Hold That Thought

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Good morning. It's good to be here. This is the second week in this series, How to Be Brave, and it's exciting. I love this book of Philippians. It's one of my favorites in the Bible, and we're just looking at the chapter four and having three themes from this chapter. Today it's Hold That Thought. We're looking at the idea of what we think and how that affects us and what our focus should be. But before we begin, we're going to pray. I can't ignore what's been going on in the news. I'm sure most of you know what's happened recently in Charlottesville and the white supremacists and white nationalists and others that gathered together and the violence that occurred and the death that occurred and all of that. One thing that the Christian church needs to do is stand up for the sake of the gospel and let that be known that the gospel, that racism of any type is incompatible with the message of Jesus Christ and the gospel, that there aren't lesser or greater races or people. So I don't condone violence from any side, but we have to realize that we need to stand as a nation and as a Christian church that here and the way that we live is that every tribe, every people, every nation, every tongue, you know, the way Revelation speaks about it, there's one family on earth, right? And we pray for our nation and our leaders to make sure that that's clearly enunciated. And for healing and for dialogue and for peaceful resolution and reconciliation. So let's pray for our nation right now in that light, as well as as we enter into this time how to be brave. Lord God, we see the anger and the resentments and the ideologies that are really incompatible. We want to take every thought and hold them captive to you, Lord. Every thought that would be incompatible with your gospel, with your truth that we see. Lord Jesus, you want everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. And so, Lord, we pray that you would bring reconciliation and healing to our nation and that the truth, the truth that all people are created in your image, Lord, and there is no one superior to another. And we pray, Lord, that that is clearly enunciated by the Christian church across this nation and, Lord, by our leaders. We pray for all those who are trying to bring peace to tense situations. And we ask that you would be truly guarding and keeping them in your care. Bring healing, Lord. Bring something good out of this ugly evil that has happened in the last couple of days. And we pray more for your kingdom to come and your will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Bless us, Lord, as we now read in Philippians and consider these words of Paul and apply them to our lives, your words, your invitation to look at what is noble and to focus on what is true and trustworthy and praiseworthy and just and honorable and excellent, that we think on these things, Lord, and focus our lives on all of them. All this we pray in Jesus, in your name, amen. So we're going to be looking in Philippians 4 again. I'm going to read the first verse that introduces this section and then jump down to 8 and 9. So that's all we're going to look at today. And then we're, like last week, going to share a story in the Bible, a story in the Gospels, another storm story that fits in, I think, very well with this idea of focus. Focus. Do you ever feel unfocused? I think the older I get, the more ADHD I get. I don't know about you, right? I used to, I don't know. It's just like my mind can be everywhere all at once and not anywhere in particular. But focus is extremely important. So let's look at these words. Therefore, my brothers whom I love and long for my joy and crown stand firm thus in the Lord my beloved. 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, which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. Love that. Dr. Seuss. Oh, the things you can think. Have you ever read that book? No. Oh, come on. Who's a Seuss fan here? Anybody? Yeah. Oh, the things you can think. You can think about red. You can think about pink. You can think up a horse. Oh, the things you can think. Seuss was right about that. We think a lot of thoughts and so much of our thinking. It's all over the place. I was reading this week. I don't think it's verified because I don't even know what is a thought. Have you ever thought about that? How do you define a thought? But researchers, others, philosophers have said we think between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day. It's a lot of thoughts. I don't know. So that's a big gap there as well. But there are so many thoughts that we think we don't even thi...