Defeat Your Negative Thoughts

Connection/Tension

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We’re continuing a series called Winning the War in Your Mind.

I wonder, how many of you are in the middle of a pretty decent life, yet still find yourself complaining a lot? Why is that, that our lives can be pretty good most of the time, yet our minds still drift to the things we don’t like?

What have we learned so far about our minds? Our minds are a battlefield. And most of life’s battles are won or lost in the mind. In other words, The life you have (in so many aspects) is often a reflection of the thoughts you think. What comes out in your mind eventually comes out in your life. And it’s almost impossible to have a positive life when our mind is consumed with negative thoughts.

I want to be clear about something: I’m not promoting simply trying to have a positive outlook, a kind of happy slappy view of life where you have baseless faith that everything will just work out in the end. Rather, we are changing our mindset based on the truth of God’s word. Let me remind you of a key passage we’ve already looked at:

2 Corinthians 10:3–5 “Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

This morning we are going to go a little deeper and look how to Defeat Your Negative Thoughts.

Text and Context

If you’ve been around the past couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about the power of our minds and how complex God has made them. One things we’ve discussed is that we have these neural pathways in our minds that our thoughts travel along. They are like a dirt road that has developed ruts. Every time you think a thought, you’re actually creating these pathways in your brain. And the more often you think a thought, the easier it is to think that thought again.

Want to expand on that today. I want to talk about Cognitive Bias or sometimes called Mental Filters. What is a cognitive bias. Cognitive bias: mistake in reasoning based on personal experiences or preferences. We could call it a mental filter or mental framework in your life that impacts how you think.

For instance, many people have grown up around very abusive men. Because you were hurt and abused by men, now when you see a man - most of them aren’t hurtful or abusive - but because of your experience, your filter tends to shape how you view all men. You filter causes you to make an inaccurate judgment about someone.

Or say you grew up in a poor family, and you often heard your parents talking about rich people being evil or greedy or just bad. And then when you’re older you begin to experience prosperity in your life, and you might feel guilty or ashamed. Even though you’ve done nothing wrong, your filter causes you to judge your life wrongly.

The filters you have shape how you see life. What is interesting, if you change the filter, you change how you feel. A cognitive bia is a default filter. It’s where we are pre-wired to interpret a situation a certain way. Cognitive bias causes you to find evidence for what you already believe.

This is why two different people can respond totally differently to the exact same situation. It’s not the facts that are different, but their filter.

Two people get identical feedback at work - one is offended, the other thankful

Two different people walk into church together, one convinced all Christians are hypocrites, while other experiencing the very same thing feel God

You can find this in Scripture in Numbers 13 & 14. The Israelites are on the border of the promised land. Moses sends twelve spies out to explore the land. When they come back, two of the spies are like “this land is amazing, everything we could ever hope for. Let’s go take it!” Ten came back with a negative report, “the land devours people, and the people there are giants, and we are like grasshoppers in their eyes.” Were they in two different places? Same exact facts, yet two had a positive report and ten a negative one. What’s different? It’s not the facts, it’s the filter.

And it’s not just the filter that matters, but it’s also the frame. You can be in the very same situation, but How you frame something determines how you see it.

There’s a tool that therapists use that we can adapt called Reframing. Reframing: creating a different way of looking at a situation or relationship by changing its meaning.

Reframing Illustration (use photo on stage)

Let’s say you wake up, and it’s Monday morning - ugh - and you determine ahead of time that it’s already going to be a bad day. “This is going to be a hard day, I’ve got so much to do, I can’t stand the people I work with, I’m so overwhelmed, I’m tired, life is hard, my car is a piece of junk, my husband drives me crazy, why did I have all these kids”… You can frame your day that way.

OR, you can frame it another way - same situation, but you reframe it: “I’ve got a lot going today, but I’m thankful that God will be with me in it. I’m thankful he’s for me. I’m thankful I have a job, I’m thankful that even though my car is a clunker it still gets me where I need to go. Some of my coworkers drive me crazy, but I’m thankful for them because most of them are pretty good people, and I think today is going to be a good day and I’m going to get done what I need to get done.”

It’s not the facts that are different, it’s the filter and the frame - how we see it and and how we choose to respond to it. What do we know is true:

One slide, coming in at same time

You can’t control what happens to you.

But you can control how you frame it.

Let’s make this a little more personal. Think about your life for a moment. About the expectations you have in your mind. How many of you by now wanted something in your life, but you’ve experienced the opposite.

Worked hard, got a degree, but couldn’t get into your field and now working a job you’re overqualified for.

Dreamed of having a great marriage, you married your sweetheart, and then life happened and your ended up where you never wanted to be - broken hearted and divorced.

I thought I’d be married by now, I’d have kids by now, I’d have started my business by now, I’d be leading my company by now, I’d be financially secure by now…

If you ever wake up and think this isn’t what I wanted, I wanted the exact opposite, Paul knows exactly how you feel. Here is someone who only wanted to serve God. He felt called by God to go to Rome to preach the gospel, because he knew if he could preach the gospel in Rome it would spread all over the world. His dream was to Rome to preach. But instead of being in Rome as a preacher, he’s there as a prisoner, under house arrest, waiting for possible execution. All these things he wanted, and he got the exact opposite.

Paul could have framed it one of two ways. He could have framed it on the negative side. This is what he would have written if he’d have framed it that way. I’m reading from Philippians 1:12-13, from the NWV, the New Whiners Version.

“Now I want you to know, beloved, that what has happened to me really sucks. As a result of the hell I’ve been through, I’m quitting the Vineyard and never going back to church. (NWV)” That’s what he could have said in the NWV. I should explain for those who might be new to church or the Bible, that is not a real version. I made that up, so don’t go looking for it in your YouVersion app.

But instead, here is how he actually framed his situation:

Philippians 1:12–13 “I want you to know, beloved, that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ;”

What most people would think is bad, Paul frames it as good. Look what’s happening: He’s saying, I’m locked up with a Roman guard, and guess what, every four hours I get a new one! I get to preach to a captive audience, and I get a new influential person every four hours! Who has sit there and listen to my 4 hour sermon on how good Jesus is. Who do you think the real prisoner is here. Verse 14:

Philippians 1:14 “and most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.”

I want talk about how you can reframe your story and relationships. You’ve got a battle going on in your mind. Your life has complications. We all do. There’s stuff going on at our work, stuff in our family, stuff with your kids, fighting with I your spouse stuff, bad news on tv stuff, stuff with our health. There’s always stuff. And so often so much of our life is pretty decent, but often it’s this small stuff that derails our thinking. So how can we reframe our story and relationships. Let me give you three simply tools.

One slide, coming in one at a time

Reframing Your Story and Relationships

1. Thank God for what didn’t happen.

A 20 year old girl said “Mom and dad I’ve got some really bad news to tell you. You may want to sit down. Let me tell you the whole story, and I want you to stay calm, but it’s really bad news. I went out to a bar, I met a guy, we drank too much, he came back to my apartment, we hooked up, and I’m embarrassed to say I’m pregnant. The good news is that his probation will be over in a year, and he will start looking for a job once he’s out of rehab. And he will consider marrying me, but since we can’t afford to get married right now, he’s just going to move in with me. And she let it hang for a moment. Then she said, actually, none of that it true. The truth is that I got a “D” on my chemistry exam, and I just wanted you to know that things could be a whole lot worse.

Thank God for what didn’t happen.

Paul could have been negative about a mission to Rome - how expensive it was going to be, having to work out the logistics of travel, staying safe on roads filled with bandits. But by God’s providence, and because of some false accusations made by the Jews, Paul got an all-expenses paid trip to Rome with a cohort of Roman soldiers. It didn’t cost him a dime, and he arrived right where he wanted to be!

Missed a goal at work and didn’t get your bonus. You’re devastated by that. But you can thank God that you didn’t actually lose your job. And suddenly you’re reframing your situation, instead of just focusing on what’s wrong you can see what’s right.

You might get in a car wreck like Julie did last year. And you could frame it as, wow, that is going to be so expensive to fix. We are going to be so inconvenienced as we wait to get her car back. Or, you can reframe it as, thank God she and no one else was hurt.

In the whole scheme of things there are occasionally some things that are a big deal, but most of the things that get us off track are not that big of a deal. And if we will just take a step back and look with a different perspective - change our frame - and say, God thank you for what didn’t happen.

2. Practice pre-framing.

Decide how you will frame a situation before you engage the situation. Why does this matter? Our thoughts or frames shape what we experience. If you go in and say this day is going to be horrible, I hate these people, it’s so dull - do you think you’re going to have a good day? Or you go in saying, we’re going to have a good day, we’re going to make it fun, we’re going to get things accomplished! - you’ll have a good day.

You’re go with some friends to a concert - I can’t stand going to these things, I hate all these stupid events, it’s going to be a pain to park, I can’t stand crowds - OR - you know what, I’m thankful I’m with some people I enjoy and we’re going to have a good time.

I’ll give you a personal example. I hate funerals. Actually I hate weddings too. For a long time my frame was: They are time consuming. They take a lot of extra work on top of everything else I have to do. At funerals for people I don’t know I have to pretend to be sad. At weddings I have to pretend to be happy - even though I have a thousand other things to do… You get the point.

But I’ve learned to reframe these situations. Now I pre-frame them by saying, I get to serve people and bless them on what is the happiest day of their life, or assure them of God’s love and presence on the saddest day of their life.

Paul could have been negative about being in prison. But instead he pre-framed it - “what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel!”

3. Look for God’s goodness.

Cognitive bias means you always find what you are looking for! If you want to look for the good you will find good. If you look for the bad you will find bad. If you want to see what’s wrong every single day, you can find what’s wrong. If you want to not like people you can find a ton of reasons to not like people. But if you want to look for God, if you want to see the best, you will.

It’s like the difference between a vulture and a hummingbird. (Show picture) Every day, what does a vulture see? Dead stuff, road kill. That’s what it’s looking for. But what does a hummingbird see? Every day the hummingbird finds sweet things. You will always find what you are looking for.

If you want to see what’s bad, what’s wrong with the world, what’s negative, you will live a very depressing life. Instead, if you want to look for where God is working, you will see that he is still on the throne, he is still good, he still answers prayers. Paul could have seen the negative results of his imprisonment, instead he saw that because of it all the other believers were emboldened to share their faith without fear.

It’s called cognitive reframing. A good therapist will give you this tool to empower you to decide the meaning of an event. I want to take it up a level. Let’s do cognitive reframing, not just where you get to decide, but let’s let Jesus help you decide the meaning of a situation. Let Jesus change your frame.

Gospel/Response

The last couple of years I’ve gotten to meet with several pastors in my area. The big thing that has been talked about until pretty recently is how bad COVID was for our churches. Many of us are still digging out of that whole. And a common refrain is that it was the worst year ever. Maybe you said something like that as well.

When COVID hit that February, we followed the State CDC guidelines and closed down for like three months. And then there was the, if you reopen you are dangerous and don’t care about people’s wellbeing - that’s what some thought, but others thought if you don’t reopen you don’t have faith and you’re allowing too much government control - you’re a sheeple. Then there was the mask thing, if you ask people to wear a mask you’re a flaming liberal, if you don’t wear a mask you’re dangerous to the world. And there was this rise of just hatred of Christians toward Christians, and so many people left the churches with the “I can’t worship with someone who believes that way” - and it didn’t matter which side of it you were on, in the church world it was a no win situation. And it was so easy to get caught up in this depressive mood that it was the worst year ever.

Or was it? I started looking back at pictures on my phone, I didn’t see any of that bad stuff. Here’s just a glimpse of what I saw:

We welcomed a new granddaughter, Averie (pic)

I got to spend more time than ever before with my little buddy Evie (pic)

I received a financial windfall bc my daughter, Emilie’s, tax refund got sent to us by mistake (pic)

I spent more time than ever before with my best friend and had fun doing some messages with her (pic)

I converted two of my granddaughters to OSU fans (pic)

We welcomed a seconded granddaughter, Addie (pic)

And shortly thereafter we celebrated my son’s vasectomy (pic)

When I look back at first glance to think it was the worst year ever, but actually there were so many incredible blessing when I reframe it.

The truth is that Romans 8:28 “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” We can reject those unhealthy, un-scriptural default frames - I’m a loser, I’m not smart, I’m a failure - and reframe them. We are not going to passively accept our circumstances, but we are going to actively reframe them with Jesus.

Do not interpret the goodness of God by your circumstances. Interpret your circumstances through the goodness of God.

You can’t control what happens to you. But you can control how you frame it.

Let Jesus reframe your life. Maybe you don’t see anything going real well in your life right now. Let me ask, do you have Jesus in it? (next steps slide) He loves you. God didn’t shout his love from heaven; instead he took on flesh and came to us. Jesus showed us exactly what God is like - because he is God in the flesh. And the clearest picture he gave us was his self-sacrificial love displayed on the cross. Here he took the death consequences that were coming to us because of our sin upon himself. The Bible says that whoever believes in him has their sins forgiven and receives new life. Jesus will reframe your whole story if you will let him.

For the rest of us, let me ask: who is deciding your frame? Your circumstances? Your past? Or Jesus? Ministry…