What are we to think about?
What are we to think about?
Philippians 4:8-9
By Sean Kelly
Thank you for staying for Sunday school. We're glad to have you here. We'll go ahead and get started right away.
I'll ask Josiah, would you like to open up some prayer? Dear Lord, I thank you for all those visitors we have here today. Lord, I thank you for Jordan's message this morning on acts two. Lord, I pray that we would all be able to take a lot from it and pray that this we have this morning.
We're just going to do two verses in Philippians. I didn't change the reference I saw at the top there. It should be eight and nine.
Obviously, these two verses are, there's a lot packed in here, so I wanted to take the time and dig them out and kind of understand what the passage is saying because I think it's important. It guides us in a lot of ways. We're going to talk about what we think, what we meditate on.
And whatever you're thinking on, whatever you're meditating on, whatever you're focusing on is going to affect your attitudes. It's going to affect the things you do. It's going to affect how you interact with other people.
So it's very basic and core to Christianity that where our thoughts are, where our mind is dwelling is going to impact who we are as people. Let's go ahead and look at the passage here, Philippians four, eight and nine. Who would like to read this morning? Jonathan, go ahead.
Finally, brother, whatever things are true, whatever things are are noble, whatever things are just whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are a good report. If there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do.
And the God of peace will be with you. I don't think I even changed the title on this. Wow.
I didn't really do a great job putting the notes together this week, so I apologize for that. That's the title from last week, so you can just cross that out. There's no title this week.
Yeah, so my little paragraph here, and I kept it pretty short here. Paul moves towards the conclusion of his letter. I had that last week.
It's still true here, especially since he begins this. Finally, he's trying to conclude what he's going to say to the Philippians, giving them his last thoughts, the last things that they're going to dwell on, the last things that they're going to focus on. Here, Paul deals with the nature of our thoughts and then how the things we are taught affect the things we do.
And that's kind of his point. How do we think? What do we put in our mind? So we're going to do two verses, but most of this is going to be Philippians four eight, in fact, I divide them up into separate points, and you'll see there's much more blanks than I usually do this morning. You're welcome.
That's okay. My leg's feeling okay. So, Philippians four eight, he says, finally, brethren, he gives a list of things, and then he says, meditate on these things.
So what we're going to look at for number one here is the objects of our meditation. The objects of our meditation. And the reason why I start this way here is we're going to look at the end of the verse.
That's where the command is. The command here is to meditate. The idea of meditating means to consider, to think, to suppose, to evaluate.
It's to look at what's going into our mind, to see what's there. What are we focused on? What is our time spent thinking about? He uses this command, or he uses this word. One place else in Philippians of Philippians 313.
Let's go ahead and read that, Nathan. Go ahead, Reverend. I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.
And here, the word used as apprehended, that's how it's translated here. It's the idea that he hasn't fully grasped everything he needs to be in Christ, but he's working. He's pressing forward to the mark that Christ wants him to be as a person.
So it's that idea. It's to know, to understand, to evaluate in my life what's going on. It's most often used as a count or impute.
In fact, it's used a ton in the Bible. And almost every time, it's to impute or to account for righteousness. Famous verse.
You guys all know, because this is one of Pastor Kevin's favorite verses, romans four five. Who wants to read that? Josiah? Go ahead. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.
So here his faith is accounted considered. It's his faith equals righteousness here. So that's how the word is normally used.
In fact, this is the only place where Paul uses it in a different form, where he's talking about where they translated meditate. So it's kind of a different translation, but it kind of helps us to evaluate, to consider, to see what our thoughts are supposed to be. So the question I ask is, what should we meditate on? Well, we got the list here, but I want to start a little more basic, a little more general, because the Bible does talk about meditating on things, right? So I listed three things, and then we're going to talk about these things in this passage.
After that, the first thing we should meditate on is the word of God, Joshua one eight. Who would like to read? Ray, go ahead. The book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.
Then you will make your way to prosperous and then you will have great success. So the book of the law, or other words, the Bible. And at this point it was just the five books of the Pentateuch.
Right. But we know that this applies to all scripture, that we ought to be meditating in scripture. And the purpose is in order that you may observe to do so.
The meditation is not for like this eastern meditation where it makes you feel good or you get some kind of enlightenment. The purpose of our meditating in God's word is to put it into practice, to understand what it says and to make it work. So we ought to be meditating on the word of God.
Another one. Psalm one two. Probably another verse.
You know pretty well. Psalm one two. Who would like to read? Abigail.
Go ahead. So this is talking about the godly person. He delights in the law of the Lord, and he meditates in it day and night.
He's constantly focused on what the word of God says. And again, if the word of God knowing it, leads to action, that makes a lot of sense, right? Because as you're meditating, as you're thinking upon it, you're making choice in life and going, okay, what does the word of God say I should do here? What does the word of God say I should do here? What does the word of God say I should do here? When you go to an ice cream shop and you want to know if you should have chocolate, vanilla or strawberry, what does the word of God say I should do? Vanilla. I see.
We're going to have to do some deeper study on that. So there's situations where it doesn't matter which one you choose, but when it talks about pursuing a wife, the word of God says a lot about that, right? And the word of God, when you're thinking about what church should I go to? And I hope most of you here have already chosen the word of God says a lot about what kind of church you should be a part of. So our decisions ought to be focused on what God's word says.
The Bible also talks about that. We're supposed to meditate on God's wondrous works, the things that he's done. So let's look at psalm 70 712.
Who wants to read? Go ahead, Jordan. I will also meditate on your works and talk of your deeds. So here it's not so much the word of God, but it's what God is doing.
It's what God has done. And we can know some of this from the word of God. Like, you know, we can praise God for his creation.
We can praise God for sending his son to die on the cross for us. Those are works he's done that we know from the Bible. But he's also done things in our life.
Right. You can look around and see how God has blessed you or how God has worked in your life, and you can meditate on those things and think, you know, this is what God is doing. It should draw me closer to him.
Another passage, psalm 145 five. Another reader, please. Go ahead, Jenny.
I will meditate on the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous words. We're going to come back to this verse in just a second, too. The second part there.
I will meditate on your wondrous works. It's looking at what God is doing and what God has done. So meditate on God's wondrous works.
Meditating on God's character. Psalm 145 five. We just read that.
Look at the first part of the verse. I will meditate on the splendor of your majesty. This is about who God is.
This is about what kind of God we serve. As we understand who God is, we ought to meditate on. This is the type of God that we have, an almighty, all powerful, loving, merciful, sovereign.
You can go on and on, a God who provides, I don't have time to explain, bring up every attribute of God, but we can meditate on that as we see and as we know him. So met ten, God's character. Another passage of Malachi 316.
We don't do Malachi very much. Go ahead, Matt. It's time out here.
Those who meditate on his name, we talked on Wednesday, I think it was Wednesday, about the name of God a little bit. What does that mean? And the name of God represents his character, represents who he is. It represents his attributes.
So meditating on the person of God, on who he is. So we should meditate on the word of God. We should meditate on God's wondrous works.
We should meditate on God's character. I threw in here first. Timothy 413 15.
This kind of encompasses a lot of different aspects of what we just talked about. Go ahead, Josiah. Your hand went up.
Give attention to reading through exhortation to doctrine. Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy and laying on in the hands of the eldership. Meditate on these things.
Give yourself entirely through them, that your progress can be evident to them all. I started at verse 13. I could have gone back further.
I'm trying to not give, like, 20 pages of notes to you guys. But Paul's talking about the doctrine, the reading here, the exhortation. He's supposed to meditate on these things.
He also talks about the do not neglect the gift that is in you. This is what God is doing in Timothy's life. And so he's to meditate on these things.
So Timothy is to meditate on the right things here. So we need to meditate on the word of God, God's wondrous works, God's character. But the Bible also gives us the nature of the things that were to meditate on.
That's what this passage is about. What types of things are these things? And so there's eight things here in this passage where it talks about meditate on these things. So letter a here.
First thing we see is to meditate on what is true. So these are true things. I want to do something here.
I thought about doing this. I'm going to put this up here. I'm going to give you the definition.
I'm going to ask you a question. So, true things, the true things. True means here.
Truthful, honest, real or genuine. So what would be the opposite of true things? Lies. Falsehoods.
Hoods, dishonesty. Ungenuine. Ungenuine.
Fake. Strong words. Yeah.
Disingenuous. Disingenuous. Thank you.
I'm not gonna spell. That spells good. So this one's a pretty easy one, right? What do we focus on? Do we focus on things that are true? Sometimes we focus on things that aren't true.
We may be going through hard times and think, well, nobody cares about me. Nobody loves me. Is that a true thing? No.
Why? Because who loves you? Well, first of all, God loves you. He loves you so much that he sent his only son to die for you. The Bible is very clear about that.
Guess who else probably loves you? Your parents, your parents, maybe most of us, your spouse should. Who else your church family should be loving you? I think if you're in this church and you go around saying, nobody cares about me, nobody loves me, you're lying to yourself because this church cares about each other. We have a genuine friendship, a genuine loving relationship with each other and I've seen that in this church.
And so that's, this is the kind of thing that are you thinking about something that's true or something that's false? And I think I brought this up because I think a lot of people get trapped in that. They get trapped in the thought of, well I'm not loved, nobody cares about me. That is just simply not a true thing.
You shouldn't be dwelling on that. You shouldn't be thinking about that. You should be thinking about what's true.
And if there is nobody else, if you're in a church and nobody loves you, you have at least God's love for you. There's somebody that cares about you and wants his best for you. What's that? That's why I'm here.
That's why Ray's here. Ray has, for those of you who don't know, Ray, Ray had. How long had you been in this church? It was a long time.
Like. Whoa, ago? Like 100. Yeah, 100 years or something like that.
But Ray and his wife Mary moved away years ago. But he still feels the love that's here and that's why he's back. So anyway, yeah, so we know what is true from the word of God.
The word of God tells us what is true. How do we know that God loves us? Because God's word tells us that. How do we know that the church should be loving us? Because God commands the church to do that, to love one another.
It's from God's word. So John 1717 is on the next page. Who wants to read that? Abigail, go ahead.
So Jesus, this is his high priestly prayer. We talked about the difference between the model prayer in Matthew six and the high priestly prayer in John 17. This is high priestly prayer.
This is what Jesus is actually praying to the Holy Father spirit about. And he asks God to sanctify them being believers by truth. And then he brings up your word is truth.
That's where we find the truth. That's where we know what is true. We need to know God's word.
One more passage, psalm 19 nine. Nathan, go ahead. The fear of the Lord is clean.
Enduring forever. The judgment of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Remember, in these passages, like psalm 119 and psalm 19, there's a lot of different words that are used for the word of God here.
It's the fear of the Lord is used and the judgments of the Lord. I'll talk about what the word of God is, and the judgments of the Lord are true. They're true.
There's no falsehood. There's no lies. There's no dishonesty.
There's no ungenuineness. I don't know if that's a word. There's no fakeness in the word of God.
It's all true. And so we can trust that. So we need to be thinking on true things.
We need to put aside the things that aren't true, the things that we come up in our own mind and say, oh, this is what my reality is. No, the reality is what the word of God says. It is.
So whatever things are true. Second thing that he brings up in Philippians four eight is the noble things. The noble things.
The noble means serious. It means of good character. It means honorable.
It means worthy. It means respectable. So what would be apostasy noble here? Unworthy.
Unworthy. Disrespectful. Disrespectful.
Dishonorable. Dishonorable. Any others? Bad character.
Bad character. So, yeah, so basically you just took the words there and went the opposite. That's fine.
The funny thing is, the only other places this word is used is in the deacon qualifications, describing the older godly men in Titus two two. I gave you the deacon qualification passage. One Timothy three, eight and eleven.
You can look it up and see it's there. So we're going to read Titus two two. Who would like to read that? Ted? Go ahead.
The older man, he's sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith and love and patience. And there, that word reverent is the word. So the only other place this is used is relating to our character, what we should be.
We should be reverent. We should be serious. We should be of good character.
We should be honorable. We should be worthy. We should be respectable.
Guess what? We need to think about those types of things, too. I have a MacArthur quote here. I think he does a good job of defining this.
He says, believers must not think of what is trivial, temporal, mundane, common, and earthly, but rather on what is heavenly and so worthy of awe, adoration, and praise. I think that's kind of the heart of what it's talking about here, that we ought to be focused on things that are worthy, that are respectable, that are honorable towards God. That's where our mind ought to be.
I work in industry that we're a support industry to another industry. So we designed fiber optic cables and such like that. We do a lot of computer stuff, but we work with construction people a lot that actually build it.
If you know anything about construction people, most of them, at least, the unsaved ones, the way they speak, the way they think, is just kind of dirty. It's disrespectful. A lot of swearing, a lot of dirty jokes and stuff like that.
Those things are not worthy of who God is. Those things are not respectable before God. And I'm around that a lot.
Even my boss at times will swear and stuff at work. And I'm like, oh, this never happened 20 years ago, but this is pretty common now. And what I need to do is make sure I'm not focused on those kind of things that are going on around me, but thinking about the things that honor and are respectable before God.
So that's maybe the example I can bring up there. So noble things. So get the third one here.
Next thing are the just things. It's not just things. It's just things.
Yes. Just means conforming to the standard will or character of God. Upright, righteous, or good.
You know, it's when you think of, like, justice. You think that when somebody gets justice, they're getting what they have earned. They're getting what they deserve.
Deserve to get. That's how justice should work. Right.
The just things are the right things. They're the way it's supposed to work, the way it's supposed to happen. So we're supposed to be thinking about just things.
Things that are right. Things that are the right way that work. The way God wants them to work.
A couple of passages that talk about. They kind of give us an idea of what this just is. Psalm 119 128.
This talks about the word of God. Who wants to read this? Lynn, go ahead. Therefore, all your precepts concerning all these things considered to be right.
I hate. Everything falls away. Yeah.
And that word considered to be right, that word right is the same idea as just here. That all your precepts concerning all things I consider to be just. They're the right way.
Not only true, but there's nothing wrong with them. This is the way it's supposed to work. This is the way it's supposed to go.
So as we read God's word, and we understand that God says to bring up a point you brought up about monogamy. That a man is to be married to one woman for life. That's the right way.
Our culture is celebrating gender confusion. They're celebrating homosexuality, celebrating all this kind of stuff that is not right. God wants us to think of right things on things that are upright, that are conforming to God's standard.
One more passage. Proverbs twelve five. Go ahead, Jenny.
The thoughts of the righteous are right. But the counsels of the wicked are deceitful. The thoughts of the righteous are right.
This is that same word again. That just idea. The thoughts of the righteous are right.
They're thinking the right way. They're thinking in the manner that God wants them to think. And that's how we ought to be thinking.
We ought to be just in our thoughts. Next one. Letter d here.
The pure things. I didn't say it's opposite. Just.
Let's see that. Quick. So opposite, just unjust.
Okay. Nathan said sin. Right.
Okay. Unjust. Thank you.
What's that? Okay. Unrighteous. Deceitful.
Okay. Deceitful. I think that's right.
If it's not, that's okay. Unclean. So again, I think what I wanted you to get out of that is the rightness and wrongness.
There's a right and a wrong even beyond a true and false. There's a right and wrong way. And God wants us to think the right way.
So letter ds are pure things. I should just stayed standing up. The pure things.
These things are holy. In fact, that's what the word means here. It means to be holy.
Chaste, to be innocent. So what's the opposite of holy? Or opposite sinful? Unholy. Unholy.
What's that? Perverse. Perverse, tainted, unclean. I can't spell dirty.
Okay, we got. We got a bunch of stuff. I'm just gonna put dots here.
I think you got the right idea. So we're to be holy, but we're to think holy things. We're supposed to think what's right in that manner.
Now, if you think of what holy is, holy is to be set apart, right? We say God is holy. God is set apart from sin. He's set apart to perfection.
He's distinct from all of his creation in that manner. God wants us to be holy. He wants us to be distinct from the world.
That we are living righteous lives. That we are not conforming to sin, but conforming to God's holiness. So this idea that our thoughts ought to be that way, too.
Our thoughts shouldn't be blended between the things of God and the things of the world. We shouldn't be thinking about things that are sinful, that are perverse, that are tainted, that are unclean. So the idea of holy is morally clean, undefiled.
It's another good way to put it. We ought to be thinking things that are morally clean. You know, we struggle with our thoughts.
We all do, right? And, you know, there's things that we think at times that are just wicked, evil things, and we need to stop doing that and start thinking about things that are pure. So a couple passages. James 317 talks about God's wisdom.
Go ahead, Patricia. The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. The wisdom that's from above is, and James writes here first, that's the idea.
Most importantly, above all, the first thing you look at, that the wisdom from God, it's pure, it's holy, it's set apart, morally clean, it's undefiled. And that's what we're supposed to do, is we're supposed to be knowing God's wisdom. We're supposed to be learning wisdom from God.
And so our thoughts ought to focus on those things that are pure, that are holy, that are undefiled. First, John three. Three.
Go ahead, Josiah. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. And here is our example.
God is pure and we ought to purify ourselves. And this is, I think, talking in this passage, probably about our actions. But again, as I said in the beginning, our actions start with our thoughts.
If our thoughts are unpure, our actions are going to follow. And so in order to be pure, we need to be thinking on pure things. So the pure things, holy, chaste, innocent, morally clean, undefiled, that's ought to be what we are thinking about.
Next, one letter e. Lovely things. Lovely things.
These are things. This word really literally means pleasing. Is what is pleasing amiable or attractive before God.
So it's not lovely in our case, like some of you might find a certain car as lovely. Maybe it's a nice jeep wrangler or something. That's just beautiful.
Maybe you find a guitar lovely. You had Rickenbacker 320 and you go, well, that's just a beautiful guitar. I'm talking about myself.
Of course. That's not what I was talking about. It's what God finds as lovely, it's what he views as pleasing, what he views as amiable, what he views as attractive.
The Bible talks about that. We ought to be, well pleasing to God. God finds our actions when we're doing the right things to be pleasing to him.
And that's one of the neatest things that I've been learning, is that you can make God happy. You can please him by doing what he wants you to do. Our thoughts need to be pleasing him, too.
Our thoughts need to be attractive to him. Our thoughts need to be something that if we were standing for God and he was seeing our thoughts, which, by the way, God does see our thoughts, he knows all things. Are we embarrassed by what we're thinking, or are thoughts pleasing to him? This is the only place in the New Testament where this word appears, which is really helpful in studying it out because there's nothing really to compare it to in the old testament.
However, it does talk about lovely, pleasing, attractive things. One place, it talks about God's tabernacle. So I wanted to read that because I think it gives us an image of maybe what this looks like.
So psalm 84, one and two. Matt, go ahead. Okay, so we understand this is an Old Testament context, right? So the tabernacle here is the place of worship for Israel.
This is where you would go to sacrifice to make things right before God. This is a place where you to go to communion with him. This was where his presence was located on earth.
At this time, we don't have a tabernacle. Now. We worship God everywhere.
We're all priests of God if we're saved. And so we don't have that same thing. But when you think about, this is the place where the people went to go meet God.
And the psalmist is saying, how lovely is your tabernacle. Why? Because God's there. Because he can be with God.
He can worship with God. He can be in God's presence. And then you even see in verse two, my soul longs, even faints for the courts of the Lord.
He wants to have this fellowship with God. And if we apply that to the New Testament, we don't have, like I said, we don't have the tabernacle. We worship everywhere.
Our whole life ought to be a worship to God. Do we long to worship God? Do we long to be in God's presence? Do we long to be right before God? That's ought to be our desire. So if you take this to our thoughts, do our thoughts please God? Do they honor God? Are we open to knowing that God knows our thoughts? And yes, he's pleased by what I'm thinking.
We ought to have those types of thoughts. So the lovely things, the pleasing things to God. So letter f, things of good report.
I hope I gave you enough room on this one. And of course, I didn't do the opposites here. So let's go back and do that.
So, episode of lovely is not Ted. If Ted is walking in God's ways and doing what God wants him to, Ted is lovely to God. Okay.
Sin's a good answer for a lot of these, right? Disgusting. Disgust. That's right.
Somebody said unlovely. Abomination. That's one of the words I was thinking of.
Ugly. Okay, so I like abomination. The reason why I like this is you go through, like, especially through proverbs, I believe it's proverbs 29.
Proverbs 30 where that talks about these things are abomination before the Lord, the things that God hates. And it talks about murder, it talks about lying. It talks about all these things.
If our thoughts are not lovely to God, by default, they're going to be an abomination to God. So you think about it that way. If you're thinking things that don't please the Lord, it's an abomination.
It's something God can't stand. Just as God hates sin, God hates when we're not thinking the right way. That's a good word anyway.
So let's go to things. A good report. This is worthy of praise.
It's commendable. This word literally means good speaking in the Greek. So it's things that you can speak about that are good things that you could share out loud.
If you were to speak your thoughts. People go, oh, those are good thoughts. Those are right thoughts.
Those are just thoughts. Those are noble thoughts. It's the idea that they can be spoken of.
Well, again, this would be in God's eyes. So it describes what is highly regarded or well thought. So what's the opposite of good report? Bad report.
Thank you. I knew that was coming, by the way. Okay, so it's sinful, right? If it's sinful, what else? Okay, maybe mocking critic.
Sorry I gave you the big word. One that I think of is. How about shameful to speak.
I was going to say that as far as were you? Okay. Abigail was going to say that. So Abigail gets credit for that one.
I think of. I think of a passage where it talks about that the things they do are shameful even to speak in public. And I can't remember what passage that is.
Somebody probably knows off hands, but it's that idea. If you can't talk about it, if you can't share it. Well, don't think it, because this is what we're talking about.
We're thinking things that are a good report, things that can be shared, things that can be encouraging among the believers. So again, like the last word, this word only appears here in the New Testament. So very helpful for studying.
But that's the idea that you could speak of it. Well, again, yes, there's definitely an idea that God wants us to speak the right way. But this is going back to thoughts.
If you can't speak it, don't think it. I think that's a good way to think with dogs. If you are speaking.
This is the process of not thinking. It is to gradually. Yeah.
I mean, if you could immediately stop thinking it, that's great. Yep, yep. Right.
And. Yeah. And this is all.
This is on the spectrum. We're all at different places in this, and we need to be working this direction. So the next thing that he says is, whatever things, if there's any virtue.
So these are the virtuous things. I'm hoping I'm going to have enough room for everything up here. G is virtuous, not virtual things.
Virtuous. The virtuous things are just morally excellent. It's good things.
So what would be the opposite of virtuous? Unvirtuous. That's good. Other.
Unvirtuous, yes. Immoral. That.
Than what else? Evil. That's it. What puts it up there again? Sinful, tender.
Huh? Worldly. That's good. Worldly.
I don't have an exact word for it, but even with virtuous, with x would be part of the definition. Sometimes you're okay with subcar typos, but it's not necessarily bad. But it doesn't mean God's excellent.
Right. Right. That's good.
I was thinking of something. I lost it, but that's okay. Yeah.
The virtuous woman is someone who's virtuous, who's morally excellent, who's good, who's doing the right thing. So. Yeah.
Good for that. So let's look at one. Peter, one, three, eight.
This talks again about our actions, but it goes back to our thoughts again. Nathan, go ahead. As his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, but also for this very reason, giving all diligence.
Add to your faith, virtue to virtue, knowledge to knowledge, self control. To self control, perseverance. To perseverance, godliness.
To godliness, brotherly kindness and to kindness, love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the first place that shows up is in verse three.
At the end of verse three, he's called us by glory and by virtue, by moral goodness and excellence. And then when you go down to verse five, it says, for every reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith a virtue. So add to your belief, moral excellence.
Add to your belief goodness, the right things. Believe the word of God, and then do the word of God. And then when you do that, the virtue will add, you add knowledge.
So as you're doing the right things, you're learning more about who God is. So knowledge, self control, you're learning to do it right more consistently. To self control, perseverance, that you're learning to do right consistently and even in hard times when it's not easy to do what's right and to perseverance, godliness, which affects your character.
Suddenly you're now living a godly life consistently. The godliness, brotherly kindness, which now is shown in your relationship to others, and brotherly kindness to love, as that matures and grows to what God wants you to be. So virtue is a very important thing in the christian life, and it helps us to start growing and being the people God wants us to be, to have that moral excellence, that goodness, to make a commitment to that.
And that starts again in our thoughts. We ought to be thinking on morally excellent things, on these good things. The last thing he lists here in verse eight is things worthy of our praise.
I don't know if I have to really define this, but this is praise, commendation, approval. These are things that. These are praiseworthy things.
These are things that we can be excited to say, hey, these are the things I'm thinking about. Not that you weren't telling me, look, I think about great things. That's not bragging that way, but that you could say, these are good things.
I'm thinking about the right things. They're praiseworthy. The things we think about, if revealed, should bring praise to God.
If our thoughts were revealed, does it give God glory? Does it show what's right? Does it lead people in the right direction? The things we think about should be worthy of praise. So I'm going to stop here for just one. Oh, we got to do the opposite.
So what's the opposite of worthy of praise? All the above. Yeah. Everything else here, if it's not true, it's not praiseworthy.
Noble. It's not praiseworthy. It's not just and so on and so forth.
It's not praiseworthy. And you kind of read this in this passage that these last two here, the virtuous and the worthy of praise, are kind of a summary of the other six. Right.
So it's good. Good things and that things that are praiseworthy, that's what these things all are. And so it's a nice summary point there.
Any thoughts or questions on these eight things, Abigail? Okay. How do you control your thoughts or, like, correct your thoughts? Let's say you're not doing that. The first thing is you immerse yourself in the word of God.
You meditate on these things, and we know the source of what these things all are. How we know what is true, what is noble, what is just, what is pure comes from the word of God first. So if you're struggling with it, then you need to be spending more time in the word of God to start with.
Right. That's what's going to focus our attention. The second thing is you start taking away the things that you know are drawing you away from doing that.
If you're watching television shows that are not leading you to think virtuous thoughts, if you're watching television shows that are leading you to think unjust thoughts or whatever, get rid of the television, turn off the shows. If you're reading books that do that, stop reading those books. If you're hanging around people all the time, and I'm not saying remove yourself from the world, but who are your close friendships? Who are the people you're getting advice from? Who are the people that you are confiding in? If these people don't love God and are leaving you to think the wrong things, you know, back away from those relationships.
Find godly people to confide in. Find godly people to take advice in. Spend time with godly people.
So remove the things that are not helping you to think these thoughts. And then I think just accountability, too. If you're struggling with somebody, find somebody that you can be accountable with and say, hey, this is something I'm struggling with.
Can you help me with this? Can we talk about it once in a while? Can you ask me how I'm doing on this? I think that's a good thing there. And then, of course, through all that prayer, have God help you. God is the one who knows all things.
He knows our thoughts. He can work in your life as you pray for him. Nathan.
Yeah. Memorize scripture? Yes. How many of us can pull out a song and sing all the words to a song? I mean, most of us can do that, right? How many of us can just go and, you know, we have 150 scriptures and memorize that? We can just pull up like that, Nathan.
Okay, but you have a super memory, Nathan, so that's your. You're kind of a freak that way. We don't spend enough time memorizing God's word.
And that's very true. And that's part of the meditation process. How can you meditate on it if you don't know it? How can you bring to mind things that you're kind of.
Well, I think it said something like this about this. No. And memorize verses that are pertinent to what you're struggling with.
You know, sometimes, you know, and I love with, like, kids groups and stuff, they give you a list of verses to memorize. And these are good verses in the faith, and that's good, too. But if you're memorizing verses about lying, and you're not much of a liar, I mean, it's good to know them.
The Bible is good. I'm not saying it's not. But find verses with what you're struggling with and memorize those.
So when those times happen, that verse comes to mind and says, nope, this is what God wants me to do. So, any other thoughts on that? Abigail? Something. It's kind of a joke with a couple of my friends.
But misses Tex says a lot that you speak the truth to yourself. Like earlier, you say, no one loves me. You're thinking, no one loves me.
And then, you know, spiraled. The truth is not love me genuinely. Which kind of goes reading the Bible.
Yes, but it's like taking that Bible that you're reading. Put it into practice. And that's a good advice, too.
Any other thoughts on that? Okay, let's do the last verse here. Philippians four nine. The things which you have learned and received and heard and saw me.
These do. And the God of peace will be with you. So, Paul, I think, gives an example of what's going on here.
So, Paul's example, how he says to do all these things, and then he says, the things which you learned from me. So he's telling them, I'm giving you this example. Now.
The interesting thing here is. The command here is, anybody want to guess? What is that? Abigail, say louder. And you made it through all the blanks.
How about amazing? So the command here is do. This idea of do has the idea of practice, repetition, continual action. So as you're trying to tame your thoughts, it takes practice.
It takes action. It takes continuality in doing this. You don't, it doesn't just happen.
Like you can't just turn on, switch that question, like, how do you do this if you're struggling with this? Well, part of that is just practicing it over and over. You fail, confess that, move on and start over again. Start working on it again.
Just keep on working harder. If you're learning something, if you're learning how to do something, you're not going to pick it up right away. It takes practice.
Nathan's been told he has five years that he has to learn how to be a plumber before he can actually be a journeyman and really know what he's doing. He's practicing. He goes to school, he goes out and works in the field and does it because he's learning that.
Caleb, my son, wants to learn Gis like his dad, which I'm excited about, but he doesn't just pick that up right away. He has to be shown how to do it and then he has to practice doing it. That's the same way with anything in life.
We need to practice. We need to repeat, we need to continually do things. So he lists four things in this thing that we're supposed to practice.
So he says the learn things. I think these things go in kind of an order here and I'm going to kind of explain that. So the learn things, these are things that are learned in a formal setting.
That's the idea that it comes from the word disciple. It's his teaching. So it's things that have been taught to us, the things that people have sat down and said, this is what the word of God says.
This is how you're supposed to do it. This discipling process, the things that you've learned. Then it goes on to say, it says the things you've received.
Well, once you learn the things, you need to accept those things that you've learned. So somebody can teach you all that you want. I can tell you this is how map projections work.
This is why we have all kinds of different world maps and different shapes and sizes and what it all means. And you sit there going and then walk out like Ted would. You don't learn it.
You have to receive and take in that knowledge, the same thing with the word of God. You can read it. You can go to church every time you can be there listening to sermon, you can't even be taking notes.
But if you're not taking that in, if you're not receiving it, it doesn't do a lot of good. So the received things are things that are accepted, which is literally what that word means. We need to have accepted the truth in God's word.
Let's look at one. Thessalonians 213, another reader, Josiah. Go ahead.
For this reason, we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you, who believe that when you received the word of God, you welcome it not as the word of men, but as in truth. They made a decision that is just more than just Paul speaking here. This is the word of God.
We're going to take it in. We're going to accept it. We're going to welcome it in our lives.
That's what we need to do. So you receive it, then the thing's heard, and you think, well, this sounds like this should be at the beginning. You hear first, and then you learn, and then you receive.
But the things heard, this could be the things given. I think that should be heed. I think I spelled that wrong.
So things given, heed to the things understood, the things, we seek to understand the truth and work it out in our practice. So this is the idea of not only receiving it, but taking time to know what it means, taking time to study it out, but further effort into the word of God. And that's what he means by the things heard here.
And then he says the things that you've seen, and then we can watch and see it modeled in front of us. And so this is what Paul is doing for them, and he's modeling this, that he's being an example to them. Two Timothy 310.
Go ahead, Jonathan. But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long suffering, love, perseverance. And he keeps on going on there.
But you see, you have carefully followed, and it's not just what he taught, not just his doctrine, but his manner of life, the way he lived, his purpose, his motivation, his faith, what he believes, his long suffering, his attitude towards others, his love, his caring for others, his perseverance, just how he stuck to what he believes and what he says he believes. It's more than just saying, okay, this guy teaches us, I'm going to believe what he teaches. It's following somebody that's really living out on all levels what the word of God tells them to.
So these things we're supposed to do, and then the result of this is that the God of peace will be with them. And this is neat. We talked about last time that if we have, do not be anxious for anything but everything.
In prayer and supplication, make your requests known to God with thanksgiving. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds. In Christ Jesus, God offers that peace.
And here Paul says, if you're doing the right things, guess what? The God of peace, the God who gives peace, he's going to be with you. I want to look at one passage here. Two Corinthians 1311.
Ted, go ahead. Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete.
Be of good comfort, be of one mind. Live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. So again, here he's talking about, be complete, be mature, be of good comfort, be of one mind, work together, live in peace, don't cause problems between other people.
And the God of love and peace will be with you. So as we're doing what's right, we have this God who's with us, who's guiding us, who's helping us live the way we're supposed to live. So before I go to takeaways, any questions on that? I went over that pretty quick.
I think it's fairly straightforward. Okay, takeaways. Our thoughts affect our attitudes, actions, and relationships.
We need to be thinking the way God wants us to think. Second corinthians ten four through six. Who wants to read? Nathan, go ahead.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and being ready to punish all disobedience. And your obedience is fulfilled. Part of our thought life is really spiritual warfare.
It's the world, the forces of Satan, and even ourselves trying to pull us away from God. And God has given us the resources that we can combat these things. Verse five there says, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.
This is the idea of things that are trying to take the place of what God wants us to think of, the place of us knowing who God is and what his will is for us, things that distract us from living the christian life. And God has given us the weapons to fight that. And then it says, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
Isn't that what this passage is about? Bringing our thoughts into captivity, helping ourselves to think the way God wants us to think, that God has given us the tools, the weapons to fight the things that are distracting us, that are pulling us away from thinking the right things about God. So I thought that was an interesting verse. So here's what we need to do.
We need to test our thoughts, the things we are meditating on and ask if they are number one. True. Do they reflect the truth of God? Are we thinking about true things? Noble? Are they reverent, respectable and worthy of God? Just.
Are they right, conforming to the standard will or character of God? Pure. Are they holy, conforming to the holiness of God? God lovely. Are they pleasing to God? A good report.
Are they worth speaking about? Virtuous? Are they morally excellent? Without sin? Praiseworthy? Do they bring honor and glory to God? We ought to be examining our thoughts and saying, what I'm thinking about now, does it do these things? And if we answer, no, it's not doing these things, then we need to change the way we're thinking and the way we think is going to affect the way we live. So I would say that, you know, if you memorize this one verse, Philippians four eight, and then just work that through your mind at times and go, is this what my thoughts are reflecting? Is this what I'm thinking about? That would be so helpful. Second takeaway, we need to take the things which we have been taught, which we received, which we have heard, and what you have seen, and do those things.
It's not up to us to decide what is right or wrong to do, but it's up to God and what he is teaching us. And as we think we do, we need to train our thoughts and then train our lives to do what God wants us to do. Any last thoughts or questions? Okay, let's go ahead.
We'll close in prayer. Matthew, will you close us in here? Thank you for the wonderful lesson from Sean. Let us take this with others, and not just take notes over Sunday school, but apply it outside of church as well, and show other people around us at work and public how we're supposed to act.
Just let us have a good rest of our week and continue walking down the right path. Amen.