10/15/23 Philippians - Part 12 “Think About It”

“Think About It”

Philippians 4:8-9

How many of you remember ‘show & tell’ back in grade school?

I always enjoyed this part of class, as it was a fun opportunity to bring something (or someone) to school and describe it to my teacher and classmates.

Typically, you would describe what your item does, its significance, and what it means to you.

The first item that I ever took to school for ‘show and tell’ was this 1/16 scale model combine right here.

I was in kindergarten, and we were living in Madison at the time where most of my classmates had never seen a real combine before – much less knew what one was used for.

I remember describing how, on an actual combine, crops would enter the machine through the head, travel up the feederhouse, then they were fed into the threshing mechanism of the combine where the ‘magic’ happens – the place where the grain is separated from the chaff and the straw.

The grain falls through sets of sieves and is then elevated up to the grain tank while the chaff, straw, and other unusable parts of the plants are exited out the back of the combine.

It always amazed me, and still amazes me, how such a large piece of machinery can perform such a detailed task at such a high rate of speed.

Believe it or not, the combine also reminds me of our passage of scripture for today.

I’m sure you’re probably wondering how a large piece of farm machinery can possibly remind me of truth, and purity, and loveliness, and excellence, and all of these other attributes of healthy thinking….right?

Well, there’s a small five-letter word in verse 8 (Philippians 4:8) of today’s passage that makes the connection for me….that word is “think.”

So….Just as grain stays with the combine while going through the field and the waste is removed – so to, our brains take in both positive and negative material throughout the day…..and we must make the ongoing decision to retain certain thoughts while casting other thoughts aside.

After Paul provides us with a list of positive virtues in verse 8 (Philippians 4:8) he tells us to “Think about such things”

In other words, if our “brain combine” is working properly – if it is functioning in harmony with God’s Word – then we will experience an ongoing hopper full of valuable, virtuous thoughts to meditate upon throughout the day.

At the same time, a fully functioning “brain combine” will also be continuously casting off thoughts that are tainted with iniquity or vice or impurity.

I was talking to Bob a few days ago about large modern combines….Just like a new million-dollar combine takes a while to build and assemble, a mind that consistently focuses  on the virtuous things in life doesn’t just happen all at once either – it takes training and time in order for a brain to habitually focus on positive things.

In fact, without the Holy Spirit being present in our lives, our minds prefer to think about the non-virtuous things in life…the sinful things.

Paul expresses that idea in Romans 8:5-6 where he says “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.”

The mind governed by the flesh is like a combine without its internal sifting components working…it lacks the ability to isolate the valuable part of the crop from the portion that is not valuable.

Folks, there are a lot of people in our world who do not have a properly functioning ‘brain combine”!...

These people do not focus on the righteous and praiseworthy things in life because they lack the spiritual ability to sift the valuable grain from the useless chaff.

Isn’t it interesting that when you look at a field of corn or soybeans from the road – or even from the cab of a combine – you don’t actually see the grain.

The grain – the valuable part of the plant – is hidden from sight.

Soybeans are hidden within the bean pod, and kernels of corn are hidden from our view by the husk surrounding the ear.

The same is true for worldly minds who are not able to see the beauty within God’s creation.

Only the Holy Spirit can transform our minds and enable them to recognize God’s presence in creation – and His presence in other human beings who are made in His image.

Seeing the fingerprint of God all over our world is an essential component of being born again – it means that we have been given the ability to think on a spiritual level rather than on just a physical.

….and if we see the spiritual grain of God’s grace and mercy all around us, then we will be thinking about what is true, what is noble, what is right, what is pure, what is lovely, what is admirable, what is excellent, and what is praiseworthy.

The human mind is an amazing creation.

Did you know that neuroscientists estimate that the average human being has around 70,000 thoughts per day!

Now that is an average…some of us might have considerably less than that 😊…

For me, it’s a win if I have enough thoughts to just get myself out of bed in the morning and find some food during the day…kind of like my mom’s cat Bosco.

Bosco is a very loving cat but he’s not too bright…If I had to guess, Bosco probably has about…4 thoughts per day…all of them having to do with his food dish – there are some days that I can relate to that!

Our brains are amazing, and we have a lot of individual thoughts coming into them.

Think about it - If you are awake for 16 hours a day, you are averaging just over one thought every second that you are awake!!

No wonder the Bible places such an importance on what we think about….and… what we should NOT be thinking about.

2 Corinthians 10:5 speaks to this when it says “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

If we have a new thought coming into our brains every second, we will need a fully functioning spiritual brain combine to filter out the pure thoughts from the impure ones.

Paul tells us to take every thought captive…how do we do this?

I see this exhortation as telling us to become so saturated in God’s Word and His truth that when a thought does enter our heads that doesn’t harmonize with His standard of Holiness, it sets off a mental alarm for us to recognize that impure thought – and then we are told to cast it away…like chaff from the back of a combine.

So, instead of actually processing every thought that comes into our head, being saturated in God’s Word and His truth provides us with a built-in mental filter that sounds the ‘alarm of unrighteousness’ if an impure thought lingers too long in one’s mind.

For instance, if you are driving down the interstate and someone cuts you off, and your next thought is to flip them the bird…BEEP BEEP BEEP…mental alarm!....the bird definitely does not align with God’s Word!

Or you see a homeless man sleeping under a bridge and your next thought is one of condemnation, rather than one of compassion…BEEP BEEP BEEP

Or you are surfing the net and you see a link that will take you to a site containing nudity and the thought ‘Click on It’ comes into your head….BEEP BEEP BEEP

Or maybe someone is talking to you and they begin running down a good friend of yours who loves the Lord and your thought is to just agree with everything they say to avoid conflict….BEEP BEEP BEEP

If you immerse yourself in God’s Word on a regular basis, your ability to take these impure thoughts captive will be effective - because your built-in alarm system will be fully operational.

Without a functioning mental alarm system, our minds are easy prey to whatever thoughts originate within them….and it is a basic psychological principle that whatever we think about the most –  that is what will shape our behavior and, ultimately, define who we are.

I like how the King James translation renders the first half of Proverbs 23:7 “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he….”

Awhile back, a group of marketing specialists were challenged to come up with a concise statement that would describe how people become motivated to move from thought to action.

This is the statement they came up with:

“What the mind attends to, it considers…what the mind does not attend to, it dismisses…what the mind continually attends to, it believes….what the mind believes, it eventually does.

In other words, if you can get people to think about something long enough, they will begin to believe it…then, they will act upon it.

This has been a marketing strategy for years.

If I can be convinced in my mind that Goodyear tires are the best tires on the market and all others are sub-quality, then I’m likely to buy a set of Goodyears every time my vehicle needs new tires.

We generally act upon what we believe – and what we believe is shaped by what we spend the most time thinking about.

Since action generally follows belief, it is imperative that we as believers put into practice what we believe to be true concerning our savior Jesus Christ.

If we look at verse 9 (Philippians 4:9) of our passage for this today we will notice that Paul urges the believers in Philippi to emulate the way in which he serves God – and he also delivers four extremely important words: “Put it into practice.”

Paul is saying that it doesn’t do a lot of good to simply think about good things – if we don’t put those thoughts into action of some kind!

Good thoughts should produce good behavior – otherwise they will never fulfill their potential.

It’s very similar to what James says in his epistle regarding acting upon what God’s Word says.

James 1:22-25 says “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it – not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it – they will be blessed in what they do.

Every morning when I get out of bed my first destination is typically the bathroom where there is a large mirror showing me what a half-asleep Andy looks like – complete with hair sticking straight up to the sky!

...the mirror provides me with the “truth” of what I look like a few minutes after getting out of bed – and It ain’t good, people….be very thankful that I spend some time getting presentable before coming to church in the morning!

If, rather than grabbing my shaver and other vital utensils in an effort to look presentable, I simply go away from the mirror forgetting that I looked like a plate of lasagna, I would look very unkept and scary all day long.

This is also true on a spiritual level if we look into the mirror of scripture and consciously make the decision NOT to act upon the truth contained in its pages.

Knowing the Word and giving intellectual assent to the truth and validity of God’s Word is only half the battle….not only do we need to understand scripture – we are called to put it into practice in order for our faith to be effective.

Genuine faith always includes action.

Hebrews chapter 11 is known as the ‘Hall of Faith’ because it describes individuals throughout history who demonstrated what it looks like when faith is acted upon.

Verse 4 (Hebrews 11:4) says that “By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did”…..he acted, he brought.

Verse 7 (Hebrews 11:7) says “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family….” …. He acted, he built.

Verse 8 (Hebrews 11:8) says “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”  ….. he went.

Verse 17 (Hebrews 11:17) says “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice….” …. He offered.

The chapter goes on and on to describe many other individuals who acted upon their beliefs – their faith was validated & legitimized by their actions.

Are people seeing Jesus when they witness your actions?....or are they simply seeing someone act in a way that is no different from the world?

There’s a popular old poem that speaks to this question…it goes like this:

“You are writing a gospel…a chapter each day…by the things that you do and the words that you say…People hear what you say and see what you do…so what is the gospel according to you?”

I’ll ask it again, are people seeing Jesus when they watch you?

With fewer and fewer millennials and Gen Zer’s walking through the doors of churches these days, you may very well be the only representative of Jesus that some people will ever see.

One of the most often-heard reasons why young people aren’t interested in attending church is because they perceive Christians to be hypocrites – people who act differently than what they profess to believe.

DO NOT LET THAT BE YOU!!

When people watch you, let them see someone who is acting in complete accordance with what they profess to believe!!

There is no greater way to attract others to Christ than to consistently act in alignment with His Word – and there is no greater way to turn people away from Christ than to act in opposition to what you claim to believe.

Your actions are powerful – always remember that!

Finally, verse 9 (Philippians 4:9) closes with a promise when it says that if we put these virtuous thoughts into practice, “The God of peace will be with you.”

This promise should sound familiar.

Remember last week when we covered verses 6&7 regarding the antidote to anxiety and worry – which was through prayer and thankful worship…

There was also a promise concerning peace in verse 7 (Philippians 4:7) where it says “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Verse 9 is very similar, but slightly different.

Verse 7 promises the “Peace of God” whereas verse 9 promises “The God of Peace.”

In other words, if we set our minds on things that are holy and righteous – and consistently act upon those thoughts – we will receive the amazing benefit of experiencing God’s tangible presence in our lives!

Brothers and Sisters - Life doesn’t get any better than that.

To experience the peace of God and the God of peace will enable you to walk through any trial, temptation, or tumultuous experience life could ever throw at you.

Romans 8:31 sums it up best “What then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Brothers & Sisters, God is for you….now let’s go live like it!

Let’s Pray.