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Spiritual Stability, Part 5 Godly Thinking (Philippians 48) John MacArthur · THE BELIEVER'S CHURCH | Let’s Build Our Faith Together

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Let's open our Bibles to the text of our message
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  Speaker 1: this morning, Philippians chapter 4, returning to the passage verses
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  Speaker 1: 1 through 9. Philippians chapter 4 verses 1 through 9,
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  Speaker 1: and our subject is spiritual stability. When the Apostle Paul
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  Speaker 1: wrote to the church at Corinth, be ye steadfast, unmovable,
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  Speaker 1: always abounding in the work of the Lord, he was
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  Speaker 1: calling for spiritual stability. When James wrote that a double-minded
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  Speaker 1: man is unstable in all his ways, that too was
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  Speaker 1: a call for spiritual stability. When Peter wrote that God
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  Speaker 1: desired to perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you, that also
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  Speaker 1: as the result of casting all your care on Him
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  Speaker 1: was a call to spiritual stability. And when the Apostle
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  Speaker 1: John said that he had no greater joy than to
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  Speaker 1: hear that his children walked in the truth, he spoke
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  Speaker 1: of spiritual stability. Those are a few samples to indicate
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  Speaker 1: to us how significant a theme, the theme of spiritual
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  Speaker 1: stability is throughout the New Testament. Over and over again,
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  Speaker 1: we as Christians are called upon to be faithful, to
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  Speaker 1: be consistent, to be stable, to be strong, to be bold.
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  Speaker 1: to be courageous, to be unwavering, to be uncompromising as
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  Speaker 1: the children of God. And this really gets right at
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  Speaker 1: the very heart of Christian living. The call of God
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  Speaker 1: upon us is that we should be stable, firm, strong. And,
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  Speaker 1: of course, that against the onslaught and the attack of
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  Speaker 1: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Therein lies the
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  Speaker 1: spiritual battle. Persecution, hostility, rejection, testings, trials, temptations, all of
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  Speaker 1: these kinds of things come at us to topple us,
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  Speaker 1: to make us unstable. And the call of the New
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  Speaker 1: Testament is for us to be stable. Now we're learning
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  Speaker 1: about how to be stable. It's one thing to be
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  Speaker 1: called to spiritual stability. It's quite another thing to understand
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  Speaker 1: what that call involves. And so as we look at
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  Speaker 1: Philippians chapter 4 and these first nine verses, we are
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  Speaker 1: given here a pattern of truth that.
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  Speaker 2: Produces spiritual stability.
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  Speaker 1: Obviously, all of us who know and love the Lord
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  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ would affirm that we want to be stable.
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  Speaker 1: No one likes being defeated. No one likes being a loser.
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  Speaker 1: No one likes being beaten down. No one likes being depressed.
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  Speaker 1: No one likes falling under temptation and therefore into sin.
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  Speaker 1: No one likes persecution. No one really enjoys going through
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  Speaker 1: a test and failing it. The assumption then is that
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  Speaker 1: there is a desire within us to experience the full
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  Speaker 1: expression of our identity as an overcomer.
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  Speaker 2: We want to be a winner. We want to triumph spiritually.
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  Speaker 2: We want to be the victor.
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  Speaker 1: We longingly look at someone like Paul and wonder if
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  Speaker 1: he's even human because he seems to experience so much
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  Speaker 1: spiritual victory in the middle of so much spiritual warfare.
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  Speaker 1: But the question that comes back to us is, even
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  Speaker 1: though we want this and even though we understand that
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  Speaker 1: this is a biblical issue, how can we be stable?
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  Speaker 1: How can we hold our ground? How can we not
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  Speaker 1: become the loser and remain the winner? How can we
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  Speaker 1: not be defeated and triumph? How can we not be
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  Speaker 1: depressed and be joyous? How can we ride across the
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  Speaker 1: top of all of the waves, as it were, that
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  Speaker 1: come against us? Well, I believe Paul gives us the
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  Speaker 1: answer to that very, very important question right here in
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  Speaker 1: this wonderful passage.
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  Speaker 2: The key phrase I draw you to is in verse 1.
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  Speaker 1: We've noted it each time, and this is message number
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  Speaker 1: 5 in the series. The key phrase is this exhortation
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  Speaker 1: or command, stand firm in the Lord. That is a command,
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  Speaker 1: and that is the bottom line here in the text.
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  Speaker 1: Stand firm in the Lord. Stand against doubt. Stand against temptation.
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  Speaker 1: Stand against trials and tests. Stand against persecution. But notice
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  Speaker 1: also the little word, so, or thusly, or in this way.
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  Speaker 1: And Paul is saying, now I'm going to tell you how.
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  Speaker 1: Here is how to stand firm. And then he proceeds
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  Speaker 1: to give a number of disciplines, principles, by which we
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  Speaker 1: as believers can enjoy spiritual stability.
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  Speaker 2: Now, do you remember principle number one?
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  Speaker 1: Spiritual stability requires cultivating peace in the fellowship. We looked
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  Speaker 1: at verse 1, we saw Paul's expression of love. We
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  Speaker 1: looked at verses 2 and 3 and saw how deeply
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  Speaker 1: he desired the unity of the church and he wanted
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  Speaker 1: those two opposing women to get together and he wanted
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  Speaker 1: the church to help them in the process.
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  Speaker 2: Why?
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  Speaker 1: Because individual spiritual stability is the result of corporate harmony,
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  Speaker 1: corporate peace. Where there is peace in the church and
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  Speaker 1: harmony in the church, the church is stabilized individually. On
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  Speaker 1: the other hand, where there is discord, conflict in the church,
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  Speaker 1: It breeds insecurity. So the first virtue that is necessary
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  Speaker 1: for spiritual stability is peace, peace. The second is in
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  Speaker 1: verse 4. Not only does spiritual stability mandate cultivating peace
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  Speaker 1: in the fellowship, but secondly, maintaining a spirit of joy,
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  Speaker 1: maintaining a spirit of joy.
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  Speaker 2: Rejoice in the Lord.
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  Speaker 1: Always, He says, and I will say again, rejoice. The rejoicing,
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  Speaker 1: you will please note, is in the Lord. If you
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  Speaker 1: attach your rejoicing to your circumstances, it will come and go.
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  Speaker 1: If you attach your rejoicing to the Lord, it will
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  Speaker 1: always remain the same because He never changes, nor does
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  Speaker 1: His relationship to you ever change. So you learn to
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  Speaker 1: rejoice in the privileged union you have with Christ, which
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  Speaker 1: transcends circumstances. So the second virtue then necessary for spiritual
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  Speaker 1: stability is a surpassing, overruling joy that is not subject
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  Speaker 1: to difficulties. Third, the third principle we noted was that
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  Speaker 1: spiritual stability comes to those who learn to accept less
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  Speaker 1: than they deserve. Learning to accept less than you deserve.
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  Speaker 1: Verse 5, let your forbearing be known to all men.
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  Speaker 1: What he means by that word forbearing is really your
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  Speaker 1: willingness to accept less than you deserve. He's talking here
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  Speaker 1: about the spiritual virtue of humility. You can call it forbearing.
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  Speaker 1: You can call it contentment. You can call it humble graciousness.
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  Speaker 1: It is the attitude of a person who seeks nothing
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  Speaker 1: so when he gets nothing, he's not concerned with that.
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  Speaker 2: Humility.
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  Speaker 1: The fourth principle, also in verse 5 and then on
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  Speaker 1: to verse 6.
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  Speaker 2: Is this.
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  Speaker 1: Spiritual stability requires resting on a confident trust in the Lord.
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  Speaker 1: Resting on a confident trust in the Lord. He says
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  Speaker 1: in verse 5, the Lord is near then. Verse 6,
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  Speaker 1: so be anxious for nothing. What are you going to
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  Speaker 1: worry about when the Lord is there? If you understand
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  Speaker 1: who God is and if you believe Him and you believe.
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  Speaker 2: In Him, then what are you going to worry about?
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  Speaker 1: He transcends every problem. He transcends every difficulty, every test,
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  Speaker 1: every trial, every temptation. So the bottom line here is
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  Speaker 1: how much do you know about God and how much
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  Speaker 1: do you trust God? If you trust God, you will
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  Speaker 1: transcend your difficulty because you will understand who God is.
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  Speaker 1: You will understand the purposes of God. You will understand
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  Speaker 1: that God is still in control and you will therefore
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  Speaker 1: be calm in the midst of your storm.
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  Speaker 2: Let's call this the virtue of faith.
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  Speaker 1: These are the virtues that make for spiritual stability, peace, joy, humility,
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  Speaker 1: and faith. You trust God and you know He's in charge.
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  Speaker 1: The fifth principle, and the one at which point we
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  Speaker 1: stopped last time, is this. Spiritual stability requires reacting to
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  Speaker 1: problems with thankful prayer. In verse 6, you remember, Paul
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  Speaker 1: said instead of worrying about things, pray. But he said,
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  Speaker 1: pray with thanksgiving. Pray with a thankful heart. So let's
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  Speaker 1: say the fifth virtue is gratitude.
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  Speaker 2: Gratitude. You show me a person....
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  Speaker 1: Who has peace, the peace that the Spirit of God produces, joy,
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  Speaker 1: a person who is humble. You show me a person
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  Speaker 1: who believes truly in God, and you show me a
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  Speaker 1: person who is thankful in everything, and I'll show you
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  Speaker 1: a person who is spiritually stable.
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  Speaker 2: Those are the virtues.
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  Speaker 1: Just a footnote from last time on this Note in
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  Speaker 1: verse 6 about praying with thanksgiving no matter how difficult
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  Speaker 1: the problem. If you rightly understand what you're going through,
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  Speaker 1: you should be thankful. No matter what persecution, no matter
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  Speaker 1: what trial, no matter what temptation comes your way, first
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  Speaker 1: of all, you can be thankful that in it there
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  Speaker 1: is the purpose of God, right? God is accomplishing some purpose.
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  Speaker 1: All things are working together for good according to His purpose.
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  Speaker 1: In it also, there is the perfecting work of God.
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  Speaker 1: Through every difficulty, He conforms you more and more to
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  Speaker 1: be strong and to be like His Son. In it also,
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  Speaker 1: there is the provision of God, for it allows him
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  Speaker 1: in difficulty to manifest his care for you.
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  Speaker 2: In it, there is the promise of God.
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  Speaker 1: That the God who takes you through and cares for
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  Speaker 1: you now is the God in whom you hope for
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  Speaker 1: a future deliverance which will lead you into His very
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  Speaker 1: eternal presence. So in the middle of your trial, you
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  Speaker 1: can be thankful for the purpose of God being worked
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  Speaker 1: by that trial. You can be thankful for the perfection
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  Speaker 1: of God being worked and accomplished in your life. You
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  Speaker 1: can be thankful for the provision and care of God
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  Speaker 1: in the process. And you can be thankful that it's
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  Speaker 1: only a taste to assure you of the future promise
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  Speaker 1: of God to be revealed in the day of Jesus Christ.
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  Speaker 2: You need to learn to be thankful.
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  Speaker 1: And if you really know who your God is, and
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  Speaker 1: you really understand who your God is and you really
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  Speaker 1: know that He's working out His perfect plan, you can
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  Speaker 1: have a thankful heart in any difficulty at all. You
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  Speaker 1: don't need to lose your stability. Let me give you
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  Speaker 1: perhaps the most interesting illustration of this. You remember a
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  Speaker 1: man named Jonah? Jonah had a predicament that is unimaginable,
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  Speaker 1: absolutely unimaginable. Somebody sent me a little sign this week.
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  Speaker 1: It's been a very difficult week or so for me.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of battles, and somebody knew I was kind
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  Speaker 1: of struggling with a lot of things that were going on.
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  Speaker 1: They sent me a picture of two penguins. They were
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  Speaker 1: standing like this, facing forward, and one of them was
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  Speaker 1: consumed down to the middle by a huge fish. And
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  Speaker 1: the other one was saying, remember, God is in control.
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  Speaker 1: That's easy for you to say. And I couldn't help
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  Speaker 1: but think of Jonah. That was exactly his predicament. As
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  Speaker 1: you come to Jonah chapter 2, it simply says, Then
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  Speaker 1: Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach
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  Speaker 1: of the fish. Now, if you were in the stomach
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  Speaker 1: of a fish, what would your prayer be like? Maybe
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  Speaker 1: not a lot like Jonah's. Maybe a lot of screaming
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  Speaker 1: and crying out and pleading and what.
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  Speaker 2: Are you doing, God? Where are you?
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  Speaker 1: Where have you gone? Why is this happening? That was
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  Speaker 1: not Jonah's approach.
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  Speaker 2: Listen to this.
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  Speaker 1: Jonah, in the first place, must have had his senses
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  Speaker 1: about him as he was floating around in the gastric
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  Speaker 1: juices because this is what he said. Verse 2, chapter 2,'
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  Speaker 1: I called out of my distress to the Lord, and
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  Speaker 1: He answered me. I cried for help from the depths
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  Speaker 1: of Sheol. Thou didst hear my voice, for Thou hast
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  Speaker 1: cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas,
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  Speaker 1: and the current engulfed me. All Thy breakers and billows
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  Speaker 1: passed over me.' I mean, He pictures Himself sinking into
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  Speaker 1: the sea.' So I said, I have been expelled from
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  Speaker 1: Thy sight.' Nevertheless, I will look again toward thy holy temple.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, he says, I'm so far down here,
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  Speaker 1: God doesn't know where I am. He can't find me.
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  Speaker 1: I will look again toward thy holy temple. Water compassed
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  Speaker 1: me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me.
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  Speaker 1: Weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended to the
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  Speaker 1: roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was
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  Speaker 1: around me forever. But thou hast brought up my life
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  Speaker 1: from the pit, O Lord my God. While I was
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  Speaker 1: fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came.
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  Speaker 2: To thee and to thy holy temple.
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  Speaker 1: Those who regard vain idols forsake their faithfulness, but I
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  Speaker 1: will sacrifice to thee with the voice of.
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  Speaker 2: Thanksgiving.
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  Speaker 1: He says, I will sacrifice to thee with the voice
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  Speaker 1: of thanksgiving.
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  Speaker 2: There's one thing a fish can't stand, it's a thankful prophet.
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  Speaker 1: It made him sick and he vomited Jonah out in
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  Speaker 1: verse 10. Here was a man who was in the
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  Speaker 1: direst imaginable circumstance, an unthinkable trauma, who in the midst
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  Speaker 1: of it all expressed his great prayer of thanksgiving. Now that,
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  Speaker 1: in spite of Jonah's other weaknesses, reflects a great amount
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  Speaker 1: of spiritual stability. And then he says, Salvation is from
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  Speaker 1: the Lord. There never was a wavering in his confidence
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  Speaker 1: of God's ability to deliver should he choose to do so.
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  Speaker 1: Now back to Philippians chapter 4 where Paul says, if
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  Speaker 1: you pray like that, if you manifest that kind of
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  Speaker 1: thanksgiving because you have that strong faith, you will find,
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  Speaker 1: verse 7, the peace of God will.
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  Speaker 2: Guard you from sin. being unstable.
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  Speaker 1: The peace of God will bring a tranquility and a
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  Speaker 1: contentment and a consolation beyond human device, beyond human explanation,
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  Speaker 1: beyond human understanding. He says it really surpasses all comprehension
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  Speaker 1: and it will guard you from instability. We call this
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  Speaker 1: the virtue of gratitude, a grateful heart. You see, spiritual
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  Speaker 1: stability is experienced through these means, peace, joy, humility, faith,
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  Speaker 1: and gratitude. And when your life is characterized by those
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  Speaker 1: spiritual attitudes, you will be able to experience difficulty and
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  Speaker 1: not lose your balance and not get knocked over and toppled.
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  Speaker 1: But Paul is not through. He now reaches, I believe,
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  Speaker 1: the climax. and another essential key to being spiritually stable,
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  Speaker 1: and really the key to everything in verse 8. This
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  Speaker 1: is the major point that he wants to make, the
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  Speaker 1: high point. In order to be spiritually stable, and frankly,
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  Speaker 1: in order to experience peace, joy, humility, faith, and gratitude,
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  Speaker 1: you must be focusing on godly virtues. You must be
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  Speaker 1: focusing on godly virtues. You cannot experience godly virtues unless
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  Speaker 1: you focus on godly virtues. Verse 8 says, finally, brethren,
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  Speaker 1: whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever
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  Speaker 1: is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute,
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  Speaker 1: if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise,
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  Speaker 1: let your mind dwell on these things. Now, here the
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  Speaker 1: Apostle Paul sums up what he's been saying. The word
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  Speaker 1: finally indicates that he has reached a climax at this
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  Speaker 1: particular point. And this is the great, in a sense,
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  Speaker 1: the great summation of everything, the great key to all
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  Speaker 1: the other elements. And what he is saying basically is
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  Speaker 1: summed up in that last phrase of verse 8, let
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  Speaker 1: your mind dwell on these things. Spiritual stability is a
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  Speaker 1: result of how you think about.
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  Speaker 2: Of how you think.
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  Speaker 1: Now modern psychology today, which has a corner supposedly on
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  Speaker 1: helping people, says that if you want to be stable,
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  Speaker 1: if you want to get your act together, if you
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  Speaker 1: want to be delivered from your schizophrenia, from your various
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  Speaker 1: neuroses and psychoses, if you want to be a calm, comfortable,
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  Speaker 1: stable person who's got it together, one of the things
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  Speaker 1: you need to do is look into your past. You
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  Speaker 1: need to sort of get out the dredge and dredge
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  Speaker 1: up the scum of the past. You need to dive
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  Speaker 1: into the trash bin of your past.
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  Speaker 2: You need to.
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  Speaker 1: Find your old sins and your old hurts and the
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  Speaker 1: abuses and mistreatments and all of the chaos of your past,
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  Speaker 1: the garbage of your life, the old sins and failures.
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  Speaker 1: And you need to poke around, stir it up, deal
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  Speaker 1: with all of it, regurgitate it all, etc.
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  Speaker 2: etc.
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  Speaker 1: They may even go to the extreme where if you
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  Speaker 1: happen to go to a psychiatrist who develops primal therapy techniques,
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  Speaker 1: he'll stick you on the floor, stuff pillows around you,
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  Speaker 1: put you in a fetal position, and try to get
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  Speaker 1: you to feel the pain of your pre-birth experience in
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  Speaker 1: the womb of your mother. And that is the start
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  Speaker 1: of the path to stability. This, of course, has spilled
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  Speaker 1: over into Christianity as well. However, in the light of
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  Speaker 1: verse 8, it seems to me to be utterly obtuse
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  Speaker 1: and ridiculous for what the Apostle Paul here says is
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  Speaker 1: clearly this, that you are to focus your attention completely
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  Speaker 1: on things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and
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  Speaker 1: of good repute. The focus of the Christian is away
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  Speaker 1: from those things of which it is a shame to speak,
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  Speaker 1: for they are the things of the darkness, as Paul
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  Speaker 1: calls them in Ephesians chapter 5. So Paul wants to
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  Speaker 1: sum up, and what his final and summing point is,
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  Speaker 1: is that you must, if you want to be spiritually stable,
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  Speaker 1: learn how to think on the right things. As I said,
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  Speaker 1: the key phrase, let's look at it now, is in
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  Speaker 1: verse 8, let your mind dwell on these things. This
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  Speaker 1: is a call for right thinking. The verb is legizista.
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  Speaker 1: It's an imperative, which means it's a command. It means
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  Speaker 1: not just to think in the simple one-dimensional sense. It
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  Speaker 1: means to evaluate. It means to ascertain. It means to
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  Speaker 1: use your faculties to consider the validity and implications of
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  Speaker 1: these things. In other words, to develop these kind of
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  Speaker 1: thinking habits.
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  Speaker 2: Now, I want you to listen carefully to what I say.
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  Speaker 2: This seems obvious.
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  Speaker 1: You as a believer are a product of your thinking
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  Speaker 1: because it says in the Bible as clearly as possible,
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  Speaker 1: as a man thinks in his heart, so what?
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  Speaker 2: Is he. You are the product of your thoughts. The computers,
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  Speaker 2: people say.
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  Speaker 1: G-I-G-O, garbage in, garbage out. Whatever you program is exactly
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  Speaker 1: what you're going to get. You are the product of
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  Speaker 1: your thinking. Now, what is particularly frightening about that in
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  Speaker 1: our culture is that it seems to me that thinking
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  Speaker 1: is not really that important today. We are not so
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  Speaker 1: concerned about thinking as we are about two other things.
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  Speaker 2: Let's call them emotion and pragmatism.
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  Speaker 1: We are concerned about feeling and we are concerned about success.
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  Speaker 1: We are not so concerned about thinking. In other words,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: people don't ask this question, is it true? And they
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: don't ask the question, is it right? They ask these questions,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: does it work and how will it make me feel?
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: That's what they want to know. They don't want to
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: know is it right. They don't really care if it's right.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: They don't particularly care if it's true. But will it
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: work and will it make me feel good? That's a
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: tragic thing to face, but that is in fact the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: nature of our society. The mind is depreciated in our
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: culture because we are into a feeling kind of culture.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Even in theology, it is sad to say that the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: issue is not always is it right or is it true,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: but will it divide or will it offend?
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Those are new things for us to deal with.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: You see, the noble Bereans were noble because they searched
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the Scriptures not to see if these things felt good.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: and not to see if these things worked, and not
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: to see if these things would not offend, but to
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: see if these things were so. We live in a
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: culture that is fast learning not to think because it
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: is fast learning not.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: To read, which creates thinking.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Paul Robinson, a professor at Stanford University, was a contributor
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: to the latest edition of The Little Brown Reader, which
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: comes out in is for those people in the English
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and communications field. I was sent a copy of the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: article he wrote entitled, TV Can't Educate.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: It's quite a fascinating article.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: He, simply coming from a secular mind, analyzing our society
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: and the mode of communication that is effective in the
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: thinking process, simply says this, the only way to learn
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: is by reading. It's the only way to learn because
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: words on a page freeze a thought, you can analyze it,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: you can synthesize it, you can verify it, you can
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: meditate on it. Pictures don't create thought, they just grab emotions.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: He goes on to point out the fact that the
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: worst possible TV is educational TV. because it is a
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: contradiction in terms since TV can't educate. He said you
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: would be better off never to have educational TV because
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: at least in your mind there would be a vacuum
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: that someday might be filled with a real thought. We
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: have a society that doesn't think. We're not into is
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: it true, is it right? We're into how does it
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: make me feel and does it work? Bill Hull, in
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: a book entitled Right Thinking, written in 1985, writes, What
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: scares me is the anti-intellectual, anti-critical thinking philosophy that has
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: spilled over into the church. This philosophy tends to romanticize
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the faith, making the local church into an experience center.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Their concept of church is that they are spiritual consumers
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: and that the church's job is to meet their felt needs,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: end quote.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: And what is happening in the.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Church is that people are going to church not to think,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: not to reason about the truth, not like the noble
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Bereans to search the Scriptures to see what is true,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: but they're going there to get a weekly spiritual fix,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: a weekly spiritual high so they can feel that God
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: is still with them. They are spiritually unstable. because they
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: live on feeling rather than on thinking. The Christian must
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: not be a victim of his feelings. He must not
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: get caught in a pragmatic trap of does it work,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: is it successful. John Stott has written in his helpful
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: little book, Your Mind Matters, this. Indeed, sin has more
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: dangerous effects on our faculty of feeling than on our
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: faculty of thinking because our opinions are more easily checked
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: and regulated by revealed truth than.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Our experiences, end quote. Very wise statement.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: In searching a little bit deeper into this subject this week,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I took a book off my shelf entitled Stations of
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the Mind written by William Glasser.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: An M.D.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Psychiatrist who is basically the father of reality therapy, the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: innovator of a kind of psychiatric therapy called reality therapy.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: He has an entire section in that book on the
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: brain and how it works. Coming from a secular psychiatric mindset,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: it's quite curious what his research has led him to conclude.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: He shows, for example, that humans are not simply what
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: they call S.R., animals. SR means stimulus response. You see,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: traditional pagan humanistic psychiatry psychology simply sees man at the
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: end of an evolutionary process. We are simply the pinnacle
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of evolution. We're along the lines of all other animals.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: In fact, if you go back earlier than that, we're
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: not much different than a rock or a leaf or whatever.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: We're just at the end of the evolutionary chain out
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: there on the top of this thing, but we have
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the same characteristics as those other elements along that evolutionary chain. Therefore,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: we are a stimulus response kind of animal. And that
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: is why, for example, you have a man like Pavlov
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: who gets a bunch of dogs and runs a bunch
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: of tests with dogs, and whenever there's a certain situation
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: to stimulate them, they start to salivate, and you take
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Pavlov's dogs and you translate it over into human behavior
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: because all we are is fancy dogs.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: That's all.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: So whatever made Pavlov's dogs salivate should be conclusive.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: About human behavior. So you come up with a conclusion
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: that we are SRs.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: We are stimulus response people. When the stimulus is there,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: we respond. And given the same stimulus, we have a
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: predictable response. This has been pretty much unassailable truth in
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the evolutionary mindset. Glasser attacks it, interestingly enough, and says
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: frankly that man is not controlled by a predictable stimulus
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: response factor. Man is controlled from the inside, he says,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: by what he wants and by what he desires.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: And he says what he wants and what.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: He desires is predetermined by what has influenced his what?
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: His thinking. His thinking.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: He says you can give one man the same kind
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: of stimulus several times through his life and you might
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: get several different responses. If it were a factor in
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: human design that he always responded in an SR fashion,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: then his response would always have to be the same
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: to the same stimulus, but it isn't. Furthermore, you can
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: take 15 people, give them all the same stimulus, and
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: get 15 different responses because man responds not by the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: outside stimulus but by what he wants and what he desires,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: he says, which is programmed by what has influenced his thinking.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: His response is not mechanical. Says Glasser, it is thoughtful.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: That's very important.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: It is thoughtful.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: The mind then becomes the command center which determines his
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: conduct based upon how he thinks, based upon how he's
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: been influenced to think. So how one thinks is the
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: critical issue. You're not just a fancy dog. You're not
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: going to salivate every time the same deal happens.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: You're going to react according to how you think.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: The mind then has the power to shape you and
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: to shape your action and consequently is the most powerful
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: element of human life. Lord Palmerston said in the House
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: of Commons on July 21, 1849, quote, opinions are stronger
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: than armies, opinions will in the end prevail against the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: bayonets of infantry that fire of artillery, and the charges
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: of cavalry, end quote.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: He's right. Armies come and go. Ideologies last.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how powerful opinions are. Now, from the biblical perspective,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: it becomes very clear how important thinking is. And that
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: is precisely what Paul is calling for in this verse.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: He is saying, you've got to learn how to think
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: on the right things. Let's talk a little bit about
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: what the Bible says about thinking. What a very basic
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: issue this is. First of all, God has commanded us
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: to think. Do you remember Isaiah 118? Do you remember
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: what God said? He said, come now, let us what?
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Reason together. Let's think this thing through. He didn't say, come,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: let us feel one another. He didn't say, come, let
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: us experience this together.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: He said, come, let's reason. Let's think this through.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: In Matthew chapter 16, the Pharisees and the Sadducees came
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: to Jesus.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: They said, we want to see a sign. We want
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: you to show us a sign.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Do something spectacular that will overwhelm us. And He said, well,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: He said, you can look at the sky and tell
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: what the weather's like. Why can't you look at the
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: revelation of God and figure it out? In other words,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to give you some spectacular show in
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the sky. I'm going to ask you to consider what
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: the facts are that you already have access to. Jesus
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: furthermore said, even though someone is raised from the dead,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: they won't believe if they didn't believe Moses and the prophets.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Always the Bible calls on men to think. to reason.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: You see, that's why the Bible is a book. When
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: God gave us His revelation, He did not give us
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: a movie.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: He did not. He did not give us a series
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: of music videos. You know what?
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: He didn't even have built-in organ background when you read
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the Bible.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Nobody is humming.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: There's nothing to touch your emotions except the contemplation of truth.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: No stimulus other than truth, which requires thought. So Scriptures
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: assume that the first priority is to think because it's
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: a book. Don't you see how different this is from
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: the modern-day sort of charismatic movement where everyone is running
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: around not looking for truth but looking for what? Experience, emotion, feeling.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: The Bible is, by its very nature, calling men to think.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Psalm 32 verse 9, verse 8 actually,' I will instruct you,'
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: says God,' I will teach you in the way which
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: you should go. I will counsel you with My eye
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: upon you.' In other words, I'll give you all the truth,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: all the instruction, all the teaching, all the counseling. Verse 9,'
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Do not be as the horse or as the mule
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: which have no understanding.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Think.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Don't be like a horse or a mule. Think and
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: you'll have access to My truth. Psalm 73, 22, the
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: psalmist admits, I was senseless and ignorant.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: I was like a beast. Don't be like that. Think.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Listen now. Careful thinking is the distinctive of our revealed faith.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Let me say that again. Careful thinking is the distinctive
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: of our revealed faith. Or, I wrote a book called
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: The Christian View of God and the World. In one paragraph,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: he says this very insightfully. If there is a religion
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: in the world which exalts the office of teaching, it
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: is safe to say that it is the religion of
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. It has been frequently remarked that in pagan religions,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the doctrinal element is at a minimum. The chief thing
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: there is the performance of a ritual. But this is
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: precisely where Christianity distinguishes itself from other religions.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: It does contain doctrine.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: It comes to men with definite positive teaching.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: It claims to be the truth.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: It bases religion on knowledge, though a knowledge which is
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: only attainable under moral conditions.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: A religion divorced from earnest.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: And lofty thought has always, down through the whole history of.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: The church, tended to become weak, jejune, and unwholesome.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: While the intellect deprived of its rights within religion has
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: sought its satisfaction without and developed into godless rationalism.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Boy, that is a great statement. To sum up what he.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Says, if there's any religion in the world that exalts
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: the office of teaching and therefore the idea of thinking,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: it is the Christian religion because it is propositional, it
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: is written, it is not a ritual, it is not
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: an experience, it is a revelation of truth.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: And then he says, when the church.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Ceases to think and reason and divorces itself from lofty thought, then,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: he says, the mind or the intellect, deprived of its
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: rights in religion, will pursue something outside of religion to
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: fulfill itself and thus comes the rise of godless rationalism.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: So maybe the church contributes something to rationalism because it
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: offers nothing to the mind when it is weak and
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: witless as it so often is. Now, when you come
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: to considering this matter of the mind, the Bible has
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: a lot to say. It has a lot to say
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: about thinking. Let me give you a little theology of
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: thinking coming quick, so hold on. What about before you're saved?
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: What does it say about your mind? Here it comes.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: First of all, your mind is depraved, Romans 128. It's depraved, debased, debauched, wicked,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: That's what that means. Secondly, it's blind, 2 Corinthians 4.4. Thirdly,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: it is futile, vain, worthless, useless, Ephesians 4.17. Fourthly, it
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: is ignorant, Ephesians 4.18. Finally, it is foolish, 1 Corinthians 2.14.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: So you can say to an unbeliever, my friend, I
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: don't know you real well, but I do know a
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: few things.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: About you I'd like to share.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know what your IQ is, I don't know
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: what your academic background is, but I want to tell
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: you that your mind is depraved, blind, futile, ignorant, and foolish.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: And you know you'd be exactly right, exactly right. So depraved,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: it does not choose what is good. So blind, it
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: does not know what is good. So useless, it does
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: not perform what is good. So ignorant, it doesn't even
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: know it's doing all of this. And you're left with
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the only alternative, everything is foolish. That's the mind of man,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: fallen man. The gospel then penetrates, right? Now, what about
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: the mind at salvation? Is the gospel concerned about the mind?
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: You better believe it. Do you remember what we've been
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: studying in 1 Peter 3, where Peter says, you must
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: be able to give to every man who asks you
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: a reason for the hope that is in you.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: You have to be able to show him a reason
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: for this.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Why do you believe this? In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus said,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: sometimes the seed falls, verse 19, on the ground and
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: the seed is the word of the kingdom and the
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: hard ground is the heart that does not understand it
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: and Satan snatches it away. It demands reason and it
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: demands understanding. An element of salvation, an element of it
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: is occurring within the mind as a person is coming
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: to a proper comprehension of truth, truth about himself, truth
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: about his sin, truth about God, truth about Christ, truth
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: about the work of Christ, truth about the future. That
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: all comes into the mind. That's why it says in
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Romans 10 that faith comes by hearing a speech about Christ.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: It's not some esoteric thing. Faith comes through the mind,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: through the reason. Come now, let us reason together, says Isaiah.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Though they be red like crimson, they shall become as
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: white as snow. Let's reason that. The gospel hits the mind.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: That's what made those Bereans so noble. They searched the Scripture.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: They thought it through. J. Gresham Machen, that great student
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: of Scripture, in his book, The Christian Faith in the
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Modern World, said, what the Holy Spirit does in the
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: new birth is not to make a man a Christian
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: regardless of the evidence, but on the contrary, to clear
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: away the mists from his eyes and enable him to
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: attend to the evidence.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: That's the point.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: He sees it. He understands it. by the working of
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: the Spirit of God. Well, this we know because men
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: are saved to be worshipers, right? John 4, the Father
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: seeks true worshipers. And a true worshiper worships in spirit
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: and in what?
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Truth.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: So if we are saved to worship, in truth, then
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: truth is crucial. Salvation is God's work on the mind.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: You see, it is unacceptable to worship God apart from
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: the truth about God. That's why Paul was so upset
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: when he got to Mars Hill in Acts 17, and
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: he found a bunch of erudite Greek philosophers who built
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: an altar to what God? The unknown God. How absolutely ridiculous.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: That does not please God. God isn't saying, well, it's
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: a nice gesture, and I really understand the spirit of it,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: and I accept it.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Not on your life.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: God is not the unknown God. God will be worshiped
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: only according to the truth of who He is. And
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: so Paul immediately informed them of who God really was.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: And in Luke 10, 27, it says, You must love
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: the Lord your God with all your heart, all.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Your soul, and all your mind.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: You see, salvation is an intelligent response to God's self-revelation
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: in Scripture prompted by the Holy Spirit.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: True faith is not an irrational leap.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: True faith is not some contact with the ground of being.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: As Paul Tillich used to say.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: True faith is not some explosion into a non-quantifiable event.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: True faith is not some mysterious, irreproducible, unspeakable encounter.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: True faith.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: is a reasonable trust in the revealed truth about the
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: true God. It is a process of thinking. Salvation is
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: impossible without thinking. When Jesus was talking to His disciples
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: in Matthew 6.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Well, all the time when He was talking to them,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: we want to get them.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: To think, but in Matthew 6, you know, they were
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: bemoaning the fact that they might not have food and clothing.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: And you remember, He came to them and He basically says,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: the birds of the air They're taken care of, and
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: you see how the lilies of the field are, and
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: the grass of the field, and all of that. And, oh,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: you of little faith, why don't you just believe God
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: to take care of you? Remember that in Matthew 6?
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Martin Lloyd-Jones, in his classic, The Sermon on the Mount,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: writes this little paragraph on that section.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: I think it's worthy of repeating.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: He says, faith, according to our Lord's teaching in this paragraph,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: is primarily thinking. And the whole trouble with a man
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: of little faith is that he doesn't think. He allows
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: circumstances to bludgeon Him. We must spend more time in
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: studying our Lord's lessons in observation and deduction. The Bible,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: He says, is full of logic, and we must never
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: think of faith as something purely mystical. We do not
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: just sit down in an armchair and expect marvelous.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Things to happen to us. This is not Christian faith.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Christian faith is essentially thinking. Look at the birds, think
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: about them, and draw your deductions. Look at the grass,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: look at the lilies of the field, consider them. Faith,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: if you like, can be defined like this, it is
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: a man insisting upon thinking when everything seems determined to
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: bludgeon and knock him down in an intellectual sense. The
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: trouble with the person of little faith is that instead
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: of controlling his own thought, his thought is being controlled
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: by something else. And as we put it, he goes
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: round and round in circles. That is the essence of worry.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Now get this. That is not thought. That is the
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: absence of thought, end quote. Great. What does he mean
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: by that?
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: He means if you worry, it's because you're not thinking.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: You're being bludgeoned by your circumstances.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: If you rise above them and think about your God
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: and think about his purposes and think about his promises
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: and think about his plans.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: You won't worry. Right? Remember that when you worry. You
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: think too much. No, you think too little. You think
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: far too little in the right direction.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Faith is not optimism. Faith is not psychological self-hypnosis. Faith
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: is not wishful thinking. Faith is a reasoned response to
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: revealed truth. Now, we talked about what your mind was
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: like before salvation. We talked about how God moves your
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: mind at salvation. What about after salvation? Well, your mind's
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: been transformed. You've got a new mind. You don't have
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: a new brain, but you have a new mind. That is,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: you've been infused with a new divine capacity to reason.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: The Spirit of God has invaded your thought processes.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable, isn't it? You don't just think as a human
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: brain anymore.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: You think as a human brain mingled with the Spirit
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: of the living God who lives within you. You have
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: all new thought patterns. To show you this, look at
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8 and verse 5. This
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: draws it as simply and clearly as any passage. Verse
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: 5 of Romans 8 says, For those who are according
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: to the flesh, that's unregenerate people, non-Christian people, those who
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: are according to the flesh set their minds on the
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: things of the flesh. To put it simply, unsaved people
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: have an unsaved mindset. Fleshly people have a fleshly mindset.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: They think about fleshly things. But, verse 5 says, Those
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: who are according to the Spirit, the regenerate, set their
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: mind on the things of the Spirit.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: You have a new mind.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Verse 6, for the mind set on the flesh is death,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: You have a whole new mind. It's not set on
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: the flesh, it's set on the Spirit.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: It's incredible.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: The word here, phrenema, means mindset. A whole new way
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: of thinking is what it means. Not a new brain,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: but a new way of thinking. All of a sudden,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: your thought patterns, which are physical and human, are injected
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: with thought patterns which are divine and supernatural.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: The Spirit of God moves into your thinking.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: And now that mind which was once depraved and blind
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: and futile and ignorant and foolish is totally different. It
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: no longer thinks on the fleshly level, it thinks on
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: the spiritual level. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 30.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: When we think about what Christ gives us in salvation,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: what He brings to us, what He provides for us,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: what He grants us, it's absolutely thrilling. But just note this,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: maybe you've overlooked this one. 1 Corinthians 1.30, by God's doing,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: we are in Christ, He says.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: We have become in Christ.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Then it says, Christ Jesus, who became to us, what?
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Wisdom from God.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Isn't that a marvelous reality?
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: All of a sudden now we have the wisdom of God.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: And the Old Testament psalmist says, Psalm 92, 5, thy
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: thoughts are very deep. Now all of a sudden we
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: can plunge the deep thoughts of eternal God. We think
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: in ways we never thought before. We think God's thoughts.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Go to chapter 2. Chapter 2, verse 11, for who
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: among men knows the thoughts of a man except the
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: spirit of the man which is in him? Even so,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the thoughts of God no one knows except the.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: Spirit of God.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Now we have received not the Spirit of the world,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: but the Spirit who is from God, that we might
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: know the things freely given.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: To us by God. Unbelievable.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: The only one who knows the A man is the
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: spirit of that man. That's analogous to the fact that
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: the only one who knows God is the Spirit of God.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: And we have received the Spirit of God, therefore we
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: have the knowledge of God. So we have the wisdom
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: of Christ. We have the knowledge of God granted us
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: by the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 15. He who
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: is spiritual appraises all things.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Great statement.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Yet he himself is appraised by no man, for who
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: has known the mind of the Lord that he should
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: instruct him?
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: But we have, what? The mind of Christ. Isn't that incredible?
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: We're not like the natural man in verse 14 who
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't know anything about God.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: It's all foolishness to him. We know the mind of Christ.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: We now understand the wisdom of God. The Spirit of
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: God brings us knowledge about God that we would otherwise never,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: ever have. And you know, as a Christian, you have that.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: You know, now Paul wrote to these Corinthians. You remember
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: this group wasn't really that great. They had a lot
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: of major problems. They still had the mind of Christ.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: They still had the wisdom of God. They still had
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. In fact, chapter 10,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: after he's just blasted them for a number of chapters
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: on their sinfulness, in chapter 10, he's going to talk
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: to them about how they have desecrated the Lord's table
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: to add to all the other terrible things they did.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: They were desecrating the Lord's table.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: But look what he says to them in chapter 10,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: verse 15. I'm speaking as to wise men. You judge
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: what I say. What do you mean by that, Paul?
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, what I'm telling you, by God's grace
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: and through salvation, you have the divine wisdom to evaluate.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: You can understand this. You can apply this. That's how
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: we are to think. consistent with the wisdom of God
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: granted us in Christ. It says in Colossians 3, verse 10,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: that the new self is renewed to a true knowledge
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: of to the image of the One who created Him.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: In other words, we've been given a new mind. Therefore,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: 2 Corinthians 10.3 says the weapons of our warfare are
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: not what?
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Fleshly.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: The weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, they are
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: spiritual weapons. There are weapons, it says, that destroy speculations
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: of Christ.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: Isn't it amazing?
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: We can go through the world and literally take every
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: human thought captive to the truth in Christ, can't we?
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: We can force it to submit to what we know
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: is true about Christ, true about God, true about Scripture.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: We have a new mind. You ever strained anything through
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: a strainer?
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: We have the ability to strain all the data in
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: the world and purify it. We have the mind of Christ,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: the mind of God. So the Christian life then becomes
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: characterized by a new mind.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: We have a new mind.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: But may I challenge you, have you noticed that sometimes
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: your mind gets dirty? Have you noticed it needs periodic cleaning? Well,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: in Romans 12, 1 and 2, it says that we
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: not only are to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: acceptable unto God, which is an act of reasonable worship,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: but we are not to be conformed to this world,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: in order that you may know what is the good
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: and acceptable and perfect will of God. We are continually
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: in need of renewing our minds, continually renewing our minds.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: In Ephesians 4, 23, Paul says, be renewed in the
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: spirit of your mind. In 1 Thessalonians at the end,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: chapter 5, verse 21, examine everything carefully. Hold fast to
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: what is good.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: Learn to think.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Refresh your mind. Clean your mind. Renew your mind. Gets
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: dirty in the world. Peter says in 1 Peter 1, 13,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: gird up your mind for action. You've got to take
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: care of your mind, folks. That's what he's saying. That's
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: what Paul's saying, Peter's saying, take care of your mind.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: John Owen, a great Puritan writer, said this, that good
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: which the mind cannot discover, the will cannot choose, and
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: the affections cannot cleave to. And then Owen said, in Scripture,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: the deceit of the mind is commonly laid down as
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: the principle of all sin. You must take care of
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: your mind. We are therefore called a mental discipline. Colossians 3.2,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: set your mind on things what? Above, not on things
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: on the earth. Paul often says in his epistles, I
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: would not have you to be what?
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Ignorant. Ten times in 1 Corinthians and Romans he says,
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: do you not know? Do you not know? Do you
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: not know?
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: He's always filling in the gaps of their lack of knowledge.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: And Jesus often used the verb to think. We must
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: be committed to thinking and thinking on the right things.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: This isn't really new to the New Testament. If you
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: go all the way back to the instruction of Proverbs
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: chapter 2. It says, my son, if you will receive
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: my sayings and treasure my commandments within you, make your
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding. For
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: If you seek her as silver and search for her
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: as for hidden treasures, then you will discern the fear
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. For
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: the Lord gives wisdom. From his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: In other words, you got to go after it. You
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: got to mine it like you were mining silver. You
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: got to work to get it. And by the way,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: if you're faithful to make the maximum effort, according to
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Psalm 119.34, God will give you understanding. The Christian mind, tragically,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: has succumbed to the secular drift. And we have a
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Christianity today that doesn't think. It's somewhat hysterical, melancholy, melodramatic.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: It doesn't think. It's really tragic. We're asking the wrong questions.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: We're asking, how will it make me feel and does
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: it work instead of is it true, is it right?
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: We've got to learn to think on the right things. Now,
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: what are they? Let's look at our text. Very simple.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: I don't even need to comment on them. Actually, you
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: can see them for yourself. First, he says, finally, brethren,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: whatever is true. Now, if you want to know what's true,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: where are you going to go?
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: To the Word of God.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: John 17, 17, thy word is truth. Psalm 19, 9,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Psalm 19, 151, etc., etc., etc. The truth is in Christ.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Ephesians 4, 21 tells us that. The truth is in God.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: 2 Timothy 2, 25 tells us that. So if you
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: want to know the truth, you go to the Word
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: of God. It's the focus and the locus of all truth.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: So if I'm going to think on whatever is true,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: I'm going to dwell on the Word of God, first
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: of all, and on anything else that is true. Secondly,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: he says whatever is honorable.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: That means worthy of respect.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: Whatever is noble, whatever is dignified, whatever is reverent, whatever
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: is lofty, not trashy, mundane, common.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: The word really comes from a term meaning to worship.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Whatever is worthy of awe, whatever is held in high regard,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: whatever is greatly respected, whatever is worthy of adoration. That's
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: what I think about. Thirdly, he says, whatever is right,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: and the word is righteous here, righteous. Whatever is in
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: perfect harmony with the eternal, unchanging, divine standard of a
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: holy God revealed in Scripture. I am going to think
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: on what is true. I am going to think on
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: what is worthy of worship. I am going to think
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: on what is absolutely consistent with the holiness of God.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: And then he says, whatever is pure. Agnos, meaning morally clean, undefiled.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Whatever is morally pure and morally clean, I will think
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: on that, not the other junk. Then he says whatever
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: is lovely. That means winsome, pleasing, attractive, amiable. It's one
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: of those words that we only find here in the
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: New Testament, an unusual word. It means whatever is sweet
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: or pleasant. gracious or generous or patient. It can have
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of sort of facets. Whatever is attractive and
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: lovely is as good as any word to translate that term.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: And then he says, whatever is of good repute, which
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: means well thought of. Whatever is highly regarded. That's where
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: I put my thoughts. You know where that keeps me?
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: That really confines me, doesn't it? If I look at
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: the world, am I going to find the truth? If
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: I look around at the world, am I going to
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: find what is honorable, what is right, what is pure,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: what is lovely, what is of good report? When I
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: turn on the television, is that what I'm going to see?
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: When I go to the theater, is that what I'm
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: going to see? When I read a book or a magazine,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: is that what I'm going to see? When I have
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: a conversation with friends, is that what I'm going to experience?
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: The point is you've got to protect your mind because
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: that is what determines what you want and what you desire,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: and that's what determines how you react to the stimuli
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: of life. And then he says, if there's any excellence
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: and anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: these things. And those are statements that we could just
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: as well read, since there is excellence and since there
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: are some things worthy of praise, please focus on them.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: Please.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Your mind is the greatest treasure you have in terms
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: of those gifts of human life. And now as a believer,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: your mind works in concert with the Spirit of God.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: You must protect that mind. And the way you protect
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: it is how you think. And you must protect its influences.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: You must avoid those things which negatively influence your thinking.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: There's no quick fix to this.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: There's not any easy formula to spiritual stability that you
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: can get in four counseling sessions. There's not any little
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: book you can write and say, here it is. You
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: can't bottle it and tell them to take a dose
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: a day. Spiritual stability is a product of of cultivating
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: peace in the fellowship, maintaining a spirit of joy, learning
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: to accept less than your due, resting on a confident
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: trust or faith in the Lord, reacting to problems with
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: thankful prayer, and all of that flows out of focusing
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: on godly virtues that begin to dominate your thinking patterns,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: and that's what produces the peace, the joy, the humility,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: the faith, the gratitude that make your life stabilize. Now,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: the only remaining issue here and Paul knows it, is
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: to say, look, if you want an example of all this,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: look at me. Verse 9, the things you've learned, received,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: and heard, and seen in me, practice. these things, and
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: the God of peace shall be with you. You'll not
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: only have the peace of God, verse 7, you'll have
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: the God of peace, verse 9. Paul says, I'll be
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: the model, and then he goes on from there to
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: give us illustrations of how he literally transcended his troubles,
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: his persecutions, his difficulties, his testings, and maintain spiritual stability. Beloved,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: We must learn to guard our minds. You cannot expect
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: the fullness of spiritual joy and usefulness unless you desire
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: the right things because that's what moves your behavior and
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: your desires are a direct reflection of your influences. So, brethren,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: think on these things. Let's bow together in prayer. Father,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: gratefully we express appreciation for the fact that You have
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: ministered to us this morning.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: In many ways.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: You have given us the privilege of sitting, as it were,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: at the feet of the Spirit of God to be
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: taught Help us, Lord, to understand the unbelievable privilege of
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: having the mind of Christ, the wisdom of God dispensed
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: to us by the Spirit of God so that we
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: can properly know what is right. Help us, Lord, to
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: protect the mind, to learn to think, to set our
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: minds on the things that matter.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: Thank You, O God.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: For the rich repository of Your Word and all those
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: many books that speak of Your Word that provide for
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: us an unending well of fresh, clear, cool, refreshing water
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: of truth that we might truly be saturated.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: With that.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: Which is true, which is honorable, which is right, which
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: is pure, which is lovely, which is of good repute.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: And since there is excellence in the Christian life, and
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: since there are some things so worthy of praise, we
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: would think on these things. Guard us, Lord, that we
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: might be all the more to Your glory.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: Amen. You've been listening to John MacArthur, Bible teacher with
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: Grace to You.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: For free access to all of John's lessons and a
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: listing of study Bibles and books available for sale, visit
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: Grace to You's website at gty.org. John MacArthur and Grace
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: to You reserve all copyright protection under applicable law. Our
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: copyright policy is available at gty.org, and it includes instructions
• 1:02:25
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