Being Spiritually Minded

Hello, everyone. I had to move this little pad to stand up on it. I'll give you a little secret. On television, I have to stand on a little pad. You know, the camera makes you look heavier, which is true, but somehow you look shorter, too. And I've had numerous occasions, but the one time I really remember three ladies came up to me. They were from Mexico. They stood there very sheepishly, and I thought maybe they couldn't speak English.

And they said, we watch you on television. And oh, you do! Yeah. And the woman said, well, we thought you would be a lot bigger. And they were noticeably disappointed, so... So I do stand on a little pad. Appreciate the special music. Appreciate all the work, the sound crew and the stage crew has to do here. I just keep services running. Appreciate the work that they do. The motto for this weekend is, Vision, Keep the End in Mind. There's a statement I want to make. I want you to just let this settle in, maybe write it down if you take notes, because this is going to be the basis for a lot of what we're going to talk about here for the rest of the service.

Mental vision is the picture you have in mind of what tomorrow is supposed to look like. Mental vision is the picture you have in your mind of what tomorrow is supposed to look like. Now, we talk about vision. That's what we're talking about today. We're going to talk about tomorrow.

Mr. Smith is going to be talking about that at the seminar. We're talking about spiritual vision. Let's just narrow this down to the concept of not physical vision, but mental vision. It is a picture you have in your mind of what tomorrow is supposed to look like. That's the problem. I don't know what tomorrow is supposed to look like. I don't know what next year or five years from now is supposed to look like. I don't know what it's going to look like. We have anxiety.

We have all kinds of problems. People say, I don't have any vision. Let's bring this down to something very simple. You have a vision every day of what that day is supposed to look like. Now, what if you have a job you hate? You don't like the people you work with. It's stressful. You have to drive to work, drive back from work, and there's always traffic. You get there, and you hate the job you do. It's tedious. It's Sunday night. You think about the next day.

You already have a picture of what that's supposed to be like. What happens? You get that knot in your stomach. You start to feel sort of bad. You start to worry. You don't sleep really well. It's like, tomorrow I have to go back to work. You have a mental picture, and it translates into an emotional picture of what tomorrow's going to be like. And you're going to show up and have a bad day no matter what. They can offer you a raise, and you're going to have a bad day because you've already decided. You have a picture of what that's supposed to look like.

But let's just say it's Sunday night. You hate your job. And Monday morning is the start of a vacation where you and some friends are going to go someplace. You and your family are going to go someplace. You're going to go down to the beach. You're going to fish. You're going to swim. You're going to have a great time. How do you feel and how do you picture the next day?

Okay, we're going to get in the car. What time are we going to leave? You start planning out, and you actually picture what you're going to do. You have a mental picture. You have a vision. What I'm going to do is we're going to pack up the car. We're going to be out of here at 7. We're going to be in Galveston by 8.30 or 9 o'clock or whatever.

We're going to be there. We're going to get out of our place, and it's going to be great. And that's what you expect. Of course, the vision and the reality don't always match up, but you have a vision. And the night before you leave is a totally different experience than the night before you go to work. So we talk about your vision of life.

You know, most people go through life. They don't care what their age. We go through life with a very vague vision of what it's supposed to look like. We have sort of a vague vision of what God wants us to do. Of course, there's people here of all ages. If I asked most 16-year-olds, what's your vision of life? You know, they say, well, I want to get a good education, have a good career, get married. Actually, that's not a vision. That's simply a list. What's that look like? I don't know. It's just what I want.

What's it look like? What is the vision? As Christians, we say that God has given us a vision. Every time we keep the Holy Days, we talk about this vision that God has given to us. Well, I know of a young man who bought into God's vision for him. Because we don't really believe that God is a vision for all of us. We believe that God has a vision for each one of us individually. This young man bought into the vision. He was excited about it. He was happy about it. He was spending his life preparing for that vision.

And there were issues in his family. There were issues in other aspects of his life. He ended up estranged from his family. And he ended up being falsely accused and put in jail. What happened to the vision God had for him? You're sitting in jail. And it's not a good environment in jail. And you're thinking, what happened? What happened to the vision God had for me? What do you do when you only have a vague vision of what the future is supposed to look like, and yet that vague vision is erased?

Something erases the vision. It gets misty and foggy, and then you can't even see it. Because you think, okay, I know what God wants for me. He wants me to get married and have a family. And then nobody comes along, it seems like, for you to marry. Well, I'm going to marry in the faith, and then you can't find anybody in the faith. Or I know what God wants for me. He wants me to be happy, and I'm going to go to college, and I'm going to get this job, and then you get out of college, and you can't find a job.

And you go months and months with no job. Or you have a job. And you say, oh, good, I have my wife, I have my kids, and I'm 35 years old, and one day you go in and they say, we're shutting this factory down, and you don't have a job. Well, that's not the vision. That's not what's supposed to happen.

You know, my vision was God was going to do all these things in my life, and then I get this sort of vague vision. At the end, I get eternal life, which is supposed to be really good when Christ comes back, and I have that. But between here and here, between today and the culmination of this vision, all these things keep happening. Things keep happening to us. And we lose our resources. Our friends turn against us. And we find that keeping God's way doesn't always produce an immediate blessing. In fact, as one of our... Mr.

Welsh talked about consequences. We have to look at consequences, and sometimes the immediate blessing of doing good is something that happens. So you say, well, that's not part of the vision. That's not how this works. How is this supposed to work? How do you connect today with the vision? You see, I have the vision. I want Christ to return to set up a kingdom on the earth. And between now and then, what am I supposed to do?

I'm going to say another statement I want you to write down, because this is important in what we're going to talk about. We're talking about some very big concepts today. Sometimes there are sermons where you go through details, and sometimes there are concepts, but this is a concept sermon. We're not just talking about the vision. We go to the piece of tabernacles, and we're supposed to come back with a vision of what God is doing.

We're actually not going to talk about the vision today. Mr. Welch already covered that pretty well. What we're going to talk about is how do you get from today to the vision? How do you get there? So write down this next thing. Many times, there's four things. Happiness, success, self-image, and our relationships with others. Oh, wow! That sums about everything in life, right? Happiness, success, our self-image, and our relationships with others.

Those things are not based on what happens to us, but how we deal with what happens to us. No, happiness is what happens to me, right? But what happens when you seem to have the perfect career, or you have the perfect husband? What happens when you have the perfect husband, and it's doing great, and one day he comes home and he says, I've met somebody else, I'm leaving you, I don't believe in God anymore, can I?

I mean, I've talked to people that that's happened to, and your happiness is destroyed. Well, the vision of the future, of Christ returning, really doesn't have a lot of impact at that moment. What happens? Because between now and the fulfillment of the vision, life happens, and life is messy. Life is always messy. Always. Now, I don't like it. I'm a firstborn. I hate that.

I hate it. But it's true. So what happens between now and the vision, the fulfillment of the vision? You can keep the vision out there, but do you know there's times when the return of Jesus Christ, when you're sick in bed, really sick, the vision and return of Jesus Christ just doesn't seem to matter much at that moment, does it? Let's be honest about it. What do we do between now and then? How do we live between that point and this point?

Psychologists talk about something called a mindset. Okay, briefly put, your mindset is your vision plus a combination of all the beliefs and assumptions you make about life. Now, the vision and the mindset don't always match up, and here's a real problem. Because today, you keep looking at the vision, a vision is something you haven't achieved yet, but your mindset is what you are today. Now, your vision can be messed up.

Your mindset can be messed up. You think, well, I can explain that. Let me bring this down to something we all can understand. A young man decides, I'm going to go look for the perfect wife. Okay, this is my vision of the perfect wife. She's got to be 5'2", 100 pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes. She's got to be beautiful by these standards that I have set. That's my vision. She's got to be really good at music. She's got to be really funny and really cute. And she's got to be... she's got to adore me. She's got to wiggle me hand and foot, take care of my every needed desire, she has to be my Juliet to my Romeo, she has to be a good cook, she has to never have a bad day.

Now, come on, guys. Most of us have thought that at one time or another. Now, I'm not going to ask the women to raise their hands. Who's looking for that kind of guy? Nobody's looking for that kind of guy. But this guy has this vision. Just like girls, I can say, okay, this is what you want as the perfect guy. And it's like, that's your vision. So what happens when this young man finds a woman, says, wow, she's everything, marries her.

Can she live up to the vision? Because it's a false vision. Of course not. But what's his mindset? She has to. So guess what he does? He's mean to her. He yells at her. He threatens to divorce her. Why? You're not matching my vision. What was the false vision? What's his mindset? That vision is my life. You're not matching it. I'm going to get rid of you. And I've seen people divorce because you don't meet my vision. There's something horribly wrong with that whole concept. But it's based on vision and mindset. So you have to have the right vision. But it's not just the right vision. You have to have the right mindset.

You have to have the right beliefs that come together that keep that vision out there and keep you moving towards the vision. You know, a lot of people never achieve a vision because they don't do the work between point A and point B. Visions happen because you get there on a journey. This is a journey. And the vision is the end of the journey. Okay, but what do I do now?

What do I do now with my vision of the perfect woman? Well, I'm in an old church of 10 people. There isn't even any woman that's not married. Well, there's one, but she's 87. What do I do? Well, maybe I need a new vision. Maybe God doesn't know what He's doing. Maybe His promises aren't fulfilled. We have to have the right vision. We have to have the right mindset. What does that mean? Let's go back a minute to the man I talked about that ended up in jail, falsely accused. He had this vision. What's remarkable about this man is he also had the right mindset.

He had the right mindset. We know his vision. Let's go to Genesis 37. He was happy about life. You know the story of Joseph, but I want you to think about Joseph a minute. Joseph receives a vision from God. Now, you're not going to receive a vision from God in a dream. You're going to receive a vision from God in the Bible. You have to understand that. That's why if you never study the Bible, you'll never get the vision.

The vision comes from God working in your mind through the Scripture. So we can come, and you can come to church, and we can preach to you and preach to you and preach to you, but you'll only see that vision partly until you get into Scripture because God personalizes the vision. Now, he made it easy on Joseph. Of course, Joseph didn't have a Bible, so he made it easy. He came to him and said, this is going to be your vision. This is what your life is going to be like. Joseph is a young man who is wealthy.

I want you to understand where he's coming from. He isn't some poor guy. This isn't a rag-to-riches story. This is a riches-to-rag story, at least in the first half of it. It's a riches-to-rags. Here's a man who was wealthy. Here's a young man, maybe late teens or 20s or something, who's on the cusp of getting married. And it's going to be great because his family will arrange a marriage for him, and they're going to go get the absolute greatest girl they can find. And he's going to have children. And he's going to live in this big family. But not only is he going to be, live in this great family, wealthy, and get married and have kids, this is the vision. Something else is going to happen. Look at Genesis 37, verse 3.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a tunic of many colors. Now you know what happens? Joseph gets everything special. His brothers are envious. And so he has a dream, verse 5. And he goes and tells his brothers, I have a vision. I know what my life's going to be all about. I got it! Wow! Dad gives me special clothes. I'm going to get all this wealth. I'm going to get a wife and kids. I'm going to work in the family business. Big family business this raising cattle. I mean, they were doing good. Everything's set in my life. And he said to them, Please hear this dream which I have dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves of the field, and behold my sheaf arose and stood upright, and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bound down to my sheaf. And he said, You know what that sounds like? That sounds like you think we're going to come bound down to you, little brother. Yes, snot knows a little twerp. We've been out here working. Some of us were around before you were born, Joe. Let's get this straight. You really think that's what life is? That's your vision of life? So what did they do? They roughed him up, threw him in a well, and sold him as a slave. Kidney's a lard, such a little punk. He thinks that he is all of us going to come and bound down to him, who does he think he is? They sold him. I know some of you had some bad relationships with your siblings. Can you imagine screaming as you're tied down to the back of a... You're tied, being dragged along by a camel, and you're screaming, Guys, the joke's over! It's over, guys! And they're dragging you along, and you're headed out across the desert. And the next day you realize they actually did this. Well, where's the dream, God? Where's the dream of my wealth and my family? His mom and dad, he's stripped from his homeland. He's taken as a slave. His wealth is gone, and everything's gone. And he has nothing. And he ends up in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Now, most people, the vision would have disappeared. That vision can't even be fulfilled. In fact, most people would have believed that God either doesn't exist or God's just a cruel jokester, right? And yet he did not. And that's what's important, because it was his mindset that took him from A to B, because life happened, and guess what? Every person in the Bible, life is messy. Nobody in the Bible goes from A to B, and it's just like, Oh, good, God gives me a vision of life. Oh, there, I'm there. I've arrived. It was great. It took me six hours. That's not how it works. This works because God says, here's your vision. Now, between A and B is how you live. But if you don't live a certain way, you never get to the vision. And this is where mindset works. Interesting, I was reading part of a book from a psychologist. He said there's only two different kinds of mindsets. And he came up with his explanations. Actually, I'm going to tell you, I believe there's only two different kinds of mindsets. But they're a little different. They're biblical. We're going to go through what the Bible says about mindset. What I want to do here is I want to show you... Now, remember, your mindset is your beliefs and assumptions about life based on your goal. So let's look at a described mindset here with this first slide.

And as we do, very simple.

A mindset starts with your motivations, actions, and emotions. That's simple, right? Okay, I have certain what motivates me. Now, this gets very complicated. And remember, today is a concept sermon. So I'm not going to explain all motivations. I'm only going to tell you, if your motivations are a certain way, we're going to show you it'll produce something. You will know your mindset by the characteristics of your life. And when this is done, to make this sermon valid, you're going to have to do something real difficult over the next week. You're going to have to examine the characteristics of your own life. Not anybody else's life, your own life. So you can understand your own mindset. So your motivations, your actions, your emotions are part of your mindset. Then you have your value system and decision-making process. I believe that in the Church of God, we have a problem with, we're pretty good with actions, we're not real good with motivations. So therefore, we're good with the mind, we're not real good with the heart. Because we never consider our motivation. Same way here. We don't always have a clear value system.

Then our decision-making process gets pretty messed up. Our decision-making process gets pretty messed up. Then we have relationships. And then we have, who do we decide who teaches us? Where is our source of knowledge and authority? Everybody has some basis. You know what most people believe that their source of knowledge and authority is? Wikipedia and themselves. There you go! My source of knowledge is Wikipedia, and my source of authority is me.

It makes life simple. It doesn't always make it work, but it makes life simple. This is what I mean when I talk about mindset. It is all these processes which are very complicated, and then taking all these processes and saying, okay, how do these work so that I can get to the vision? Because if it doesn't work right, you lose the vision. And you have no vision at all, and you get up every day, and we all know people like this, you get up every day, you stumble off, you have your cup of coffee, you go to work, you come home, you have a drink with your buddies, and you go home, and you play video games.

Right? And that's your vision of life! That's all it is. You have no vision beyond that. And you're stuck. But it's going around in circles. And yet deep inside you want something different. There's nobody who lives that way that after time, it might be okay for a couple weeks, that after time you want something else. I want something else! Whereas your vision, I don't have, one is all foggy.

If your mindset's not right, your vision changes. You can have a different mindset and a different vision. You will go crazy. You will go crazy. Romans 8.6. Remember what I said to the psychologist, that there was only two different mindsets in human beings. Now, he broke it down into subsets. You know, that people sort of... But it's how you approach life. I also believe that there's two major mindsets. Now, the problem is, nobody is 100% one and 100% the other. So there's sort of subsets of how we mix this together, but you can break it down into two basic mindsets.

Verse 7 of Romans 8. Verse 6. I'm sorry. Verse 6. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. We basically have two mindsets that we can live with in life. Now, what I find is a lot of people just won't believe this. Oh, come on! No, no, there's two mindsets. Now, the problem is, you and I are all mixture of both, trying to live one end and the other at the same time, which, once again, drives us crazy.

That's why every human being is actually insane. We are! And when you have God's Spirit, yep, now your insanity becomes obvious, because you're actually trying to live two mindsets. Now, let's talk about to be carnally minded for a minute. Just look at the next slide. Here's what happens to be carnally minded. We start with a very selfish motivation. Now, this is very hard to do self-examination this way, but if you really want that vision to be real, what God offers us, then you're going to have to do this level of examination in your life on a repeated basis.

It's not like you do it once. Sometimes people think, I did self-examination, I got baptized. Whoa! What was that? We have to start looking at carnal mindset. Carnal mindset is basically selfish motivations. If you're always concerned and always frustrated, ask yourself, are you always frustrated because things don't always go your way and you don't always get what you want, then you have to ask, am I being motivated selfishly? Action based on immediate gratification. Welcome to our world. I want to ask how many of you are in some kind of credit card debt because you had to get the newest Apple whatever, right?

Which they won't put all the, you know, whistles of bells on it because they know six months later they want to sell you another one. Apple's genius. They're genius at making us buy things. I'm amazed by them. Oh, wow! Look! It was just six months ago you bought something else, but wow! Well, maybe a year. Whatever they do when they come out in their cycles.

But everything they release is in cycles and they know what they're doing in those cycles. They're already ahead of where their sales are coming out and what they're developing. And negative emotions. Now, this is very important. Measuring stone we have. If you find that you are constantly driven by anger, fear, I mean, everybody has anger and fear once in a while, but this is your main sort of approach to life.

You're angry, you're fearful, you're envious, you're negative, you're upset all the time, then that tells you there's something wrong because that's not the way God designed us to be. Now, we live in a society that drives us to be this way, but because we live in a carnal society. Carnal just means fleshy. It just means beathead. Value system. This is real important because we have to really move forward out of this carnal mindset. You have to understand that not only do we have to discern between good and evil, we have to discern truth and error, and we have to discern wisdom and foolishness.

And all three of these. I see people who can discern good from evil, but boy, almost every decision they make is foolish. They don't know the difference. Why do you think there's entire books of the Bible called wisdom literature? There's whole sections of the Bible designed to teach us good from evil, then there's whole sections that teach us truth from error, and there's whole sections that teach us wisdom from foolishness.

This determines your value system when you discern these things. Relationships. The carnal mind is based almost entirely in a relationship based in what's in it for me. What's in it for me. One of the things that as ministers in the last couple of years, we talk about a lot, probably the last six, seven years, the amount of divorces in the Church of God is appalling.

It's appalling. And the reason why is because we're not dealing with this, and we're not dealing with this, and we're sure not dealing with this. Remember the man I made up the man with his perfect woman? You know, you bury that guy in ladies, you're doomed.

But what if that person's viewpoint is their vision of marriage is two imperfect people who are compatible, who work together using God's way to create a loving relationship and family. And that's his vision. His mindset's going to be totally different, isn't it? Totally different! His mindset's going to be, how do we work this through?

His mindset's going to be, okay, I'll stick with you. Okay, I'm committed. Okay, I don't care how bad it gets, we're together. We're together. It's a whole different viewpoint. So instead of looking at ways to get rid of you because you don't meet his vision, his vision is, we're going to work this out. So his mindset is, I'm doing it.

I'm working it out. But if we're all based on relationships, that entirely is what is in it for me. It's a carnal viewpoint, and it will destroy all relationships. And the carnal mindset denies God as the ultimate authority and source of knowledge. We really do think, we really do think that the educational system of the United States is the ultimate source of authority and knowledge.

And it's not. Do I believe in education? Yes. All three of my children grew up and got degrees. One, a business degree. One has a degree in art. And the other is getting a master's in architecture. All three of them had trouble because they said, this whole thing is wrong. They could see it. They had trouble in college not making good grades, but they could see it was wrong.

I listened to an interview one time with a Jewish man, and they asked him, how come so many Jewish people tend to be so successful? And he said, education. But he said, you have to understand, we reject, as a culture, Western education. And the interviewer said, yeah, but more Jews go to college and graduate from college than any group of people, practically, except for Orientals. And he said, I know, but he said, you have to understand, we do that, because that's where we have to do success.

But he says, the Jewish educational system is not based on knowledge, it's based on wisdom. Then you have to get knowledge to move forward. We don't teach anybody wisdom, we just throw them into a corrupted educational system in which knowledge is all messed up. Where you get a college degree in basket weaving, right? Not a degree, but a class. Get credit in basket weaving. We have to look at ourselves, let other people say, where in my life, and anybody who's on the ground, right?

What's valued is, how do you feel about that? Intellectual honesty is, what's the truth here? We don't value intellectual honesty. We value, how do you feel about something which may have nothing to do with reality? I'm not saying feelings aren't important, they are. I mean, we've been talking about emotions. I'm saying, this is intellectual honesty. God has given us a vision. Whether we stick to that vision depends a lot on whether we're going to be honest with ourselves. And if you're dishonest with yourself, I want you to understand something. You're scamming yourself, and there's only one person you can blame for intellectual dishonesty.

You can't blame schools, pastors, parents, anything. Intellectual dishonesty is a product of yourself, okay? Sorry, nobody gets away with blaming somebody else for intellectual dishonesty. So are we intellectually honest? Do we have a carnal mindset? Well, anybody who's honest, we have to say, Well, yeah, I've got some of it here, and I've got some of it here, and I've got some of it here, and I've got some of it here.

So let's look at what a spiritual mindset is supposed to look like. Now, if you want to know where this comes from, go home and read Romans 8.

All I've done is take a roll of this chapter 8, put it into a couple of powerful slides. That's all I did. Go home and read Romans chapter 8, because that's all this is. Okay, a spiritual mindset motivations based in the law of God and neighbor. That is the first motivation. I love God. If you ever even consider, do I love God? In what I'm doing, is it pleasing to God? If you never ask the question, then you don't love God. So to be spiritually related is to constantly be asking, is God happy with this? Am I pleasing God? Am I showing love towards God? I wish I had a dollar for every time someone has said, well, God will understand. God understands my needs. I mean, God understands my desires. God understands my problems. He understands why I'm going to live with my boyfriend, because he understands my needs. I've heard that. Do you love God? Well, of course I love God. But he says not to do that. No, God understands. That's not what I'm asking. I know God understands. I'm asking you, do you love God? Well, God loves me. God loves you. Do you love God? Motivates based on love of God and neighbor. Actions based on desire to do good. And because of that, there's positive emotions. I'm not saying there's never negative emotions. I'm saying that the staple of life are positive emotions. The negative emotions come and go. But it's not the norm. Everybody, during the course of a 24-hour day, is going to have lots of instances of negative emotions. Why? Because life happens. If you ever get through a 24-hour day and never have a negative emotion, please call me. You'll probably cheer me up. Because I'll be having a bad time when you call. But God's way leads to positive emotions. Faith, empathy, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, mercy. You know what's interesting about the fruits of the Spirit? They're not just things you do, and they're not just laws. There's an emotional component to every one of them. An emotional component to every one of them. Our value system. You're able to discern good from evil, truth from error, wisdom from foolishness. Our relationships are based in serving others. And if we don't have a service attitude, and I'll give you the perfect example of service in all the Bible, it just sums everything up. Jesus is leaving Jericho. He's walking along, and there's two blind men yelling, Jesus, Jesus, pay attention to us. Now all the people would come out. There's thousands of people out there, and they're walking along, because here He is, the great rabbi, maybe even the Messiah. And they're honoring Him, and they're praising Him, and there's these two guys, and they're embarrassed. And people would go, shut up, shut up, He'll hear you. And Jesus is walking down the road, and He gets to where it says the two men are. He stops, walks over, and says, well, what can I do for you? And there it is. That's it! Every day, spending your life looking at those in need and saying, well, what can I do for you? What can I do for you? Can you imagine if a husband said that every day to his wife, and his wife said that every day to her husband? If the children said that every day to their parents, and their parents said that every day to their children, and did it? If everybody walked through this door and said, what can I do for you today? Instead of, you know, we go to church and say, ooh, you hear what's happening in her life? Or you know what? Come into a church like this. Come into a church, and I'm single man, and I'm 49 years old, and there's really nobody there for me, and I just sit there by myself, and I just, why even go?

How about, what can I do for you today? No, that doesn't work for me. Then you're currently minded. And you won't have a vision. You'll lose this vision. This vision is amazing. It's like we can look down through history and say, oh, look at what God's doing. But we don't really believe He's doing it with us. I know that, because there are times I don't really believe God's doing it. Yeah, God, you've got this big idea, but you're not doing anything with me.

You know, I woke up this morning, it is a bad day. The big thing about the kingdom and Christ coming back, I want that to happen. But today, today I get the flu, and I'm hugging the toilet, and I really don't have a lot of excitement about Christ coming back.

It happens, right? Life happens. Now, what gets you through it?

Source of knowledge, okay, God, I get it. Only You know, You tell me, I do. You tell me, I do. I don't even have to understand. I just believe it works. This is a spiritual mindset.

Like I said, if you want to understand how I came to these three slides, read Romans 8.

He starts with, well, here's Carlie, but I didn't Let's go to...well, before I go to Romans 8.28.

Because between the happenings of today and the fulfillment of the vision, this, if we really have this spiritual mindset, this is what keeps us going. And you have to believe this. I don't care whether you're 10 years old or 40 years old or 70 years old, because each state of life presents its own set of happenings that you and I don't have any control over.

Mr. Welch was talking about, you know, his eyes going bad. You know, I had to get reading glasses about five, six years ago, but now my eyes are starting to get worse, and I'm in denial, okay? So I'm confessing to all of you. You know, I read things and like my wife, you know, I'm reading the television and seem to see what's on. She says, well, that's not what it says. Well, what's it say?

Oh, it was nothing even like what I said. Okay, my eyes are getting tired. They're worrying out. They're not bad, but it means I'm going to have to borrow these more often, right? That's the way it is. I don't like that. That's a happening to me. I know that sounds strange. Some of you were in class. Like my wife has no sympathy for me at all. She's here. I'm more in class in her context.

I was like, I don't know, five years old. It's about maybe eight years old or whatever. I have no sympathy for you. Now, usually she has... She's a sympathetic person. I'm not trying to say. But in this case, she's odd. Okay, she's odd. And I understand it. It's like you don't understand. I've had good eyes. I could spot a deer 300 yards. I could shoot it at 175. Now I'm saying, is that a deer or a cow?

Well, it's only 20 yards away. Romans 8, 28. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to His purpose. His purpose. His vision. His vision. Not only just for humanity, this great big idea that Christ is coming back and the other feasts of trumpets and that He's going to set up the Millennium on earth.

That's a huge vision. That vision has to break down into your life every day. And it breaks down every day into your life because you say, today I'm going to be more spiritually minded than carnally minded. It's that simple. Every day you decide, I will be more spiritually minded than carnal minded. And when you do that, that vision gets real clear.

And I'll tell you, you could know when you're more carnally minded. Because the vision God's giving you doesn't make much sense. Or you can't see it. It's all fuzzy. When it's all fuzzy, it's because you're doing something wrong. The vision isn't wrong. God isn't wrong, but it's personal. God has a personal purpose. A purpose for you. And He says, I'll work it out. In spite of what's happening to you. Now, I know sometimes that hard. There's been times I've been on my knees in the middle of the night, at 3 o'clock in the morning, saying, God, my life isn't working out the way I planned it.

What happened to your plan? Only to find out that the answer I usually get, because I usually end up in the book of Psalms, is, Oh, you planned it that way, but I didn't. It's just happening to you. Now, just follow my plan and I'll work it out. Oh. Let's go back to Joseph. We know what happened to Joseph. All these circumstances, life happened to him, and for years, years, he lost everything. His wealth, his status, his family, his chance to have a wife and children, it seemed like he'd never have one. Life went on.

The best he had was some older woman trying to seduce him, and he had to run away from that. Nothing. God's vision must have not worked, but he didn't. He had a different mindset. His mindset was this, the spiritual mindset. His motivations were different. His actions were based on doing good. It didn't matter if something bad happened to him.

He didn't go into prison, become the baddest guy in the prison. He could have said, you know what? That shows you that God's way doesn't work. I'm going to go to prison and set up my own little, you know, mafia-type thing in prison. When I get out, I'm going to be, you know... I never saw the show as a breaking bad, where some guy was a good guy, became a bad guy.

I read about it on a review of it. He didn't break bad. Okay? Why? Because everything that was happening to him should have made him break bad, and he didn't. It's because he had this mindset, so he never lost the vision. And so we find, years later, God intervenes. God intervenes and makes him the second most powerful man in the greatest empire in the world. You could make this story up. He becomes the second most powerful man in the greatest empire on the face of the earth. He has a wife. He has children. He has wealth beyond anything his family could ever dream of. He has power beyond anything his family could dream of. Now, what happens? Genesis 45.

Because, as we know, he harbored hatred, and he harbored this disgust towards his brothers, and he just waited till the day to get them back. Well, that's actually carnally minded. What happens? And Joseph could not restrain himself. Now, this is all his brothers end up before him, because why? There's a famine.

And all of a sudden, all of them were there. And of course, you read this story. You know, he played a little game with him for a while. It's like, okay, boys, you're a little over-matched now.

And he plays a game with him for a while. And then Joseph could not restrain himself. Verse 1, And all those who stood by him, and he cried out, Make everyone go out for me. So no one stood with him, while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians in the house of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph, does my father still live? But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed. First of all, that can't be Joseph, and if it is, are we in real trouble?

Verse 5, But now, do not therefore be grieved, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, because God sent me before you to preserve life. How does a man come to that conclusion? Don't despair! Slavery was good for me! Don't despair! Prison was good for me! Don't despair, because don't you remember my vision? Don't you remember you had all bowed down in front of me?

Isn't that not where you are? God did this so I could save your lives. That is not a carnal viewpoint. I'd have sent the ball to prison for a while. First of all, I'd have sold him at slavery for a while, then sent to prison for a while, and then brought him back up and said, Lord, you're less than you?

He did not do that. Why? Because he was spiritually minded. Because he said, this was God's vision all along. This was God's vision. Now, it wasn't what I wanted at times. But I never lost God's vision, so my motivation stayed right. My actions were always based on good. He helped people in prison instead of becoming bitter. He stayed positive. You read through the story of Joseph.

I think Mr. Smith just gave a series of sermons on Joseph. He stayed positive. How do you stay positive in that situation? Oh, God's going to work this out. You wait and see. Why? Because he gave me a vision. See, God gave each of you in his room a vision. It's in the Bible, but it's there. Read Romans chapter 8. It's there. This is your vision. And how do you keep it going?

His value system allowed him to discern good from evil, truth from error, and wisdom from foolishness. His relationships was based on what? Serving others. So now he's serving the greatest, most powerful, political, military leader on the face of the earth. He's saving the entire Middle East from famine. That's a pretty big accomplishment in life. If you took everything else away from Joseph, that alone would make him one of the greatest men in history.

He saved the entire Middle East from famine. His source of knowledge? Brothers, God had this vision. There had to be times of despair in prison. There had to be times of despair in slavery. There had to be times of despair when crossing the desert. Knowing, my family just sold me out. I'm not saying he didn't have that kind of emotions.

Despair or depression? Just the horror of knowing. Egyptian prisons weren't like prisons today. There were no doctors. There was gruel. Whatever that was. When Ed slammed behind him, he had to get sick. Because where is my vision? Where is it? And he had to pray, and God had to keep the vision out there. But the vision would have died. Between point A and point B, it will die if we're not spiritually pointed.

And you will give this up. You will. If you're a stay-carnly-minded, you will give it up. Because you can't stay focused on that vision unless you're spiritually minded. So you read on, and Joseph continued to tell them that God had done this. God had set this up. Look at verse 7. God sent me before you. Boy, was it a hard journey. I had no idea that he was going to send me this way. But I knew the vision. I knew that you were all going to come bow before me.

I had no ideas because I had to save you. As a young man, he might have thought because I'm important. Now he realized, ah, God's vision was a whole lot more important than that. He says, God has sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. God did this so I could save you, guys. I'm here to save you. Don't you get it? So don't worry about the past.

We could have made this story up. Want to meet my wife and kids? Here, have a sip of wine and have a gold chalice, okay? I'm living the life, boys. Was it easy to get here? Now, I'm not saying all of us end up living the life like Joseph. That's not the point, is it? The point is that you're spiritually minded.

You will be, and you will get where God wants you to go. You will get where God wants you to go. To be carnally minded means we will not, because we will lose that vision. You can't stay focused on it and be carnally minded. It's a very complex process. It's a simple idea, but this is a very complex process.

And if you are going to be intellectually honest, you're going to have to ask yourself these questions and reflect upon what it means to be carnally minded and spiritually minded. I want to end by going back to Romans chapter 8, because this has to become the rallying point of our lives. Ooh, did I go over to it? I will beg, Mr. I don't know what happened there. I got worked up. See, on TV, you can never go overtime. There's a little clock. When it gets to zero, you've got to shut up. Well, if you're at zero and you're not shut up, you're going to hear, Cut!

Gary, we're going to have to redo the last five minutes. You were overtime. Fortunately, I didn't hear Mr. Smith come on and say, Cut! Gary, here. You know how many times I've heard Cut. Gary, you're going to have to do that over. Romans 8, 28. This is our rallying point. This is what our vision gives us if we stay spiritually minded. And we know that all things... Now, I want to ask you what's left out of all.

You mean me getting sick? Me losing my job? You mean me having to deal with, you know, my ten-year-old that seems rebellious? Me having to do with my husband who just doesn't seem to be very, you know, loving to me? You mean me having to deal with that jerk I have to work with every day? All things work together for good. To what? To those who love God. There's only one way you love God is to be spiritually minded. We all want God's love so much we forget to love Him back. We forget to love Him back because we need His love so much.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose, according to His vision for you.