Sermon Tone Analysis

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We have an amazing machine inside our heads we call the brain.
We may have an high IQ or average or below average intelligence.
But all our brains are still something amazing.
Did you know that inside the skull of your head is more information than is stored in the British Library that stores every book, journal, newspaper and database published in the UK besides manuscripts and other books published outside of the UK – a total of 56m items?!
It seems impossible but nevertheless it is true – it is a pretty amazing little machine that only weighs about 2 kilos or 3 pounds.
Psychologists tell us that each person has about ten thousand thoughts per day.
Did you realise that many thoughts go on inside your head each day?
Do you know what that means?
We must have at least a one in ten thousand chance of having a good thought every day!
And just because there is a small chance that some random thoughts we have may be good we need to be more deliberate and increase the number of good thoughts hence our reading today.
It is not only mentioned here but also in:
Our thoughts have a direct correlation with our actions so that we have to think to present our bodies as a living sacrifice.
As our minds are renewed then we have personal revivals and the way ahead becomes clear with God.
We will be transformed as we think upon and obey His Word.
In 1 Samuel 18 we find a story of Saul’s jealousy of David who was a rising star in his administration.
On two occasions Saul tried to kill him with a spear.
Then tried to use the marriage to his daughter to get him killed and so on.
It is really important that we see the thought life of Saul.
It started with the pang of jealousy, the single thought, pride that was damaged, and it led to several occasions where David’s life was put in danger.
One thought led very soon to attempted murder.
One thought led to obsession with David.
Of course as we read on we find that David himself with a single thought for a particular woman named Bathsheba led him to actually murder her husband by the hand of another.
The lesson from this is that our thoughts are very important.
One thought can become many thousands and can lead to action that you would not thought yourself capable of doing at the very beginning.
This is a key saying: Sin is the manifestation of what has already taken place in the mind.
Our thoughts become actions then habits and then form our character.
In the verses we read at the beginning in Philippians it says that we need to put our thoughts on things which true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, of any virtue and anything that is praiseworthy.
To sum this up this means to think on things which are excellent and praiseworthy.
It is not an exhaustive list but demonstrates what we should be thinking upon.
Broken down these things mean:
True (alēthē) things are of course the opposite of dishonest and unreliable things (cf.
Eph.
4:15, 25).
Noble refers to what is dignified and worthy of respect (this word semna is used in the NT only here and in 1 Tim.
3:8, 11; Titus 2:2).
Right refers to conformity to God’s standards.
Pure (hagna) refers to what is wholesome, not mixed with moral impurity.
Lovely (prosphilē, occurring only here in the NT) speaks of what promotes peace rather than conflict.
Admirable (euphēma, also used only here) relates to what is positive and constructive rather than negative and destructive.
Our lives will be transformed if we think upon these kinds of things.
And the best way to keep bad thoughts at bay is to concentrate upon good thoughts.
The New English Version says: Fill your thoughts with these things.
Our thoughts have to be filled with things that honour God.
This for me means to think more upon God’s Word.
For me it also means to think upon what God has created.
Keeping our minds on Scripture and His works are to think entirely about what are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praiseworthy.
We are to remember that we are in a battle.
Our thoughts are very important – it can lead us down a path to destruction or down the path of God’s good and perfect will and purpose.
In the battle between Jesus and Satan in the desert, Satan withdrew when he was tackled with the Word of God: “It is written”, Jesus said.
This means we need to memorise Scripture, to hide it in our hearts so that in the heat of battle we will remember and think upon those verses that will keep us from sin.
If we do not then the battle will constantly be lost.
And the boundaries we have set could move in a coup d’état against us because we were not prepared and ready.
If every thought that we had, all ten thousand of them, were brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ then we will have a personal revival.
It is too easy to be lazy in our thinking when our thoughts have to be continually upon good and worthy things.
If we obey and set our minds upon the things of Christ, upon good and praiseworthy things then we will have His peace.
We are not to dwell upon the negative or the impure but to swap those thoughts out with positive and pure thoughts for how we think affects our behaviour and forms our character.
We are to think about godly things.
We who are Christ’s are in a privileged situation:
According to Romans, if we belong to God we do live according to the Spirit.
Let’s get it together and replace our thought life with godly thoughts.
Wrong thoughts will lead to a wrong path and can catch us out but right thoughts will lead to the right path.
And of course, if we love Him we will obey Him.
In verse 9 Paul continues and says do what I do and you will have peace.
What I have told you about what you think about and its result, I am the embodiment of fulfilling this, this is why I know what I am talking about.
And so he could say
So what is it that we have to learn, receive, hear and do?
We owe our everything to God.
Plainly when we consider the works that Christ has done for us in, loving us, which is what Paul had adequately grasped for himself he knew that he was no longer his own to do what he liked.
And to this end we also have to realise that we do not belong to anyone except Jesus.
We do not belong to ourselves or to the flesh or to anyone or anything except God in Christ Jesus.
We can therefore no longer live for ourselves because we have been bought with the blood of Jesus, this Jesus who was crucified for us.
Imitate me, Paul says, for
The summation of Paul is found in:
He could not glory in anything other than in the cross of Christ.
To say that Paul was zealous is putting it mildly.
His life was not dear to him for he was ready to die.
Not only that he had such great love for others and wanted to see his own people saved.
He so wanted them saved that he would have been willing to suffer hell if such an exchange could be made.
Can we be like Paul? Obviously the standard is very high but we should not be looking to be any less than for our aim to be “perfect even as our Father who is in heaven is perfect.”
Paul makes it clear that we should be those who follow in his footsteps in this regard.
What is the reward of living such a life?
That the God of peace will be with us.
What a promise for this was the very experience of Paul.
Live like him and it is guaranteed!
Peace is such a great promise from God in the tumult of a world full of arguments and fear and worry, war and terror but the God of peace invites us to that most secret place, under the shadow if His wings, where there is shelter from storms, where there is peace.
Paul sets himself up as an example, not because he is proud but because of what God had made him.
His life changed the course of history.
Some say that Christianity would not exist without Paul – I think that is over the top, however it is clear that his writings especially Romans changed the course of Christianity.
What to add: Throughout this letter to the Philippines we have found a man who is as passionate as he was at the beginning of his Christian walk, he kept the level that he had got to and did not backslide.
His life was full of troubles on every side: from non-Christians and from Christians, from within and without.
Yet despite it all he maintained his joy in the Lord and held onto Him with all His might.
His strength did not come from within but from the Lord in whom he put his trust.
Sure, we must follow the Lord but let us be those who can also be set up as an example of the godly, Spirit filled life as Paul was.
We have recorded in Scripture his letters that are so full of doctrine and we see the manner of life he led both in his letters and in the Book of Acts.
For us to get Phil 4.9 we have to be completely conversant with his life and doctrine and that is upon each of us to do.
We bear in mind though that we are imitators of Christ first and foremost because even Paul was a sinner for it is to Christ that Paul always pointed.
When we walk in the Spirit rather than the flesh we will be spiritually minded and do the kind of amazing things Paul did.
He yielded completely to God and his Lord Jesus Christ and peace was the result.
Benediction
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