Jesus At The Center

Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Isaiah 26:3 “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”

Isaiah 26:3 (Message)

People with their minds set on you,

you keep completely whole,

Steady on their feet,

because they keep at it and don’t quit.

Depend on God and keep at it

because in the Lord God you have a sure thing.

Today’s Message:

Get Your Mind On Jesus

A Christ-Centered Mind

Over the past few weeks, we’ve taught you how to make Jesus The Center of your life in every area of your life. Although, we will never be able to cover every single area of our lives through preaching and teaching this series. I will definitely teach you the principle of making Jesus the Center of your life.

Jesus being the center of our lives simply mean, Jesus is the priority. Everything else comes AFTER we have spent time with Jesus. I will add, making Jesus priority is not just seeking Him at the beginning of our day. This relationship of prioritizing Jesus is also, talking to Jesus about every single decision in our lives. Making sure, before we decide our fate, that Jesus has spoken to us and therefore our corresponding action is, we are not stepping out on our own, but rather, we are stepping out on FAITH!

This brings us to today’s message: Get Your Mind On Jesus. Living Life, with a Christ-Centered Mind.

The Cleveland Clinic wrote a BRAIN FACT: Every day your brain processes about 70,000 thoughts.

If this is true, then we cannot afford to even think without Jesus. If we be honest, for some of us, we find it difficult to keep our minds focused properly on one thing a day without the competition of 69,999 other thoughts entering our minds, competing for our attention, affection and decision-making power.

If I just preached this simple yet mind-blowing stat, then I would say that we find ourselves in a mental dilema daily of losing our minds.

These types of thoughts doesn’t usually result in peace of mind that God gives us.

When I think about the stat, I am pushed to praise God for two things:

First, I want to stop and say thank God, for not letting me know how close I have been to losing my mind.

Secondly, I want to stop and say thank you Lord, for the times when I just knew my mind wasn’t coming back and you kept my mind anyway.

It is this praise that leads me into this new phase in my thought life. Here it is: “Since you kept my mind, now I have to keep it.” Because, although I cannot control what comes into my mind. I do get to control what STAYS on my mind.

What I have learned about my personal Spiritual Formation is this: I don’t have to focus on kicking everything out of my mind. I just have to SET my mind on Jesus and the stuff that’s trying to get into my mind won’t have room to get in because my mind is SET on Jesus.

Look at somebody and say: No Vacancy!

In this small little verse in Isaiah 26:3, Isaiah teaches us what God will do, if we stay focused on Jesus. He tells us in Isaiah 26:3 “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”

Perfect Peace

1. Only God Can Give Perfect Peace

2. Peace Is the Offspring of Trust

3. Perfect Peace Takes Place in Spite of External Conflicts

The Hebrew is “peace, peace” instead of perfect peace.

If I was in the streets or hanging around some younger people, they would probably say it like this: That peace be peacing

The Perfect Tense Overview​ Language • Morphology The verb tense used by the writer to describe a completed verbal action that occurred in the past but which produced a state of being or a result that exists in the present.

Perfect ​Concept Describes something that is complete, whole, or without blemish. Can also refer to someone who is blameless and has integrity.

perfect thing​ Noun Sense anything that is without flaw or defect.

Peace Counseling Theme — A state of inner tranquility.

A state of tranquility or wholeness; shalom.

When we put these two things together it means peace that has nothing missing or nothing broken. It is unfathomable peace. It is all the peace I will ever need to have for the rest of my life.

Isaiah continues to tell us how we can have this perfect peace…He said, we have a responsibility in participating in having this peace. Here’s our part. We have the OPTION to keep our minds STAYED on Jesus.

Why do you say option Pastor B? Because, God has made us free moral agents and if we don’t want perfect peace we don’t have to take it. We can CHOOSE to live in the chaos of this world just like every other unregenerated mind on this planet and God will NOT force us to live in perfect peace a single day of our lives. Just be aware, You can’t live in peace when you’re living like hell.

I am amused to watch believers who do not seem to care to have peace. Some people literally can only function in chaos. Some people have been around chaos and craziness so long, that peace looks like abuse. WHY?

Peace is a thief. It will rob you of the weapons of your flesh. It will rob you of your toxic narrative that you want others to think. It will snatch away your excuses for not changes and wanting everyone to take you just like you are. It will take away your desire for your comfort of control and chaos. Peace will take away the fight you have with people that is stimulated from the fight within yourself. The Bible says, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.” It’s hard to have peace with others when you don’t have peace within yourself. Peace has the power to turn hell into heaven.

Another personal Spiritual Formation moment for me is when you find an individual who seems to just have it out for you. They’re constantly trying to drive you into their chaos, is not because they actually hate you. They hate the peace in you. When you have that kind of peace the chaos in them says, let’s see how long they gone keep it. So the bell rings and the fight in them, starts a fight with you. But even then, I am a witness that God will keep you in perfect peace when you keep your mind stayed on Him.

Someone might be asking right now, what does keeping my mind STAYED on Jesus look like? How does it work? What kind of mind is that?

Here it is:

A Stayed Mind is - lean, lay rest, support, unflinching, firm mind.

It’s the kind of mind that holds you together while everything else is falling apart. It’s the kind of mind that doesn’t change because things are changing. It’s the kind of mind that can handle the pressure and keep on praising and praying regardless as to what is going on in your life.

Let’s look at this from a counseling perspective. What happens when we choose NOT to keep our minds STAYED on Him.

When we choose not to keep our minds STAYED on Jesus, anxiety happens.

Anxiety. Feelings of anxiety are among the most common emotions experienced by humans. One can easily postulate that both Adam and Eve experienced anxiety when they became aware of their nakedness and hid themselves from God (Gen. 3:7–8). They had a vague sense that something was wrong. While they did not yet know this change of circumstance was due to sin, they did know it was not pleasing to God and naively attempted to hide. One can imagine they experienced nervous energy as they sewed fig leaves into clothing for themselves. It is easy to imagine they had ruminative thoughts about what was happening and what would occur when they came face to face with God. For the first time in the history of humanity there was a sense of vulnerability and an apprehension that something bad was about to occur; these emotions characterize the phenomenon of anxiety. It is important to remember that this is a state of emotional experience that is contrary to what God wanted for people (Isa. 48:18).

Anxiety is psychologically experienced as a combination of looming dread or impending danger and a vague uneasiness. There are also associated symptoms of mild agitation, racing thoughts, impaired sleep, and difficulty in calming oneself. There are parallel physiological experiences of sustained muscle tension and/or trembling, increased heart rate, and disturbed breathing—either as hyperventilation (i.e., breathing too fast) or as a tendency to hold one’s breath. These characteristics produce a sense of heightened awareness or alertness that frequently disturbs concentration, memory, and a person’s ability to feel emotionally comfortable. These psychological and physiological responses combine to make anxiety a psychophysiological disturbance.

The first encounter with this experience is termed separation anxiety, which is developmentally normal around six to nine months of age and is characterized by a fear of strangers or of separating from one’s home or the persons to whom the child is attached. This may reoccur at any time during childhood or adolescence, but it is commonly associated with significant milestones, such as starting elementary or junior high school. (In other words, leaving the old to start something new can create separation anxiety).

Anxiety can be relatively brief and situational, termed an adjustment disorder in the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), or more prolonged and diffuse, as in the case of generalized anxiety disorder. The physiological symptoms of heightened arousal associated with anxiety can prompt a panic attack that may or may not be associated with agoraphobia. As a unique entity, agoraphobia is a feeling of powerlessness and a fear that one might lose control if he or she ventures from a safe environment. This is different from social phobia, which is a fear of having to engage in social interactions. Through conditioning a person can become fearful of almost anything and experience anxiety when confronted with that particular thing or situation; this is called a specific phobia.

Freud’s (1936) work crystallized the concept of anxiety as a psychological entity. He postulated that anxiety is either objective (e.g., reality-based) or neurotic in origin (Freud, 1933). The latter category is exemplified by various expressions of general, free-floating dread or apprehension that typifies what Freud called the “neurotic lifestyle.” Ever the pragmatist, Freud saw reality-based anxiety as a feeling born from those experiences that we have learned are best to avoid. A chronic low self-esteem that makes me too nervous to effectively drive my car for fear that I might cause a crash would be a superego-based anxiety. A nervousness that is based upon how others might perceive and judge my driving would be a neurotic anxiety that might make my driving an automobile ineffective. Being hesitant to drive because I was in a car crash two weeks ago might, however, be an example of reality-based anxiety.

Existential theorists, however, differ with Freud and do not see anxiety as an intrapsychic struggle. Rather, they look at this phenomena as being a result of humanity’s struggle for meaning and being. From a Christian perspective this creates problems, since the existentialists see humanity as its own metric. Without a solid, shared foundation of meaning (e.g., the Scriptures), humans, in this view, are doomed to struggle with the questions of how a life can be lived responsibly and authentically.

We live in an anxiety-inducing culture. It is so easy to fear failure or as if we are not good enough.

If these anxiety-inducing thoughts STAY on our minds then this is what’s keeping us from keeping our minds STAYED on Jesus.

The law of physics say, two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. So, let’s get rid of the lie right now that we can let fear and peace live in us at the same time.

Some of you, by now, are saying, Pastor B. I hear you. I realize that peace is available IF I keep my mind stayed on Him. So, can you give me some things to think about? Yes, I’m glad you asked.

The first prescription I’m going to give you is:

1.) Fear. 2 Timothy 1:7 “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

2.) Anxiety. Philippians 4:6-7 “do not be anxious about anything, 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 your minds in Christ Jesus.”

3.) A Happy Mind. Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”