Meditate on Good Things

Hello, my name is Adrian and I'm one of the pastors here and I am excited to share God's word with you today. You know, getting ready for this message, I've been doing some reading specifically about the brain. And what's really cool is scientists have found that as we grow and our brains develop and take in new information, did you know there are actually physical changes that happen in our brains? This is the idea called neuroplasticity. It's really fascinating.

In his book Live Wire, Dr. David Eagleman suggests that our brains never stop changing. Watch what he writes. Plasticity suggests that the key idea is to mold something once and keep it that way forever, to shape the plastic toy and never change it again. But that's not what the brain does. It carries on remodeling itself throughout your life. What he's found is that the brain constantly changes. Our brains literally change when you input new information and have a new experience. Like every time you meet somebody and learn their name, there are physical things that happen in your brain that change your brain. They're called neural pathways.

Like tonight, you're going to hear this message and we worship together and you heard the announcements. By the end of this service, your brain will have changed. You will have changed. You are a different person after the service than you were before. So the statement, "You are what you think," kind of rings true, but it's more like you become what you think. What's even cooler is this, is that God, He's known this all along. Science is just sort of backing up this truth. And 2,000 years ago, Paul the Apostle, he knew the same thing and it's what we're going to talk about today.

Calm in Chaos is our study that we've been in for this new year. Grab your message notes. You can go to TLC.org/notes to download them, or you can download the Twin Lakes Church app and follow along there. You know, for the last four weeks, we've been learning how we can experience calm in the chaos of this chaotic world. We've been reading the book, Anxious for Nothing by Max Lucado, watching his videos in our small groups and reading through this passage in Philippians 4, starting in verse 4. We're going to read it together. "Rejoice in the Lord always, I'll say it again, rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all, the Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Watch this, "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

You know the word, I'm sorry, celebrating God's goodness, practicing gentleness and thankful prayer to God leads us to the peace of God. Calm in Chaos. But this is the question, how do we stay in that peace? We experience God's peace, how do we stay there? How do we stay in that calm? Because you know what, when we experience the peace of God, that doesn't end the troubles of this world, right? I don't know about you, but I want to live in peace and in calm, then in constant fear and worry.

Well, this is where Paul gets to our minds and our brains to answer that question. How do we stay in peace? Philippians 4, the next verse, verse 8, he says this, finally, "Brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things." You know the word Paul uses here for think is the Greek word logizami. Logizami, it's that one. All right. It's where we get the word logic. One of the definitions is to reason to a logical conclusion.

What Paul is saying here is use your mind. You know, God has blessed us with this amazing tool in our heads, in our skulls called our brains. And sometimes, Christians, we can be guilty of focusing on our hearts and our souls and our emotions, but kind of forgetting about our minds or using logic. Some of us think that we shouldn't, you have to use that faith and logic don't coexist. But do you remember what Jesus said when they asked him, what's the greatest commandment? You remember? Watch this. Matthew 22, he says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your what? All your mind." Our thought life is key to maintaining calm, staying in that peace.

What Paul is saying here is we need to meditate on the right things. You know, when the troubles of life come, we can choose what we meditate on. Do we choose worry or can we choose something else? Because really worry is basically negative meditation. You know, our minds get filled with all these negative what ifs and thoughts of our past and our mistakes. And we can't stop thinking about them no matter how much you try. Have you ever sat there and thought, don't think that, don't think that, don't think that, what happens? You just keep thinking about it. And for some of us like me, you can spiral down into anxiety and worry.

Many of you know my wife Jamie and I have two daughters. I have a picture. This is their sibling picture this year. Ella is nine and Penelope is seven, which I have to say, this is a great picture, right? It's like, wow, they look like they really love each other. Shout out to Melody McDonald for this great picture. But I remember one night my oldest daughter had a nightmare. And it's about when she was five, when she looked more like this. I'm a cute little baby. She came into the room, woke me up in the middle of the night and said, and she was crying, I had a nightmare. Okay. And I walked her back to her bed. And my hope was that I could tuck her in and just go back to sleep.

But she said, no, I can't stop thinking about, I don't remember what it was. Somebody was mean to whatever and said a mean thing. And she just was like, she was spiraling in what her nightmare was. And so I told her to do something that I actually do myself to help me fall asleep. And it's something I was talking to René this week. And he told me he does the same thing. And he told his kids the same thing. This is what I told her. I said, Ella, what I want you to do is think about something super fun. Like, let's think about you're going to Disneyland. And you're going there with your best friend, Emory. And what was cool is just a couple of months before, we actually went to Disneyland with that family. So her and it was like fresh in her mind.

And I said, start to think about all the details of that trip, waking up in the hotel and walking down the hallway, going down the elevator, and then seeing Emory in the lobby. And you run to her and you hug and you giggle. And then you hold hands and we walk to the park because in our imaginations, we stay at the Disney Resort in walking distance because it's free in our imaginations. And I want you to think about all the cool rides you're going to ride and what is your favorite treats that you're going to eat. And just keep imagining all those details. And so she starts to think about it and imagine. And soon enough, she falls asleep with a smile on her face.

Paul is saying this. Instead of meditating on all the negative things that are around you, that the troubles that the chaos of this life brings meditate on these things. And this is different than the meditation you might be thinking about. When we think about meditation, we kind of think of what we see in movies, of somebody sitting cross-legged on a rock and chanting. And that's kind of more like Eastern meditation. And in Eastern meditation, the goal is to empty the mind. We empty our minds. But what Paul is talking about here is sort of the opposite. In the Hebrew meditation, the meditation we kind of see in Scripture, it's all about filling the mind, filling the mind with good thoughts, positive things, and pushing the negative out.

So how do we do that? What do we think about? Well, you might look at this verse, see this list, and it causes you stress. Because it kind of does that for me. Because I start thinking, every time I think of thought, I have to get this list out and I cross-check, you know, how many thoughts do I have? Some people take this, some people look at all these nice words and we just start thinking about the opposite and all the things I got to get rid of. Some people go as far as to say, oh gosh, this only means Christian things. So you know what, I need to retreat from this society and I'm only going to look at Christian things made by Christian people, Christian books, Christian music, Christian movies. That's it. But is that what Paul is saying in this verse? I don't think so.

The New Testament scholar Frank Thielmann, he puts it this way. The list of virtues that Paul asks the Philippians to think about is not a distinctively Christian list and could have been embraced by many right-thinking people in ancient times. Paul's right there. Did you know that this list is like really close to the Stoic virtues? A Stoicism is the sort of religion of the Greek philosophers like Plato and Seneca and Philippi is in Greece. So these people would know that, listen and see this list. Let's continue. Paul seems to place a special emphasis on the breadth of these qualities by repeatedly using the indefinite adjective whatever. He tells the Philippians to look for the true noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy everywhere around them and to ponder the things in which the qualities are exemplified.

So where do we look to find these good things to meditate on? Well today I'm going to take you to four places you can look. Number one, creation. You know one way our brains create new neural pathways is when we take in new information and it is paired with an emotion or an emotional experience. Have you ever stood at the edge of a cliff or looked up at a mountain or been in the middle of the forest or looked at the night sky or the way a bird glides through the air and you felt moved? You feel something powerful and it leaves you breathless and all you can say is wow. What you're experiencing is awe, the emotion of awe. It's where we get the word awesome.

What is awe? You know there's a brand new science studying the emotion of awe. It's like really recent past 10 years and UC Berkeley's greater good science center defines awe this way. It says awe is the feeling we get in the presence of something vast that challenges our understanding of the world. When people feel awe they may use other words to describe the experience such as wonder, amazement, surprise or transcendence. What happens when we look at creation and feel that awe, we realize that we're just small parts of this enormous beautiful universe. Someone put it this way, you feel small and yet connected to something big and that gives you an amazing sense of peace.

Someone else put it this way, awe right sizes you. It helps you see in context of the universe how small we really are and the psalmist, he says it this way in Psalm 8, "O Lord our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth. Your glory is higher than the heavens. When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you set in place, what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?" When we look, get out and look at the amazing world that we live in. We get a sense that we're so small and there is this huge universe, vast, endless and that the God who created it all loves us.

So get outside and look around you. There's so much awe inspiring beauty in the world. Or you cannot, if you're stuck inside, go to YouTube. I've done this many times. Go to YouTube and just search space, mountain, waves, ocean, or just the word awe and you will see these videos and they will just blow your mind of how amazing this world is. But it isn't just the natural creation of the earth and plants and animals where we can find these things. But also look at number two, the creativity of creation. This is what I mean by that. We're God's creations and we're made in God's image and within us is the ability to create.

In Exodus, the book of Exodus, Israel has escaped from Egypt. God has rescued them, they crossed the Red Sea and now they're out there and they're tasked to build the tabernacle, a place to worship God where God's glory will come down, his presence will be. And as that's happening, God is speaking to Moses and check out what he says. He says this, "See, I have chosen Basilow and I have filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge, and with all kinds of skills," watch, "to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver, and bronze, and cut and set stones to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of crafts." It says that God has put in him the spirit of God to create and make beautiful things.

And I believe God has imbued people with amazing abilities and people today are making things and doing things that just take your breath away from amazing buildings and make it made of brick and mortar, like, "I don't understand what's happening there." Or a bridge, have you ever thought about a bridge driving over it? Like, how is this holding all these cars up here? And then I have to think, don't think about it anymore, just get off this bridge because then you start freaking out. But look at it, it's amazing. Or have you ever been to the ocean and watched the surfer effortlessly, you know, navigate a wave, at least the good ones? And it shows that moves you, or music, that just lifts your soul.

You know, like many of you, last year, I was depressed. I mean, like, literally depressed, like depression depressed. Lockdown, racism, social unrest, distance learning. It all left me feeling hopeless, and all I could think about was the situation we were in and the motions that I was feeling and thinking that it's never going to end, and I felt so stuck. I remember one day, I was so depressed, and I was doom scrolling Twitter, you know, just meditating on all the bad news of the day, and I came upon this tweet. It was a retweet. And watch, look what he says. He says, "I think about this video a lot." Here's this video that he shares. He says, "Like, I wonder if the people standing there knew they were about to witness the greatest vocal performance ever." And I was like, well, I'm a musician and singer, the greatest vocal performance ever. That's not a stage. This lady is wearing a key around her neck. Where is she? What am I going to-- I had to click it. So I clicked it, and this is what I saw.

That is Callie Day, at the time a pharmacy technician at Walmart with an amazing voice and unearthly range. It's one of those videos where you're like, oh, it's good. And then it just keeps getting better. Did you hear that low note? Did you see that lady, which she almost fell over? Just hearing how amazing her voice is and the passion in which she sung lifted my soul. This is probably the 50th time I've watched this video, literally, and it still makes me emotional. You know what happened after I watched this video? I went on this YouTube deep dive. I looked for every Callie Day video I could find, and then I got into this YouTube hole of reaction videos, of people reacting to this video, literally hours I spent doing this.

And it's funny, Mark and Elizabeth are here. And that week-- and if you guys remember, we were in a Zoom conversation. I go, guys, I've been really depressed, and this video lifted my soul. You guys remember that? And I texted them this video. I felt so much better. And so I had to go back on Twitter and say thank you to this guy. So this is the tweet I replied. I said, this one tweet took me on a two-hour YouTube crawl of Callie Day songs and reaction videos. Thanks a lot. No, really, thank you. My heart is full. There is so much beautiful creativity out there. Look at inspiring pieces of art. One of my favorite things to do is experience and appreciate the amazing food people make.

I've had the privilege of eating at some amazing places, and I have literally shed tears for food that I don't understand what is happening. Listen to good music. Watch beautiful films and videos. There is so much that we can meditate on that can lift us. But we don't have to only look at epic feats of human creativity or travel to faraway places. We can find good things to meditate even in our everyday circumstances. Number three, as a church, we've been reading Anxious for Nothing by Max Lucado, like I said earlier. And if you haven't grabbed a copy, I encourage you to do. So it's really, really good. The guy can write a story.

In it, he tells the story of Kristen Taylor and her daughter Rebecca. This is them. And he writes that by 13, Rebecca, their daughter, had gone through over 55 surgeries and medical procedures and spent about 1,000 days in the hospital. And in a blog post, her mom, Kristen, writes that she learned about a possible hemorrhagic stroke in her daughter and how it crippled her. Watch what she wrote. "I presented my request to the Lord as I had so many times before, but this time, this time, I needed more." And so using Philippians 4, 8, and 9 as a God, I found my answer. And so she begins to quote the verse. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true-- what was true in my life at this particular moment? The blessing of all my family members eating together. Whatever is noble, the blessing of enjoying each other's presence outside of a hospital room.

Whatever is right, the blessing of experiencing my two sons' daily lives. Whatever is pure, the blessing of all three children laughing and playing with each other. Whatever is lovely, the blessing of watching Rebecca sleep peacefully in her bed at night. Whatever is admirable, the blessing of an honorable team working tirelessly on Rebecca's care. If anything is excellent, the blessing of watching a miracle unfold. Or praiseworthy, the blessing of worshiping a Lord who is worthy to be praised. Think about such things." I did. As I meditated on these things, I stopped the dreaded phrase hemorrhagic stroke from sucking any joy out of my life. Its power to produce anxiety was now rendered impotent.

And when I dwelt on the bountiful blessings in my life happening at that very moment, the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, did guard my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus, a true, unexpected miracle. Thank you, Lord. Even when the troubles and trials of life come, we can choose what we meditate on. I love how Max Lucado puts it in his book. He says, "Life gives you lemons. You don't have to suck on them." We can think about the blessings in our own lives. What can we be grateful for? Find the things in your life that, you know what? So many of us take for granted.

I mean, think about the air you breathe, the access to clean water and food, the people you might have the blessing to be with, technology that allows us right now to be together, the freedom to worship God and to serve Him. And not only is being grateful for what you have, meditating on those things good for you, good for your brain, good for your health, but it is also God's will for you. In Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, he writes, "Give thanks in all circumstances, all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

You know, everything we've been studying this month and today, all these things are being backed up by science. And scientists and researchers are studying all these things and writing blog posts about how to be happy or how to, you know, the science of mindfulness and wellness and happiness and studying all, all those things, trying to help people be more happy. But listen, there is a difference between what they're doing and what we're talking about tonight. Because what we're learning and what we're meditating on, it doesn't end at enlightenment or some sort of temporary happiness.

But what we're talking about and what we've been talking about the last month, what that does is it leads us not only to peace, but the source of peace, the source of joy, the source of happiness. And that brings us to the fourth place we can look to and meditate. And that is Christ. What brings me to tears time and time again is when I really meditate on the gospel of Jesus. And you know what? When we gather together right now, when we sing songs of worship, when we read scripture, we're meditating on the gospel of Jesus Christ, that God loves you and he loves me so much that he sent Jesus, the son of God, both man and deity, to live on this earth and experience everything we experience, but live a perfect life, sinless.

And then to go up on the cross and die innocently. And he died to pay the penalty of every sin in the world, which is death. And then God miraculously raised Jesus from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit, defeating death so that you and I don't have to be worried or anxious about death anymore. Death is not the end because Jesus rose from the dead and this is a thing. Not only do we worship a risen Savior, a living God, but the same power that raised him from the dead, the Holy Spirit lives in you and me, all of us who believe in Jesus.

And when you meditate on that, when we meditate on the gospel, it brings everything into focus and it brings everything into perspective. I don't have to dwell on my past mistakes or sins because Jesus paid it all. I don't have to worry about feeling alone and being alone today because God is with me and is in me. I don't have to worry about my future because the one who holds the future in his hands has me in his hands. And my future is secure in the salvation that I have through Christ Jesus.

You know, on the night Jesus was betrayed, the scripture that we read about when we take communion, he's about to be betrayed by one of his friends and he's about to go to this kangaroo court and be convicted and sentenced to death. And he's about to die for our sins. So before that happens, he has one last dinner with his best friends, the Last Supper. And so in that dinner he begins to tell them what's going to happen, that he has to leave. And I have to go and they start freaking out. Like, "Leave? We've spent the last three... I left my job and I've been with you for three years, 24/7. Where are you going?" He's like, "Where I'm going, you can't come. I will try." And he's like, "I know." And he knew how troubled their hearts were.

And he goes on to tell them, "But listen, when I leave, the Father, God, will send to you a comforter, an advocate, the Holy Spirit, who will be with you and live inside of you." And then he tells the disciples this, and he's telling this to you today. "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. It's coming. But take heart. I have overcome the world."

Church, God wants you to live in peace, have calm and chaos, and to continually leave in that. And you can experience it. You can experience peace and calm in the chaos of this world. Remember what we've learned this month. Celebrate God's goodness. Ask for help. Leave your concerns with Him and meditate on good things. Paul has one final verse in this section that's going to end our evening and our series. Philippians 4 verse 9. "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you."

Let's take all these truths that we have learned and put it into practice and we can experience peace from the source of peace. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your love and grace. We thank you for the miracle of our minds and our brains and how powerful and how intricate and how cool they are. Science is just beginning to grasp how amazing of a creation it is. May our minds be filled with what you want them to be filled with as we meditate on the awe-inspiring beauty in the world around us. The blessings that we can count each day and the amazing truth of the gospel. And I pray each person listening to this will experience that supernatural peace that you offer us. Peace and comfort and calm even when the world around us in our circumstances are in chaos. Help us to remember that our past is forgiven, that you are with us each day and our future is secure in you. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.