Scripture Passage

Psalm 19:7-14

Sermon Text

Our Thoughts Form Us

Our thinking controls our life, our thinking controls our emotions, our decisions, our lifestyle, and our future. If I think that I’m ugly constantly, then I’ll become ugly. If I think that I’m miserable, then ultimately I’ll become miserable. That’s what happens. Thinking is very important because it really influences how you see yourself. And often thinking is influenced by our experience in the environment. You know, for example, your parents are always, kind of insulted you, then you form certain thinking. That’s why the soldiers when they come back from the war zone, their thinking is very much distorted, influenced by their experience. So thinking is very important. It really determines your identity and your life. That’s why it is very important that you think about, you reflect and care about, what you’re thinking every day, every moment of your life.

 

Cloudy Minds

Well, what are you thinking? What is your thinking like? So our thinking is so important in our lives. It is directly related to your happiness. If your thinking is distorted, if you’re thinking is unhappy than it is impossible to live a happy life. But when we really look at ourselves, observe ourselves, our thinking is not very good. Often we realize that we don’t do healthy thinking. We are surrounded by thoughts of worries, fear, and anxiety. And often negative and dark thoughts fill our minds, even about other people too, instead of having positive thinking about other people, we have more negative things to say. We have more negative thoughts about other people. Our thinking is often very distorted. It is scattered and has no focus. Since our life is shaped by our thinking, it is hard to be happy when our thoughts are not very good. You know, you’re happy not because of your environment. Your thoughts, you always carry around, circumstances come and go. But your thoughts, your thinking, always you carry that around with you. So, your happiness depends on rather, on your thinking rather than your environment. No matter how much good food you may have, if your thoughts are filled with unhappiness, you can never be happy. So thinking, we have to do something about our thinking. But when we try to do something about your thinking, you realize this aspect of thinking or nature of thinking, you realize that thinking is hard to control. That’s what you realize. When you start controlling your thinking or think about your thinking, you realize that thinking has a mind of its own. It is really hard to control. It is so, so wild and has a mind of its own and it just goes wherever it goes, it’s like it has wings and flies wherever it wants to go.

 

Taking Control

It takes us sometimes to where we don’t want to go. I don’t want to go there, but thinking just takes us there. Sometimes it attacks us all of a sudden, maybe you’re not ready. It just hits us really hard. Other times, thoughts of dark clouds surround us and we realize that we don’t control our thoughts. Thoughts control us. We are like hostages of our own thinking. You don’t have ownership of our thinking rather or sometimes thinking seems to have ownership of us. So you should never let your untamed thoughts take control over you. That’s very important. You should never let your untamed thoughts take control over you. We have to discipline our thoughts. You know, there’s a pathway for our thoughts too. There’s a first thing that I said in the “Inner Voice” the first day the “Inner Voice” is about thinking has a pathway, has a road. It is a pathway for our thoughts to flow like a river. It is very important to create a good pathway so that your thinking flows in a certain direction. Have you experienced some people, they talk and talk and talk and at the end always gets the same place? I mean, do you talk about anything else? And then finally, they still talk about the same thing. They’re fixed on the thing because there is a pathway. They just go around and find the pathway to get to that negative place that you don’t want to be.

 

Pathway

Spiritual discipline is about creating a pathway, a good pathway for your thoughts to flow to a good place. When you go to a mountain, you see a pathway. It is not made by construction workers. It is created because so many people walk the same path over and over again. In the same way, we cannot create a pathway for our thoughts overnight. Just because you think about good things once or twice or several times it doesn’t create a pathway, but when you continuously think about good things, then pathway is created, so repetition is a very important, then the road can be created and once the road is created, then our thinking goes in that way, so it’s you have to make it like a rhythm of your life. I believe that the best way to discipline our thinking is to meditate God’s word every day. Not once in a while, it’s useless. It is important to meditate the word of God every day. You have to do it every day. You have to make it your life rhythm so you don’t even think about it. You just do it in the morning. You get up, you will brush your teeth automatically. You don’t even have an make an effort. Some who don’t do it, please do it. It’s good for other people :D. I mean, you don’t even think about it. So meditating God’s word every day, make it as a rhythm. Automatically you do it. If you keep doing that, you will see your thinking flow in a certain direction because the pathway is now created.

 

Sweet Like Honey

But if you think about gloomy thoughts all the time, 24 hours a day, even in your sleep, the negative pathway will be created for you and you’ll be enslaved to it. You’ll become a hostage of your own thinking. David loved God’s Word so much, not just because of its content, but because he experienced that the Word of God does that to his life. He creates a certain pathway for his thinking to flow. He experienced that. He knew that our thinking is uncontrollable, but when he meditated on the Word of God, it starts controlling your thinking. This is what he said. “The ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether more to be desired are the thing gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.” He experienced the sweetness of the Word. Not just content, but what it does in his thinking, what it does in his life. It does so much good to him. So you’re meditating on God’s Word was like honey to him. That’s why he did every day. This is what he said. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation on my heart be acceptable to you oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” I think it’s so important that we do that. The best thing that we can meditate, I believe is God’s Word. You can meditate on Shakespeare. You can meditate on famous philosophers and all that stuff. But I think God’s Word is the best thing to use to meditate. The word of God refreshes our soul. The word of God gives us wisdom. Wisdom to the Foolish God’s Word gives us joy. God’s Word enlightens our eyes. What more can you ask for? I hope that you use God’s Word! Precious gold is out there and some people don’t even touch it. What is so precious? And when you meditate on that, what it does to you is so precious and so good. And I don’t know why people don’t do that. As you start the life of meditation, you will realize that your life is changing slowly. Is that a really radical change. It’s not an overnight kind of change. It’s not a change that you’re aware of all of a sudden. It’s changing sometimes so slowly happening but so surely. You say to yourself, “Oh! I don’t worry anymore. I used to worry a lot, but how come I don’t worry anymore?” And as you realize, how come I feel good about myself? I used to feel very bad about myself, but how come I feel good about myself?

 

Acceptance

You realize this kind of change is happening. Before you feel that, “oh, I’m so miserable.” But you realize that you’re okay. The first thing that the meditation of the Word of God does is this. It frees you from your guilt. Guilt is a scary thing. Guilt makes all of us depressed and dark. Guilt makes us feel ashamed. The life of meditation, you realize that God sees even our hidden errors, hidden flaws. See, as you start doing the meditation of the Word of God, what you discover is grace, and that grace finds even your hidden faults, but it’s okay. You don’t feel exposed or totally a shame, but you are exposed to that a hidden fault and yet you accept that and you experience the power of grace forgiving that hidden faults. This is the what’s David found, he said in 1912 “but who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults.” He experienced that.

 

One at a Time 

You know, as you start doing the meditation of the Word of God, you realize that the fact that God loves you is a miracle. How could God love me? You realize that that is a miracle because he sees all the things within me, even hidden things, and yet he still loves me. And then you’re completely free from that guilt that has oppressed you all your life. Okay. We’ll experience our soul become refreshed. Soul becoming refreshed. You experience inner renewal inside. It’s kind of, you feel your inner self is renewed. You become you, you, you, you find confidence and new strength. You become courageous. If I perish, I perish kind of attitude. If I perish, I perish kind of attitude. New courage, new strength before small problems that really scared you. You see, you got so scared and intimidated, but you’re not scared and intimidated anymore by these small waves and small problems anymore. You have the courage to deal with your problems. One at a time.

 

Brightness

Your life becomes bright. Your face shines brightly. You know, face has to shine. It has to be bright. Your face has to be bright. Not gloomy like this. Yes, you have to raise that. You know, when you smile, it goes up, right? So don’t go like this. It goes down, right? But raise up, your face has to be bright. Your thinking becomes clear because inner strength, inner strength, you raise you experience within you. Third. When you meditate on the Word of God, you’ll get insights about life. God’s Word gives wisdom to the foolish and opens our eyes. You become mature, once your eyes are open when you look back on your life. “Oh my goodness, how self-centered I was.” You realize because you have become mature, you see about life. We studied Joseph on Wednesday and Joseph had a dream, but his dream is not as important as his interpretation of dreams. He had the power and the ability to interpret dreams then he had the ability to interpret his life. What happens in your life is not as important how you interpreted what happened in your life. Lots of things happen in your life. but many people don’t even know what that means. But Joseph knew exactly what that meant. So what happened to you is not as important as how you interpret what happened to you. For example, Joseph’s brother, they interpreted the dream in a wrong way, so they tried to kill Joseph, but Joseph knew, Joseph was able to read God’s plan in that dream. Whatever happened to you, whatever is happening in your life, it’s not just happening randomly and accidentally. There is a message in what is happening in your life. If you are able to hear the message and if you are able to detect God’s movement in that, then you get insights about life. And it’s you to the meditation of the Word of God. You experience that wisdom in your life. When we have that wisdom, we’ll enjoy the happiness in any circumstances through your meditation. I pray that your thinking changes and you may experience life’s happiness. I see many people around me, some people, they are tormented by fear and negative thinking. I feel so bad. They’re attractive, they’re smart and all that, but they’re thinking is totally distorted and then destroyed their lives and they are not happy all their lives. They’re not happy because of that. I hope that all of you start taking the meditation of the word of God. Seriously. It’ll do a lot of good for you.

 

Habit

As I shared, this Wednesday with a women’s Bible study, I write a journal. I write two journals every day, one in the morning, one in the evening, one in the morning. I think about, dream about the day. It’s not a long journal. Sometimes it’s just a few words. It shouldn’t be really burdensome to you, it should be enjoyable. Uh, but in the evening, I always reflect on and how God moved in my life and a lot of thanks in my journal. Don’t ever go to sleep with negative thoughts in your mind during your sleep. It’ll affect you. Always sleep with positive thoughts before you go to sleep. In your life, if you see good things, don’t just say it’s a good thing. Once you see this good thing, make a habit of it. That’s what’s important. You see something good. Make a habit of it.

 

Do Good!

Every Sunday I make coffee for our praise team. When I first come in the morning, I make coffee. That’s the least I can do for the people. Serve the church. Sorry ESM, if you want to, I’ll do that too xD. But I do that every week without missing it because I make a habit of it. Whatever good things that you do, make a habit of it. If you have negative thoughts, shake it off. Shake it off. Don’t let it stay. If you have a positive thought, keep it. Keep it in your soul. Keep it in your heart. Do that automatically. But many people do the opposite. Good things. They just let it go. Bad things, they think about it all the time, all night. Oh, she said that he said that. Don’t do that. That’s not good. You know, shake it off. Bad things, shake it off. Good things. Keep it. Do the meditation. You’re not going to be a saint or you’re not gonna be a superman or superwoman, but it will do so much good to your lives right now, Paul, Reverend Paul Kim is sitting here. He loves meditation and he can teach you one of these days. He does that a lot. He even taught us at a senior level. So I hope that he can’t do that for us one day. But do the meditation of the Word of God every day. Now, once in a while, you will really benefit you so much.