What is your mind focused on?

Mind - focused

 

Sunday 02/12/17 

Series: Doers of the Word

Message – What is your Mind Focused on?

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What is your Mind focused on?

We are picking up where we left of last week in James 4:5-6,

Verse 5

“Is it your opinion and do you presume to think that the scriptures say for no reason at all, that “The Spirit that dwells in us intensely craves possession of you, dotes upon you and is prone to feel pain and be moved to jealously at the sight of your happiness apart from God?”

However, unlike the rage of a jealous human lover…He gives more grace. God influences our mind and heart towards Christ in surrender…

Verse 6

“He influences you more…which is why He says that he resists the proud and obstinate who reject Him, but influences the modestly reverent.”

 

As it says in Rom 5:20-21,

“(20) The law came along to multiply the trespass. But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more,  (21)  so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

We read last week in Hosea (Hosea 2:13-23; 3:1-5), God romances the heart and mind of His wayward Bride…chasing after you, until…

  1. You return with all your heart and mind
  2. Grow stone cold through resistance to His pursuit of you. Hosea

 SO SUMBIT – TODAY is the day of salvation!

Heb. 3:7-14,

“(7) Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you hear His voice, (8)  do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the desert, (9)  where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works  (10)  for 40 years. Therefore I was provoked with this generation and said, “They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known My ways.” (11)  So I swore in My anger, “They will not enter My rest.” (12)  Watch out, brothers, so that there won’t be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that departs from the living God.  (13)  But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.  (14)  For we have become companions of the Messiah if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start.”

Going back to James 4:6 and let’s look at this –

In the face of our playing with the fire of adultery against God – God uses the jealous love of the Spirit as the basis for our call to humility. How we consider God’s motive for influencing our minds towards surrender plays a part in how we respond…

“Or do you think….? Therefore submit to God

God’s yearning and jealous love for us draws compassion out of Him to influence your heart and mind towards surrender.

To see this in practical application let’s look at two passages in Philippians…

  • 2:13 – we will read the chapter since it speaks to some of the primary weaknesses some of you have.

Php 2:1-16, 

“(1) If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy,  (2)  fulfill my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, sharing the same feelings, focusing on one goal

(3)  Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 

(4)  Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. 

(5)  Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus,  (6)  who, being in His very nature God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage.  (7) but, Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form,  (8)  He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death–even to death on a cross.  (9)  For this reason God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name,  (10)  so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow–of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth–  (11)  and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

(12)  So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 

(13)  For it is God Who is working in you, enabling you both to will and to act for His good purpose. 

(14)  Do everything without grumbling, complaining and arguing,  (15)  so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world. 

(16)  Hold firmly the message of life. Then I can boast in the day of Christ that I didn’t run in vain or labor for nothing.”

Mind - focused

Php 3:7-20,

“(1) But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ.  (8)  And More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ  (9)  and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ–the righteousness from God based on faith. 

(10)  My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,  (11)  assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead

(12)  Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. 

(13)  Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do:  forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,  

(14)  I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus. 

(15)  Therefore, all who are mature should think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this to you also.  

Focused - mind

(18)  For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 

  • (19) Their end is destruction;
  • Their god is their stomach;
  • their glory is in their shame.
  • They are focused on earthly things,

(20)  but our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

(21) He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subject everything to Himself.”

mind - focused

As I said, God’s yearning and jealous love for us draws compassion out of Him to influence your heart and mind towards surrender but BEING A DOER (or Christ in you) – DEPENDS on your response to that influence!

In verse 19, we just read “They set their minds on earthly things”.  This reminds me of Romans 8, where Paul addresses the same issue of the focus of the heart and mind to the Christians in Rome.

Rom 8:5-14,

“(5) For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. (6) For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. (7) Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. (8) So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

(9) But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. (10) And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (11) But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. (12) Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. (13) For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (14) For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

Let’s back up and camp on verses 5-8 for a moment in order to put a little skin on it…

Silently, write down certain ways we live because we think that way.

Now, if your first tendency is to list things about other people – you are demonstrating WHY you are NOT a Doer…it is because you are not a HEARER! These scriptures are for YOU. We all must remove the plank or beam out of our own eye before we can see clearly to remove the speck in our brother’s eye.

These verses are to EACH one of us as individuals and we appraise OURSELVES not others.

focus - mind - meditation

But we’d rather…

  • Complain
  • Argue
  • Vent our irritation
  • Seek out those we know will listen to us and join in our gripe-fest
  • Wallow

We spend an inordinate amount of time setting our minds on these things and then have the nerve – the raw audacity to act as if we are innocent bystanders when we fail to walk in  victory.

THESE THINGS OUGHT NOT BE!!!!

…Blessings! 

 

I hope this teaching will challenge you and encourage you to place your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

You have a special place in God’s family & kingdom. If you do not know Him, please use our ‘Contact Us‘ page and reach out so we may have the privilege of introducing you to the Lord. Neither money nor attendance at our church will be mentioned.

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Blessings!

Hi my name is Mark and though I am opposed to titles, I am currently the only Pastor (shepherd/elder) serving our assembly right now.

I have been Pastoring in one capacity or another for nearly 30 years now, though never quite like I am today.

Early in 2009 the Lord revealed to me that the way we had structured our assembly (church) was not scriptural in that it was out of sync with what Paul modeled for us in the New Testament. In truth, I (like many pastors I am sure) never even gave this fundamental issue of church structure the first thought. I had always assumed that church structure was largely the same everywhere and had been so from the beginning. While I knew Paul had some very stringent things to say about the local assembly of believers, the point of our gatherings together and who may or may not lead, I never even considered studying these issues but assumed we were all pretty much doing it right...safety in numbers right?! Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong!

So needless to say, my discovery that we had been doing it wrong for nearly two decades was a bit of a shock to me! Now, this "revelation" did not come about all at once but over the course of a few weeks. We were a traditional single pastor led congregation. It was a top-bottom model of ministry which is in part biblical, but not in the form of a monarchy.

The needed change did not come into focus until following 9 very intense months of study and discussions with those who were leaders in our church at the time.

We now understand and believe that the Bible teaches co-leadership with equal authority in each local assembly. Having multiple shepherds with God's heart and equal authority protects both Shepherds and sheep. Equal accountability keeps authority and doctrine in check. Multiple shepherds also provide teaching with various styles and giftings with leadership skills which are both different and complementary.

For a while we had two co-pastors (elders) (myself and one other man) who led the church with equal authority, but different giftings. We both taught in our own ways and styles, and our leadership skills were quite different, but complimentary. We were in complete submission to each other and worked side-by-side in the labor of shepherding the flock.

Our other Pastor has since moved on to other ministry which has left us with just myself. While we currently only have one Pastor/Elder, it is our desire that God, in His faithfulness and timing, may bring us more as we grow in maturity and even in numbers.

As to my home, I have been married since 1995 to my wonderful wife Terissa Woodson who is my closest friend and most trusted ally.

As far as my education goes, I grew up in a Christian home, but questioned everything I was ever taught.

I graduated from Bible college in 1990 and continued to question everything I was ever taught (I do not mention my college in order to avoid being labeled).

Perhaps my greatest preparation for ministry has been life and ministry itself. To quote an author I have come to enjoy namely Fredrick Buechner in his writing entitled, Now and Then, "If God speaks to us at all other than through such official channels as the Bible and the church, then I think that He speaks to us largely through what happens to us...if we keep our hearts open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we may hear Him, He is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, His word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling." ~ Fredrick Buechner

Well that is about all there is of interest to tell you about me.

I hope our ministry here is a blessing to you and your family. I also hope that it is only a supplement to a local church where you are committed to other believers in a community of grace.

~God Bless!