Sit still in the all-new wonder, Lord, of your great grace that would save us and of how great you are. Lord, we thank you tonight that you sent your Son to go to the cross of Calvary to save sinners such as we. And we are thankful that we serve a great God, a holy God, a just God, a God that loves us, a God that there is none else like. We thank you that you have set your amazing love and affection upon us and called us to yourself, that you have saved us and you have put us here in your church. And we are just so thankful, Lord, for your wonderful blessings of life, of family. Help us to remember every day, Lord, just how good you are. Help us, Lord, I pray, as we get into the word and focus. on it for a little while. I pray that you would use it this evening to just channel our thoughts towards you, and that we would leave here refreshed and renewed in our spirit and minds, that we might serve you better as your people and bring you glory. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, good to see you tonight. We'll start with a reading in Proverbs chapter 23. A few weeks ago, it's been a while since we've had a regular Wednesday night service, so the last Wednesday night regular service we had, I did a lesson on our thoughts, and we did Thoughts Matter. Thoughts Matter was the title of the message, and we didn't get quite done with that, so I wanted to pick up with that. God cares about our thoughts. He cares about what we think about. We care about what He thinks about us, right? And I like it that He thinks about us. He cares about what we think, and we should care about what He thinks. And He has good thoughts towards us. The psalmist said, Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to usward. I just think about that. The Almighty thinks towards us. It's amazing. In Proverbs chapter 23, though, and verse 7, it says, for as he thinks in his heart, so is he. For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. And so not only does it matter what God thinks about us, and that's a wonderful thing to think about, how precious are his thoughts towards us. I love thinking about that. But God, as we said, cares about what we think about. He cares about what goes on in our mind. Our verse says here, for as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Now this doesn't mean that, and we said this in our last message, and I'll do a quick recap of that, but we said that this does not mean that if we think we are something, that that means that's what we are. That's not what it says. It says that for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. A man might think he is something, but that doesn't mean that's what he is. You know, you can think you're a lot of things and really try to convince yourself you're a lot of things, but that doesn't mean that's what you are. In our culture today, people think they are one thing, but that doesn't mean that's what they are. But what it is saying is this, that you are what you think. You are what you think. In other words, you are what you think about. And so what does that mean we are? What does that mean we are? And so do we think? Do we think good thoughts? Do we try to rein in our thoughts and try to think good thoughts? And that's what matters. God cares about what we think about. That's seen in so many places, and it's seen in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and that's why he instructed us very clearly about our thoughts, that they matter, what we think about people, what we think about the opposite sex, what we think about our brother, if we hate him. Why? Because God cares about our thoughts. Our thoughts, they are spirit. And God sees that. He doesn't just see actions. The Christian life isn't just about what we do actively. It's part about that, but it starts in our minds. And we're told to love the Lord with all of our heart and with all of our minds. You can love God with your mind. And I think this is the real litmus test that only you and God can really answer. To know, do you love God with your mind? I'm not saying, do you ever have bad thoughts? That's not what I said. We all still have bad thoughts. In this flesh, we're still going to have bad thoughts. But do we want to love God with our thoughts? And do we want to, do we ever even confess? the sinful thoughts we have to the Lord. In other words, you have sinful thoughts, and you say, Lord, help me not to think like that. I mean, you might have a thought towards somebody you know isn't right, and they don't know a word. You didn't say anything to them. They don't have a clue, but you thought it. And because you know God knows your thoughts, and because you want to honor God and love God with your thoughts, you say, Lord, forgive me for even thinking like that. See, that's a relentless test to whether you really, in your heart and mind, want to please God. A lot of people can polish up the outside and polish up their words so as to appear righteous. But only you and God really know if you want to be righteous in your mind. Only you and God really know if you want to rein in those ungodly thoughts and say, Lord, help me to have holy thoughts. I'm not saying there's not times where you're not doing that as you ought, because I think we all would admit that there's those times. But overall, are we seeking to love the Lord with our thoughts? Now, and so I want to challenge you to ask yourself that question, what do you seek to think about? What do you want to think about? What do you try to think about? Jesus said, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts. And so the things we think about are indicative of what our heart's affections are towards. And so thoughts matter. Now I want to go to Hebrews chapter 4 and pick up here where we left off and the first time we dealt with this. You know, I need God's Word to discern my thoughts. And that's what this verse is about in Hebrews 4. Verse 12 says, For the word of God is living, or quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions or intents of the heart. You know, my thoughts can get so messed up, I don't even know if I'm thinking right. And we've got to be, that's why we've got to be in the Word of God. God's Word will tell us what our thoughts are. It will discern our thoughts. In other words, if we need to know if we're thinking right about something, then we need to get in the Word of God. Let it tell us if we're thinking what's right. We don't go to God's Word to confirm that what we're thinking is right. We go to God's Word to tell us if we are thinking right. As we listen to God's Word, as we read it, it will begin to show us our thoughts. Oftentimes, when people may get out of fellowship with God, they might get away from the Word. They also get away from the preaching of God's Word and the reading of God's Word. And one of the reasons we do that is because we don't want it to shed light on our dark thoughts. We don't want it to reveal something about us that probably we're already aware of. But we don't want to be reminded of it. Now, each time that we come to God's Word, we should ask God to show us how we ought to think. We should want to think right. Listen, I want to think right about God, about who God is, His nature, His character. I don't want to create a God out of my own mind. That's what the world is doing. The world is worshiping a God that they've created out of their own mind. I want to think right about who God is. I was meditating on this today as I was praying and saying, Lord, just help me to know who you are, that you are holy, that you are just, that you are good, that you are sovereign, that you love me. And to think the right thoughts, that you are an unchanging, almighty God. When we have the right thoughts about God, then I think the right actions will follow. We generally move toward what we think God is. I want to think right about man, about my own sin, about my own nature. I want to think right about myself, think right about all things, but the only way I can think right is to be in the Word of God that tells us what is right. I think we need to be like David who said this, and I love this verse, but when he said, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, Be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Lord, I don't want just the words I speak to be right with you. I want the meditation of my heart. The meditation of my heart. That word meditation there gives the idea of a murmuring sound from a musical instrument or machine. See, I think we can praise God with the meditation of our heart. what we muse upon, what we meditate upon. Our hearts should be a continual machine that seeks to murmur godly notes unto God. Now, I'm not saying I do that all the time, but this is what we should want. We should desire and seek after this. Don't we all have trouble with our thoughts at times, right? Let me show you something. that might help you when you're just when you're sitting there alone you just keep thinking bad things okay keep thinking bad things keep thinking bad things. Right now I want you to do something. I want you in your head to start counting from the number one. Right now start counting from number one and when I point at you I want you to say your name. So start counting from number one in your head don't say it out loud start counting in your head. Say your name. You didn't say it. OK, you didn't do it. Thank you, Debra. She did it. Let's do it again. Start counting in your head. Start number one. You guys are terrible at this. Everybody. Yeah. Everybody. OK. Ready? In your head. In your head. All right. Count in your head from one. Ready? Start counting in your head. Go. All right. Now, did you quit counting in your head? You did, didn't you? Every one of you did. One of the best things you can do to stop bad thoughts is to speak. It's to speak. But what should we speak, you know? Let me tell you what. If you're sitting alone with your thoughts and it's just not going well, Open up the Word of God. Read it out loud. Now, I tell you what's hard. Sometimes when I'm reading the Bible quietly, silently, I can glaze it, and it's like I'm reading it, but I'm not reading it. My thoughts are in the left field over here somewhere. And I'm like, oh, I read a whole chapter, but I don't have a clue what I read. Now, if you struggle with that, let me tell you what I've done before, and it helps, is I actually read it out loud. Read it out loud. It'll help you to concentrate more. Or if you're driving down the road and you're having bad thoughts about somebody, don't just pray silently, pray out loud. There's something about whenever we are thinking bad thoughts, or any thought, any thought, don't have to be bad thoughts, that when we speak, it's hard to keep that meditation of bad thoughts going when we speak. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O God." Sometimes you can help the meditation of your heart with the words of your mouth. And so just try that sometimes. I did not think that exercise would be that hard when I thought about that. I mentioned this in our last message, but in Isaiah 26.3, the Lord says, you will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind has stayed on you because he trusts in you. You know, if we are seeking to put our minds upon the Lord, it increases our faith. So I want to have more faith, I want to have more faith. You don't have more faith just by saying, I want to have more faith. You put your minds upon the Lord. You can't think about him too much and your faith not be strengthened and increased. As we keep our minds upon the Lord too, we have more peace. Speak words of peace. Meditate on words of peace. Meditate on the Prince of Peace. This is one of the reasons why the Christians are lacking so much peace in their mind. It's their thought life. I mean, that's what messes us up. Satan is after our minds. Satan's after the minds of our young people. He's after the minds of our people. And he wants us to think certain ways. And the only way to think right is to be in the Word of God. He gives us all kinds of things to think about, to look about, to meditate upon, to disrupt our thought life, to get our minds off of the Lord. I won't turn there for the sake of time, but I think most of us are familiar with Philippians 4, 6 through 9 about thinking on these things and the peace of God. That's what we'll have. We'll keep our hearts and minds through Christ. I mean, we've got to learn to actively think and to meditate and to voice words of peace. Listen, when our thought life is a total mess all the time, it is indicative of what our real spiritual life is like, because our thoughts are spirit. And when our thoughts are all messed up, it's indicative of what our spirituality is like. Romans 8, 6 says this, for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. To be carnally minded is death. When we're carnally minded, can a Christian be carnally minded? Sure they can. To be carnally minded is to think after the flesh. We've got a carnal nature, we've got a spiritual nature. To be carnally minded is death. Death is separation. When we're thinking carnally, then our minds aren't with the Lord. Right, it's separation. When we're thinking spiritually, when we're thinking spiritually, it is not death, it is life. And in his presence, there is peace. In his presence, there is joy. Listen, there's a connection between our minds and our spirituality. If we say, well, I'll never have any peace of mind, if we really don't ever have any peace, It is to say we're not being spiritually minded. To be spiritually minded is life and peace. Our thought life, it gets in a mess for a lot of reasons, but oftentimes it's because of what we feed ourselves, what we feed our minds. We feed it carnal things and things that promote the flesh. I mean, we have the flesh and the spirit, right, in Galatians. If we feed it fleshly things that promote fleshly things, then guess what we're going to think about? Listen, if I watch something very much, that's what I think about. Sometimes I purposely watch certain things so I'll think about it more after I quit watching it. I've been trying to cook healthy. Boy is that a hard thing to do. I have watched I don't know how many healthy videos on how to cook healthy. I mean you'd be amazed what I can do with cottage cheese now. I'm amazed at what I can do with cottage cheese and bananas. I made a banana cake muffin in a cup a little while ago and ate it. It's good. But I'm actually doing that intentionally. I'm constantly watching healthy videos on how to cook healthy so that I will think healthy. So I will think healthy. And you have to begin somewhere. If you want to be something, you have to think something. You think it over and over and over and over again. Like I said, you could think something and it not be true, but when you have certain goals or ambitions in life, if you think about that something enough, then that's where you will go. If you think constantly, I want to glorify God, I want to glorify God, I want to glorify God, and you watch things that give God glory, and you listen to people that want to give God glory, you're going to think more about giving God glory. And your actions will follow. And so we must feed our minds that which we want to become. Well, I don't know why I'm not godlier. Well, what are you feeding yourself? Why I go to church, Well, that's good, but do you read your Bible? Do you meditate on it? Do you think about it? Do you pray about it? Are you in the Bible 20 minutes a day, but you're listening to secular music four hours a day? Don't think that won't hinder your spiritual walk, because it will. And it may not even be bad music you're listening to. You see what I'm saying? Because we can just think about things that necessarily aren't evil or bad, but don't really profit us spiritually. In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus said in Matthew 6, verse 22, The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. You can't look at things and listen to things constantly and not feel your whole soul. If your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. And that's what he's saying. If you keep looking at things that are dark, guess what? You get filled with darkness. If you keep listening to things that are dark, you get filled with darkness. And so, if you feel like, well, I'm just all dark on the inside, well, what are you putting in? What are you feeding? What are you feeding your mind? It's so important we feed our minds good things. We can't look at shows that promote covetousness, murder, fornication, adultery, drunkenness, pornography, and walk away from it and then gaze upon nakedness or whatever it may be and say, well, that doesn't affect me. I don't believe that for one second. You can't do that. We must be in the word of God. The word of God helps us to sanctify our minds. You know, we're encouraged in Romans 12, you might be very familiar with it, but talking about the renewing of our mind. But this is something that we've got to do constantly. He says there in Romans 12, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. If we want to present our bodies a living sacrifice, we've also, at the same time, we've got to be engaged in renewing our mind that we may prove what is good and that perfect and acceptable will of God. But it's something that we must do continually. And so, with some questions tonight, ask yourselves, are you seeking to be faithful to God in your thoughts? faithful to God in your thoughts. You see, the Lord says it matters if a man looks upon a woman to lust, because he may not do anything physically, but he says he's committed adultery with her already in his heart. It tells us something about relationships. It tells us something about our relationship with the Lord. Do we lust? There may be a lot of things as Christians, I'll never do that. I would never cheat there, or I would never do that sin. But you can lust after it and think about it and want it and desire it. And some people can do that and never really act out upon it. They say, well, if people thought about it, they would do it. Not necessarily. See, God cares about what we think about. See, I want to be faithful to God in my thoughts, just like I want to be faithful to my wife in my thoughts. I don't want to think about other women. I want to think about my wife. The same way with the Lord, I don't want to think about things that dishonor Him, things that do not bring Him glory. I don't always think like that, but that's how I want to think. That's how I want to think. So we seek to be faithful to God in our thoughts. Just as we can be unfaithful to our spouse in our thoughts, we can be unfaithful to God and be a spiritual adulterer in our minds by selling our affections upon the things of the world. You see, the more we love Christ, the more we want to have Him have our thoughts. So let us be like David who said he hated vain thoughts. Ask God to help you with your thoughts, that they may please Him. Put God's Word in our hearts and minds, and we'll become more of what we think about. We'll become more of that. God's Word is right, and God's Word is good, and God's Word is holy. If we want to be right, good, and holy, then we have to daily seek to put the Word of God in our thoughts. I'll read just a couple more verses here. Isaiah 55, Verse 6 says, Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord. And that goes back to what I said earlier about repenting of our thoughts. Like I said, only the Lord knows if we ever do that. You see, the person who is sensitive to sin and really hates sin If we really do, then we should seek to turn from it even in our thought life. Asking God for forgiveness whenever we just think wrong, when we have an ill thought towards our spouse, when we have an ill thought towards somebody, when you're smiling at somebody and they're talking, but in your mind, you're cussing them out. Do you really feel bad about that? See, we should, shouldn't we? You might have been unable to hold it together while they're standing there, but God knows if you repented of it or not. You see, God cares about that. God cares about how we look at each other, how we think about each other, how we think about Him, what we think about others. He cares about our thoughts. John MacArthur said, sanctification begins with spiritually renewing the mind that is changing how we think. I don't know who wrote this, but I found this and it said, a renewed mind is always ready, is always expressing a submissive will. And then John Owen said, the mind is a leading faculty of the soul. When the mind fixes upon an object or course of action, the will and the affections, the heart will follow suit. They are incapable of any other consideration. The mind's office is to guide, to direct, to choose, and to lead. We tell a whole lot about our heart by our mind, by our mind. So where's our heart really at? Where's our affections really at? What do we seek to put our minds upon? May the Lord help us to love Him with all of our heart, with all of our mind, with all of our strength, because He's worthy of it. He's worthy of it, and He cares. and He cares about what we think about. Father, use this lesson tonight, and I pray, Lord, that we would be more sensitive to sin in our minds and our hearts. and that we would seek to turn, Lord, our thoughts from that which is evil unto that which is good. Help us, Lord, to bring every thought to the obedience of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Savior. Help us, Lord, to feed our minds good things. Lord, help us not to be overrun in our minds with the things of the world. Lord, we know we have to be in the world, and there's so much that comes into our mind without us even trying. But Lord, help us, I pray, to be intentional by putting good things in our mind, by putting good music in there that promotes worship, by putting the Word of God in there, by putting good literature in there, by having good company that speaks good words. And just help us, Lord, to put good things into our minds. Lord, we love you. Help us to love you more and help us, I pray, to bring thoughts unto you that bring you glory and praise. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.