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I Th4.5-8 Xian Mind HOW TO HAVE A CHRISTIAN MIND

I THESSALONIANS 4:5-8

Do you have a Christian mind?

Did you know that researchers say that the average human mind thinks over 10,000 thoughts each day. What you do with all those thoughts will shape your Christian mind!

The start of all spiritual growth and all spiritual warfare is in the mind.

God wants you and me to have Christian minds.

Satan has a paln to inhibit, impede and interupt that growth and victory. He wants to do it by: • Snatching the word of god from you. • Filling our minds with lies, immorality and false doctrine. • Drowning us in such a sea of sin that we become tolerant of it. • Entertaining us with sin so it doesn’t seem as evil as it really is. • Having us laugh at sin on tv and in movies. • Twisting our minds by putting sinful ideas into appealing music. • Confusing our emotions by corrupting our desires . • Drawing our affections after the wrong things. • Destroying our consciences so they no longer warn us.
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• Debilitating our will so we do things we really should not do.

So how can he do that? By getting our minds off the way! Remember how Paul writes about the way to live the life of holiness in First Thessalonians chapter four. To a group of saints he loved so much he gives the seven secrets of separated to God, holy living.

The 4th secret is a warning.

Stay away from things that cloud your Christian mind!

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God;2 for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.8 Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit. (NKJV)

I. PLEASE GOD BY YOUR CONDUCT. V. 1 A. First – holy living is not an option. It’s an imperitive. “ought” B. Second – holy living is not momentary. It’s continuous “to walk” C. Third – holy living is not private. It is [and shall be] public. “to please god” D. Because of these three, look at the end of the road, look at second corinthians 5:10. The day of reckoning. 1. “must” – no option = compulsory 2. “all/each one” = personal 3. “appear” made manifest = public 4. “recompensed” individually paid = specific II. PLAN TO OBEY GOD’S COMMANDMENTS V.2 A. Don’t miss this – that word “C” is a military term for passing on orders. B. Look at John 14:15-21. Because we love we obey! III. PURSUE GOD’S WILL. v. 3-4 OUR CALLING IS TO DO GOD’S WILL IV. PROGRAM YOUR GODLY MIND v. 5-8
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A special chapter of the NT is devoted in part to that very topic. Peter in his first epistle addresses the Christian mind in the last chapter. Let me read and you follow along in 1 Peter 5:8-9

WARNINGS FOR MAINTAINING A GODLY MIND

First he says STAY SOBER in v. 8. The word SOBER literally means: “don’t inhale, don’t become intoxicated with”. So don’t inhale, don’t get intoxicated with the whole new list of unbiblical beliefs, the postChristian rules by which America lives. 1. NARCISSISM [self-centered]. We learned to live for ourselves. Decision making started with “what is best for me?” 2. PLURALISM [non-absolute]. Nothing was invalid. There really was no ultimate truth. There were many “true” systems of thought. 3. HEDONISM [pleasure first]. The pursuit of pleasure became the meaning of existence. 4. SECULARISM [compartmentalizing of life]. Our culture says sacred things belong in church and that the rest of the world is secular. Prayer and God are no longer welcome in our society. 5. MATERIALISM. What counts in a person’s life is what he owns, where he lives, what he wears, where he plays, what he drives. We live to gain. ACCUMULATION has become our national anthem. 6. RELATIVISM [ignoring essentials]. With no absolutes, everyone is his own authority. Whatever works, feels good, or satisfies is okay. All the old rules are gone.the now”

• This is a warning. So Christ calls us to an unimpaired mind. • Set no wicked thing before your mind Ps 101.3 (Read all) • Think on true lovely things Phil 4.8 (Test by) • Cast down empty imaginations II cor 10.4-5 Avoid befriending the world system James 4.4
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