Sermon Tone Analysis

Matthew 22:34–40 (CSB)

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together.

And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test him: “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”

He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the greatest and most important command.

The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

I remember having a conversation with my dad one time about the issue of faith and the need to get right with Jesus.

In that conversation he quipped something about, if a person wants to believe in a rock, then that rock will be a god to that person.

Boy, I’m not sure he understood just how correct he was in that statement

People have been believing in rocks since the “Stone Age” PUN INTENDED

It looks easy but it’s not, it takes a bit of work.”

haha

In fact, people have been believing in many things, not just things made from rocks, but of wood, gold, clay, porcelain etc...

Ever since several centuries after the Flood.

Some have even believed in animals as Gods like as in Hinduism, and others believed in humans beings like Jim Jones, or like David Koresh.

Ive often wondered

What in the world could cause people to believe such foolishness?

How could someone lend themselves over to such an outlandish belief practice, especially some that involve animal or human sacrifices, or even ritual sex acts?

Then this would ultimately call into question our very own beliefs

because We Christians believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and walked on water.

Not only that, but that He rose from the dead!

How could we come to believe in this stuff?

Because somewhere along the line, we were convinced in our MIND!

Something happened that caused us to embrace the idea with our Minds.

When you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you accepted it because you were convinced in your mind that He is the person He claims to be.

The only way to convert someone else is to convince them in their mind

Now, how you were convinced and how to help convince another is another matter and another sermon all together,

Today, I want to talk about what we are to do with the mind

In the words of Pilate when presenting Jesus with a crown of twisted thorns around His head, and a purple robe before the peopled yelled to crucify Him, he said.

“Ecce Homo,” Latin for = behold the man.

Man, a Human being, = of Mind and Soul.

The Mind, What are we to do with it?

One thing is for sure, we aren’t to allow anything to control it.

Not people, ( you should do this or that), not places, (Don’t forget where you come from), and definitely not things, (Drugs, alcohol, or even material things,) or even Feelings!

2 Peter 2.19

While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage

Romans 6:16 (CSB)

Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?

Jesus Knew how important the Human Mind is

That’s why He added it in the first most important commandment, as we read in Matthew 22.37

Matthew 22:37 (CSB)

He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the greatest and most important command.

The mind is what makes us human.

After all, human means, of Mind and soul.

French philosopher René Descartes in his Discourse on Method (1637) coined the phrase

Cogito, ergo sum, (Latin: “I think, therefore I am)

Scripture disagrees with him.

What separates us from the animals is the exact opposite.

“We are because we think”

This is why the enemy of life is out to get your MIND!

It could care less about your body, your internal feelings, your history, your family life, your image reputation or even your money.

He wants your mind!

Because he knows if he can attack any of those weaknesses in us, he can use it to control the mind.

2 Peter 2,19

“for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage”

Be it brought in by whatever disguise,

Pride, jealousy, prejudice, hate, even love

Don’t you remember being a young teenager, or how infatuated you were with your young love crush?

It occupied your mind didn’t it?

You probably couldn’t think straight.

And if you ended up losing or never gaining the affection of love interest, you couldn’t stop thinking about it.

You would stop eating, you would stop going out, you’d be sad and depressed, because that interest is what occupied your mind.

Or ever recieved a bad medical report about yourself or anyone else you care about?

It’s all you can think of.

It takes up residency in your mind!

That’s why it is so important that we protect the mind from every invader, foreign and domestic.

God gave you a mind

That mind is unique to you

Like a finger print is, no two people have the same print, that finger print is how they can identify you because that finger print is unique to you.

Well, so is your mind!

Ever heard of a doppelgänger?

an apparition or double of a living person,

according to Apple Dictionary

I’ve met mine once when I was very little.

We actually went to the same school briefly before he never came back again.

We had seen each other in the play ground several times, and recognized we looked exactly alike.

Until one day, it appeared neither one of us could help stopping and staring at each others face.

lol

I mean, we were carbon copies.

lol

But, He was him and I am me, though we looked alike, we are not the same.

There very well may be a person who looks exactly like you, but there will NEVER be another YOU!

What make you, YOU, is Your mind.

And God said He has a plan for You! specifically in Jeremiah 29:11

Jeremiah 29:11 (CSB)

For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

So we need to take care of it don’t we?

We don’t get another one

That’s it, if you lose this one, only God can bring it back to you.

Friedrich Nietzsche is regarded by some as one of the most brilliant philosophers to date, but we can see here, he is a man who could not retain control of his mind, and lost it as history proves he spent the last years of his life in an insane asylum.

He was someone who would not accept the truth of the Lord with his mind, he then lost it.

The parable of the Mad man

“Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God!

I seek God!" — As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter.

Has he got lost?

asked one.

Did he lose his way like a child?

asked another.