What are the things that you absolutely will not budge on? What are your greatest opinions you have in life? Think about that. We all have them.
I'll tell you some of mine I believe that sugar should never be in cornbread Okay, now you put sugar in your sweet tea not your cornbread. All right, okay, somebody's agreeing with me Um, I believe that wailin Jennings is the greatest country singer to ever live I do not care that the George Jones contingent has a very good argument and you're right He stopped loving her today as a fantastic song But wailin Jennings is the greatest country singer to ever walk the face of the earth I believe that the best cinematic masterpiece ever came out in 1984 and it's called red dawn You can't fix me on that. Okay, but here's the thing I know myself and some of you all in this room know me and you have the things that we're being silly right now But there's things that we won't budge on that we become very belligerent about And then when we have things that we just absolutely refuse to change our mind on or even entertain the offer What happens is that our belligerents and our hard-headedness can create boundaries between us and other people? That this this whole idea of us changing our mind is something that we don't want to mess with because many times We think that our mind and the decisions we make those are immovable What's the one thing that we have that nobody can mess with and it's true We have a right to that and we've God made us as individuals He gave us individual opinions individual backgrounds individual environments and resources edge all that he made us to be individuals But what are the things that you just will not move on?
Just one we're gonna talk about the mind and last week we talked about the heart and the mind and the heart a work-and-close Relationship with each other because they speak to this basic identity of what does it mean to be human? Mark 1230 says you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind with all of Your strength Jesus said this when he was asked about what's the greatest commandment people were trying to trap him on something Now this is answered you should love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength Our heart and our minds work together We talked about the heart last week if you missed that you can go back on the podcast and listen to it But think about this those are these basic ideas of what does it mean to be human and no Not only are we talking about this is basic ideas But we're trying to understand the fundamentals of what does it mean to be human in a light of what does it mean to be a disciple? Jesus Christ these are things that no matter what our health and our wholeness and our well-being for anybody's gonna make their life He's here It's gonna make them a better human but we begin to understand this in terms of being a disciple a whole other world opens up to us So this morning we're gonna talk about this idea that what we dream we do Before we get into that though I want to kind of think about something together with you And the only way I could put this and title this is the biblical conundrum of the mind Okay, because what I normally do is something like this a little more topical We're not like literally going through a section verse by verse but I can look in these words and these constant these ideas And so the first thing I did like two weeks ago when I started working on this message is I open up my fancy super nerdy Bible software This really nerdy I own it and I searched mine and I started coming up and started going to look back at the original language And trying to figure this out and here's the conundrum in the Old Testament the idea of a mind is a place of decision-making a Place of absolutism of cognitive thinking Doesn't exist it's not in there There's there's things to talk about decisions and all that but this this thing that we focus on of this of chance of making these decisions It doesn't exist and then we go into the new testament and typically we're talking about dead languages here These are languages nobody has spoken for thousands of years and they communicate differently than we do now And so it's not odd for us to find one or two or maybe three words new testament I mean the same thing It's typically I spend some time the weeks before on Sunday preparing to kind of get that into a quick idea to tell you and The super nerdy Bible software did not open up one idea of mind. It did not open up two ideas of mind It's not open up three ideas.
There's 14 different words to describe the idea of cognitive process in New Testament That's a bunch I was like I'm not so I was like oh man. I'm gonna try to get this down But so this is that can not look what's going on There's absolutely nothing in the Old Testament and there's way too much information in the New Testament But when you begin kind of picking around and digging around this is the interesting thing There's there's nothing about this there's nothing in the Old Testament cognitive process But there is a phrase that repeatedly comes up It's the closest thing to what we're when we think about in 21st century Americans about our mind is this that the concept does not exist to make a decision To go through a thinking process, but the idea of changing your mind comes up repeatedly And you change your mind through a specific action of gracious compassion That's all we find in two-thirds of the Bible. It makes you really think about this If we go back to last week we learned about the heart that they kind of take home was this idea that what we manifest in the world It always begins in our heart But when we think about the mind this idea of this is where I make the decision of what I'm going to do This is how I differentiate between right and wrong. This is what what what existed just in my own thought process now Exists in my outward outward actions We begin to realize that what we dream we do We're gonna talk about this in two movements today, and we're gonna read Some sections out of the book of Philippians now Philippians was written some new test It's written by guy named Paul Paul after the death and the resurrection of Jesus Paul's job was to find Christians and hunt them out And to either beat them or kill them So it's like a fun guy, right?
And so he is on one of his trips to go find Christians to do his thing and ends up having like this crazy experience on the side of the road on The way to Damascus and he has a visionary experience of Jesus and he goes blind and three days later some scales fall off his eyes Like the scales fall off and that would freak me out. Okay, but that freak anybody else out So he spends some time people kind of pour into him can help him understand some things help take care of him Then he runs off and I quit in the desert for a while and then he comes back and Paul is like a baller And he begins the greatest missionary movement. We've ever seen in many ways me and you are here today because of Paul So Paul would like to write letters to churches he had relationships with and when this relationship is letter Philippians and Philippians really can be characterized But these folks had a cooperation problem Okay, their behavior was alright. They weren't doing anything bad or gnarly.
There's other letters that Paul wrote where he's talking about people's morality And their ethics but not this one. They just have a cooperating problem. They they all want to be right You've heard the phrase. There's too many cooks in the kitchen You're going to situations where everybody wants to be right and when everybody wants to be right everybody ends up being wrong So Paul was writing his Philippians the first thing chapter 2 verses 1 through 4 and this is what he says If there's any encouragement in Christ any consolation from love any sharing in the spirit any compassion and sympathy Make my joy complete be of the same mind having the same love being in full accord and of one mind and do nothing from selfish ambition Or conceit but in humility regard others is better than yourselves So Paul is pretty smart.
He was very very educated for his day and Paul's letter sometimes read as though He's making a legal argument to state his case and he does this things and sets of four in this passage He just starts off right from the beginning. I says is there if there's any encouragement in Christ It's like if you found anything worthwhile because of your relationship with Jesus ever Second thing he says is any consolation from love It's like if you've ever been comforted because of your relationship with you it's comforted by an experience comforted by the Holy Spirit comforted by other people That your relationship with you ever been comforted because of your relationship with Jesus Says there ain't any sharing in the spirit Have your has your relationship with Jesus brought you in relationships with other people a couple weeks ago There's some trending on Facebook I would have said where was the first place I ever met you and I kept seeing it pop up on my stock on my stalker feed You know the news feed it comes up. It's a stalker feed y'all come on Let's be honest ourselves and Facebook has like a super smart algorithm that makes sure you see certain I know I know this was not happen to say that this was intentional decision by Mark Zuckerberg probably But I kept seeing people from church pop up that same thing and seeing folks underneath it say where to first meet you I met you at Foundry if you ever have found new relations with Jesus See y'all this whole thing started with my wife and I and four other families We knew really well in my backyard and we managed to roll over a jumper that day Which was awesome? I look out now and I see tons of people there my dear friends I never knew beforehand you have people that you did not know before have you ever found a relationship with other folks because of Jesus The last thing called kind of laid out in this argument So if you ever found any compassion or sympathy Think of you ever offered or you ever experienced compassion because your relationship with Jesus Paul just like boom boom boom Before things right there like my grandfather would said that he's covering the waters Okay, he's trying to tie everything trying to propane is big of a picture as he can This is about you know these people are not getting along He said if you can't agree with any of these things like that's pretty mind-blowing He's laying out just this full experience of life together with other people because of Jesus and he goes into his second What sets of four he says be of one mind if I make my joy complete by being the same mind by having the same love Being together in full accord.
That's not a Honda Accord But be together in a shared mission then he wraps up again by saying be of one mind He's making like the sandwich almost like where the bread is the this be of one mind statement in the middle We find love and shared mission. He's wrapping up See once people understand that this being of one mind is extremely important. It's very very important He's laying out this argument. Remember.
I told you there's 14 different ways to speak about the mind in the New Testament Well, we found one here We can filter that down a little bit easier to talk about one but that one is is really interesting Remember what we realize from an old testament that the whole idea of the mind whole concept of the mind in scripture is compassion deciding change This is even more of a throwback because this idea of the mind is talking about the ability to understand The intellect the fact that we have as individuals the capacity to make decisions It's something that sets us apart from the rest of creation This word is really closely intertwined with idea of wisdom and especially in Old Testament wisdom and knowledge and understanding that they can't be separated They're so close you really kind of can't figure out a difference between the three of them In many ways what we see with this idea of us having the ability to make decisions It's a throwback to Genesis 127 and it says let us come together and let's make men and women in our own image This is one of the things that that was broken because of the fall was broken because of sin coming But we still have a level of ability to exercise we still have the ability to make decisions and in our ability to make decisions We are participating not only with who we were made to be but we're participating with God and how he is governing and ruling and shaping and shifting This whole world together Our decision making process is a holy thing What's interesting is the word for foolish in the New Testament is the same word as the word for mind here They just put a negation on front of it with the grammar by just saying not mind not wisdom Not thinking what we dream we do Just this idea of mind is like saying that we are to act in the image that I that God has made not in the image that we are making What we dream we do what we focus on we're gonna do The things in life that we are fascinated with that we are going to end up doing them the things that we fixate on We are gonna end up doing them that this interior space that we think does not really matter That for the things that we think it might not be safe for us to actually do them the world But it's safe for us to think about them or eventually going to come to fruition Just like our heart ends up manifesting the way that we think and see and care about the world our dreams and our cognitive thought process Will manifest itself in the world to that we have to start asking ourselves the question of what do we allow to occupy? This image part of our mind. What are we gonna let our mind dwell on when we are by ourselves? What are we thinking about we're going to sleep?
What are we thinking about as we're driving alone in the car? What we dream we're gonna do and if it occupies our mind we're gonna testify to it and our life But the second movement of this Philippians chapter 2 verse 5 through 11 and Paul gives us some familiar words to the Philippians He actually begins using on one of their own hymns one of their own songs a part of their corporate worship together And this is what he says Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus Though he was in a form of God and not consider equality with God is something to be exploited But he emptied himself taking the form of a slave being born in human lightness being found in human form He humbled himself and it became obedient to death even death on a cross therefore God also Highly exalted him he gave him the name that is above every name the name of Jesus every knee should bow and heaven on earth and under the earth And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of the glory of God the Father See what Paul's lining out for us is this idea of a mind being a cooperating action with God and he he traced out a shape for us Okay, so let's think about what we all do. This is something I probably do about five times a week Okay, listen about what happens we get an idea that we're gonna do something okay, and who all thinks that their ideas the absolute best ideas in the world do Okay, I'll come on y'all like I almost kill myself three times a week So stupid crap I come up with I'm a one time I bought a water I bought a washing machine for somebody here in the church for like six months And they didn't need anymore I was gonna bring it back to the person and I got the realize I needed to run the washing machine before I brought it back I want to make sure at least I'll cycle but I was by myself so I didn't want to take the washing machine out of my truck You see what this is going? So I ran an extension cord in the water hose and I ran like three full loads I'm so I'm so glad I didn't die that day.
We all just but think about this. So this what we do in life We get that we get this idea of what we think we want to do and we start right here, okay? So we start working on this we start doing this we start kind of climbing up we think life's going We think we're going there's a good idea is working out I think I finally figured out what I need to do and we get to this apex Where we think we've completed it where we think we found completeness we get the tip top But here's the thing what there's when you go to the very top there's only one direction you can go back to right? We realize it wasn't such a good idea anymore.
We might get in trouble for it. It might have gotten us in trouble People realize that we weren't and we just fall right back down very big see as humans what we realize is we're trying to get up And we think the direction to go up is to go up in Scripture we find in this story something very even to you again. I want to think about this So I would say Jesus start on top wouldn't you? I don't think I argue against that.
Just watch my hands. I read this for you again But the same mind being you that was in Christ Jesus who though he was in a very form of God To not regard a quality with God is something to be exploited but it emptied himself Being born in human likeness and being found in human for any humble himself became obedient to death even death on a cross I say I say death is the most lowest low right? This is not this was this was not a proud death This is an embarrassing death Therefore God also highly exalted him and he gave in the name is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend And heaven on earth and under the earth every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord And I'm not gonna stand on this because I'm not gonna do that to the glory of God the Father see what Jesus Modeled for us is that the way down is the way up Okay, our dreams are about self exaltation What we see in Jesus's life is self-empting But here's the thing about the self-empting that Jesus offers us He ever cleaned out the garage before and found stuff that you thought you had lost and you got really excited about Then also found a bunch of junk that you need to throw away When we sell femtibullet Jesus clean the garage out for us we get rid of a bunch of stuff when that happens We also find stuff when that happens If our mind is about decision-making if our mind is about action We also have to realize our mind also is a place where we can be affected by sin the most That our mind is where we really process and deal with what does it mean for people to have sinned against us? That's possible I said before you sins It's very dangerous because it affects everybody around you our mind can easily dwell on brokenness and false promise and deceit and lies and hurt and pain and abuse and Feelings of failure anxiety our mind any of you and I've struggled this before my life If you struggle with anxiety or depression you know that a silent mind is absolute worth Think worth staying in the world that being by yourself in those moments is just is horrifying Also our mind we come up with stuff Y'all right nothing we can come up with that Jesus is not thought of already We're not gonna invent some new kind of sin our mind is that place where we think man I want my life to be like this I want my life to be like this I want my life to be like this and sooner wait We start thinking and imagining these scenarios in our life.
What if this happened? You know what if my boss is I could do this What if my spouse or my boyfriend or my girlfriend? They just need to be like this what if something our minds can begin creating these false environments in our head We begin sinning because we're simply trying to say Jesus the world you have given me is simply not good enough I don't agree with who you are I'm gonna agree with what you're asking me to do so I'm gonna construct this thing and I'll hit the only problem with that as we read in scripture Romans says God gave them over to their own minds. He said is this what you really want?
All right, I'll let you do that if you want to try that out. It's not gonna be good I say there's too much of an old preacher friend of mine said one time everybody has enough hell Everybody has just enough hell inside of themselves to set the world on fire. I'm God say that's what you really want to do I'll let you try that out We're gonna learn the hard way It's not gonna work very well for you our mind is the place that we are the most affected by sin because our mind is where our dreams our Desires our capability our wants and our needs are made present and physical and we don't agree with that we will do things on our own To try to make that happen what we dream we do Been closing just remember the art I thought process is us participating And who God made us to be and who God called us to be in this world Somebody asked me this one time. I said when was the last time you changed your mind?
When was the last time you changed your mind? This one of us have never changed our mind before in our entire life some of our change our mind is way too much But open ourselves up the possibility of Jesus changing our minds on things for some of us Just idea that he might do that was a pretty big revelation What does it mean to open yourself up that possibility? What does it also mean for you to pursue that possibility? What does it mean for us for us to say Jesus?
I need you to clean out my garage. I need you to tell me what I need to change Because he's never gonna get finished clean out his garage is like my garage It's gonna always be needing cleaning out because I'm always gonna put too much junk in it This is not a one-time thing as a continual posture We put ourselves and say I need you to teach me and to show me what I need to change Because I want to be very careful with what I'm bringing into this world and what I'm doing in this world What we dream we do Jesus. Thank you For making us just have this this type of power to think about how simple things part of our lives They even though sin came into the world that we were still you didn't take thought away from us that you didn't take creativity away from us That that even though we've sinned and that's changed this world for us And it's given very negative effects that we still have the ability to a people of thought and so pray and this morning We pray for you just to cleanse those thoughts first of all Jeez week we we ask for you to come in to cleanse out the places of darkness that exist in our lives We open ourselves up to you Jesus whether we have never opened ourselves up to you before in our life ever or whether we've been walking into cyplash for a long time God we pray though because we know that you're also transforming our thoughts And we're praying for for you to take us those special people that you have made And to sanctify our minds to sanctify the things that we're just good at To sanctify the things that we are passionate about that as you renew our minds That we become a better and bigger picture of ourselves Help us just be open to you. Let's know we pray amen