I'm going to be reading this morning from Colossians. I'm going to start in verse 13, and it's probably very familiar to you. It's right in the middle of Paul's prayer, and he's so grateful for the Colossians, and he's telling them how grateful he is for them and the work that he sees in their hearts. And he's praying for them to grow in spiritual wisdom. But I want you to notice that in the middle of this, he wants and is exhorting and reminding them for Christ to be preeminent in their mind. And that's what we're going to be talking about this morning. So verse 13 of Colossians. Chapter 1, for he delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself might come to have first place in everything. for it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him and through him to reconcile all things to himself. Having made peace through the blood of the cross through him, I say whether things on earth or things in heaven, and although you were formerly alienated and hostile in your mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet he has reconciled you in his fleshly body through death in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. If indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of which I Paul was made a minister. And then Colossians 2.8, this one verse, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men according to the elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ. Would you pray with me? Father, our only response to your rescuing us should be gratitude, praise, and worship. But all too often, Lord, our thoughts center on our own desires. They steal away the preeminence that Christ should have in our lives because he is not first in our thoughts. We ask for your enabling grace to resist worldly thinking, thinking that believes and promotes self and man rather than you, our savior. May our thinking bear out the reality of this great delivery having taken place in our heart. May we continue in faith firmly established and steadfast as we continually allow the truth and blessing of the gospel to saturate and sanctify our minds. You may be seated. Well, I wanted to start off with this illustration. I go to the dentist four times a year to have my teeth cleaned, because after I had my braces when I was 12 to about 15, I developed a gum condition. So I have to go very often. So I'm sure you're all familiar with this. You go, and they use all the little tools and the little sounds that you hear. She cleans your teeth and she takes the plaque off. And then she does her best to polish them. But for me, as we all do, as we have natural color hair and natural color skin, we have natural color to our teeth. And she gets my teeth as bright and white as she can for what is natural for mine, but I wanted a little whiter teeth so that it really looked like what was true, that it looked like my teeth were really, really clean. And I drink a lot of tea, so they tend to discolor my teeth. So my hygienist suggested that I get something called whitening strips. Well, I bought them, and I put them in my drawer, and I forgot about them for a long time. So they absolutely did no good for my teeth, because they were in my drawer. But then I remembered, and I said, oh, I'll put them on, so you have to put this little strip on your teeth. You know, it kind of feels sort of funny. And lo and behold, yeah, they did make my teeth a little more bright and white. And so I thought, well, now it looks like what is true of my teeth, that they're really clean. And I thought that somehow that's similar to our relationship with the Lord. And this is the way. The Holy Spirit regenerates our heart, making it clean white as snow. Daily exposure to the word helps our life look like what is true of it. Saturating our heart and mind in scripture allows the Holy Spirit to reveal our sin, leading us to repentance and replacing our thinking with biblical truth. So you see, we can be truly the Lord's, but it not really look like it. Our cleansing agent helps us live like what is true of us. We then are more able to reflect our new nature, and that's righteousness. So prior to regeneration, our mind was corrupt, blinded, futile, and darkened. Listen to what Pastor John MacArthur says from his book, Anxiety Attacked, about the unregenerate mind. This is so astonishing. Since the mind of the lost is corrupt, it doesn't choose what is good. Since it's spiritually blind, it doesn't know what is good. Since its thoughts are futile, it doesn't perform what is good. And since it is ignorant, it doesn't even know the evil it is doing. What a tragic train of thought. But when the darkness of our mind has been shattered by the light of truth and our hearts are regenerated, our mind has a new capacity to be interjected with and controlled by divine thoughts. What an astonishing, fabulous thing. Did you ever think about that? That you have a capacity, and of course you've thought about this, but your thoughts can be interjected and interposed and controlled by divine thoughts, and the only place we get that is the Word. It doesn't naturally come to us. And that will be the subject of our time this morning, the importance of taking our thoughts captive. And as was referenced by the girls here, and I think that was probably purposeful, they spoke about 2 Corinthians 10.5, and let me read that to you. You probably know it well. It says, we are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. So that's going to be our key verse for us today. So we were created to worship, and that is what our redemption enables us to do. When we spend time in the word, the Holy Spirit enables us to know and see ourselves more clearly and honestly. He provides deep insights to our God, enabling us to know him better and to teach us to love him more than ourselves. He enables us to do what we were created to do in the first place, and that's to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Our salvation makes that possible, and then our sanctification, like those white strips, makes it visible. So as he transforms us from being worshipers of self to be worshipers of God, our thinking plays a major role. We need to think rightly in order to do and feel rightly. When the Holy Spirit awakened my soul to its deepest need, a fire was lit in my heart, as I'm sure it was in yours. Joy was produced as a result of understanding truth. My soul, which was once dead and dry, one minute, was quickened to life and burned brightly by the understanding of the gospel. And my life was turned upside right. In one minute, I went from being an object of wrath to an object of divine delight. Now, I didn't understand all of that at that moment, but positionally, I was transferred from that domain of darkness that we just read about to the kingdom of God's beloved son. My perceived needs fell to the background in comparison as my mind embraced what was being presented to me and provided for me. My emotions moved from the depths of despair to the transcendent heights of joy. Truly, when I was saved, I clearly remember just a huge sense of a burden being removed, because I understood. It was like, it really was like, and I just sat there and wept. And the lady who brought me to church said to me, why are you crying? She was a Scottish lady, you know, very staunch, stern kind of lady. She said, why are you crying? I said, because I understand. I understand. So not everyone's experience of coming to know the Lord is like that, but you will increasingly understand what you've been transferred from. So the gospel initially transforms your soul and mind at salvation, and it continues the transformation through the sanctification process. Redeemed sinners still need the gospel, however. how great a salvation would be accomplished in our lives if we would only embrace the gospel by faith and give it central place in our thoughts each day. You know, the past couple of years in our women's group, the same theme has been coming across, and that is to preach the gospel to ourselves daily. And sometimes it's the longer version, and sometimes it's just an image in my mind of what took place at the cross. But that sort of sets things right in my thinking. In my battle against my remaining sin, I must proclaim the gospel to myself often. I must filter my thinking through the truths of the gospel. You know, like the way when you put a hard candy in your mouth and you savor it and you roll it around and you just enjoy that sweet taste or the peppermint taste? Well, that's what we need to do with God's Word. We need to savor it and saturate it and derive its rich benefits. As long as I am inside the gospel, abiding in it, Jesus Christ, and embracing it, I experience the protection I need from the powers of evil that rage against me and from within. For this reason, the Bible uses the language of taking up and putting on the whole armor of God in Ephesians. Well, yes, I am saved and forever have a righteous standing before my holy God, but in this feeble tent, I am still vulnerable to the lure and effect of sin. As I said, the sin from without, but mostly the sin from within. I must take up and put on my armor daily, arming myself with the gospel from head to toe. Dwelling on God's glory that is revealed in the gospel and all of his word for that matter is the most powerful whitening agent of transformation available to mankind. Nothing can surpass it. For it is through God's word the Holy Spirit does its sanctifying verse. And your key verse for the entire weekend, 2 Corinthians 3.18, tells us, as we behold in a mirror, that's this, the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed to the same image, that's the Lord's image, from glory to glory. Now how does that really happen? Well, as I habitually gaze upon the glory of the Lord that's revealed in the gospel, I can know and trust that actual deposits of God's very glory are attaching themselves to my person and transforming me from one level of glory to another. That is astonishing. Frankly, we need to be astonished with the gospel every day. So to expose my thoughts or to filter them through the truth of the gospel will have a sanctifying effect. And once we have been transformed by the gospel and made to see the glories of God's love, we must learn to think on the glories of those love. So the question for us is this, what does occupy our minds? What do we think about? I have a question for you. If I were able to have filmed all of your thoughts for the past 24 hours and could show it on a screen here, would you stay for the show? Yes? Good. I don't know as if I would, and I knew I was going to ask you that. What kind of person does your thinking make you and me? And I think this is in your notes, and you're going to fill in some spaces there. I don't exactly know how it is, but I'll repeat it. You do what you do, and you feel what you feel, because you think what you think. You do what you do, and you feel what you feel, because you think what you think. The flesh is the only remaining place where sin finds the believer vulnerable. Since the brain and the thinking processes are part of your body, our souls are still tempted by sinful lusts. And sin's appetite only grows when it's fed. So therefore, we are to make no provision for it, as Romans 13, 14 commands. As I comprehend, appreciate, and value more deeply all God has done for me and given me, I realize I owe him the yielding of my flesh to become an instrument of righteousness and holiness. And this is the most acceptable way to worship him and avail myself completely under his control. We do have times of worship, like we just did here, which is beautiful, where we try to center our focus, our thoughts on the Lord. but all day really is a worship. My flesh must and can be yielded to him in order to become holy as is commanded in 1 Peter 1 16. This is a place where we realize we are completely dependent upon God to do this in us, but we are completely responsible to make the effort. So it's both God and us. It's one of those tensions that are found in scripture and in the Christian life. It's not a work and you can't take the credit for it because it's done by faith. My husband likes to use this illustration for blessings, but I believe it's applicable here too. He said, our life is like a cup. Imagine I have a cup in my hand facing up. The cup is open here. And when we're walking with God, abiding in Christ, our cup is right side up, able to receive the blessings, the teaching, the leading, the power of God. But when we're in sin, what happens? The cup gets turned upside down. When we're distant from the Word and our Lord, our cup is upside down. And as God rains down those blessings, the teaching, it just falls over on the sides. And we are not being benefited by the transforming power. It's still raining down on us, but we can't benefit by it. But when we confess our sin, the cup turns right up. So today, I would like to cover four principles that relate to controlling our thinking. First, we're going to look at the capacity of our minds. Then we're going to look at why we should control our minds and our thinking. And then we're going to look at some hindrances to controlling our thinking. And then we're going to look how to control our thinking. So first, let's look at the capacity of our minds. Well, a statistic says that we actually use less than 10% of the capacity of our minds. A friend of mine recently helped me download a new program onto my computer. And I was concerned that it was going to slow down my computer because it was going to put too much on it. So she said, oh, that's easy. She said, I'll just look at your computer's memory. I don't understand all those things, but she did. So she said, oh look, look how much is left. You're only using so very little. And I was astonished because really I had so much on my computer. There's pictures, there's documents, but really, just like my mind, only a small portion was being used. So our mind is the same way. Romans 7 and 13 teaches us that the mind is part of the flesh and we are not to make provision for it. It is said that we have over 10,000 thoughts per day. Isn't that amazing? That's 10,000 opportunities, ladies, to either sin or please God. So before you become overwhelmed at that prospect of controlling that many thoughts, let us remember God's provision, 1 Peter 1.3. His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him. And that is a reason to grow in our knowledge of him. I would like to share with you a little bit, a couple of quotes from a book that I actually am going to kind of plug right now. It's called The Thought of God by Maurice Roberts. And I see some of you smiling. You might be familiar with it. There's another one he has, The High Christian's Calling. But it's a great place and a great way to center and exalt and lift up your thoughts about God. Our thoughts about God are only going to be as high as we can naturally take them. We need help to exalt them. And he says this in this first chapter. He says, the thought of God should be the Christian's panacea. It should cure all his ills at a single stroke. What an infinity there is in the thought of God. Nothing can approach in beauty to the idea of the true and living God. That there exists a being who is infinite in power and knowledge and goodness and that that being cares for me with a perfect love as though I were the only man in existence and that he loved me before I was born and created me to enjoy him eternally and that his son was sent to suffer the agony of the cross to secure my eternal happiness. That's what we're thinking about when we're thinking about the gospel. Oh, that surely must be a thought to end all sorrow. He also says the degree of a Christian's peace of mind depends upon his spiritual ability, and I love this picture, to interpose the thought of God between himself and his anxiety. You can't think of two things at once. And then this, since God exists in reality and is not spiritual medicine invented by our fears, it must follow that life's secret very largely consists in holding him in our thoughts as much as possible, especially in times of fear and need. And, you know, he also exhorts us in that first chapter to take your thoughts to the logical conclusion. You know, sometimes we get in a bind, in a difficulty, or something's going on, and we panic. And panic is a response to what's happening. But when we interpose those thoughts about God and take those to their logical conclusion, it can bring peace and comfort to our hearts. Well, we looked at the capacity of our minds, so you learned you have a greater capacity than you ever imagined. Now, let's look at the second point, why I should control my mind and my thinking. Well, the first reason I've cited here is because it's commanded. Proverbs 4.23 tells us to guard our heart because it is the wellspring of life. Now, as you know, I'm sure, scripture, when it talks about the heart and the mind, it's saying it's the same thing. So to control your heart, control your mind, it's the same thing. Second Corinthians 10.5, which I already read, exhorts us to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. Approval, meeting Christ's approval, what is true. Matthew 15, 18 through 19 says that the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart. And that's what defiles the man. Your evil thoughts, your murdering, hateful attitudes, false witness, slanders, and so on. And as Jesus told the Pharisees, it's not the washing of your dishes and all the other ordinances that were man-made that were added. It's what's coming out of your heart. And then in Luke 5.22, That's the scene when Jesus was teaching, and the friends lowered the paralytic down through the roof, and the Pharisees were observing this, and do you remember their response? Well, Jesus says, without them even opening their mouth, he says, why are you reasoning in your hearts? So he was inferring there that he knew that their deceitful hearts were unbelieving, jealous, and hateful, which was motivating their minds to conjure a plan to kill him. So you see there the relationship of the heart and mind. What you believe affects what you think, affects what you do, affects what you feel. So it is our responsibility to make no provision for this sinful propensity of our flesh, Romans 13, 14. The second reason we should learn to control our mind and our thinking is because temptation, which we just said, begins in our mind. James 1, 14 through 15 explains, each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by your own lust. And that lust gives birth to sin. So you see the progression. You have a thought. And you are going to go one way or the other with it. You're either going to go to the lust side, or you're going to acknowledge this is a desire. I'd like to have it, but if I can, great. If I can't, OK. But if you go the lust side and you act on it, what happens? Sin, and then death. So we have to realize that progression, those 10,000 opportunities we have, that progression can take place. 10,000 times. So that's a lot to keep captive in your mind. So we want to ask the Lord to help us in our thinking. And then take those thoughts to a logical conclusion. If I choose this, where is it going? Well, the third reason we need to control our thinking is because pleasing thoughts just do not come automatically. And I want to share with you our women's group. As I mentioned, we were doing the book, Trusting God, this year. And I do a little teaching time each time we meet. And this particular one, I was talking about trusting God and remembering his love when you are faced with a difficult situation. and you are challenged to trust him, to remember in your mind all the things that you know are true about God's attributes, what he's done for you. And I said this, this was out of a book by Wayne Mack called It's Not Fair. He says, and I was quoting him, What does struggling with trusting God look like? Well, one thing, it doesn't mean that we're falling apart, but it can be a shadow of unbelief or doubt that haunts your life and robs you of your peace. And so it's the smaller things sometimes that can stumble us the most. And we have to remember what Jesus said in Luke 9.23. He tells us to take up our cross daily and follow him. So that infers that we daily have to dethrone self from our hearts, don't we? and we have to allow Christ to be on the throne of our hearts. And so we must never cease to surrender as the song you were singing. We must maintain an attitude of a surrendered heart or we will just naturally drift away and yield to competing affections or deceitful desires. We must be vigilant to keep a quiet heart, one that is surrendered and tender toward the Lord. And then we must keep short accounts with the Lord, confessing sin right as it happens. You see, in and of ourselves, we cannot eradicate our tendency to feel sorry for ourselves or to protect and promote ourselves. It's just what we naturally do. So we may improve our attitudes a little with sheer discipline, but something will expose and draw out that human propensity and blow our cover. You know how it is on Sunday morning. We wear our best. We try to put on our best in our... facial expressions, our clothes, our actions. But someone cuts you off on the highway, or somebody says something you don't like, and right away, kind of blows your cover. So that's why we need to learn to take those thoughts captive. So I'm not saying that our trusting and yielding to God is not real, but I'm saying that the permanent change that God initiated upon saving you will only be completed by Him. So you have to feed yourself from His Word. Well, Proverbs 15.13 says that A joyful heart makes a cheerful face, but when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken. So those are, when we have those displeasing things happen to us, we have to be careful how we take those thoughts to their logical conclusion. Matthew 15, 19 says, what we put in our hearts and our minds is what comes out. And a computer turned GIGO, garbage in, garbage out. So our minds absorb what we allow it to be exposed to. And like a sponge, when it's squeezed, it releases what's inside. So if you have a sponge and it cleans up a bunch of black ink and you squeeze that sponge, what's going to come out? Not clear water, but the black ink. The same is true with our word. So allow your mind to soak in the word to combat your self-loving propensity. And then, another reason to control our thinking is because if you don't, the result will be guilt because you've not obeyed God and unhappiness. Now, it's a very unpopular thing today to deal with guilt. And psychology wants to tell us that that's a very dangerous thing, that we want to cover it up. In fact, we want to rename sin. It's a passion problem, not lust. It's deceit. It's lying. It's not a white lie. My discontentment with my marriage or with my body type or with my financial situation is just that. It's I'm discontent with God's provision. So when we go before the Lord and we want to confess our sin, name those sins by the worst name. Name it what it is. Don't give it an illness or a sickness, but name it what it is. And one statistic reports that 65% of all illness is emotionally induced. Now I'm not saying that we imagine illness, but our mind has an effect of it. Proverbs 13, 15 says, the way of the treacherous will become hard and we may experience physical problems. Stress headaches, ulcers, high blood pressure, Go the natural man's way, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of wife, and you will eventually have some sort of physical problems. You know, a dear friend of mine, and he knows this. I mean, he says this. He's a sensitive, very sensitive man. And there's a lot of things going on in his life. And he's developed this blinking kind of thing. And he knows it's his body reacting to the stress. And he has to work very hard to take those thoughts captive, to not allow the stress that he can't change in his life to affect him, but he's honest with it. He calls it what it is. Yes, the stress really is there. He can't change what's happening in his life, but he can cry out to God and ask him to trust him and give a calmness of heart. Well, another reason, and you may laugh at this, why we should control our thinking is because if we don't, we'll become ugly. Now, think with me. If you were standing in front of that mirror and you're smiling, and then you're frowning, which looks prettier. It takes a lot more muscles to frown than it does to smile. So Genesis 4, 5 says, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain became angry and his countenance fell. And I already read to you Proverbs 15, 13, a joyful heart makes a cheerful face, but when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken. So how do we look when we're unhappy? Does it give a testimony to our faith and trust in God? Or does it say we question it? Is there that thin thread, that shadow of doubt and unbelief? And by the way, another thing that I think is popular today is this catharsis. Like, I'm just not the woman or the man I'm supposed to be. And I just don't believe as I should. And that's true. That's true. But don't make it a virtue. Mortify it. Call it what it is. Mortify it. Beg God to help you. Well, then another reason we need to control our thinking is because if we don't, when we get to be 80, Our brain will go on vacation permanently, and I'm not talking about Alzheimer's. You know, I have an aunt who's 97 and a half, and she is anything but slow in her brain. She is sharp as a tack. And one of the things is, and she may be a believer, a kind of baby believer possibly, but she has kept her mind active. Now that's a worldly description of what I'm talking about, but we need to keep our minds active with the word. As we get older, a dear saint, a friend of mine said, we just get more so. So if you're inclined to pessimism, the older you get, you're going to be more pessimistic. If you see the glass half full, You're going to be more so as you get older. So look at yourself now and look at the good things and say, I want to be more so in that. And look at the bad things and say, I want to diminish that. So the alternative to control is chaos. So it's very hard to make our mind take those thoughts captive. And the older we get, the harder it will be. I saw this program on KCET. I thought it was great. It had nothing to do with the Bible. It was pure science. And it was saying that our mind is like a machine. And the older we get, it gets a little more tight and sluggish. So that if we don't practice taking those thoughts to their proper logical conclusion, we'll just only take our thoughts just so far. And then we get in this rut, in this narrow rut of the way we think. So we have to learn to take those thoughts, to make the energy, and we're lazy. We don't want to, I'm not just telling you this, I'm telling myself, we don't want to make the effort of taking those thoughts to the logical conclusion. we're rather lazy with it. So did you ever notice how hard it is to try to control your thoughts or to study? Because your brain does not want to be disciplined. And I'll just give you this example. A young girl that I was meeting with About a year ago, she's in her late 20s, and she's developed a very, very serious pattern of improper thinking, and it's developed over about three years, and it's really consuming her. And this program that I was watching on KCET said, your thoughts, repetitive thoughts, make like a rivet in your brain. And like water that erodes a path on a rock, her thinking has carved a path in her brain. So that her thoughts naturally go down this very negative, critical, fearful path. And so now we're working very hard for her to learn to take her thoughts captive. Well, her mind is fighting back to keep its familiar, comfortable pattern. So although she's very young, she looks old. It's eroding her health and stealing her joy. The weapon she must employ is thinking long and hard on the word and crying out to the Holy Spirit to help her to do his work of restoring her to the joy of her salvation. She must come, she must expose her mind to the word and pray. She must, but God will do the changing, either to save her or sanctify her. And that's one of the questions we talk about. If she is not able to have victory, her thinking, maybe the Holy Spirit isn't residing in her. So we talk about that a lot and we pray. So both, whether it's to save her or sanctify her, require God's forgiveness and life-giving power. And again in this book, I just read this this morning, and I thought this was so good. It's the second chapter. It's called, Oh, the Depth, talking about thinking. It says, our age has been sadly deficient in what may be termed spiritual greatness. As the root of this is the modern disease of shallowness. You know, I think in this world, 2010, we're extremely busy. We flip from one thing to another. It's very hard for us to think long and hard and stay on one thing for a long time. And Maurice Roberts says this, we are all too impatient to meditate on the faith we profess. We cannot say, oh, the depth. Modern Christians quickly feel they have had enough when they meet with a more serious attitude towards gospel mysteries than they're used to. But men deceive themselves if they can imagine they can flit like a butterfly from one religious excitement to another and consider they may have done their duty to God without ever pausing to be amazed at the heights and depths of God's grace. You know, there's a trend. I think, in churches today, to just sing praise songs. And those are good, and they do evoke a joy and a happiness and sometimes good feelings. But as we sung some of the hymns, the depth of the theology there, and you're in your worship time, I'm sure you do this, pour over some of those hymns and meditate word by word, phrase by phrase. idea of idea on what truth is being promoted there. It is not the busy skimming over religious books or careless hastening through religious duties that makes for a strong Christian faith. Rather, it is an unhurried meditation on gospel truths and exposing our minds to these truths that yields the fruit of sanctified character. You know, better for you to meditate on one verse than to read a whole chapter and remember nothing. So we've looked at the capacity of our minds, and then we look why we must control it. Let's now take a look at some of the hindrances to controlling our thinking. Well, first, what's out there for our minds to observe is not helpful. What is out there in the world to fill the void of our mind does not promote godly thinking. Again, using the analogy, think of your mind like a glass. What are you going to fill it with? Are you going to determine it, or are you just going to be passive about whatever comes your way and gets deposited in that glass? So let's take, for instance, you watch daily primetime TV. And now I'm not saying you shouldn't watch TV. I'm just saying this is what happens. Commercials, you will have been exposed to 9,000 suggestive innuendos for illicit sex. When that statistic was written, it was about 10 years ago. It's probably 90,000 now. Compare that, if you don't ever pick up your Bible during the week, let's say you come to church, maybe two services morning and evening. So compare that with your mind being exposed to godly values maybe two times a week. Remember what I said, G-I-G-O? What do you think's gonna win out? If the greater thing that's influencing, that's filling that cup is worldly things, what's gonna come out? It's not gonna be godly things. So it's important for you to control what you allow yourself to be exposed to, the garbage that's out there. Now, I'm not saying enroll yourself in a convent, because that's not going to help either. And I can attest to that, not personally that I was in a convent, but I have a dear friend. She was a Carmelite nun. And as she says, the Carmelites were like the Marines of Catholic nuns. They lived away from society. Very strict regimen. The bell rang at four in the morning and you got up, you put on your habit, and you had a certain chant that you would say. You would immediately sing these chants. You would never just sit and think. And then you would go down to the church and you would repeat Catholic doctrine, I guess it was. But they would always, they never allowed their minds to rest. They were always chanting what seemed to be good things, but she said she became so disillusioned because she never could know God. She sensed the urgings of her sinful heart, even tucked away from the world. Now she wasn't watching TV, she wasn't outside seeing what fashion would tempt her to dress. It was her own heart, and she wanted to break free of those shackles, and that's what prompted her, and that's the Holy Spirit. She left the order, and she became saved after a while, so praise the Lord. So what you read, what you listen to, who are your friends, what do you talk about, how about your personal time with the Lord? We need to be aggressive in controlling our minds. And again, that girl that I said I was meeting with, we had to develop a very strict regimen for her thinking. We would say, because like we said, her mind is like a muscle and it's become lethargic or flabby. She, you know, if you have never exercised or walked and you get out there and you start walking, your legs hurt, right? Or if you start lifting weights or pulling on resistance bands, you know, your muscles hurt because they're not used to being exercised. Your mind is the same way. So her flesh and her mind is fighting to hold on to her sin. So she has to exercise. We actually made mental and spiritual exercises for her to do every day, several times a day. She would get out her memory verse cards and go through them. Anyway, so that was just to illustrate what is out there for our minds to absorb is not helpful. Secondly, piggybacking on that, what kind of worldly philosophies do compete for our minds? The average person is exposed to 1,500 different forms of ads daily. And as I read to you in Colossians 2.8, it warns us not to be taken captive through the philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men. Rather, grow in respect to salvation, 1 Peter 2, 1 through 3. Well, you know that example I gave you of, unfortunately, a friend of mine whose daughter had that very adorable little figure, and the parents thought it was kind of a feather in their cap to have such an attractive daughter. They unknowingly cultivated the wrong thing in this young woman, and she was quite impressed with herself. And to boot, besides being beautiful, she was brilliant. And she got a full scholarship to Yale. And before she left, I came over to visit her, and she at that point was a professing Christian. And I read to her Colossians 2.8. And I said, Rochelle, I just pray that you will not be taken captive by the worldly philosophies that are going to be promoted in this school. It's a wonderful thing to go to this school. It's an Ivy League school. But I pray that you have the discernment to separate out, ferret out the worldly philosophies, the tradition of men, and not be captivated by them. Fortunately, she didn't. She's totally walked away from the Lord and if she is truly His, she's in deep sin. And if she's not, she's showing what is true about her. She's in a dangerous place. That's a fearful thing to contemplate. Her mother always does. We meet very often and we pray. And you know, if you ever want to be really serious about your sin, contemplate. what's going on in hell. Contemplate someone you love being there. That'll make appreciate what God has done for you. So our minds compete against a deluge of worldly philosophy through TV, newspaper, magazine, billboards, radio, just to mention a few, and then commercials. I love commercials sometimes. They're so clever. But really, what are they telling you? They're telling you to be dissatisfied with who you are so you'll buy their product, right? Well, let's think about a few. How about a lipstick commercial or hair care products? Well, if you buy their shampoo and use it, your hair will be flowing and you'll be gorgeous. How about the car? As I mentioned, you know, they always show a woman with the car. Well, you'll have success, beauty, and power, and prestige, and that's what counts. You know, I remember when my husband and I moved to California and we had, in New York, I mean, you have snow and they put, you know, the salt on the roads, so everybody's car is kind of rotted a little bit on the bottom and on the sides, not in California. Everybody's got a really nice car and so, you know, it could be a real temptation to associate that with success. Well, there's a commercial out there to live for the gusto. You know when you watch sports and they're always saying, live for the gusto? Well, what gusto should we be living for? And how about our friendly golden arches, McDonald's? And it says, you need a break today. Well, we do. But from what? And then when we listen to secular music, and again, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying don't listen to secular music, just don't take your cues from how to live from it. What do you hear when you hear love songs? Love is a feeling, we fall in love, we fall out of love, it should feel good, I deserve such and such. Also then there's a sports commercial for sports equipment, shoes, what have you. It says, if it looks good, feels good, do it. Well, follow that to its logical conclusion and you'll be in trouble. Then on TV we see commercials for lawyers. And what do they promote? To return evil for evil. when we watch a movie or a TV show? And what do you do? You find yourself rooting for the person to get their pound of flesh, right? We want to seek revenge. And what does scripture tell us? To give a blessing instead and to overcome. Whoops. I lost myself. Sorry about that. To overcome evil with evil. I'm sorry, to overcome evil with good, Romans 12.1. But, you know, even in their campaigns, your political campaigns, we don't often hear what the candidate really believes is going to do. What we hear is what is negative about the opponent and this mudslinging. Then, what about right to life versus abortion? We're told that it's your choice. Don't tell me how to live my life. Don't tell me what I should do with my body. Whereas Exodus 20.13 says, thou shalt not murder. The idea, and again, I'm not saying you shouldn't do this, but the lottery. Now, it's fine if you have discretionary money and you want to buy a lottery ticket. Just don't place all your hope there. My husband walks with a friend on Friday mornings. And we always laugh because Chris just retired from the IRS. So he's very precise, very careful man about how he uses his money. And when Chris walks, he walks like this. You know why he walks like that? Because he wants to look for the money on the ground. So the money that he finds, he puts in his pocket and he adds it up and guess what he buys with the money he finds? A lottery ticket. Because then he doesn't feel like he's misappropriating his funds and he says, if I should win, it's the Lord's blessing and he's already got it figured out how we would use it. And it's not an improper focus, he's just very careful about those things. So we kind of laugh now because now my husband will tease and he'll run ahead of Chris and try to get the dime or the penny or whatever in front of him. And one time, one Friday morning, They were out walking, and my younger daughter, who lives in Arizona, was visiting, and she said, and she's a practical joker, she said, let's play a trick on them, Mom. So my husband takes all his chain out of his pocket and put it in a glass jar. So she took this glass jar full of coins, and she just drizzled it all down the street in front of her house. And here they come around the corner, and you see Chris. And he's like this. He's quickly running. And Bill is laughing, not because he knew, because he figured it out. So pretty soon, Chris couldn't gather all the coins, he hit the lottery. But we want to be careful about promoting greed and a life of ease and laziness versus working hard. This is particularly dangerous to us women, because as women are used in ads, it increases the time a person looks at an ad. And the women that are used don't portray godly values. So when you look at an ad, whether it's a car or even eating a hamburger, for goodness sakes, You know, whoever eats a hamburger and looks like that, you know, you'd have it all over you. You wouldn't do that. But, you know, what is it promoting, you know, to be dissatisfied with yourself? So that's a hindrance that's out there. And then another hindrance is that we make excuses that reasons for not controlling our thinking. We say, well, you know, it's just the way I was raised. I'm too tired. It's too hard. It's going to hurt. Nobody will ever know. That's a dangerous one. Or worse, I can handle this. You let your mind go down a particular train of thought, focus on a little steamy love novel. Pretty soon, it's going in a place where it shouldn't go. And sometimes we use this excuse, I don't know how to control my thinking. Sorry ladies, after today you can't use that one because I'm going to tell you how. So that brings us to our fourth point. How do we control our thinking? Plain old hard work is letter A. Recognize it's just going to take work. Hebrews 12, 11 says, discipline seems painful, but will produce a harvest of righteousness and peacefulness. Remember, we said, pleasing thoughts don't come easy. Then, this may sound like a little astonishing, but develop some hatreds and some desires. What do I mean by hatreds? Sin. Remember in 2 Samuel 6, 6 where the Ark of the Covenant was stolen by the Philistines and Israel was bringing it back and some of the Levites were, and it was on a cart, an ox cart. And some of the Levites were on either side of the cart. And a man by the name of Uzzah was next to the cart. And the ox cart, the wheel, got stuck in a rut in the ground. And the cart started to topple. So it was threatening that the Ark of the Covenant, which is holy, was going to fall. Well, now, God had gave very strict instructions that no one was to do what? Touch it. Uzzah hadn't developed a hatred enough. And what happened? He reached up and touched what was forbidden. God killed him. And that may seem unfair, but he disobeyed what God told him. And to guard against your right actions are not inclined to be works. It has to orientate your thoughts to foster a high view of God and deepen your love towards him. So better for that art to have fallen than for us to disobey God and defile ourselves. So as we preach the Gospel to ourselves, our hearts are more likely to respond in gratitude and a desire to obey God's principles based on His pure love and a proper fear of God. So we don't want to just be legalistic about it. We want it to be a response of praise and worship and gratitude. And then some scripture. I think you have this there. Psalm 119, verse 47, to delight in thy commandments, which I love. Psalm 42, 1 and 2, as the deer pants for the water brooks, my soul pants for thee, O God. And then John 14, 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Remember, the way to desire God's word is to obey God's principles. Then you will love it, like Psalm 42. So don't despair if you don't love them like the psalmist. Just do it and then the feelings will follow. Ask God. God gives a propensity to be discontent in a good way, to be discontent with the status quo, where we are with him. So we want to promote that growth. Then, letter C, we want to deal with guilt, as I mentioned before. We have to call sin as it is. And I want to just hurry through some of this because I see our time is fleeting, but Psalm 32.3. When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away, a weary soul is beaten down by his own sin. So our guilt causes our thoughts to not please God. So we need to agree with God and confess it. And then we have Psalm 38, verses 4, 6, and 8, which talks about how the psalmist was bowed down because he didn't confess sin. Well, we want to evaluate current practices and make changes. What do I put in my mind? Keep short accounts with God. Confess sin and see what patterns may be exposed. What were you thinking before you sinned? When you yelled at your kids, what was the thought in your mind? I deserve her or his respect? What did you think you needed and believed? I need to have my daughter speak nicely to me because it equates my self-worth or I'm afraid what people might think. Did it promote an attitude of joyful desire to obey God's word and praise him? Did it move you toward God or cause you to move away from God? Well, any time I yelled at my daughter certainly didn't make me move towards God. What is the biblical correct principle in belief? She is disrespecting me. That's disobedient to God. I need to have pity and mercy on her. And my role as a parent, I need to help her understand how she is defying God. So what is a concise thought I can think to help me next time? Have mercy on her as God has mercy on me. Do I need to seek forgiveness from anyone? I have to say to myself, did I exasperate my child? Did I do something to make her evoke to be disrespectful to me? If that's not true, I need to hold the standard up before her. You profess to be a Christian, are you following God's word? Those type of things. When I saw an attitude change in one of my daughters, I challenged her to do something and it was a very practical thing. This daughter of mine was 15 and she was in Christian high school, but I started to see a real attitude change. And we homeschooled up until a certain point. And then we did send them to Christian school. And I'm not going to blame the school. It's not the school. It was the sin that was in her heart. So I challenged her to do something. I said, get a piece of paper and write down on that paper, From the time you wake up, she woke up at 6 o'clock. So for every hour, 6 to 7, 7 to 8, 8 to 9, all the way until you go to bed. And take a red pen and a blue pen. And for every hour, if the majority of your thoughts were influencing you towards the Lord, color that little square in blue. And if the majority of those thoughts, you know, in her mind were neutral or taking you away from the Lord, put it in red. See what you have after a day, after a week. Well, she did it. And she thought, you know, all the things she was doing, conversations at school, music she was listening to, The cartoons she liked to watch when she came home from school to just relax. She thought it was harmless, that she could handle it. It wasn't going to have an effect on her. But when she looked at that piece of paper, and the majority of it was red, she couldn't deny, there's the source of some of those attitudes. And she, I didn't have to say anything, she changed it. So which of these sinful thought patterns do you tend to have? And you have a list there. And I want to encourage you, do not overwhelm yourself. Do go through them. Put a little check next to the ones that are you. But don't try to work on all of them at once. Maybe take one or two, maybe a month, because change takes time. And then F, exercise self-discipline in your thoughts. You know, talk to yourself. I mean, we're told, I think, that when you talk to yourself, you're crazy. I think you're crazy not to. Why am I doing this? Why am I thinking this? So Romans 13, 14 says, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for your flesh in regard to its lust. Tell yourself to stop. It's not pleasing to the Lord. Head in a different direction, a biblical one. Come in faith. Listen to God's voice through the prodding of the Holy Spirit as he uses his word to correct and train you. Bring God's promises to mind. Remember his attributes, especially his unchanging love. Don't think how to gratify the desires of your sinful nature. Don't feed the beast, starve it. Plan ahead, put things on a think list that take time to think about. At one point, I was driving one of my daughters about 45 minutes to school each way. So on the way to school, we would talk. And I would think ahead of topics I wanted to talk with her. Then on the way back, I made a little list of what I was going to think about and pray about. And then on the way to school, I had the opportunity, when I go pick her up, to think on another list of things. And on the way back, another list of things to talk with her about. It just takes time. Do a little planning, and you'll see a change in your thinking. How about an alphabet of God's attributes? Hymns out loud? Read a psalm out loud? You know, once I had to go for an MRI, and somebody asked me, are you claustrophobic? And I said, no, I don't think so. They said, oh, when you get inside that MRI thing, it's really tight to your face, and there's this clinking, and it's kind of scary. And so I thought, maybe I will be a little nervous in there. So I asked them how long it was going to be, and she said 40 minutes. So I planned out 55 extra minutes of things to think about. I had prayer requests, I had hymns, I had scripture, and I practiced it. So, you know, you can't think of more than one thing at a time. So when I got in the little tunnel, the little thing was over my eye, the little hammer started to go. I did my script. And I got lost in what I was thinking, and I wasn't even hearing it. And I came out, and she said, how are you doing? I said, I don't know, because I'm not finished my thought list. Can you put me back in? But anyway, it was helpful. So consider what God has allowed to come across your path. Have you used it to learn to pay attention to God's principles? These things develop faith. So memorize scripture, pray out loud. Again, think of topics to talk about with your friends. Think about a book you've read, sermon you've heard, scripture you've studied. Some books that I, you have a great list of books in your brochure there. One that I would add to it is How to Worship Jesus Christ by Joseph Carroll. That is really helpful. And then another one, which is in there, when people are big and God is small. And then another one, Uprooting Anger by Robert Jones. So use your downtime to meditate on scripture, pray, when you're driving, showering, cleaning, getting dressed, vacuuming, ironing. And did I say ironing? Do we iron anymore? Oh, yes, we do. So letter G, make it hard on yourself to sin. Get rid of the source you're struggling with. Matthew 5, 29 through 30 says, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, cast it from you. And I'm not really advocating mutilating yourself, even though that's a fashion these days, which I totally don't understand. What's causing you to sin? TV, radio, books, your friends? When you're meeting with your friends, are they causing you to sin because maybe gossip or whatever they're talking about? Push out the wrong input by giving your mind good stuff. Remember Romans 12 to do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You know, we are cruel to ourselves when we don't discipline our minds. Just like when we discipline a child, it's truly loving them, the same is true for our minds. So the study of the nature and character of God is a vital thing, for our problems will diminish in comparison and our love and devotion will increase. And you know the truth of 1 Peter 2, 1 through 3. Long for the pure milk of the word and you will grow in respect to salvation. And John Owen said this, for when you fill your affections with the cross of Christ, you will make no room for sin. So be renewed in the spirit of your mind, Ephesians 4.23. Get a new attitude. Another book that I would highly recommend for attitudes, Martha Peace, Attitudes of the Transformed Heart. So remember, if you disregard the study of God and his word, you destine yourself to stumble. You will not stay in the same place, you will go backwards. Learn to think biblically about all areas of your life. And if we have time, I want to talk to you about a little tool I've developed called a root and fruit card. So God's perfect love drives out fear. Our human frailty sends us on a divine search for God's dependency. Focus on loving others instead of yourself. Reflect God's image toward them. Again, plan ahead. What am I going to think about? One little incident that comes to my mind. I participated in an event with some friends. It was to raise money for a charitable function. and we were to, it was a bike event, so there was five of us, and we were to ride from Badwater Death Valley to Mount Whitney Portal in California, so you're going from the lowest point to the highest point, and so we trained for this, and we would take turns, it was like a relay event, so you would take turns, and so one of the gals When it was her turn to ride for the first time, she had just gotten over bronchitis. So when she got on the bike, she didn't have the air. She couldn't do it. So we were down to four people. So we were running through, the four of us, very fast. So the head of our group said, I had my two girls with me. He said, Donna, we're going to have to use your girls because we're just not going to make it. So I thought, oh, they're young. They can handle this. They don't need to train like I did. So it came time for my younger daughter to ride, and it was 3 in the morning. and we were in the middle of the desert. Well, it's pitch black. And you're not allowed to what they call backlight the rider. You have a helmet on and you have this little light attached to your helmet, and that's the only light you have. So, and I had just gotten off the bike, so I knew how scary it was. And, you know, you're hearing the coyotes out there and this sort of thing, and you had to really take your thoughts captive. So I said to her, and she tends to be a little skittish and fearful, and I said, Melissa, when you get on the bike, Just do something to take your thoughts captive. Don't think about the darkness out there. Because it was her turn to ride. She goes, OK. She got on the bike. And like I said, we couldn't backlight her. So we went way ahead. And we're watching the light on her helmet do this the whole time. I'm thinking, why is she bouncing so? So she passes us a little bit. And all of a sudden, she stops. And she puts her feet down. And she just freezes. And I think, uh-oh, a coyote came out. So I jumped out of the car. And I ran up to her. And I said, what's the matter? I ran out of hymns to sing. I said, oh, start all over. So I got back in the car, and she gave us another good hour of writing. So it was helpful. So she was taking her thoughts captive. So remember, memorize scripture, read good books. Remember, you do what you do, and you feel what you feel, because you think what you think. Psalm 145.5, dear Lord, on your glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wonderful works, I will meditate. Amen.