That would be a lot, wouldn't it? Philippians chapter four, Philippians four this evening, is where we're going to come back to, Philippians four. The Bible speaks much of our mind, of the mind, such an important topic. And really, we'll actually go through a number of verses here before we get to our official text. But I wanna start skimming through some verses on the mind leading up to this, but let's pray. Father, we do ask your blessing tonight, the filling of your Holy Spirit, your guidance as we consider this subject tonight and then move into our prayer time and business time and all of this important. And Lord, we ask that you would bless to our growth in Jesus' name, amen. Turn to Ephesians. You're there in the neighborhood. Turn to Ephesians. chapter number four, Ephesians chapter four, and think about, we know that the Bible speaks of various actions and deeds and works, but it certainly says a lot about the mind. And I want you to notice how foundational This concept of the mind is. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 17, Paul wrote, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. So where do you walk? How do you walk? You live in the path set by your thoughts. And he says, you're not supposed to live your life, as the Gentiles did, in the vanity, the emptiness, the powerlessness of their mind. So where their mind was, so their walk was, and that's not supposed to be characteristic of the believer. Notice Colossians chapter number one. Go to the other side of Philippians. Colossians chapter one, it describes the former alienation and hostility of mind evidenced by works. In Colossians chapter 1 and verse 21, Paul writes to them, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind. enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. Now we look around us and we see actions of people and we say, oh, that very much defines an unsaved person. Oh, they must not be saved because of their actions, but they're alienated and enemies in their what? Mind, their mind is not there. So when the light comes, to the world, they despise the light, they're driven away by the light because they don't want their deeds reproved, but that's a state of the mind. Our mind's very important to who we are. Romans chapter seven, to your left again there, Romans chapter seven. Paul was struggling and he wrote very candidly in chapter seven of the book of Romans, about this struggle that he had between his new nature and his old nature, and even he as an apostle and as a mature believer had a struggle internally. And notice Romans chapter seven in verse 23. He says, let me start in verse 22. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind. and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. There was a battle going on and part of that battle was in his mind. He felt that waged in his mind. Now 1 Peter 1.13, and we're gonna touch on this again a little later, it's just a neat thought. 1 Peter chapter one, Peter writing to scattered believers. in 1 Peter 1 and verse 13, he says, wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind. I didn't know my mind had loins. Well, he's using an illustration here. that in that day, the garb of that day is you'd wear a longer robe of some sort and a belt, that if you were going to move quickly, or you were in a rush, or you had to hurry somewhere, or maybe you were even in battle itself, you would gird up the loins. That is, you would pull up some of that material and you'd tuck it in your belt or you'd get it out of the way. You could imagine if you had your arms full of something or you're in the middle of battle and you're trying to fight and you've got this robe that goes down to your ankles. Can you imagine that? Kind of get in the way and slow you down and trip you up a little bit whenever we have a wedding here and we're going through the rehearsal. You always coach the groom as they're ascending the stairs to help the bride. Why? So that she can lift that dress and make sure she doesn't fall or trip over it because that could be a terrible mistake to make on the wedding day because those long garments can get in the way. Well, to gird up the loins would be to unencumber yourself, to get yourself to where you're more agile and you can maneuver with better skill. Well, he's using that in terms of the mind. So, in other words, ready your mind. Prep your mind to be ready to move, if you will, to be unencumbered as we move forward. And as you live in this life, do what you need to do to prepare your mind. Really important, isn't it, as you write to people who are who are being persecuted, who have a tremendous hope in the future, but prep your mind right now. Sometimes we don't look outside of our circle or outside of our anticipated results. This is what I think will happen. And then when that doesn't happen, we get really rattled and shaken because we didn't envision anything else and we weren't ready of mind to be able to step to the side and have a plan B and do what we needed to do We weren't prepared for God to be sovereign and for God to accomplish His purpose, we just expected He would accomplish the purpose that we assumed He would. And so He says, gird up the loins of your mind, be prepared. Then Romans chapter 12, we touched on this in Sunday school here recently, but Romans chapter number 12, more familiar and equally important here, Romans chapter 12, he writes in verse one, of course, how we ought to be living sacrifices to God. But then he says in verse number two, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Renewing of your mind. Ephesians 4.23 is similar, but to realize that he's stating that worldliness, the opposite of worldliness, being conformed to their image, will happen by a renewal of the mind. And we'll touch on that again in a moment. Ephesians chapter four and verse number 23, Paul writes, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. So the truth is that when we think about Peter saying, gird up the loins of your mind, if we have to prepare our mind, it means that our mind can be unprepared. It can be encumbered. It can get in the way, in a sense, if we haven't prepared it. If we say we need to renew the mind, what does that tell us by implication? That the mind naturally, can I put it this way, is old. Okay, because he's saying you need to renew it. You need to make it new, which means that when we come in, we're carrying with us that old mindset. And yes, we're new creatures, but we need to continue to flesh it with the word of God and to immerse ourselves in this new thing and this new perspective and this truth that gives us a new mind as opposed to the old mind that's operating as it always has. Remember in Philippians chapter two in verse five, he said, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. You believers, wherever you are in your state of growth and whatever you're facing there in Philippi, he takes time to address there. mind, their mindset. Our thoughts are very important. Proverbs 23, seven, if you haven't memorized it, it's easy, and you ought to. Let me say it to you. Proverbs 23, seven, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Can you say that with me? For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. The heart defines who that person really is. One author wrote, the difference between worldliness and godliness is a renewed mind. The difference between worldliness and godliness is a renewed mind. Now think about that. Do you agree with that? The difference between worldliness and godliness is a renewed mind. I think that's, by and large, correct. But then you think about that, to think that when someone converts, someone believes, they become a believer, we want so quickly to see what? an external change. We want to see a change of action, a change of look, but what's the difference between worldliness and growth and maturity? What's the difference between worldliness and godliness? It's a mindset. And out of that mindset, out of that renewed mind, of course flows different actions and different motivations and things like that. But I'm saying if we see a new convert, shouldn't we want to invest in them like the Great Commission says, teaching them all things whatsoever I have commanded you? Why? Because we're wanting to change their mind. We're wanting to inform their perspective. We're wanting to give them a new vision of life from the truth of God's word. What if they are conformed outwardly? We go, ooh, okay, now that you're saved, you need to wear this, and you need to do this, and you can't say that, and you need to be here this many times, and you need to do this, and get involved in this, and that's all the stuff, you need to do that. If you're really gonna become a good Christian, you need to do, do, do, do that stuff. And what happens if they're conformed outwardly, but their thinking doesn't change? Their thinking is never renewed, because they're never really informed, they're never really taught, they never really grow in their perspective. Their thinking is still, as we said a minute ago, old. It's the type of thinking, it's the perspective that they carried with them from their unregenerate state. And what's more is if they're that way, they will be either shallow, because they're just doing what we tell them to do, Not because they have a mind and an understanding to know what to do, but because they're just simply doing what they're told. Or worse yet, they'll become begrudging and judgmental. Meaning, if I have to do this thing, you should too. I mean, I'm saved, and the pastor says I should do this, and they're telling me, they're kind of pressuring me to do this over here, so I mean, I'll do it, but if I'm doing, why aren't you doing it? Why isn't that guy doing it? If I'm supposed to do this in order to be spiritual, then he ought to too, and you can kind of, you can breed this. sad, kind of twisted, hypocritical person who externally looks good, but internally they haven't changed because the mind is so important. The mind is this huge distinguishing difference between worldliness and godliness. And of course, it eventually involves deeds and expressions, but the mind is important. Another author stated simply, God's word tells us that we're headed in the direction of our thoughts. We're headed in the direction of our thoughts. He went on, he wrote in a different place, if you're stuck in a certain, now think about this, if you're stuck in a certain behavioral pattern, When we think about that, we think about people in certain patterns, or they lash out in certain ways, or we see something go on in their life. Wow, that person, they need some behavior modification. He says, if you're stuck in a certain behavioral pattern, you should question your thinking. He goes, why do you do what you do? You do what you do because you think what you think. You're following the direction of your thoughts. We talk about in fundamental Christianity, we think highly of the scriptural idea of repentance. What is repentance? It's a change of mind that results in a change of action. So in order for someone to come to Christ, at the very onset there has to be a change of mind. The mind is so important. So they don't change their mind, or they don't properly understand Christ and their need of him, well, they'll never come. And once they come, they need to continue changing their mind and developing a biblical mindset. Remember, again, 1 Peter 1.13, gird up the loins of your mind. gird up the loins of your mind. We're dealing with Philippians chapter four this evening, and verse number eight. Philippians chapter four and verse number eight, we're just gonna deal with a little bit of it, and the rest next week, Lord willing. But we've come to this point in Philippians, and remember last week we talked about Preparation for persecution, essentially. And in verse six he says, be careful for nothing. Don't be divided in your thinking and torn apart by care and anxiety, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, always something to be thankful for, let your requests be made known unto God. Now prior to that, he said, let your moderation be known to all men. Show that there's an evenness to you. But when you are anxious, you express that via prayers to God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts, and there it is again, minds through Christ Jesus. Because when we're disturbed, when we're upset in our mind, it truly is, it bleeds us, if you will. So, we come to verse number eight, and before we read the verse, notice the final phrase. It looks like a long verse. It's really not as difficult as it looks, but look at the very final phrase. The command, think on these things. Think on these things. You know, it's appropriate for a spiritual leader, a father, a pastor, a mentor, to guide your thinking and say, you know, this place over here would be an unhealthy place to think, this place over here. is be where you ought to put your thoughts. But Paul, especially, by the authority of God, commands the Philippian believers, facing whatever persecution, and again, in whatever level of spiritual growth they were, he said, think on specific types of things. He didn't tell them what to think in this particular verse. He's telling them, as it were, where to think, where to think, and I kind of put it in terms of pasture. Where do we pasture our thoughts? Where's the healthy place to graze them? Where's the place where they can dwell and eat and feed and be healthy? There are some pastures that are not healthy. There are some pastures that are dangerous. But he's saying, here, I'm going to outline for you healthy pastures for your thoughts. where their thoughts should rest, what kind of thoughts should dominate their minds, and recognize that God knows what brings peace, doesn't he? He's designed you, he's designed us, he knows what's absolutely best for us, and that's what he wants. He knows what leads to our health, and really, when it comes to the issue of our thoughts, our thoughts affect our health physically. and emotionally and spiritually your thoughts are very important to your overall health. So notice now Philippians chapter four and verse eight. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. So I wanna just deal with the first two pastures tonight. of our thoughts, and he says as he starts off the verse, whatsoever things are true, think on these things. Think on things that are true. Now we hear, especially in the church context, I guess, about truth, truth. What is truth versus error? Truth is that which is solid, is that which is real. If you get into philosophy, you'd say it's that which corresponds to the facts. If I tell you something and my words don't correspond to reality, it is false. But if I tell you something and it corresponds to the facts, then it is true. And our thoughts need to be corresponding to what actually is. Now, that maybe seems pretty basic, like, well, yeah, of course, Pastor, but how many times Are our thoughts infected by, if not dominated by, things that may not be reality? It's things that we perceive or fear or question or worry. So I would say, first of all, as we consider the opposite, what does this mean? As we're pastoring our thoughts in the places that are true, it means don't worry. He just dealt with this a couple verses ago. Don't let your thoughts be torn in two. Be careful for nothing because worry is fixating on an unknown. Worry, as I think about it, and correct me later if I'm wrong, it seems to me that worry always deals with an unknown future. It's not something that we already know exists, it's what we think that will turn into. Or what I'm afraid this person will do, or what they will say, or what they will think, or how things might turn out. Worry is always playing off of the future, which for us as human beings is uncertain. Now for God, the future is not uncertain, but for us it certainly is. And so when we fixate on the future that is unknown, that we're just thinking might happen, by definition, if it's future and it's uncertain, it's not true. Because it's not a reality yet. It's not something set in stone. We can't rest on that. And so when we fixate on an uncertain future, we're worrying. And you contrast that with meditation. If we could shift gears, whenever we start to fixate on an unknown future and switch our mind to a known reality, who is my God? What has he given me? What really exists? What is really going on that I know of? I'm afraid that this is gonna, but what actually happened? What actually was said? meditating on what is. So don't worry. Another form of of. Untrue things is assumption. OK, kind of similar to worry, but assumption we we assume somebody is thinking something or we assume they're going to do something or we assume that because we did this and judged by their facial expression, I know they're probably doing this. Oh, no. Oh, no. Now they're mad at me because I I dealt with this at home recently. Dad, dad, why are you mad? He said, I'm not mad. I can see it in your face. You're obviously mad. I'm not mad. I'm fixated on something. I'm thinking something's on my mind or whatever, but don't accuse me of being mad or make some accusation about me. Judge it off my facial expression. But we assume things. Well, should we be meditating on and should our minds pasture and feed on and dwell in assumption? Not really a healthy place to be. Not really satisfying or secure, no. Dwell on things that are true, things that you know. Untested accusations. Oh, did you hear that so-and-so might've, you know, oh, really? Oh, really? I wonder why he did that. And then we assume on their motives, right? And then we worry. And we're walking all over in this untrue territory that we don't know has no foundation. Think on things that are true, things that are true. Beware, then I would say, beware of schemes. There's a lot of deceit in the world. Now, when we talk about worldly schemes, often there's a man's name that comes to mind. I think he was back in the 1920s, and he kind of built a pyramid structure where he would get people to invest so he could pay off these bills over here, and it came to be called by his name, but his name was Charles Ponzi, and we call it the Ponzi scheme. Well, probably the greatest of the Ponzi schemes, actually, happened here in the last few decades. Charles Ponzi was sort of child's play compared to what happened here. But a man by the name of Bernie Madoff influenced thousands of investors and somehow racked up or dealt with $20 billion of capital. $20 billion of capital. was eventually indicted, and I think it wasn't very much longer, he passed away, actually. But 20 billion, it's like, whoa! He deceived people and took them for a lot! But you know, when you are living in untrue territory, and when your mind wanders and feeds and rests in and absorbs things that are assumptions and worries and doubt and all these things, you're getting taken for a lot too. Can you imagine the life you're wasting, the mind you're wasting, the potential that you lose when you're just eaten up and absorbed by this kind of worry and those things? You have to maybe in light of that question, social media use. How much is healthy? How much is healthy to scroll and watch other fights and accusations and whatever, whatever? Beware of schemes. Beware of self-deception, maybe the worst, right? Beware of self-deception. God, help me to be alert to where I'm deceiving myself, maybe in an assumption or in a worry, and I'm making myself feel like and think that something exists that doesn't actually exist. and I'm making, I'm constructing a reality in my mind that is plaguing me, that's a storm cloud over me, when the truth is, it's really not that way, and I'm living in a falsehood, and I'm not living in truth. Lord, help me to see where I'm being deceived, where I'm deceiving myself, where I wanna believe something about myself is true, and I'm just not being honest. Let's be careful, be aware of self-deception. Become familiar with what is real. The old illustration of how do you tell a counterfeit bill. I was at a bank recently with somebody else and they had a $100 bill. And the lady takes out the marker, you ever seen them do that? And they mark the, do you know what that's for? Do you know what they're doing there? I didn't exactly, I mean, I knew what they would do, but I didn't know what the response was supposed to be. But the teller said, and I think as they mark it, it looks blue, seems like to me, the mark is blue. And the other lady said, what does that do? And she said, if it weren't real, it would turn black. Interesting. So there's a way by marking on a genuine dollar bill that they know whether it is indeed a real one. But the old illustration of how do you know a counterfeit bill? Well, if you handle real bills all the time, you can tell when a counterfeit goes through it. Oh, there's something about it. It was different. It didn't feel right. Well, as we familiarize ourself and we are immersed in what is real, and we think in things that are real, then when another thought comes by, maybe we haven't studied all the religions of the world, we haven't thought of every thought that anyone's ever gonna come at us with a criticism, but you've studied the real enough to go, wait, that doesn't sound quite right. I don't know, something about what he said just didn't seem like it made sense, because when he said that, I thought about this verse over here, I thought about this text over here, and how would that fit? As you become discerning by handling, you're becoming familiar with what is real, so you need to know the word. Gain wise counsel, grow in discernment, so that you can recognize when maybe you're being deceived yourself, or whether somebody's trying to scheme you. And lastly, in this aspect of the verse, think on things that are true. Don't rewrite the past. Don't rewrite the past, okay? Sometimes by mulling over and meditating on something that happened, maybe it gets worse, and it grows, and it embellishes until it's not what it really was in the first place. Or maybe the opposite of that, we did something, and we did something wrong. The longer time goes by, well, I did that, but it wasn't really that bad. Yeah, there was a time when I, yeah, barely, and we just sort of gloss over it until it really wasn't a big deal. We need to be honest with ourselves and live in truth. Don't rewrite the past, don't read into the present, okay? Don't read into the present. Again, we're talking about assumptions here, and don't assume on the future, okay? Don't rewrite the past, don't read into the present, and don't assume on the future. But he says secondly in the verse, and we're gonna finish with this one, Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, honest. Well, in our English, we would say, well, that's the same thing, because if I'm honest, I'm telling the truth, and so what's the difference between true and honest? This is the same word. If you turn over to 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter number three, and we're talking here about the qualifications for a bishop or for a pastor, 1 Timothy chapter three and verse number eight. And here he's talking about the deacons now. Likewise, must the deacons be, here's your word, grave, grave, okay? Again, in verse 11, it says, even so must their wives be grave. And then in Titus chapter two and verse two, again, we see the same word in our English, that the aged men be sober, grave, temperance, okay? In this passage, it's translated honest. The idea being it's worthy of special esteem or respect. When we're admonishing that our deacons and our deacons' wives be people that are grave, what does that mean? It means they're respectable, that they're worthy of esteem. It would go to that idea that they're serious. We would say, maybe in our modern vernacular, serious-minded. You can see the contrast to that, someone who's just all in it for the fun and they're shallow and they're not really serious. Maybe an older concept here, we don't use this so much anymore, but I think you certainly get the idea, dignified. It has a dignity to it. We want as believers, especially our leadership, to have a dignity as they example to the flock and as they lead the flock. There should be a seriousness, or we say a gravitas, A respectability. Now, if we confer this same idea to things and not to people, we might say something worthwhile, something that has value, that's honorable. In other words, it's worthy of honor, it's worthy of esteem because it reaches a certain mark, okay? So think on things that are that way. If your mind feeds on less than honorable things, things that are not worthy of our sustained consideration, we're thinking on something that's not serious, or we might say substantive. So it's not to say that we never talk about the weather. It's not to say that we don't tell jokes. But when we're keeping our minds pastured as a lifestyle, continually, what do we think about? Do we have to constantly be in the realm of comedy? No. Do we have to be in the realm of the trivial? No. News is interesting. I was reading a book recently, Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns, and it was talking about the pop culture being developed by commercial interests. And in order to aid the commercial interests, you kind of have to do away with the old and always create a desire for the new. And I don't think I had ever thought about this, but have you ever thought about why they call the news news? Because it's new. It's new. We don't watch the olds, right? Until you're retired and you buy all the old westerns and then you watch the olds. But the news, we're always concerned. What just happened like five minutes ago? Ooh, we're scrolling the latest feed. And sometimes you read through this and you're like, why do I care? I read a headline recently, I wish I'd have saved it. It was like, so and so, like this actor over here, this actress gives her opinion of this over here. And there were two things that I didn't care about. Why would I care about what she thinks about this over here? This is a total waste of time, but we have to, but commercial interests have to create news. And that book that went on to describe that is that, Things of significance, of meaning, don't happen that often. And so you have to create stars. You have to create things that are a big deal. Oh, look, this just happened. But we don't necessarily always stand back to say, well, why should I really care that that just happened? But we're so interested in that which is new, and oftentimes then you get to looking and scrolling through the news and it's not substantive. I remember watching with humor some months ago. It kind of had to feel for this guy. We were up in Michigan watching, it was on the TV at my in-laws house. And I think it was in Maine. They had just had a shooter. He shot some people in Lewiston, Maine. That's right, because we thought about Tim Kelly then. And he had shot up one place, and he'd gone somewhere else and shot up. Well, of course, you know the news anchormen. They've got to be right on it, because you're going to want to watch what's absolutely new by the second. And so they want to be the news outlet that's covering it minute by minute. But the problem was is they didn't know Think hardly about what was going on and nothing new is turning up second by second And so bless his heart this anchor guy is trying to like oh man kind of keep it riveting and it was embarrassing Because you could just tell Nothing new going on here. There's nothing really to tell us. You know, you could have summed it up in about 15 seconds, and yet this show has got to last for 45 minutes. You poor thing. Just try to keep us in there. But it lacks substance. You could sit there for hours and watch all kinds of news. And what kind of substance did you get? Did you learn much? Could you walk away and feel like, wow, my perspective of, you know, geopolitical philosophy, and economics, and foreign affairs, that was really deepened. Now, you might have gotten upset at a couple guys in Congress, and now you know to call somebody else a dummy, and oh man, now you're really stirred up about something that's going on in, you know, a country, 15 countries away. But it wasn't really substantive, and so again, we have to analyze what we feed on. Where our minds rest, what we consume, and what is really a driving thing to our hearts. Whatsoever things are true. whatsoever things are honest or grave or substantive, serious, honorable. A few verses and then we'll close. 2 Timothy, you don't have to turn there, or excuse me, 2 Kings. 2 Kings in chapter 17, verse 15. 2 Kings 17, verse 15. And they rejected his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and his testimonies which he's testified against them and they followed vanity and became vain. They followed emptiness, and guess what? The thing they followed is what they became. They went in the direction of their thoughts, and they became that thing. They followed emptiness, and what did it do for them? It made them empty. In Romans chapter one, it says, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain, empty, powerless in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. So we finish tonight Psalm 119, 113. The psalmist said, I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love. Now that's substantive, that's truth, that's honorable. Maybe tonight, but when we're going to bed, we ought to just make a note. Tonight, as I go to bed, I'm gonna think about a verse. I'm gonna think about an attribute of God. I'm gonna think about some truth, any truth, from the word of God. Just think on it as you drift off to sleep. Pasture your mind in something honorable, substantive.