Stinking Thinking Part 2: The Importance Of Our Thinking Series

SERMON TWO (SERIES 5B)

“THE IMPORTANCE OF RIGHT THINKING”

What am I Missing Here?

Steps to Recovering Your Joy

March 6, 2011, March 27, 2011

Calvary Baptist Church

Isaiah 55:8-9

SERMON 5B: Stinking Thinking, Part II: “The Importance of Our Thinking”

Isaiah 55:8–9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.

QUOTE: One psychologist determined that the average human has 10,000 thoughts per day. That’s 3 ½ million per year. If we will give an account of every idle word, what account must we give for our thoughts? (TAN)

II. THE IMPORTANCE OF RIGHT THINKING

I must think rightly because …

A. The Display of My Thinking (before God)

1. God Searches My Heart (1 Chronicles 28:9)

1 Chronicles 28:9 And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.

2. God Knows My Heart’s Secrets (Psalm 44:21; 139:2)

Psalm 44:21 Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.

Psalm 139:2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

B. The Distinction of My Thinking

1. The Thinking of the Natural Man is Worthless (Ps. 94:11)

Psalm 94:11 The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.

2. God Expects that the Believer’s Thinking should Be Different and Worthwhile (Eph. 1:17)

Ephesians 4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

C. The Defilement of My Thinking

1. Satan Will Fill any Vacuum in My Mind (Acts 5:3)

• If I am not filled with good thoughts, Satan will fill me with bad

Ac 5:3 — But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?

2. My Thoughts Can War Against God (2 Cor. 10:3-6)

2 Corinthians 10:3-6 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; 6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.

3. My Thoughts Can Be Satan’s Doorway to Deception (2 Cor. 11:3)

2 Corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

4. My Thoughts Can Lead Me to Doubt God (Mark 11:23)

Mark 11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

ILLUS: THE LAW OF THE PENDULUM In college a student was asked to prepare a lesson to teach his speech class. He was to be graded on creativity and ability to drive home a point in a memorable way. The title of his talk was, “The Law of the Pendulum.” He spent twenty minutes carefully teaching the physical principle that governs a swinging pendulum. The law of the pendulum is: A pendulum can never return to a point higher than the point from which it was released. Because of friction and gravity, when the pendulum returns, it will fall short of its original release point. Each time it swings it makes less and less of an arc, until finally it is at rest. This point of rest is called the state of equilibrium, where all forces acting on the pendulum are equal.

The student attached a three-foot string to a child’s toy top and secured it to the top the blackboard with a thumbtack. He pulled the top to one side and made a mark on the blackboard where he let it go. Each time it swung back he made a new mark. It took less than a minute for the top to complete its swinging and come to rest. When he finished the demonstration, the markings on the blackboard proved the law of the pendulum.