The Power of Proper Thinking

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truth for invu to turn with me then to the verses that we read earlier in Philippians chapter 4 you are what you think about you are what do you think about now let me ask you what do you think about that our minds are the root of all of our human actions it is via our minds that our affections are stirred it is the mind that directs the will it is our minds that conceive and direct every action of our lives unless of course there is some cerebral impairment some mental deficiency all of us can claim no excuse for anything that we've determined to do because we have conceived of it first of all in our minds it's therefore absolutely imperative that we think about the right things and indeed that we learn to think in the right way is there then a Christian way to think how do you think Christianly now some people would say that to have a Christian mind is to have a mind that is trained only to think about Christian topics so that this mind closes itself to every other notion that does not fit within the framework of that which would be described as being Christian and such individuals would say that this is a Christian mind well we would have to say that while there is great benefit from thinking expressly and supremely and in some ways in a primary way about these matters that would not fit the description of a Christian mind rather a Christian mind is a mind that has learned to think about everything from a Christian perspective so that the Christian thinks about music all music from a Christian perspective they don't just think about quotes Christian music no more than they think about Christian engineering or Christian algebra or Christian medicine or Christian art but that in the whole gamut of the experience of human existence we bring our minds to bear upon the variety of life in a way that is constrained by the revealed truths of God's Word and it really is too bad that too often those who profess Christianity seek to influence others in their views by some blustering attempt at persuasion which gives Indian every indication of being actually mindless that is strong an emotion which is of course not absent that is strong on feeling which is of course relevant but when pressed at the realm of rationality when pressed at the realm of the mind has very little to say and is left simply reiterating well-worn cliches and consequently those who are our friends and neighbors at the end of the 20th century confronting deep and significant questions are rather put off rather than attracted by those who think that a Christian mind is simply a mind that has been constrained by four or five proof texts a proper use of our minds not only glorifies God but also strengthens us in our ability to provide an answer for those who ask a reason for the hope that we have the ability of the Apostles to persuade men and women and you find that verb coming again and again in the Acts of the Apostles as well as in the epistles their ability at persuasion was not by dint of their personality it was not even on account of this the the significance of the power of God although clearly both were involved but it also involved from a human perspective for example Paul's ability in the city of Athens to say I can see that you're a very religious group of people because as I have been wandering around I've encountered all these many idols and funnily enough I noticed that you have one - an unknown God now having engaged them at the level of their thinking he says now what you regard as unknown I would like to proclaim to you and in the hearing of that the intelligencia said get this guy up to our meeting we need to hear what he's on about he seems to be a bit of a birdbrain he seems to be a bit of a babbler he seems to be propounding a couple of deities and so let's have him up at our meeting and let's dialogue with this character and see what he's on about most of us would never get invited to the meeting because we have never by anything that we've said engage the mind of our secular neighbors in such a way that causes them to say you know we're gonna have to talk about that we're going to have to think about that now the Apostle Paul here in Philippians has been offering all kinds of advice and all kinds of directives and indeed it is in light of the surrounding context that we should understand the verses to which in the course of our studies we have now come namely verses 8 and 9 many of you want remember that we were studying Philippians I had to remind myself quite frankly but here we are I was tempted just to let it go based on your forgetfulness and then I thought no I should probably finish in fact I have both to finish and to start because if you recall we began Philippians without intending to somewhere I think in chapter 2 so where you have it's a bit like coming in a third of the way through a movie you have to go to the end and then watch the first third and we're going to have to do something like that but the temptation in verses 8 & 9 because of the way they fall is to dislodge them from their context Paul introduces verse 8 by saying finally brothers and then you look at that that's verse 8 and it goes into verse 23 so you say to yourself well if that was finally that was quite along finally that was the average preachers finally those preachers that give you the feeling that they're just about to end that they're now down about 20 feet above the runway and then all of a sudden they decided to do a go-around and they fire the baby up again and they go twice around before the end not that I ever do that of course but I have observed it in others he's finally here I think should be understood as here is a last piece of advice in fact you say where'd you get that from actually from JB Phillips paraphrase that's the way he paraphrase is this finally he says here is a last piece of advice because he has already said to them in verse 1 of chapter 3 watch out for the dogs verse 17 take note of my example verse 6 of chapter 4 don't worry and he is giving all of this instruction in light of the fact that they are confronted verse 18 of chapter 3 by the enemies of the cross of Christ these dear believers in Philippi whom he loves whom he longs for he seems to have a special place in his heart for the church at Philippi he calls him his joy and he calls them his crown not because they're absolutely perfect but he just loves them and he is so concerned for them he wants them to know God's peace umpiring their hearts and umpiring their minds and he wants them to understand it seems to me that an experience of the peace of God does not come about in a vacuum now notice I think the key to understanding verses 8 & 9 is in this phrase the peace of God verse 7 and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts in you in Christ Jesus and then notice how verse 9 ends and the God of peace will be with you he is concerned for these troubled believers buffeted from the outside struggling from within that they would know God's peace I want you to know the peace of God rule in your hearts and ruling your minds he introduces the mind at that point he's going to conclude this final directive by saying if you do these things that I'm telling you then you will know the God of peace to be with you in terms of personal companionship not simply the peace of God as as a characteristic if you like or as a dimension of life but the God of peace as a companion through life now it's in the middle of this that we have the content of the sandwich if you like these the the peace of God and the God of peace are the two slices of bread and then in the middle you have you have the stuff that makes up the sandwich because it is very clear that God's design is such that it is as we give attention to the things of which he approves in other words as we allow our minds to be shaped and molded by the things of which he approves that we then enjoy the benefits that are the fruit if you like growing on the tree of salvation because you will recall the Paul is not writing here to secular men and women he is writing to those who have been embraced by Christ who have embraced him in personal faith verses 8 and 9 are not our kind of suggested list of external principles to be applied by the man in the street in order to make his life a little better he may choose to do that and it will to some degree make his life a little better that is not what Paul is saying he is addressing that which is the fruit that emerges on the tree of salvation the trunk of which is Grace and the branches of which are personal faith in other words he is calling here for his readers to understand the power of proper thinking the power of proper thinking I want you to understand this loved ones you will not and I will not know the peace of God or the God of peace simply as a result of if you like laying hold of the notion and then scurrying out into the remainder of the week to fill my mind with all kinds of false sordid unhelpful material because the peace of God does not come to the people of God in a vacuum but it is conveyed within the context of the people of God fastening their minds on those very things of which the God of peace himself approves that's why people that come out they get to avow at eleven o'clock on a Wednesday and they say well you know the thing was about the peace of God on Sunday and frankly I don't know any peace of God I don't know the peace of God and I don't know the God of peace my life is a total shambles yes but what radio station did you listen to first thing in the morning what has been your constant intake in terms of material that has fed you in the early hours of the day and then the dying moments of the evening what has been the literature that you have read and what is the material that you have conveyed to your mind with consistency since you heard about the peace of God and the God of peace and if the answer is totally alien bogus material then don't lay the charge at God's door because he gave you the Bible in which he said this is what you should think about think about what's true think about what's Noble and so on now it's interesting that Paul has no contemporary concern about being too direct you know people go to counselors and they ask what should I do about this and the counselor says well what do you think you should do about this that always intrigues me I understand the methodology but it you know it's like schoolteachers why do they want to know where Chile is they're the teachers tell me where Chile is why are you asking me you should tell me you're the teacher people tell me where chilli is don't make me stand in front of the map with a stick corner heck if I know where chilli is I don't know somewhere up here obviously you wouldn't happen to hear they go to the counselor what should I do about this whoa what do you think you should do look I'm paying you $60 tell me what I should do don't give me that stunt don't let me answer my own questions but you see late 20th century dwellers don't want anybody to tell them what to do that's a refrain don't tell me what to do and the other refrain is don't tell me what to think or don't tell me how to think Paul violates it all totally politically incorrect he spends all of his lectures going let me tell you what to do and then he says and let me tell you what to think and let me tell you how to think about what to think in other words it is total indoctrination in the right sense and in being indoctrinated to the revealed truth of God we learn to become the greatest freest thinkers it is an illusion to believe that believing whatever you want and having your mind open to every notion is actually the way to free thinking it is actually the way as we'll see in a moment to close your mind to the possibilities of the greatest discoveries of truth Paul understands that and so he gives them a list of six qualities to which we're going to come in a moment but he has a kind of catch-all at the end of their seat if you will notice if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things it seems to me that once he has begun his list he could keep it going ad infinitum what I was right whatever is true whatever is noble or as ever is admirable he must have said to himself if I if I keep going here I have a list of 40 50 60 things so if he was telling to us after he says why don't we just use a kind of you know our collective little basket here why don't we see if there's anything praiseworthy if there's anything excellent think about that this Center says a great idea so that's exactly what they did now interestingly Phillips when he paraphrases this takes the clause of verse 8 and he makes at the beginning of verse 8 that's incidentally why it's a paraphrase and he says if there is anything excellent if there is anything praiseworthy paraphrases that if you believe in goodness and if you value the approval of God that's one of the distinguishing marks incidentally of being a Christian he's he being a Christian is not simply being able to stand up and say you know I'm a Christian because on such-and-such a day i made a certain decision no the christian is somebody who believes in goodness and who values the approval of God so the Christian shouldn't have to be constantly saying oh well you see on such-and-such a day i did such and such a thing the christian should be distinguishable in the community because it becomes apparent this guy believes in goodness and this guy values the approval of god this girl is different because she seems concerned about a different standard I haven't heard exactly what it is she's into I don't know whether she's a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew at the moment but I do know this she values the approval of God because I've seen her bow her head and close her eyes before she eats her foot I've listened to her speech I've seen the way she frames her life I've observed all of this these are the distinguishing characteristics oh we can't get away with a funny little bumper sticker as if somehow or another we did our business for God in the kingdom buy something stuck on our stuck on our bumper that we violate and at 55 and 75 and 95 miles an hour on a daily basis that's easy know if you believe in goodness and if you value the approval of God in other words here is the meter here is the gauge here is the plumb line against which we can judge our thought patterns on a regular basis stop at any point of the day and ask this question of your thoughts it's what I am thinking about right now in line with God's approval and is it lightly to be praiseworthy before men gentlemen at any point in the day you could stop and say to yourself is what is going on between my ears right now the kind of thing that I would be happy to have shown up on either of these screens and for my teenage daughters to observe is it praiseworthy is it marked by a concern for goodness is it the kind of thing that God looks upon and he says you know I approve of that I like that thought that kind of thinking is the kind of thing I'm describing went through my servant Paul and my letter to the Philippians I encourage them and you to to ensure that if there is any interest in goodness any concern for the approval of God that you will learn to think in a particular way interestingly the word that is used here for excellence which Phillips paraphrases goodness is the word arattai which is the most comprehensive word in the Greek language for moral excellence he says if if there is anything that is marked by moral excellence what a challenge that is how apropos our day is it not we live in a world that is full of things that are sorted and shabby we almost needed to ask our surgical friends for rubber gloves to read yesterday morning's newspaper because it was soiled and it was smutty and Paul says in a world like that the Christians preoccupation is to be with that which is virtuous which calls down the approval of God and which deserves the praise of men now notice also that the call that he issues is a call to think those of you who are school teachers know just what a challenge that is you're not at the point of getting them to think about certain things you're just at the point of getting them to actually think now folks let's try and use our minds this morning let's do something radically different and the same is true again I suggest to you in a Christian Church that has grown very fond of cliches and very fond of talking about how it feels about everything the call here is a call and the word that he uses is a very important word log it so my which means to bring your faculties to bear upon these things we're going to see not today but we will see that the Bible calls us in verse 8 not only to think but again in verse 9 also to do the Bible never introduces us to mental reflection for its own sake it is always thinking doing Romans 12:2 then I be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds the renewed mind reveals itself in transformed activity so what he's saying is groove it in bring all of your mental faculties to bear upon these things now I see these places in the mall they have all these sayings and they apparently sell your tapes that help you to groove your memory I haven't used any of them yet maybe the day will come I don't know if they work but I also noticed that these provide them in relationship to muscle memory and I've never really taken the time to find out if there's any validity to it at all seemingly you can train your muscles to do certain things is of course presupposes that you have muscles worth training which may be one of the reasons that I've never bought the tapes but the fact is the notion that they are conveying is if you will focus on this your mind will either establish itself in our rights from which you have great difficulty in extricated yourself or you can train your mind groove and you can groove it in now to the degree that there is validity and that what Paul is saying is I want you to think about these things in such a way that you groove into the thought processes of your life the very channels which will be approved of by God and which will be praiseworthy by men and by women and this thinking activity is not a moment's thought in passing but it is continual it is habitual because the human mind will always attach itself to something and it is therefore imperative that we focus our minds on the right things now if we were in a dialogue we could stop for a moment and talk about the place of secular literature and the place of contemporary music and and art and so on we're not dialoguing and so we can't but I should let you know that I do not subscribe to the notion that we need to remove from the minds of our children all books which are not quote Christian books in the fear that when they read Daniel Defoe when they read Swift's or when they read Lewis Carroll or when they read whoever it is they read that some are another they will be violating Philippians 4:8 because it mentions in there something that isn't true or something that isn't Honorable etc on that basis you could never read any book at all you can never even read the newspaper this is a classic in the administration of which we need to be in the world but not off the world in other words as our minds pass through that information we do not bring our faculties to bear upon its error taking it to ourselves imbibing it and grooving it in as somebody but there is the risk there that you might yes there is and that is why it is imperative that from infancy Deuteronomy 6 we train up our children we talk about these things as we walk along the road and when we lie down and when we get up we bind them on the tablets of our hearts and we make sure that it is moved into their thinking so that when they encounter some evolutionary perspective the antenna goes up and they come home and they say mom what a strange thing mrs. so-and-so told me I came from a monkey and the mother says well sometimes you act like a little monkey but you didn't come from a monkey no your dad sometimes acts like an eight but you didn't come from a monkey that's the kind of thing we're talking about now the first thing on the list is truth finally brothers whatever is true think about that now that immediately poses a problem doesn't it in an earlier generation at another point in history at least in America the notion of whatever is true could have been stated acknowledged and we might move on but at this point at the end of the 20th century in a postmodern culture the fact of the matter is if we say whatever is true we hear the voice of Pilate from the first century saying now yeah but what is truth and the cumulative cacophony of sound down through the ages has reached epidemic proportions now in our universities and colleges Alan bloom in the closing of the American mind which is becoming an old book now writes this there is one thing a professor can be absolutely sure of almost every student entering the university believes or says she believes that truth is relative you may recall me mentioning being with my family in at Johnny Rockets in Santa Barbara and the waitress being from UCSB and she telling us that she was a philosophy major at the University of California Santa Barbara and I just said to her in passing as she was giving us the ketchup I said and what do you think about true truth and her rejoinder was I think about true truth because I don't believe there is such a thing does I dialogue with her she could think of only one person in the context of her philosophical studies and she was now in her third year who had given any indication that they believed in such a thing so that when somebody said whatever is true thing about that they would go gotcha will do everyone said depends what you mean by true you see relativism which is what we're dealing with claims that what we think is knowledge what we think is a firm grasp of truth and reality is really only an opinion as in a swimming pool in Dallas earlier in the summer there were two ladies there from England not only two ladies there from England but there were two ladies there from England it was at the National Religious booksellers convention and they had come to Dallas to go shopping because the entire of the shopping was very good in Dallas and in the course of conversation when they found out why I was there and what I was doing and I told them about this book that's coming out next month and I told them it was called what angels wish they knew and they said well what do angels wish they knew and I said angels wish they knew what it means to be saved and they said what do you mean saved and I said well I mean that when Jesus died upon the cross he made an atoning sacrifice for the sins of those who believe and immediately the responsibles but that's just your opinion you can say that's true the lady said to me you can say it's true for you but it sure isn't true for me now unless I'm living in a bubble my experience is that this is one of the great conversation finishers of the late 20th century in fact I'm thinking about doing a series in the evening on conversation stoppers the things that people say to us that end up being a terminus for is when we don't know where to go next we've done our best we we share a little bit about our experience we mentioned something from the Gospels and then all of a sudden they're rejoinder is well that may be true for you but it's not true for me what do you do then because you see relativism claims that objective universal truth just does not exist you say well please don't get off on this Alistair this is this is this is a sideline no it's tangential to our study but I want to stay with it for a moment or to the extent to which this is the case is borne out in every research study at the moment in this country in 1991 the Barna research group found that 66 percent of American adults didn't believe that absolute truth exists 66 percent in the study specifically these individuals when interviewed agreed that quotes there is no such thing as absolute truth and two people they said could could define truth in totally conflicting ways and still both be correct oh you see those of you who are sitting around going I don't understand how someone can say I did not have a sexual relationship and somebody else says you did have a sexual relationship and how they could both possibly be regarded as telling the truth I'll tell you how when relativism is the standard by which everything is gauged then there is no objective standard by which things may be ratified do you see how difficult it is to be an attorney in these days how in a wide world you get a verdict in a court of law with a jury of 12 people three out of four who believe in relativism and a judge sitting behind the bench who himself has concluded there is no such thing as truth most disturbing of all is the fact that the researchers discovered that 53 percent of those who declared themselves to be born-again Christians also maintained a relativistic view that over 50% of the people attached to in evangelical churches in America espoused relativism now to the degree that we are simply representative of evangelicalism that means the part of my task our task as pastors is to help a congregation that is increasingly buying the notion of relativism to the degree that more than 50% of the people there at least one in two of the group to whom you are speaking when you mentioned truth are replying from the perspective of a relativist they're saying not I have to believe this Bible they're saying I don't have to do that they're saying I don't have to apply this in relationship to my marriage that doesn't mean what it says about morality that's not what it means about premarital sex that's not why you have to exercise discipline no no no why not because it might be true to you but it isn't truth for me so it's not like out there with a big bogeyman it is if the statistics are accurate at all right in here so before you were ever able to go out and declare true truth to a relativistic culture you have to first declare true truth to a relativistic church when he conducted the poll three years later in 1994 Barna discovered that the statistic was getting worse not better and that seventy-two percent of American adults declared their conviction regarding relativism he really doesn't really matter I mean doesn't affect the way you live your life you bet your life it affects everything you do in your life you are what you think and our friends are what they think and the law of non-contradiction is short that's why a person could say one thing and do another thing and stand up and say the two things are not mutually exclusive gene wife in his book postmodern times gives a pathetic indication of the implications of relativism laying hold of a heart of a generation as he quotes the words of a young lady she says I belong to the blank generation what a phrase I belong to the blank generation I have no beliefs I belong to no community tradition or anything like that I'm lost in this vast vast world I belong nowhere I have absolutely no identity you can't tell me that relativism is something to be debated in the ivory towers of the University of the Western world and that it has no impact on the grassroots listen as you drive away from here today you are driving in a context in which virtually three out of four people who are driving alongside you I've got no real reason as to why they shouldn't take a baseball bat and smash it right through your windscreen except pragmatism except the last vestiges of normalcy except that's not what nice people do but not because it was wrong because there's no wrong that's where we live I can't remember the group and I can't remember the song but I have two lines in my mind and every and every road that leads me there is winding and every light that gates guides my way is blinding you know that song in every road that leads me there is winding and every light against my way is blinding Nana Nana Nana Nana I think they're English but I understand that oh you know what I'm glad of their honesty I can talk to those kids it's the smarty pens businessman who's not prepared to face up to it every road you take whines there's no direct point between a and B for you and every light towards which you move blinds you in its iridescent glow it's vain it's empty its futility that's why you feel how you feel that's why nothing tastes that's why there is nothing in the extra zero at the end of the paycheck it leads nowhere we say okay you made the point very good don't you think you should stop now yeah probably I should stop but what do you say to these people that's the question well you know you have to say let's get another coffee because this is probably gonna be quite a long discussion I don't think it's a good idea to say when they say well you know that may be true for you but it's not true for me I don't think it's a good idea to say you know you're a real dum-dum self-contradicting nincompoop you know that I don't even has the sort of endearing qualities to it though that you might want to use but I think it'd be good to say when somebody says well that may be true for you but it's not true for me to say you know I'm hearing you but there's something that just seems self contradictory about that statement first of all what do you mean self contradictory about the statement say well I don't think the statement works you see when the relative assess everyone's beliefs are true or false only relative to himself the relative meet the relativist means everybody except him see you say well I believe in the Bible they say well that's as is true for you I mean that's just relative to you and to yourself but his statement that it's just relative is an absolute statement if he's going to be true about relativism he has to say nothing is objectively true including my own relativistic position so you're free to accept my position or you're free to reject my position but the relativist is unwilling to relativize his relativism and that's what we have to give them to do we have to say your relativism is relative you can't take the high ground you can say that mine is a truth claim which is relative and yours is a truth truth which of course exists in your own little island Geisler is very helpful in this he says if truth can only be relative then it must only be relatively true for the relativist but when you think about it that can't be claimed in any absolute sense either so you can't say the relativist well that's only relatively true for you because there's Geisler it can only be relatively true then it is relatively true that it is relatively true and where do you want to stop there's no place to stop this is just ghosted its futility I belong to the blank generation see she thought it through either the claim and I'm quoting guy slit again either the claim that truth is relative is an absolute claim which would falsify the relativist position or it is an assertion that can never be made because every time you make it you have to add another relatively it's the beginning of an infinite regress that will never pay off in a real statement well in the first hour a number of eyes glazed over and I had to stop and I can see it happening again so let me just leave that by-path meadow and point you in the direction that will be heading next time the Christian conviction the biblical worldview says that truth is discovered not as a result of human speculation but that truth is discovered as a result of Revelation so that when the book Bible begins in the beginning god it is making a statement a true statement about the nature of the universe and that when a man or a woman chooses to think logically from what is and traces it back it is not an illogical progression to arrive at an unmoved mover to arrive at that which has itself null to arrive at a creator god but even then with all of the best of our searching it doesn't bring us there it is only as God has disclosed himself and therefore the Christian conviction is that God has made himself known in the world in which he has made he has made himself known in the word that he has given to us that takes us into the realm of textual criticism takes us into the matter of the historicity of the Bible it makes us fight and think all those things through because if we're going to make the assertion Sam 33 for that the word of the Lord is right and true we're gonna have to know something about the evidence for the New Testament documents if we're going to declare the Sammis words with conviction and 119 and 151 yet you are near O Lord and all your commands are true 160 all your words are true all your righteous laws are eternal then we are challenging the blank generation that surrounds us now here's the thing that we're going to see I hope that is that just in the same way is we cannot think of knowing the peace of God in abstraction from these virtues we cannot ultimately understand truth except as it then is extrapolated for us because I think that nobility rightness purity loveliness Admiralty excellence and praiseworthy nests are all ultimately characteristics of truth that when you take up truth like a prism or a dieter a diamond and and you hold it at one you see nobility you see Admiralty you see rightness and so on and as you examine it in that way so the Christian does have a view on contemporary art there is a reason as to why it would be possible for us to argue that the work of Salvador Dali is in many cases ugly because it is an expression of a worldview that is not ordered by truth and here is the means incidentally young people as we'll see of how to choose your albums sacred and secular here is the way to determine what pieces of art you want to have in your home here is the plum line against which we can discover how to build a library because a Christian way of thinking is not just thinking Christian thoughts singing Christian songs reading Christian books going to Christian schools it is learning to think about the whole spectrum of life scientific and sexual material and maternal from the perspective of a mind that has been trained in truth and until we get it there isn't a hope in the world of our secular neighbors and friends coming close to get it let's pray together farther out of an abundance of all these words that send our minds and multiple directions we pray but you will help us at least to determine on the strength of what we've thought about this morning to get serious about reading our Bibles about reading books on apologetics about searching out the thought-forms of our day we recognize that it's very easy for us to crime and climb into our little Citadel's sing our songs to one another proof texts each other and yet be pretty hopeless when it comes to standing in the lab on a late Monday afternoon or standing over technical drawings or examining samples of DNA are thinking about English literature or drama help us to see oh god that you are faster than all these things that you are great and greatly to be praised we want you to send us out in the power of your spirit so that those who has yet I've never heard might come to hear the saving news that there is in the Lord Jesus help us today in our conversations not to be content with simply passing people off with a couple of cliches and how do you do give us a strong reminder as to why it is you've given us two years and only one tongue for Jesus sake we ask it this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living learn more about truth for life with alistair beg visit us online at truthfortheworld.org

Channel: Alistair Begg

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Length: 45min 59sec (2759 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 14 2020