And the Bible reads, "For whence come wars and fighting among you?
Come they not hence even of your lust that war in your members?
You lust and have not, you kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain.
You fight in war, yet you have not, because you ask not.
You ask and receive not, because you ask amiss, and may consume it upon your lusts.
You adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity
with God?
Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to
envy?
But he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace
unto the humble.
Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw an eye to God, and he will draw an eye to you.
Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded.
Be afflicted and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy
to heaviness.
Pull yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
Speak not evil one of another, brethren.
He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the
law, and judgeth the law.
But if thou judgeth the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy, who art thou that judgeth
another.
Go to now ye that say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue
there a year, and buy and sell and get gain."
Where as ye know not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life?
It is even a vapor that abfeareth for a little time, and then vanished it the way.
For that ye ought to say, "If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that."
But now ye rejoice in your boasting.
All such rejoicing is evil.
Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
Let's pray to the Lord.
God, thank you for this church you've given us and every soul here right now, Lord.
We just pray that you fill Brother Hernandez with your Holy Spirit right now as he preaches
unto us your word, Lord, and just give us in the congregation ears to hear to the message
that the preacher has prepared for us, Lord.
We pray this all in Jesus' name, amen.
First of all, I just want to thank Pastor Mejia for this opportunity to preach.
It's always a privilege to do so.
And you're there tonight in James chapter 4, looking at your Bibles at verse number
13.
The Bible says, "Go to now ye that say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city,'
and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain, whereas ye know not what shall
be on tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeared for a little
time and then vanished at the way. For that ye ought to say, 'If the Lord will, we shall
live and do this or that.'"
And the title of the sermon this evening is "The Dangers of Overthinking." The dangers
of overthinking. And here in this passage we see, you know, there's a lot of people
today, before I get to this actually, there's a lot of people today that aspire to do a
lot of things, you know, in the future and make a lot of plans. And they fail to realize
that our life on this earth is very short. You know, the Bible says that our life on
this earth is as a vapor that appeared for a little while and then vanished at the way.
And that's just, you know, the reality of it. You know, we don't have a lot of time
on this earth and we should make the most of it and we should plan, of course, for the
future. But as the Bible says, you know, we need to stop and think at times, you know,
if the Lord will, you know, we shall live and do this or that. It's only by the grace
of God, you know, that we're able to live another day. And we have to always remember
that every breath that we take, even the next, you know, our very next breath is in the hand
of the Lord. And so we can get fixated on the future. You know, we can't always just
be planning and making all these decisions, you know, things that we want to do. We have
to keep in mind, you know, if the Lord will, then we're going to be able to accomplish
that. But tonight I just want to preach on the subject of overthinking because at the
same time, there are a lot of people that plan and are very ambitious, but you know,
they overthink, right? A lot of the things that they want to do when they worry too much
about what's going to happen in the future. They worry too much, you know, where am I
going to be in 10 years or who am I going to get married if you're single or, you know,
what job am I going to have? How am I going to provide for my family? And they worry about
all these things that to the point where they just stress about it, they, you know, they're
anxious, they have anxiety. A lot of times this leads to depression and all because they're
just overthinking and not trusting in the Lord. And then at the same time, people not
only think about the future, the unknown future, but they overthink about things in the past,
you know, previous mistakes that they've made, you know, bad decisions, poor decisions, you
know, they overthink about sins that they've committed. And a lot of people, you know,
because of this, they're not able to move forward. They're not able to live a normal
life because they're always stressing about it. They're always overthinking. Now go to
your Bibles to Psalm 39, Psalm 39. I'm going to read to you from Psalm 90. The Bible says,
"For all our days are passed away in thy wrath. We spend our years as they tell that is told.
The days of our years are three-square years and ten, and if by reason of strength they
be four-square years. Yet is there strength, labor, and sorrow, for it is soon cut off,
and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thy anger, even according to thy fear, so
is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
And here we see that the Bible says, you know, at most, you know, a lot of us here are going
to live up to 70 years, and if you're strong, and for reason of strength, you're going to
make it up to 80 years. And we need to learn how to number our days, you know, how to make
our days count on this earth. Because again, we don't have a whole lot of time, and if
we want to make our days count, we have to incline our, you know, our hearts, apply our
hearts unto wisdom so that we can make the right decisions. But if you're constantly
overthinking, you know, instead of going to the Bible, you're just going to, you know,
get stuck in your thoughts, you're going to constantly, you know, like stress about what's
going to happen instead of trusting in the Lord. Now I say you go to Psalm 39, look down
at verse number four. The Bible says, "Lord, make me to know my end, and the measure of
my day is what it is, that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days
as a hand-breadth, and my age as nothing before thee. Verily, every man at his best state
is altogether vanity, silah." And so we see here that, you know, again, our days are very
few on this earth, and the Bible says that we have to, you know, take in mind, keep in
mind how frail we are. And a lot of times I think about this verse because, you know,
when we're healthy, when we're good, when we're strong, we don't really think about,
you know, what can go wrong. You know, we take it for granted our health a lot of times,
and it's not until you get a cold or you get like a fever, you get the chills, and you
realize, you know, I'm actually pretty frail as a human being. You know, you feel weak,
you feel tired, you're not able to move as you would like if you're sick, and then at
that moment you realize, hey, I'm pretty frail, you know, I'm pretty weak, and if it's not
for the Lord that gives me strength, I can't do anything in this life. Now go to your Bibles
to James chapter 1, James chapter 1, and like I said, people often overthink, and I think
this is a big problem today just because of, you know, a lot of people have anxiety today,
a lot of people have depression, a lot of people have panic attacks, a lot of people
just stress over the little things in life, and a lot of times they stress about really
dumb things. And, you know, people overthink, as I was saying earlier, about the future,
the unknown future, and then they dwell too much in the past and the mistakes that they've
made. And then this is often referred to as paralysis of the analysis. You know, I'm going
to define to you what that means and when I looked it up, this is a definition that a guy says that
analysis paralysis is a colloquial phrase used to describe the feeling of being unable to make a
decision due to overthinking a problem. This often happens when you're dealing with too many
variables and continually researching solutions instead of taking action and making decisions.
And as Christians, you know, we need to learn how to make decisions. We can't be double-minded.
We can't constantly be tossed to and fro. We know how we need to learn how to make decisions
based on what the Bible says. And if you're there in James chapter one, look down at verse number
five. The Bible says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let them ask of God that give it to all men
liberally and abrade it not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering,
for he that wavered is like the wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that
man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his
ways. And the point I'm trying to get across this evening is that we can't be double-minded when
it comes to the decisions that we make in this life. And if you're double-minded, often it's
the result of just overthinking very basic things. You know, today we have a lot of choices when it
comes to, you know, where we want to eat, where we want to live, you know, what church you want to
go to. You know, today I happen to go to Chipotle because Brother Cody, you know, tempted me with
that, so I went to Chipotle. But you know, even in that plaza, how many choices do we have, right,
to eat? You have the choice to, you know, live wherever you want. You have the choice to go to
whatever church you want to go to. There's so many choices, and a lot of times people just get
paralyzed because there's too many options. Now before I get into the sermon itself, let me just,
by way of introduction, just give you a couple of things or some of the most common things that
people, you know, overthink about. Now I didn't come up with this list entirely by myself because
I didn't want to overthink about it, but let me just give you some of them. One of the things
that people often or commonly overthink about is how to get out of a plan you don't want to go to.
Now how many times does that happen to you guys? You know, you make plans, you agree to go somewhere
in, you know, in Hays, you know, they invite you somewhere to eat or to a party and you say,
"Yeah, I'll be there," but then as soon as they leave you kind of overthink about it and you're
like, "Hmm, I don't really want to go actually," but you don't know how to get out of it, right?
And you start to overthink, "I don't want to offend the person," and another thing that's common,
you know, what clothes to wear to a particular occasion, if you're making the right financial
choices, you know, how to start a conversation with someone you're interested in. Now, this
is something that could apply to all the guys that are at the Red Hot right now. You know,
they overthink those things, believe it or not. I heard all about it this week. Now,
you know, the wording of a text or WhatsApp message from a friend, and I look this up,
you know, they say that somebody, you know, when they overthink on what to reply to somebody,
usually it takes them like eight minutes to reply. Now, you know, today it's so easy,
all you have to do really is just give it a thumbs up and you're done. You don't have
to think about it anymore. Now, another thing is like what your friends think of you, how much to
spend on a gift, why your friend ever called you back. You know, I often wonder that, nice way.
What to wear on a date, how to decorate a room, you know, what color should it be?
You know, we spend more time thinking of a color to paint this wall than it actually lasted,
honestly. But then also, if you're in the right profession, career, how to break up with somebody,
you know, some people overthink that sometimes. What to order from the menu when out for a meal,
I feel like that applies more to women. But, you know, as guys, we usually just go to a restaurant,
we find something we like and we order it all the time. So let me see why someone didn't pick up
your call. If you seem appreciative enough when you receive the gift, what to message a love
interest? What to cook for dinner? What food to buy at the grocery store? What to watch on Netflix?
I don't know. That's not that hard, right? Because there's only filth on Netflix now, but
when to first say I love you to someone, right? Who said it first? No, just kidding. What the boss
email meant? Why your boss gave you, oh no, why the boss gave your colleague a praise and not you?
No, these are all things people overthink about. Here's a couple of more. It says what your excuse
is for being late. Now the best excuse or the way that you avoid this or overthinking is by being
on time. Now how much to tip in a restaurant? Nowadays, you just flip the screen on us and it
says who to go on a date with? Why someone cancel a meeting? And then last of all, you know, if you
should have seconds at dinner, if you should have seconds at dinner. Now go to Ecclesiastes chapter
11. Ecclesiastes chapter 11. Now I gave you that list because those are common things that are
common, you know, to us that we overthink. And I'm sure a lot of us, you know, we probably thought
of these things at one point, you know, what to wear to church. Should I go to that church? You
know, am I going to be accepted at church? Am I going to have friends? You know, these are things
that people commonly think about. But look at Ecclesiastes chapter 11. Look at verse number four,
the Bible says, "He that observeth the wind shall not sow, and he that regarded the cloud shall not
reap. As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb
of her that is with child. Even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all. In the morning
sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand. For thou knowest not whether shall prosper
either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good." And here we see somebody, you know,
the Bible's telling us don't observe, you know, the wind because then it's going to cause, you know,
people to make decisions based on how they feel or the things, you know, the weather outside.
You know, you think about people that avoid going places because it's too hot, it's too cold,
or debating whether or not they're going to go to work because they're tired or, you know,
they slept late. These are all things that people overthink over and because of that,
it keeps them from actually doing what they need to be doing. Now just to give you a practical verse
to follow up with this, go to Proverbs chapter 20, Proverbs chapter 20, just to show you how that
applies. In Proverbs chapter 20 verse 4, the Bible says, "The slugger would not plow by reason of
the cold, therefore shall he beg in the harvest and have nothing." And so we see this actually
happen to this person where they observed, you know, the wind and he didn't sow. And as a result,
what happened? He ended up having to beg, right? Because he was poor, he had nothing. He refused
to work because of the circumstances and he was probably overthinking, you know, whether or not
he should go work. And at the end of the day, he didn't. And for that reason, you know, the Bible
says that he's begging in the harvest and he has nothing. Now go to Psalm 37, Psalm 37, Psalm 37.
Now let me give you some reasons why people overthink because this is a problem today. And I'm sure
many of us, you know, at one point, you know, we struggle with this, with this matter of overthinking
and just, you know, being paralyzed when it comes to responsibilities. But some of the reasons why
people overthink is because they want to feel in control. You know, they want to feel like they can
actually, you know, change the outcome of certain things. And the way that they do this is, you know,
they think of every possible scenario, every possible outcome, you know, what's the worst case
scenario, what's the best case scenario, what's the outcome of every single scenario. And then they
make a decision based on that. And by doing that, you know, they actually feel that like they're in
control of the situation. Now go to Psalm 37. If you're there, we're looking at verse number 23,
the Bible says the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighted in his way. You know,
instead of like thinking of the worst case scenario, or thinking the best case scenario,
and just trying to control everything, we need to trust in the Lord. You know, the Bible says in
Proverbs 3, and I'm going to read it to you, it says, "Trust in the Lord with all thy heart,
and lean not into thy own understanding, and all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy
paths." So instead of trying to control every single circumstances, you got to realize this,
you know, in life, a lot of times, you know, it throws us a curve ball, right? And we're
not ready for it. And at times we do feel helpless, you know, we're at our wits end,
we don't know what to do. And at that point, instead of stressing about it, having anxiety,
you know, you should pray, and then you should trust in the Lord, instead of overthinking it,
it's just stressing on something that you don't have control over. Now another reason why people
are overthinking today is because they're perfectionists, right? They want every single
thing that they do to come out perfect. And you gotta know this, nothing that we do in this life
is ever going to be what we call perfect. There's always room for error. We try our best, right?
That's not to say we do a poor job at what we do, but we try our best and we shouldn't stress
whether or not it's perfect or, you know, however it comes out. You know, nothing wrong with wanting
things to be perfect, but just realize that, you know, that's pretty much impossible. Now go to Psalm
chapter 4, Psalm chapter 4. Just to illustrate this, I used to do construction before, HVAC just
to be specific, and we used to hang a spiral duct, you know, you kind of see it at Starbucks or Chipotle,
those spiral ducts that, you know, for the air conditioning. And a lot of times if we're doing
work where there's like ceiling tile, it does matter how you, you know, how you put it,
obviously you don't want it falling down, but you know, you do your best. But when it's exposed,
when people are going to be looking at it, and you know, it's just out in the open, you try even
harder to make it look as perfect as you can. And sometimes, you know, people at work, they would
just stress about it too much, where there's really not much more you can do about it. You know,
you try to make it as straight as possible, you try to level it as much as you can, but some people
would over fixate on that and I just remember one time I was working with somebody and we would hang
the spiral duck and you would always make sure that it's level by putting, you know, the level
right and this guy would put the level and then he'll take out a second level just to confirm
with this level that it was actually straight and then one time I was in charge of like hanging the
duck and making sure that you know it was in a straight line and he was at the other side just
looking at it trying to see he's like oh it's still a little crooked and I had already moved
it and move it and I thought it was like straight there's like you measure it from the wall you do
all these things right there's all these ways to find out whether or not it's straight but he was
just overstressing because he was a perfectionist and then I kid you not you know I wanted to test
this to see really like if it was that crooked so he told me to move it and like I didn't even move
it right I said I did I lied but I said because I was tired of moving it already so then I just
left it as it was and then he's like all right perfect it's good and I didn't even have to move
it so that's what I mean people are like overstressed about these things they're overthinking and it was
exactly in the same spot and because he wanted to for it to be perfect you know I didn't even have
to do anything he was just overthinking it at the end of the day if you're there in stomp four the
bible says in verse number three it says but know that the lord had set apart him that is godly for
himself the lord would hear when I call unto him standing on sit not commune with your own heart
upon your bed and be still see law offer the sacrifice of righteousness and put your trust
in the lord now what the verse the point i want to make with this verse is that
a third reason why people often overthink is because they just assume that thinking is always
the best thing to do and what i mean by this obviously you want to think right you want to
make the right decisions you want to you don't want to be hasty in the decisions that you make
you don't want to be irrational you don't want to make poor decisions based on emotion but there's
a point in time where you could just think too much and hear the bible saying you know it says
commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still you know at the end of the day i'm sure a
lot of us at the end of the day you know we just think about how the day went you know we're
thankful for everything that the lord allowed us to do on that day we probably make plans for the
next day and just you know ask the lord for guidance but you know that's pretty much all
we do because at the end of day all we can do is just trust in the lord but there's people out
there that you know to them if they think and think and think then they're going to make better
decisions and that's not always the case because then you fall into the trap which is overthinking
and then when you do that too much you end up making the wrong decision now go to proverbs
chapter 15 proverbs chapter 15 and this is also what i don't mean about this you know where people
think that thinking too much is the right thing to do the bible says in proverbs 15 says at the
heart of the righteous study to answer but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things now
here this verse obviously is telling you that you know if a righteous person he studies to answer
you know he wants to have the sermon to say the right thing at the right time that's not what i'm
talking about having the sermon you know there are people that overthink it and instead of like
studying to answer trying to see what to say how to say you know they worry about what people are
going to think you know they worry about how people are going to perceive it and i think you
know i don't know who it was but i've heard even people uh say in this church you know that they
kind of try to think of all the possible conversations that they're going to have
and how they're going to answer that right that's just too much stress you know you don't need to do
that you just have to be normal learn how to conversate and i think a lot of times you know
introverts i'm an introvert myself you know we deal with this problem because we don't know how
to like start a conversation sometimes or you don't know how to like end a conversation you
sometimes you just come off as rude because you don't know how to end it you're just like
you just walk away and that's happened a lot of times to me you know or you're standing
you know you're getting some water right you're an introvert and you're just getting water somebody
next to you you're just like and you know it's the most awkward thing right but what's the
problem with that you're just overthinking it right there's nothing wrong with just turning
around just saying hey how's it going you know what's what's the worst that could happen they're
just gonna say good and you right like brother david but you know that's that's probably the
most that's going to happen but people often you know instead of just saying hi like a normal person
they're overthinking and they end up just being rude now the fourth reason why people I feel are
you know overthinking a lot of the time is because they hate confrontation they hate confrontation
and most people don't like confrontation especially introverts in the sense that you know you don't
really want to get out of your comfort zone and people that often avoid you know confrontation
they avoid a lot of conflict at times and they think by doing that you know it's going to go
away but the reality is this if you avoid conflict it just becomes a bigger problem at the end of
the day and the same effort that you put into avoiding the conflict you know you should put
that effort into coming up with a solution that's probably the better thing to do. Now the more you
avoid your problems the less confidence the less confidence you will have you know with your ability
to actually deal with it and I like being in this church because it has challenged me you know and
I'm pretty sure it has challenged other people that consider themselves introverts to get out of your
comfort zone you know being friends with like pastor or with brother Markles and brother Mori
all these other people that are just extroverted you know they're very outgoing they have no
problem you know just talking to you know strangers and all that it kind of helps us
who are introverted get out of our comfort zone and do likewise and as a Christian you know you
don't really have that luxury in the Christian life to just be introverted and just avoid
confrontation because a lot of the times you know being a Christian you have to deal with problems
right you have to deal with sin you have to deal with personal relational problems and there's
just no other way around it and if you're a Christian right and we come to church you're
going to deal with other people you know we have visitors that come all the time instead of you
just sitting you know in some corner not talking to anybody you should go out of your way and talk
to them these are things that people you know often avoid because they're overthinking it they
don't want to look dumb they don't want to be perceived as like weird or anything but you're
actually being perceived that way because you're just sitting by yourself right so don't do that
now go to go to uh second simothy chapter two second simothy chapter two so those are some
reasons why i feel people often uh overthink now let me give you some areas where people overthink
in the christian life and obviously there's more than just three but tonight i just want to deal
with three and i believe that people not only in this church but just in the christian life in
general often overthink when it comes to serving the lord you know they stress too much about it
and make it more complicated than what it really has to and here at this church you know we want
to help every single person here serve the lord in whatever capacity that they can and obviously
you're not going to have to you know you're not doesn't mean you have to be a pastor doesn't mean
you have to you know be behind this pulpit or anything but we want you to succeed as a christian
and serve the lord in whatever capacity you can you can you know as a church our goal would be
for you to get saved first of all get baptized and then learn how to preach the gospel because
that's what jesus wants right jesus said follow me and i will make you fishers of men now people
who have made it a habit to avoid confrontation struggle with sowing and the reason for that is
because at this church you know we do what's called confrontational sowing you know we don't
just go out there and hang a door hanger we don't just stand in the corner of a street and just give
out tracks you know we don't go to you know just whatever random street and just stand there with
signs you know turn or burn repent of your sins you know god hates fags you know i wear i wear
shirts like that but you know i don't do that for sowing but you know a lot of times people struggle
with sowing because they don't like confrontation and if you're part of our church you know our goal
for you would be that you would become a sower and there's no way around that you know if you're
overthinking it then you're going to worry too much you know what are people going to think about
me you know what if i don't know the right verses or what if my sowing presentation isn't perfect
you know there's there's always room for growth you shouldn't overthink it and here's the thing
you know oftentimes you know there's been a couple of people who are you know just nervous when it
comes to sowing because they're afraid of what their partner is going to say but let me just
say this that you know no one's going to make fun of you for wanting to serve the Lord you know no
one's going to make fun of you for wanting to you know preach the gospel now here at this church
and I myself you know we like joking around we like you know roasting people we like um you know
it's just poking fun at each other as guys I don't know women do it but you know we as guys we like
picking on each other and that's all fun but no one's going to make fun of you for going out
there and wanting to serve the Lord you know you're signing your partner at the door is not going
to be there you trying to present the gospel they're just going to be like like trying to
hold their laughter when you're trying to like give the introduction no i've gone with many people
here you know and we all started at one point as a signing partner we learned how to give the intro
we learned how to give the bad news and then progressively you know we learned the whole
presentation but no one's going to make fun of you for doing that so you shouldn't overthink
when it comes to so many because at the end of the day that's our goal for you as a church
that you learn how to give the gospel so that you can see people safe now if you're there
in 2nd Timothy chapter 2 look down at your Bibles at verse number one the Bible says
"thou therefore my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that thou has
heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach
others also thou therefore endure hardness as the good soldier of Jesus Christ no man that warreth
entangleeth himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who had chosen him to be a
soldier and as a christian we do need to learn how to endure hardness you know to people too many
people today are what we call soft you know they get offended very easily and the christian life
there's going to be trials just like brother cody preached on this morning you know there's going to
be trials there's going to be tribulations and we can't go you know about the christian life just
worry too much about what people may think or just overthink about all the problems no we need to
endure hardness like a good soldier of christ and you know when you think about the military i'm
pretty sure soldiers don't overthink whether or not they have to you know shoot the enemy
be quiet because their life is in danger right the life of others are in danger and as a christian
you know not only are the lives of others in danger because they're on their way to hell
if you're there overthinking it you're never going to do anything and nothing's going to get done for
the lord now go to hebrews chapter 10 go to hebrews chapter 10 you know a lot of um when we worry
too much about what people think you know that's actually called pride because you take yourself
too seriously and if you're worried constantly about what people are thinking about you you're
never going to do anything like i said and that's often um related to pride now on the point of like
what i was making earlier this isn't a sermon but like about roasting each other also you know just
like a side note if you roast other people and they dish it out learn how to take it right don't
be one of those guys that just wants to dish it out and then you get offended when they dish it back
right you don't want to be that guy now in Hebrews chapter 10 what's another thing that people try to
overthink i'm saying they overthink it when it comes to serving the lord they overcomplicate it
you know people overthink about coming to church you know does god want me to be in church
of course and the bible says right there in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25 the bible says
not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together as a matter of some is but exhorting one another
and so much the more as you see the day approaching and so you shouldn't overthink when it comes to
whether or not you should come to church obviously you know you should come through to thrive if you
can for whatever reason because you got work or you're sick you know there's always things that
come up but your goal should be to always be in church now as a single guy as a single dude you
know there's really nothing holding you back from coming to church and i'm saying your family holds
you back but as you get married the more kids you have you know kids get sick your wife gets sick
your wife gets pregnant things happen with the family and sometimes you know it makes it even
harder to come to church that's why as a single guy you should already uh purpose in your heart
to always be in church so when things get more difficult you know you don't have to struggle
with that as much you know you still make it to church even if your family stays behind because
they're sick you know you should be in church as the father as the husband a husband you know it
doesn't when when your family gets sick that doesn't mean you're sick right you know when
your kids get sick this you know you don't get sick if you're not sick come to church don't
overthink it so go to james chapter four james chapter four now it's important to come to church
because you know you hear preaching from the word of god like this morning you heard a sermon on
murmuring maybe you're struggling with that you come to church you hear a sermon on murmuring
then you learn how to fix that you come to church to sing praises to god you come to church to
fellowship with the brethren you know people like seeing you at church and i'm sure everybody here
has friends some of us you know we like it when we see so-and-so and you know we don't like it
when we see other people but you know there are people here that are your friends that care for
you and they want to see you so come to church now in jane's chapter four look down at verse number
six a second thing people overcome overthink when it comes to the christian life is getting right
with god they overthink it they make it harder than it has to be now in jane's chapter four look
down at verse number six the bible says but he giveth more grace wherefore you say god resists
the proud but giveth grace unto the humble submit yourselves therefore to god resists the devil he
will flee from you draw nigh to god and he will draw nigh to you cleanse your hands you sinners
and purify your hearts you double-minded and so a lot of people often overthink you know they make
it seem like they don't know how to get right with god and here the bible makes it very clear
that you draw nigh to god and god's going to draw nigh to you and all he requires of you is just to
humble yourself you know ask for forgiveness and god will draw nigh onto you and the first step
that you should take when it comes to getting right with god is confessing your sins confessing your
sins go to first john chapter one it's really not that hard you know a lot of people stay out of
church or you know they they don't get right with god because they're overthinking it you know the
bible says that all we have to do is humble ourselves you could start by confessing your
sins and in first john chapter one the bible says in verse number nine if we confess our sins he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness so step one
in getting right with god is just to confess your sins you know confess your sins things that you've
done wrong things that you're aware of things that you're not aware of you know just pray to
god and ask him to forgive you now go to psalm chapter 103 psalm 103 in psalm 103 in verse eight
the bible says the lord is merciful and gracious slow to anger and plenty is in mercy he will not
always chide neither will he keep his anger forever he had not dwelt with us after our sins nor
rewarded us according to our iniquities for as the heaven is high above the earth so great is his
mercy toward them that fear him as far as the east is from the west so far hath he removed our
transgressions for us so the god of this universe you know our lord is merciful and he will forgive
you if you confess your sins and the bible says in lamentations three i'll just read it to you says
it is of the lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassion is filled not
they are new every morning great is thy faithfulness so without a shadow of doubt
you know if you confess your sins you can get right with god and i go to second corinthians
chapter 10 second corinthians chapter 10 so as i'm saying number two is that people often
overthink when it comes you know to getting right with god and the reason for that is because they
dwell too much in mistakes that they've made in the past you know sins that they've committed
um you know they get this attitude you know what's the point of doing it right but if you were to
confess your sins you know and god forgives you just forget about it you know move on and you know
try your best not to do it again you know learn from your mistakes there's no reason why you should
dwell in your past you know things that you've done you know mistakes that you've made obviously
there's consequences to everything that you do and but at the end of the day you know if god
forgave you just move on you know what's the point in dwelling in your past or in previous sins you
know if you've repented you confess them just move forward. Now in second Corinthians chapter 10
sometimes people are not able to do you know live for god or do anything because they dwell
too much in the past and here in second Corinthians chapter 10 the bible says in verse number five
casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of god
and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of christ and so that's what exactly
what we should do when we have these bad intrusive thoughts you know just cast it down you know bring
it under the obedience of christ there's no reason why you know these intrusive thoughts should dwell
in your mind and a lot of times people you know are alone with their thoughts because they're not
busy they're not doing anything they're not working you know they're idle and a lot of
times when people are idle that's you know when their mind starts you know going and they start
thinking on bad things but if you're busy you know you don't even have time to think on things
that are bad now go to go to psalm 119 psalm 119 you know if you fall short just get back up
back up and move on the bible says for the just man fall it seven times and rise it up again
but the wicked shall fall into mischief now go to psalm 119 look down at verse number 60 the bible
says i made haste and delayed not to keep thy commandments and the point i want to make with
this verse is number three you know often people overthink when it comes to doing right you know
the last point was they overthink when it comes to getting right with god but people also overthink
when it comes to doing right or keeping god's commandments and here we see david saying i made
haste and they laid not to keep that commandments and the best way to do this is when you hear a
sermon on a certain topic you know just apply it right away you know if it's something that you're
doing wrong that you can fix that you can correct that day just do it don't delay
and keep in the commandments of god like i mentioned this morning we heard a sermon on
murmuring if you're one that complains all the time you know just fix it don't delay to do it
don't procrastinate you know i sure did fix that because i went to chipotle today and i felt like
murmuring right because if you know me you know if you like eating protein protein you want a
certain amount of protein a day and then when you see the servants you're just like oh i'd rather
not see you know how much they're putting in my plate but i'm not gonna murmur i mean i mean i'm
probably doing it right now but i'm not gonna murmur in front of them and see i gotta get it right
but and speaking of that uh speaking about that kind of related i went to the red hot preaching
conference and then i ate subway for whatever reason i think i was like super hungry i know
but the thing at subway and i thought it was funny um you can't even see what they're serving you
anymore at that subway they put like this metal shield over it and i was all like damn like do
you guys have a teriyaki do you guys have rotisserie chicken because you can't even see
what they have i just thought it was funny it's like this whole thing which you pull is just
causing other restaurants to take extreme measures but go to uh go to daniel go to daniel
go to the book of daniel chapter one so you shouldn't overthink when it comes to doing right
or obeying the lord you know we uh often overthink about this and we just make it harder than it has
to be you know you hear a sermon on tattoos or you hear a sermon on fornication or you know
whatever it may be you know learn to just obey it learn to apply like if you're thinking about
getting a tattoo don't overthink it and pastor rips on it just don't do it right and when people
overthink about things like this you know whether or not they should obey the lord oftentimes what
happens is they just end up justifying it they say well i'm just going to do it anyways you know at
the end of the day it's just a bible verse you know it's kjv what's the you know what's the big
deal but that's because people are often overthinking instead of just doing what's right right away you
know you hear about a sermon uh on fags you know don't overthink it you know i remember the first
time i was going to click on pastor anderson's sermon i was at work and we were allowed to listen
to music and whatnot but i was at work and then i saw the sermons are you know the truth about
the sodomites and i was like dang all right let's see what this is and i put it on it and then my
view on that was forever changed right i did not hesitate you know to change all that it was not
that hard you know the bible obviously is very clear on that now you hear a sermon you know for
example on on murmuring like i said you hear a sermon about being gross i don't know if you
guys heard that sermon from pastor shelley you know that was a great sermon but these are things
that you know sometimes a lot of us it's new to us you know we've never heard preaching like this
we never heard preaching on certain topics you know the point i try to make is that you shouldn't
overthink the commandments of god because really they're they're pretty straightforward a lot of
times it's just black and white and you should learn just to obey it right away now if you're
there in the book of daniel look down at chapter one look down at verse number eight one of the
ways that you can do this is by purposely in your heart to do what's right and in verse number eight
the bible says but daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion
of the king's meat or with the wine which he drank therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs
that he might not defile himself so one of the best ways of avoiding uh overthinking it's just
the purpose in your heart you know if this comes up i really know what the bible says about that
like if you're thinking about who to date right well what does the bible say for one they should
be saved right uh for two you know they should be in church they should be a baptist right these are
things that you could already purpose in your heart and you're not going to have to overthink
it you know you don't have to should i date that girl at work or should i date that girl at that
liberal church should i go to you know that dating app no these are things if you're repurposing
your heart and know what the bible says the decisions on those kind of things are pretty
easy to make when it comes to like i said going to church you know what the bible says about
going to church you don't have to overthink it you know purpose in your heart to do what's right
now go to second timothy chapter one second timothy chapter one now another thing you shouldn't
overthink is this matter of you know getting married you know we have a lot of couples are
just you know dating nothing wrong with dating obviously you have to date if you're going to get
married but oftentimes people overthink when it comes to getting married and i know you know a
personal testimony in the old ifb i don't know how it is now but they would cause you to overthink
when it came to getting married you know they would give you a list of all these things that
you had to get done before getting married this crazy amount of money that you had to have and
your savings just to get married you know they had to you know they almost made it seem like
you're never going to prosper in life right and because of that oftentimes you know they
made a lot of people overthink and people ended up not getting married right because it was just
way too hard but if you're dating you know you shouldn't have to overthink about getting married
because honestly getting married is the best thing after getting safe and I feel like that's true you
know with everybody that's here that's married you know getting safe obviously the most important
thing but after that getting married is probably the best thing that has happened to myself and
when you're married you know you have somebody that you could grow old with you have somebody
you could grow up with you have somebody that you can you know roast not just me but you have like I
don't know I like joking with my wife but you could you know you have a friend right now the
thing about getting married you know it's really not that hard you only have to make enough it's
really not that hard you know a lot of times people often think I don't know what's up with
the single guys but never mind but it's really not that hard and a lot of times people often
overthink because well I need a better job in order to get married all you really need is just
a full-time job and if you know how to work you're going to be able to provide and the thing is this
when you first get married you don't need to make a whole lot of money you just need to provide for
your spouse and then people often overthink and they put off marriage because because they start
thinking like well what about the kids you know what if i have you know two kids three kids how
am i going to provide but here's the thing you know god could bless you right god could bless you
with a promotion god could bless you with a raise you know you don't need to overthink all these
things that you're not even there yet right you're just you and your spouse why are you over thinking
about how you're going to provide you know for kids when you don't even have kids why are you
going to overthink about you know providing for x x y and z you know you're not even there yet
cross the bridge you know when you get there but really getting married it's just as easy as saying
i do no but like getting married shouldn't be that complicated you know don't overthink it
if you're dating you know the goal would be for you to get married purpose in your heart to do
right and the reason i say is because oftentimes you know if you don't plan on that if you're
overthinking you know you can fall into the sin of fornication and then obviously you don't want
to do that now second Timothy chapter one the Bible says in verse number seven for God had not
given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind and the sermon tonight
what i'm trying to get across is that don't overthink you know especially the basic things
in life but don't overthink these three things you know don't overthink it when it comes to
serving the Lord don't overthink it when it comes to you know getting right with God don't
overthink it when it comes to you know doing what's right you know you should learn to trust in the
Lord you should learn that you know God is in control you know God could change your life around
just like that you know your life could be going south and God could you know do a miracle in your
life where it starts going in a better direction you know my goal for everybody here would be you
know for you first of all not to overthink and not to make things more complicated than it should
but obviously to succeed in the Christian life as well now let me give you some uh just to finish
some practical things what we can do to avoid overthinking obviously we look to the Bible but
just very practical things that has helped me and I'm sure other people practice this as well is that
when you start overthinking you know you got to pay attention to when it's actually happening
because I'm pretty sure sometimes you're daydreaming you're like on the road you're
just thinking and thinking I don't know where you just catch yourself like oh man I've been
I don't even know where I'm at right now right but the point is like is this like if you're
overthinking just learn to pay attention when it happens and then stop doing it. You know rather
instead of focusing on the problem you know focus on figuring out a solution. You know we should learn
how to be problem solvers. You know it's easy to point out you know problems it's easy to dwell on
things that are going wrong but it's better to use up that energy and think about a solution and that's
going to help you a lot. And then three you know just challenge your thoughts you know is this even
biblical is this even right you know should I even be thinking is this even true right because a lot
of times overthinking just causes you to think of like things that were probably will never happen
so when you catch yourself doing that you know just think about is this even you know possible
is this even likely to happen most of the time it's not and then lastly you know do something
else the best thing to do when you're overthinking is just to walk away from the situation you know
you got projects in a practical example you know sometimes you're doing a project and you're just
overthinking it and you're just making it hard and you're taking a really long time and I find
it that you know if you were just to walk away from the project and come back the next day you
know get some sleep then it becomes a lot easier like your mind is a lot clearer and you're able to
solve it so I just want to challenge you with that you know just figure out what the problem
is what causes you to overthink and once you do that you know focus on what the Bible says
and just learn to trust God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father Lord thank you for this day and thank you
for allowing us Lord to be church in church this evening Lord I pray Lord that you would continue
to help us Lord in the Christian life and that we would be able to prosper Lord and do great works
for you. I pray Lord for those that are still on the road that are coming back from the red hot I
pray that you would protect them and that you keep them from any accident Lord please bring
pastor also and his family safely and I pray that you bless the fellowship after the service in
Jesus Christ's name amen. Please turn your song box to song number five. When I survey the wondrous
cross, song number five, song number five, sing with power on that first verse.