Tired Thinking
Our Thoughts Are Not God’s Thoughts
Scriptures: Isa. 55:8-9; 61:1; Luke 4:18; Pro. 3:5-6; Rom. 10:8-9
Introduction:
This is part two of my message on “Tired Thinking” and as promised last week, I want to address the issue of a broken heart. Last week I shared with you the stories of my good friend and my father. In those stories were illustrations of how powerful our minds are and how our spirit man can overrule the requests of our fleshly man (our minds). In part one I shared with you the differences between having a thought and the process of thinking. Both of these take place in what we often refer to as our minds and what the Bible refers to as our hearts. For this reason Paul recommended that we needed to renew our minds bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Whatever thoughts come into your mind that is not of God needs to be “caught, suppressed, and brought before the Word.” It is through this process that we will begin to renew how we think and not be conformed to this world.
Isaiah 61:1 says “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.” This is what Jesus read when He entered the synagogue in Nazareth. This is where I wish to focus this morning – healing the brokenhearted.
I. Healing the Brokenhearted
When Jesus went to Nazareth, as His custom was, He went to synagogue on the Sabbath. He stood up to read and He read Isaiah 61:1. Luke 4:18 says “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” He read this section for the purpose of letting those present know that this scripture had been fulfilled in their presence. Please take a moment and focus on the sentence “He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted.” I want you to think about what it means to be brokenhearted. I spent some time during the last two weeks meditating on what it means to be brokenhearted. We think about this often as it relates to relationship. Something bad happens in a relationship and one person’s heart is broken. There is pain, hurt, and a shifting that possibly takes place in that relationship. When we are younger our hearts are often broken until we enter into the next relationship. However, as adults it’s not that easy. You see, when you research what it truly means to be brokenhearted, it carries a long lasting impact on the person and how the person thinks. To understand this we need to understand how the word “heart” is used in the Bible as often it is not the physical organ. Turn to Proverbs 3:5-6 so I can illustrate this.
Proverbs 3:5-6 says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall make your paths straight.” The Hebrew word for heart in this verse is “Leb.” It means “the feelings, the will, the understanding and even the intellect – the center of everything.” In other words, this word denotes the core of a person – what makes you you and me me! This verse is one of many examples of where this word is used. These verses speak of our decision to trust God with what makes us who we are – our hearts – our mental capacity. It’s not the physical organ; it’s everything that makes us unique – how we think and feel. We turn this over to God. Now turn to Romans 10:8-9 so I can show you how it is often used in the New Testament.
The New Testament word for heart is “Kardia.” Like the Old Testament word Leb, it means “the thoughts or feelings (mind); man’s entire mental and moral activity.” This word is used in Romans 10:8-9 which say, “But what does it say? The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” What Paul is saying that we make a choice to accept Christ with the core of who we are – our minds – turning over to Him our thoughts and mental activity. We believe in Christ with that part of us that makes decisions! This is why simply getting baptized does not save us! We get baptized because we have already accepted Christ and are saved! Paul states that this decision to believe and accept Christ comes from our heart.
Now, with this said, let’s examine the word brokenhearted. The word brokenhearted is made up of two Hebrew and Greek words. The Hebrew word for brokenhearted is Shabar + Leb. It means to “burst, break, crush, destroy, and or hurt the feelings, will, understanding and yes, the intellect.” The Greek word is suntribo + Kardia. and it means “to crush completely; to shatter (literally and figuratively), bruise the mind, man’s entire mental and moral activity.” In other words, the brokenhearted person is a person who is so very injured that they are broken in the very center of what makes them who they are. They are broken in how they think or reason; how they feel; who they are. Jesus said He was sent to “heal the brokenhearted.” He was sent to heal how we think.
I was watching the show the other night about people who hoard. In this one episode, one lady experienced a traumatic experience and began to collect trash as a way of dealing with it. She could not bring herself to throw anything away. The show never revealed what she had experienced, but it totally changed how she thought about herself and the space around her. It is a known fact that traumatic experiences can affect how a person thinks and the healing process can take a very long time. Most people can and will demonstrate compassion for someone who mental capacity changes based on traumatic experiences, if they know that is what the root cause is. While Jesus was sent here for these people “too” He was sent here because all of us were once and possibly still are “brokenhearted.” Not in the sense of how the world would define it, but in the sense of what the Bible says – we are broken in how we think. I have learned that the most dangerous person is the one who is injured/broken and don’t know it. This person is dangerous because through their injuries, they continue to injure others.
II. We’re Repeating History
Many years ago, my wife Nikki taught a lesson on what she called “The Walking Wounded.” Some of the things she said have stayed with me. In her lesson she talked about how many Christians are injured and don’t know it and they continue to operate in ministries with their injuries. Sometimes their ministry work is used to cover the injuries and other times they just do what they do and ignore their injuries. One of the examples she used was a soldier on the battlefield. When a soldier has a visible injury, they can go to the medics, get patched up, and immediately sent back to the battlefield if they are able to carry out their duties. Sometimes the soldier’s injuries will not allow this and they are taken off the battlefield. The point Nikki made, or the point that was left with me, was that we have many soldiers who are injured and should be sidelined until they are healed who are refusing to allow themselves time to heal.
Think about this…..in the truest sense of the word, Jesus was sent here to heal how we think! If you do not think that our thinking is messed up – read the news! Turn on your TV and watch some of the shows that are on! We are on a very slippery slope and the problem is, we are sliding downhill and we do not realize that we are moving. Our thinking is affecting how we see God, how we understand what Jesus really did for us, how we see ourselves, and most importantly, how we see ourselves in Christ. The more our thinking becomes broken, the more we agree with the thinking of the world. All of us recognize that the world’s way of thinking is broken – why would we begin to accept that way of like and live broken? I remember when I was younger and I would ask my parents if I could do something, I would tell them that so and so was able to do it. Without fail they would ask, “If so and so jumped off a bridge would you want to do that too?” My point is this – the world is jumping off a cliff with its broken thinking and some of us are joining right in because we are not recognizing that we are broken.
Do you realize that we are repeating history – except with a different outcome? Remember the story of Noah? In Genesis chapter six, the following is recorded, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.” (Genesis 6:5-6) So what did God do? He destroyed man off the face of the earth with the exception of Noah and his family. But it did not stop there. When Noah came out of the ark, he prepared a sacrifice. When God smelled the burnt offering, He made the following promise, “I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.’ God said, ‘This is a sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations. I set My bow in the clouds, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.” (Genesis 9:11-13)
Here is a question for you to ponder: “Why would God see the need to make this type of covenant if He did not know that man’s thoughts would become broken even after He sacrificed His Son?” God made that covenant with us because He knew that some of mankind would choose to remain broken regardless of what He provided for us!
Conclusion – God’s Thinking Is Not Our Thinking
Jesus said that He came to heal the brokenhearted. He came to heal how we think and respond to the world around us. I have been healed and you know what – I am still in the healing process. Every day that I make a different decision than what I would want to make, my heart is being healed. Every time I cast down a thought that I would have dwelled on in my past, my heart is being healed because I am bring my thoughts into captivity of the Word. I am being healed – what about you?
I want you to know that we all get tired in our thinking. Sometimes that tiredness lingers and we become broken. This is not something unique to us. That is why Paul said in “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” (Galatians 6:9) If people were not getting tired in their thinking which was leading to people becoming brokenhearted, he would not have written this. He was imploring people not to give up – a sure sign of being brokenhearted. When your mind tells you that you cannot do any more, you cannot do anymore!
God said the following through Isaiah, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9) God also said the following through Jeremiah, “For I know the plans that I have for you’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
So what are God’s thoughts about us?
“….I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” Jeremiah 31:3b
“For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown towards His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.” Hebrews 6:10
“The Lord keeps all who love Him…..” Psalm 145:20a
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
And those my friends are just a few of the thoughts that God has for you and for me. If we begin to think like God, then we can be healed of our broken hearts. As I close this morning, I leave you with these final words as recorded in Proverbs 23:7a, “For as a man thinks within himself, so he is……”
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
