map, the northwest of Scotland. We've been blessed with five children, two teenage boys, about 18 and 16 and a half, two girls, 11 and 10, and just recently, a little boy who's now six months old, a late arrival on the scene. who's either going to put me in an early grave or renew my youth. I hope the latter. It's a great joy to be with you. It's actually an especial joy for me to be speaking with Tim. Although many of you know we have an online friendship, we've actually never spoken together at any conference, any church. So this is a first, and it's a real treat to serve together with somebody who's had just a huge influence upon my life in many, many ways. And I was just telling Tim on the way along the road here, and he probably doesn't realize how much he influences people. For myself, actually, the biggest influence was his stress on the local church. the importance of commitment and service in the ordinary, everyday Christian church. It seems elementary, but for me, as a professor, sometimes you get very easily tempted away from that ordinary, everyday grind, as it were, of the Christian life, and this has just been a tremendous anchor for me, and one of the great motives for me to be back involved in pastoring again, which is such a great joy. So thank you for coming again. We are going to look at this topic of positive sanctification. We'd like to read in Philippians chapter four, Philippians chapter four, and we'll read from verse one to nine. Therefore, my beloved and longed for, I'll start again. Therefore, my beloved and longed for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved. I implore you, Odeon, I implore Syntyche, to be of the same mind in the Lord. And I urge you also, true companion, help these women, who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing. But in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. the things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. Amen. Well, we live in an increasingly negative culture in which it's very easy for our hearts and minds to be overwhelmed and flooded with all the depressing and discouraging news that surrounds us day by day. We look at the media and it's filled with words such as unemployment, foreclosures, terrorism, disasters. We see the cost of living, cost of healthcare, cost of college care, cost of senior care soaring as disposable income decreases. And the church also is increasingly marginalized as journalists, judges, educators, politicians, ridicule and undermine basic Christian teaching, even the most basic Christian institution of marriage. Christians are losing the culture war, so-called. We're increasingly set apart and our prayers and our sermons sound more like discontented defeatism than inspirational calls to worship and service. We turn on our televisions and we just get this daily diet, or our internet, a daily diet of death, destruction, disaster, and it's really no surprise that this kind of death spiral of our society is dragging down Christians as well. Our mindsets and our moods are sinking and we feel overwhelmed, we feel Just it's impossible to resist this very depressing, discouraging culture. And we shouldn't be surprised at that. The wisest King Solomon says in Proverbs 23.7, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. We are what we think. What we feed our minds with determines who we are. And that shouldn't surprise us scientists of the last couple of decades. made huge strides in understanding how much even our food affects our bodies, our minds, our moods. The old phrase is true. You put junk in, you get a junk body. But you also get junk minds, and you get junk moods. And if you don't believe me, then just try a McDonald's diet for a week, and watch your mind and mood plummet as your waistline soars. But no, just... You don't need to do it, believe me. It works. But it's not just what we feed our bodies, it's what we feed our minds as well that matters, that determines what we feel and as I hope to show you what we do. Therefore, if we feed our minds a diet of terror, of pessimism, of negativity, of doom, of gloom, then no surprise if we end up terrified, anxious, scared, depressed, pessimistic, and negative. We'd just end up like the very negative culture we're in. And really what the Apostle Paul here is doing in Philippians four, verse eight, is he's calling us to start an alternative mind diet. To start feeding our minds a completely different set of mental foods. And really he says it will have a dramatic effect. If you follow Philippians four, eight, Then Philippians 4.9 will be the result. Philippians 4.8 says, feed on what's true, noble, just, pure, lovely, things of good report. And what happens? Well, he says, you meditate on these things, the things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, saying, I'm not asking you to eat what I didn't eat. I'm not asking you to do what I didn't do. I'm asking you to do exactly what I did. He says, you do these things, the things you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do and the God of peace will be with you. He's saying, you feed your mind with this and the effect will be both the peace and the presence of God. The peace and the presence of God. Now, this takes huge mental effort. He says here, meditate on these things. That isn't some kind of airy-fairy, blue-sky kind of thinking. You know, we just sit there as hippies and hum. It's not that kind of meditation at all. The word is the word for rigorous mental thought. It's about developing systematic, organized thought habits. It's changing, really basically, the whole contours of our mindsets. So Paul says, if we do this, if we manage to marshal our thoughts into this disciplined force, this disciplined army, it will, in effect, garrison our minds and hearts. They'll act as a sort of protective force within which the peace and the presence of God will flourish. And if we don't, If we, as it were, let down the drawbridge of our minds and invite to come in these interlopers of all this negative and pessimistic news, he's saying, you know, don't be surprised if this castle starts falling down, if cracks start appearing, if you start feeling kind of shattered and discouraged and depressed. So what we'd like to do this morning is apply these six categories of a healthy thought life in two areas. First of all, in terms of our media diet, and then secondly, in terms of our ministry diet. What we consume in terms of our media, but also in terms of the ministries we sit under, but also the ministries we do and give to others. We're not only consumers, we're also creators. We think maybe primarily of ourselves as consumers of media and ministry. We take it in, but we're all creators as well. Now, that's always been true to some extent. A parent is creating media that they give to their children, teachers to their pupils, ministers to their congregations. Every time we talk to somebody, we are passing on information and facts. We are acting as media in a sense, a channel for conveying facts or lies or whatever. And if that's always been true, it's even more true today than it's ever been because of the advent of the internet and social media. the opportunities for us all to become part of the media and the ministry have just multiplied incredibly. So we've got a dual responsibility here, not just to apply these six categories to our media and ministry consumption, but also we have a responsibility to apply them in our media and ministry creation, what we are giving and passing on to others. So let's look first of all at the application of this to our media diet to see how to build a positive sanctification by building a positive, biblically positive mind set and mood set. So these six categories Paul brings before us here starts by saying true more than false, whatsoever things are true. He's saying when you're choosing what channel to watch, what channel to turn to, what pages to surf to, he says put this category in front of you, truth more than lies. Now we can't avoid lies, but we have to have a deliberate imbalance in favor of what is truthful. So he's saying, avoid sources of media that major on lies or misrepresentation. Not just telling them, but exposing them. If we are tuned in politically to one side or another, and the specialty of this broadcaster or media person is the exposure of the other side, showing the cynicism of the other side. If the words and the images are all about pulling down and exposing lies, then don't be surprised that that will have a negative impact upon you. He's saying, seek out what's true. more than what's false. Expose yourself to truth more than lies, wherever that is, whether in the church or in the media or whatever. So where there's a misrepresentation, a distortion, a deceiving or a focus on that, he's saying flee it. Seek out the fairest, most balanced, most truthful reporting. When you're choosing your books, then choose histories and biographies that are accurate. Surround yourself with truth-tellers rather than muck-spreaders. feast on truth, fill your mind with truth. There must be at least a 51% balance in favour of truth rather than lies. Second category here is noble more than base. Again you look at the media in general, they tend to It publicized the sordid and the seedy side of life. They love wallowing in the cesspools of human iniquity. You look at the New York Times bestsellers list for last year and it's full of childhood abuse memoirs. And in the top best sellers, a book that was full of sadistic sex, defiling young and old minds around the nation. And Paul's saying, don't do this to yourselves. You know, bend the base and nourish the noble. The word here for noble is the word for majestic, worthy. elevating, heroic. See, when you're choosing what to watch and what to listen to and what to read, seek out these kinds of categories. Consume media that elevates the heroic, that brings out majesty, that truly does create a sense of awe and wonder. Noble more than base. Thirdly, right more than wrong. Says whatever things are just. That simply means whatever conforms to God's law. Whatever is right. Right conduct in the whole of life. Again, let's just think of the sort of media that most people are exposed to and say television. If you were just to turn on your television for a few hours, what would be the predominant categories, it would be immorality, it would be violence, it would be deception, it would be things like abuse. When was the last time you saw a good living family at the center of a sitcom or a soap opera? They don't feature unless they're there to be caricatured and mocked. What is right is generally portrayed as just ridiculous. And so here he's saying, you know, again, choosing your media, focus on media that really brings what's right in front of you. Hardworking parents, dutiful fathers, loving mothers, faithful children, hardworking employees, good bosses. Find media, I know it's hard, but seek it out if you can. Then he gives a fourth category, purity more than filth, whatever things are pure. And that word is the word for chastity or modesty in personal life. And it's also used as a word that's to characterize our approach, our preparation to worship. Purity more than filth. Again, we're so conscious of, The contrast with the media that we are surrounded with. We see immorality and filth floating to the surface. And what is pure sinks without trace. But Paul's saying, look, you've got a choice. Eyes are like a spotlight. And Jesus said this, the light of the body is the eye. He's saying, imagine your eyes are like spotlights. And you're moving the spotlight around in your media choices. And it's saying, when you see something pure, then laser in on it, focus on it, keep the light on it, think on it, let it influence you. And likewise it says, when that spotlight centers on what is ugly and hideous, don't spend any time on it, move that spotlight away rapidly. Whatsoever things are pure, and there are, So much focus today is on what is going wrong. We think, you know, all the young guys using porn, all the young girls who are dressing immodestly, all the families that are breaking down, and these are problems, but... There are young guys not using porn. There are many young who do dress modestly and who act respectfully. There are families that are together and loving and devoted and prospering. Try and find the pure. Get that spotlight ranging around and concentrate on it when you find it. Then he says, beautiful rather than ugly. Whatever things are lovely. And that word means towards love. Whatever moves you towards love. If you can see something or hear something that makes you love more, that creates love in you, then, again, consume it. Get it inside of you. Whatever things are beautiful, what is attractive, what's winsome. It's not easy. Many of us live in cities which are just full of concrete boxes of varying sizes and shapes. We go about our day-to-day life and we're confronted with ugliness on every side and brokenness in the concrete jungles we live in. And it's not easy at times to find beauty. We can find brokenness and dereliction, but beautiful? Well, he's saying you've got to make an effort. You've got to make an effort to get out into beauty. Beautiful surroundings, beautiful smells, beautiful sights, beautiful sounds, beautiful tastes. So get your senses feasting on the beautiful. And if you can't, get a BBC documentary on planet Earth or deep sea and explore the world and plunge into the oceans from the comfort of your own armchair. But find some way to increase your intake of beauty into your life. And then last of the six categories is praise more than complaint. Whatever things are of good report. He's saying focus on the constructive rather than the destructive. When you're with your family, when you're with your friends, what you're saying, the stories you're telling, what is the impact? Does what you say, these stories you tell, what you talk around the table in the evening, is the effect that people say, that's wonderful, or that's terrible? That's really what he's challenging us with here. Does it make people praise or does it make people complain? Are you focusing on topics that show people up in a good light or on a bad light that makes your hearer say, that's just tremendous or that's awful, that's terrible? When we're in the car, when we have the radio on, what impact is that having on the people in the car with us? Whatever things are praise worthy. So if you like, this is the apostles food pyramid. Sure, you've seen it all, you know, carbs, proteins, sugars, and so on. Well, here the apostle has six categories in his food pyramid. And it's kind of interesting, it's as if he comes to think, I wonder if I missed anything here. And so he does a catch-all at the very end. He says, if there's any virtue, if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. He says, if I've missed anything, any good food here, then do that as well. And he's basically saying that there's much good in everyday life that we're probably missing out on. It's whatever things are of good rapport. It's not just within the church. He's saying scan the world. Scan your own local world, national, international, wherever you have to go, go until you find things that are, as he says here, praiseworthy and virtuous. A good service, a helpful product, an enjoyable book, just find it, a wise insight, a great article. Praise it, celebrate it. Feast, he says, on these things. And it's interesting, it's not just Christians that are saying these things today. There are many secular sources that are increasingly recognizing the devastating impact on the human personality of all the negativity in our media. There's a UK national newspaper called The Guardian, and an article appeared in it quite recently by a journalist, Rolf Dobelli. It was called, News is Bad for You. and giving it up will make you happier. And this is what he said. It's like he's trying to put himself out of work here. News leads to fear and aggression, hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply. It misleads, is toxic to your body, increases cognitive errors, inhibits thinking, wastes time, and makes us passive. Well, that's what Paul's saying in Philippians 4.8. You say, well, are you asking us to ignore problems in the real world? Is this a warrant from reformed monasteries and convents? No, but it's a warrant for a deliberate imbalance in favor of what is wholesome and healthy and good and true. And in fact, far from putting us into unreality, it actually moves us closer to reality. Even psychologists are recognizing again how the present media diet most are consuming is constructing for most people a completely unreal, unrepresentative world. Shawn Achor, a psychologist professor from Harvard, says psychologists have found that people who watch less TV are actually more accurate judges of life's risks and rewards. than those who subject themselves to the tales of crime, tragedy and death that appear night after night on the 10 o'clock news. That's because, he says, these people are less likely to see sensationalized or one-sided sources of information and thus see reality more clearly. So, here's a new media diet for you. both in terms of what you consume and in terms of what you create. Let's secondly, though, look at ministry diet very briefly here. And again, don't think, well, I'm not a minister, this doesn't apply. You are a minister to one degree or another. If you ever pass on anything about the Christian faith, even in a tweet, you are ministering. And therefore, again, you have to listen to how these six categories apply to ministry. Here's the first way of putting it. We need to dwell more on salvation than on sin. More on salvation. I'm not saying salvation and not sin, but more salvation than sin. Now, The gospel makes no sense and has no power if we ignore sin. There are many attempts to do so, aren't there? To downplay sin, to blunt God's law, to ignore God's wrath. The Christian world's full of that. This is not an argument for that kind of error. The gospel message begins with all have sinned. So without downplaying that the seriousness of our human need and our human problem, without downplaying that at all, without losing that essential backdrop, yet this surely calls us to keep the spotlight more on our salvation than on our sin, on Christ, on the multi-dimensional salvation that Jesus Christ has accomplished for us. And there are just so many ways of looking at this. So many ways of looking at Christ, so many ways of looking at grace. It's not as if, well, that seems pretty boring, just one subject. No, this is gonna excite us for all eternity. And there are just so many ways of looking at the suitability and the sufficiency of our Savior. He's a prophet, he's a priest, he's a king. He justifies, he reconciles, he atones, he sanctifies. There's Old Testament, there's New Testament. There's just so much to dwell on. And then you think about your own salvation. Yes, you can think of what you've been saved from. Yes, you think about continuing indwelling sin, but think of what God has done for you. far more than the problem that made it necessary. I believe that's required of us if we are to fulfill Philippians 4.8 and experience Philippians 4.9. Secondly, more truth than falsehood. Now, we are very tempted when there are so many errors around within the church and so many falsehoods outwith the church, false religions, false worldviews, that we think we just gotta keep attacking. We just gotta keep slaying all these dragons. We've gotta keep cutting down these errors before they grow legs and run throughout the church. And so it's possible for us to get more focused on falsehood than truth, on, again, what's not true than what is true. It's interesting that, apparently, banks train their clerks, their tellers, to spot counterfeit money in a rather unexpected way. You would think the best way to train them to spot counterfeits would be, you know, get thousands of samples of counterfeits and expose them to them, get them to study them, learn them, examine them. Well, I'm told that what they actually do is, they don't show them any counterfeit money for months. That they expose them to real currency, 24 hours a day almost. for weeks and months before they show them the first counterfeit note. And that's because they get so familiar with what's true. When they see something false, they spot it right away. It's so obvious. When I told my wife this, she's a doctor, she said, that's fascinating because when I was training to be a doctor for two years, they only let us listen to healthy chests with our stethoscopes. So that in the third year, when they started bringing unhealthy chess to us, we could spot it right away. I think there's something there for us in the Christian church as well. That the best way to counteract error is to have a greater focus on the truth. We need to know what's wrong. We need to know why they're wrong. But again, if we're to apply this principle, we should believe that a greater familiarity with the truth will be the best way and preparation for dealing with and defeating error. So true more than false, we need apologetics. But again, let's keep our apologetics with a balance in favor of the positive, on what's true, on what's right, and fill our minds with biblical doctrines, with scriptural verses, and so on. The third area of ministry diet is more victory than struggle. More victory than struggle. And again, I hope you're sensing I'm not saying victory, not struggle. That's Joel Osteen. Okay, just want that clear. I'm saying more victory than struggle. Struggle is an important part of the Christian life. The Bible's full of struggle words, and trial, and affliction, and chastisement, and defeat, and doubt, and backsliding. Yes, it's all there. But there are other words there too, like victory, like growth, like maturity, like advance, like progress, usefulness, fruit, service, opportunity. All of these words are there as well. Paul definitely said that he wanted to know more of the fellowship of Christ's suffering. He did. But he also wanted to know the power of his resurrection. For sure, Paul knew and expressed so accurately the struggle of the Christian in Romans 7 with indwelling sin, but He also ended Romans 7 and powered into Romans 8 in the power of the Holy Spirit, delivering him. So again, when we're portraying the Christian life, thinking about our own and trying to teach others, then let that emphasis again be victory, progress, advance more than struggle, defeat, and so on. Fourth category here is more celebration than lamentation. Again, I'm so hopeful, I'm so anxious, this is not going to sound like health, wealth, and prosperity, but I think one of our problems is sometimes people take this to the extreme of error, like health, wealth, and prosperity people, and so what do we do? Well, we're running right over the cliff on the other side. God forbid anyone thinks that we're positive. But let's not let heretics take God's truth away from us and real Christian experience just because we're so anxious not to be associated in any way. So yes, more celebration than lamentation. It's so easy, again, to be just sucked into the vortex of moaning and groaning about the direction of our culture and society. And I think it's especially true since the last election in the U.S. here. It's just, I don't know, it was as if, overnight, God left his throne. And, you know, come on. You know, things, yes, are not as good as they could be. Things are bad in many ways, but again, you do not need to look far in this world to find countries that are just... a million miles worse than where we are. There's so much to celebrate, so much to be thankful for, so much to be glad for. There is a time to mourn, but there's a time to laugh as well. There's a time to plead, but there's a time to give thanks and to worship. A book written by Bradley Wright called Upside. He's a Christian. book that tries to highlight statistically, he's a statistician, the improvement in many indexes for human flourishing. And he tells the story of recently he was in an airport bookshop and he went round the whole bookshop and this is what he said, all the books argue to a greater or lesser extent that A, the world is a terrible place and B, it's getting worse. I didn't see a single optimistic book. He says I'm calling for a Christian contrast to this worldly pessimism. 2,000 years ago a book whose core was euangelion, good news, began to be widely read. We of all people should be able to recognize and celebrate and express gratitude wherever we find it. For all good news is God's good news. And to ignore it, hide it, minimize it, or distort it is neither mentally healthy nor spiritually sound. More celebration than lamentation. Fifth category here. More do's than don'ts. More do's than don'ts. Now, what do you think is going to have a bigger impact, a greater effect? Don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, and whatever you do, don't do that, and if you do, you're dead. Or, look, here's a good way to live. here's a good path to follow, here's a good thing to do, and you know, there are many benefits associated with doing this in this way, and even some rewards at the end of it. Well, I mean, if you're like me, you know, whatever, if somebody tells me that, I'm doing it. I don't know why we've kind of managed to conceive sanctification though much more like that. than like that. Much more in the negative than in the positive. Much more focused on the thou shalt nots than the thou shalts. Much more on sort of dying to sin than living to righteousness. And it's resulted in holiness being conceived in largely negative terms. We need the negatives, we do. Do you know how many of the Ten Commandments are expressed negatively? Nine and a half, yeah. The only one that's positive gets a negative in there almost immediately after it's put positively. But I personally think that's part of the way morality is expressed in the old covenant, in negative terms. Whereas, although there are positives there too, the emphasis is largely negative. As you come to the New Testament, I know, yes, there are sure negatives, but these same 10 moral principles are expressed much more positively, actively. Not so much, here's the weeds to pull out, but here's the fruit. to cultivate. Now again, hear me right, I'm not saying no don'ts and all do's, but more do's than don'ts. I believe that is the biblical balance in the new covenant. You look at 2 Peter chapter one, we don't have time to look at it unfortunately, but you know, add to your faith and so on. You look at the fruits of the Spirit. So there is a thou shalt not, but again, I believe the application of Philippians 4a is saying conceive of sanctification much more positively, not just this positive mindset, positive moods, but more in terms of positive virtue, positive activity, doing what is right, fruit bearing, adding, multiplying, growing, increasing. So positive morals and positive motivations for these morals as well. We talked about this a bit last night and I won't repeat myself, but there is the reward of God's pleasure. God is more pleased with us when we are living holy lives. He doesn't love us more, but he is pleased with us more. My wife just came back from Scotland. She was there with the two girls and the wee baby for 10 days or so. And she came back on Thursday evening. Well, myself and my two teenage boys, as you can imagine, did quite a clean-up operation. So we started about four o'clock on Thursday afternoon and we went until 10.30 in the evening. I was eventually in my sports shorts and t-shirts, but you probably don't want to think about that. But when we're doing this, and it didn't take me long to get the kids motivated either. Why are we doing that? Is it because, oh man, I've got to do this for my wife. She keeps a clean house. I just know that if she comes back, she's going to just freeze me out for weeks. Is that why I'm doing this? No, it's not. It's because I love her, and I know how much pleasure it's going to give her when she opens that door to these fresh sights and sounds. And she did. I mean, I think she saw me. But she saw the house. I mean, that's what these five, six hours of sweat, toil and tears was all about. I wanted to see that smile and we have that motive in the Bible too. We can put a smile on the face of our Heavenly Father. We don't see it but we must believe it's there because the Bible says we are able to please him, to make him smile, to make him happy with us. So that's a positive motivation. The motivation of God's pleasure and the motivation of God's fellowship. We looked at that last night in John 14. The reward of happiness. that the way of holiness is a happy way, far more happier than the way of sin. And it's interesting, I've been doing quite a bit of reading recently in an area of writing by so-called positive psychologists. It's a field of study where these men and women psychologists, they kind of looked in the late 90s at their discipline and they said, well, You know, for the last 50 years we focused on getting people from way down there, in the depths with all their problems, back up to normality, to neutrality sort of thing. Can't we do a wee bit more? Can't we take them from being normal and lift them and help them to flourish. So instead of it being a negative psychology, fixing problems, let's have a positive psychology that actually helps people grow and develop and be happier. And what's especially interesting as you study this, this has been going on in our Ivy League universities for 20 years now, a lot of research. If you looked at the different patterns of life that do produce human flourishing and happiness, and it's incredible, you might as well write 10 commandments all over them. They don't realize it. I mean, it's sad that it takes scientists 6,000 years to discover what God revealed way back in time. But it's very confirmatory to faith as well. And we don't need to wait to learn the way of happiness. God has revealed it to us already. So let me wrap up here. Media diet, ministry diet should produce positive thoughts, positive moods, positive actions. A positive sanctification is not easy. We are in a very negative culture that we're all impacted by. We also have a negativity bias. It's interesting, it's as if when it comes to good news, we're like Teflon. When it comes to bad news, we're like Velcro. And again, these people that have studied this, these happy scientists, as they like to be called, have confirmed we do have a negativity bias. Gretchen Rubin and her sort of popularizing of this discipline of study called the Happiness Project said, our reactions to bad events are faster, stronger, and stickier than our reactions to good events. In fact, in practically every language, there are more concepts to describe negative emotions than positive emotions. It takes at least five positive marital actions to offset one critical or destructive action. Five to one? Yeah, there's a lot of change to happen, isn't there? So we've got this negative culture, we've got negative device, we have negative things in our lives too, we can't deny it. We're not trying to deny the hardship of human suffering, but again, you come to the Bible and it says that while we must feel this deeply, really, truly, sincerely, the agony and pain of life in a fallen world, yet there are ways of even transforming that into a more positive experience. that there is a redemptive perspective to everything, not easy to see maybe in the midst of it, but there nonetheless. And again, we wish we had more time, but there are many ways, of course, in the Bible in which God turns suffering around into something that doesn't just take us back to where we were, but actually increases and grows us. Let me just give you some stats. again from this field of positive psychology. Doctors who have a positive mood make accurate diagnoses 19% faster than emotionally neutral doctors. Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%. Students primed to feel happy before taking a math test far outperformed their neutral peers. They were just told jokes. Then they went in and outperformed their peers. Employees who are happier when they start a new job receive better evaluations and higher pay later on. Nuns with joyful journal entries live nearly 10 years longer than nuns whose entries were more negative or neutral. Students who viewed attending Harvard as a privilege shone much brighter than those whose studies saw studies as a chore. and we could go on. But basically all this research shows that this kind of positive outlook on life, which I believe we can do as Christians, and we must do, produces productivity, fruitfulness, flourishing, creativity, energy, better friendships, better marriages, better churches, and so on. If psychologists think they have reason to give people joy, how much more do we? We know the living and true God. We are loved by Him if we are His people. Jesus is our Savior. The Holy Spirit is living in us, sanctifying us. We have all the promises of God. He's guiding us through this life and preparing glory for us. We're justified, adopted, sanctified, accepted. Life has meaning, everything, big and small. As Nehemiah said, the joy of the Lord is your strength, is your strength. And it's hard for some of us older ones to change our ways. It is, it's really hard. Our minds are in ruts. But we must believe it's possible. Even for a doer Scotsman, it's possible. Come on, Americans can do. But you know, I wanna just close, I wanna just appeal especially to the young people here. I just, I want to inoculate you before you go out and are contaminated by this plague of negativity that's just plunging so many into depression and discouragement. Here is the Christian opportunity to be counter-cultural. to shine brightly in a world of dark despair, to hold out hope and joy and true happiness through a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 4.8 is saying, Here's what you must feed on, and here's what you must feed others, and the peace and the presence of God will be yours. Amen, let's pray. Oh Lord, please, please help us to change these habits of thought that our minds and our hearts and our whole lives may better conform to the image of your dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, help us to be counter-cultural missionaries in this needy world, to show forth your praises in our lives. And all in and through, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Session 3: Positive Sanctification
Series RSI 2013 Sanctification
Sermon ID | 56131525502 |
Duration | 52:30 |
Date | |
Category | Conference |
Language | English |
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