Bringing into Captivity Every Thought - Levi Baer

I want to greet each one in Christ's name this morning. I've been blessed,

I don't know about you, to be here and hear what we've heard

from the Word of God. The Sunday School lesson in particular, goes along

somewhat that's what I have to share. So I found that interesting how that

seems to interact there. I wish an interest in your prayers as well about

Wednesday throughout a warning that I may not be able to speak today with the

shape I was in with a bad cold, and this part of me wishes

the cold would stay, and part of me wishes it glad that it left,

but I do still am battling it somewhat what I'd like to look at

this morning for a message. The title is bringing into captivity every thought,

and if you want to turn in your Bibles to Second Corinthians ten, verse

three through six to get started here. Second Corinthians ten, verse three,

I would just like to read these verses before I introduce the message here any

further. Verse three. For though we walk in the flesh, we do

not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,

but mighty through God. To pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations

and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing

into captivity every thought to obedience, to the obedience of Christ verse six,

and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

So the idea of bringing our thoughts into captivity, into obedience is what Paul's

saying here. He was as human as every one of us are today,

and he knew the imports of bringing our thoughts under the subjection of Jesus Christ.

So we have our mind this morning. We each have a mind,

you know, and the and the human mind is made up very much different

from any other creature, any other animal, the ability to think, which

is why we have thoughts, you know. And in some ways, our

our mind here is the It's the control tower, if you will, the

control tower that governs our speech and our lives. It governs our actions,

because many times thoughts turn into actions, our preformulated thoughts turn into actions.

The mind, in my opinion, is one and the same as the brain.

The brain is where is what allows the mind to think. So we

have this little three pound roughly little universe little computer in each of our minds,

in our heads. We call it the brain, and it processes around

seventy thousand thoughts in a twenty four hour period. I can hear your minds

turning right now, wondering what all them thoughts have been already today. You

know that is scary to think about so ready today? Maybe you know roughly

we've thought thirty thousand different thoughts, and maybe some people think more than others.

But the fact is is you have to be thinking something. Although sometimes

we wonder if people are thinking. Sometimes we call people we say he's a

thinker. I think we all are. So we processed a lot of thoughts

already with our little computer. Your brain uses one hundred billion neurons that connect

at five hundred trillion points through synopsis that travel three hundred miles an hour.

Don't ask me how to prove that true, but except that I got it

up the Internet, it gives us the idea. Get the point that we

can't even fathom how the brain and how the mind work. Those signals that

oravel three hundred miles per hour through the interconnected neurons, they form the basis

of memories, thoughts, and feelings in each of us. So when you

think of the mind in that way, throughout our life, through our experiences,

I should just say this way our experiences create they create patterns of activity,

and by our activity we explain to others how our brains code our thoughts,

our memories, our skills, or sense of sense of who we are,

or maybe I should say who we think we are. You've probably heard

this little line before. You're not what you think you are, but what

you think you are, And I think there's some truth to that. We

have the tendency to give to think about other people in a way that maybe

thinks the worst of them and the best for ourselves. Although there is an

aspect of our lives that we can have not good thoughts about ourselves, and

we know where that can lead. Many times it ends in suicide. When

people feel like they're not worth anything, they think to themselves that they're not

worth anything. So this morning, with our minds, with our brains,

we're in two classes. There's two classes of people, and I think we

understand that we have the good and bad class of people. We have believing

or unbelief, unbelieving darkness and light the world and those that come out of

the world, God's temple versus idols in our life, Christ or Belile,

and none of these can have part with the other. How would we class

our thought life this morning? So the word thought is referenced eighty times in

thirty three different books in scripture, thoughts plural is fifty three times and seventeen

books, and the word mind is ninety two times in thirty three books.

I thought that was interesting. It's obviously a big part of who we are

and who God is. So why is I would like to just look at

two main aspects of our mind, of our thoughts. The first one is

why is it important to bring our thoughts into captivity and into obedience to Christ?

Why? And the second one is how to bring our thoughts into How

to do that? How to bring them into captivity like it says here in

verse five, bringing into captivity every thought to obedience of Christ, to the

obedience of Christ. I think it is important I introduce the mind a little

bit, and I think it's important to recognize what the mind, what our

thoughts. I should say how much that affects our life? How much that

tells other people? The actions that come from our thoughts what it says to

them about us. I think it was John mentioned in Sunday School that when

you meet someone you can tell, for the most part, if there's any

adorning of the Gospel, and I would just say, I think that's true.

I think we can also tell when we are around someone for any length

of time that their thoughts are in subjection to Christ by their life because it

shapes who we are. And so when we think about the mind and we

think about thinking, we want to go a little bit deeper than just the

psychological aspects of you know, we have maybe you could call it a worldview,

although it's real we have positive versus negative thinking. We hear a lot

about that kind of stuff. There's a lot of speakers that that that's how

they try to get our minds right is to think positive thoughts. Is that

really the key to just think positive? We have a term that we call

critical thinking. That's just simply the ability to effectively analyze information and form a

judgment. But the other part of that is as critical thinking, it's also

the ability to question and to knowledge acknowledge and tests previously held assumptions. And

that's a whole world in itself. When we think about thinking and thoughts,

that's not really what the what we want to look at. I'd like to

read a couple verses from Psalm one thirty nine Psalm one thirty nine, one

and two. Remember now we're thinking about the why it's important to bring our

thoughts into captivity. One thirty nine. Verse one says, Oh Lord,

thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising,

Thou understandest my thoughts afar off. What that tells us is that the

Lord, first of all, he knows our thoughts before we even think them.

So if we're even remotely thinking that we're fooling God on what is going

on in our mind in this little computer, that would throw that out the

window in a hurry, because He knew our thoughts before we even thought them.

So let's just get that out of the way. Does that make you

feel comfortable that God knows your thoughts my thoughts? I didn't feel very comfortable

as as I studied this and thought about God knowing each of my thoughts.

It makes me a little bit uncomfortable. Should it be that way? Should

we be uncomfortable I think there's a certain aspect to maybe that we do because

we stand before such a great and high and holy God. But there also

is the fact that we can hide our thoughts from other people. People have

no way of knowing what is going through our mind, what we're thinking,

but we can never hide them from God. There's another verse and firse Chronicles

twenty eight to nine. I'll just read quickly. Hear David to his son

Solomon. I find it interesting, Father David here to his wise son,

listen to what he says. In verse nine of first Chronicles twenty eight,

he says, and thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God

of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing

mind. For the Lord searcheth all hearts and understandeth all the imaginations of the

thoughts. If thou seek him, he will be foond of thee. But

if thou forsake him, he will cast thee awe forever. So here David

says, listen, son, the Lord understands all your thoughts and all the

imaginations that go along with your thoughts. Maybe more than thoughts is the unconscious

things that are going through our mind that we might not even perceive as a

thought. God knows him, he knows why we're thinking those thoughts. Hebrews

four twelve has the familiar verse there of the word of God being sharper than

a two edged sword, but it says that it's the word of God is

a discerner of thoughts and intense of the heart. There's a saying that says,

so a thought and you reap an act. So an act, and

you reap a habit, So a habit and you reap a character. I

think there's a lot of truth to that. We play a lot of games

in our minds, and we have this thing we call a mindset. What

that would say is that we've set our mind on this as a certain way

to do something. But I think it's also more than that. I think

it's fooling ourselves many times into what we actually are. You know, we

can have what is it if we consistently get to church ten minutes late.

I don't mean sometimes, I mean pretty consistently at a certain amount. That

is a mindset that is not changing, not going a different direction. We

do things the same because that's our mindset. There's much worse things that we

have mindsets about than that whatever, late for work, late for church,

late for commitments of any kind. Just a side note in that I had

to wonder for myself if I knew that someone was waiting to write me a

check for one hundred and fifty thousand, and they said, if you're not

here at ten o'clock, the deals off. I do wonder if I would

be there on time. I'm pretty sure I know the answer. What we

think matters, our mindsets matter. We just like I said, we play

a lot of games in our minds. Our minds run wild at times,

at least mine does, and I think that is what it's saying here.

That's what Paul's saying of bringing our minds into into the captivity of the obedience

of Jesus Christ is to not let your mind run wild. It really doesn't

do us any good. There's a there's been a book floating around for some

time titles Switch on your Brain. I'm sure many of you have heard it,

maybe read it, and there's a lot of truth to what that book

has to say. And I found it interesting when I read that book,

and it has so much to do with how we think molds our brain.

It can literally change our brain. And I think that's true, and so

we can change a from toxic thinking that affects our brain. In that way,

we can change it to positive and healthy brain cells after it was unhealthy.

And I found what I was going to say is I found when I

read that book, I got to the point where what it actually was saying

is that there's no more thinking negative thoughts about other people. That's the start

of a healthy brain. And as I really stopped and thought about that,

it told me something about myself because I think I enjoy thinking negative thoughts at

times. I don't know if you can relate to that or not, but

I think that's something we need to be aware of. Is that we heard

this morning that sin is attractive. Thinking negative thoughts about people is sin,

and it makes us feel good about ourselves when we think negative about other people.

The mind games that we play, you know, I've already heard someone

say that they braggingly said that we haven't eaten anything all day, but that

evening they ate enough for three people. That's just an example of the mind

games that we play. The idea was is that I think I'm doing pretty

good, but I'm reality is that I'm not, and that's not hidden.

Usually what we think matters. Jesus said that whoever looks at a woman in

Matthew somewhere to look in with the idea of lusting after that woman here Ready,

it's the same as committing adultery with her in his heart. That gives

us a little idea. How Jesus views our thoughts, our thinking. He

knew as well as we did how that works. Let's let God take control,

you know, without his control, without bringing our minds into captivity,

into obedience. Minds are just this quivering, sobbing mass of uselessness. There's

no power to direct our thoughts. It's just the next thought that comes along

builds into something else. We actually can almost get an adrenaline rush of thinking

negative or maybe self pity about ourselves. This message is not geared toward technology,

but I couldn't help but think about how that has affected this world that

we live in. When you think when your mind, or let me say

it this way, how that affects our minds when we view pornographic material,

and how that molds our brains. You know, if you actually study into

that, it's there's a lot of frightening things, and how we can reason

with ourselves is why we need to and why it's okay let alone that when

our mindset is geared toward serving self. I think that it's you know,

whether it's on social media or looking at news or anything. I think if

that's our mindset, we can we can find things that we look at for

the wrong reason. If that's just the bent of our mind, that's why

we need to bring it under captivity. Let God bring it under captivity.

I had to think about, you know, how the stock market has its

ups and downs, and right now it's up, and we hear that consumer

sentiment is better right now than it's been in I don't know how many years.

The percentage jumped more than it has in years in a certain amount of

time. What is that based on. It's not even based on anything that's

real. There's not even a foundation to that thinking. It's people's minds that

run wild, and we could literally sway the economy by our mindset. I

was talking to a man recently on the job site, a man I've known

for quite some time. He's a good man as far as I can tell,

but I've noticed that well he lost his dad. His dad died I

think it was of cancer some years back, and I could tell that really

threw him for a loop. And I kind of knew that he was somewhat

of a negative person, but did not use that in a way that was

abrasive to myself. And so they had done some work for us as a

subcontractor recently, and it was kind of a complicated piece of work and it

was time to go under testing this waterline that they installed, and leading up

to that, he would just he would bring that up, and he was

just oh, he was just dreading this test, and he was pretty sure

that it was going to fail. And I tried not to play into it

too much, but I didn't want to tell him it wasn't gonna in case

it did, or didn't want to tell him it'd be okay. I guess

he even had me thinking that way a little bit. But the thing is

it didn't fail. It passed the test, and he worried about it for

months. I'm just as guilty many times. That's the mind games that we

play. Our mindset is that it's sure to fail. And I was top

talking to him about it a little bit, and he admitted to me.

He said, I'm just a negative person. And we talked about using reverse

psychology, which sounds like a big word, and it really doesn't mean a

whole lot. It's thinking that if we think something's not going to work out,

then it will. In case you didn't know, there's a computer term

for any computer text here, it's the word giggle. Does anybody know what

that means? There you go, what goes in goes out, garbage in,

garbage out. You know. That's really the gist of is how our

mind works. In our brain, what we feed it is what comes out,

which is why we say what we think is what we are. We

need to analyze that little computer in between our ears and think about what are

we putting in. I know, for myself, I think I can put

things in and get away with it that aren't ideal and something and it won't

affect me. And that's the part that we're wrong. The other day my

wife said to me that what I just said, do you want I can

tell it when in one ear and read out the other. That's a little

bit. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about going in and

staying in there and doing its damage. There's a verse in two Corinthians eleven

three, and it talks there about our minds being corrupted from the simplicity that

is in Christ. And as I thought about that, what does he mean

by that, the simplicity of Christ. I really like the sound of that.

We hear the gospel message is simple, and I think what it is

is that healthy unhealthy minds complicate the gospel message. We stray away from preaching

Jesus Christ and him crucified because we have an unhealthy mindset. I say we

maybe it's me. In Titus one, verse fifteen and sixteen. There it

talks about a defiled mind and conscience. So we're not talking about the conscience

this morning, but that does play into having a defiled mind. Is our

conscience is seared, And we talked about that in Sunday school. Somehow we

just are our mind is running, and we're just doing things that we know

we shouldn't do, wide open, and we're just wondering about people. Why

why don't you stop and think about the damage that it's not only doing to

you, but to others. The defiled mind and seared conscience is the result

of a free wheeling mind that is not brought under obedience to Christ. Now

for the second part here, what is the answer? How can I bring

my mind into captivity to the obedience of Jesus Christ Romans twelve, verse one

and two. I believe has the answer. Romans twelve, verse one.

It says, beseech you therefore, brethren, I'm sorry, I beseech you,

therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your

bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing

of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and

perfect will of God. How do we have a transformed heart and life?

It says that by the renewing of our mind, that's how we're transformed.

There's a song that I don't know any of you know it, and I'm

sure not going to try to sing it, But in the chorus it says

this, it is no secret what God can do. What He's done for

others, he'll do for you. My desire this mornings, that we bring

our burdens to God, thereby being trans renewed and transformed In Romans thirteen fourteen,

it says, put you on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not

provision for the flesh to fulfill the last thereob What that tells me is that

it says, put on Jesus Christ. Now do you think a lost and

dying world around us? Our brother or sister? Do you think they know

by our fruits if we have put on Jesus Christ. Do you think that

they can see that we are not making provision for the flesh because we want

to fulfill the last thereof? What does it mean to have a renewed mind,

a transformed life? You have the power within yourself? Are you converted?

Are you born again? I think that a renewed mind will bring us

to crossroads in life that we we see that that direction looks what I would

like for myself. I can, I can afford it, and I'm pretty

sure that it would make me happy when we come to those crossroads. Is

that automatically the direction that we go? So we come to the crossroads here,

we choose a way. Later on in life we come to another one.

I still think it's a lord's will that I stay right here and get

ahead. In life, we all have our own journey. And I trust

that each one of us will do what we know is putting on Jesus Christ.

And I think many of you do. And Philippians four, verse eight

and nine. It gives us some secrets there to having a healthy thought life.

If you want to turn to Philippians four, verse eight and nine,

I'll just call it a recipe for success. Start in verse seven. And

the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and

minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever

things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, ever

things are lovely, whatsoever things are of a good report. If there be

any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Think on these things. Remember giggle garbage in, garbage out, garbage out.

In Romans eight, verse seven, it says the carnal mind is enmity

against God. The carnal mind is simply a mind that lives to fulfill the

flesh. I mentioned the crossroads that we come to in life. It's the

one that says yes to the flesh and no to being crucified. It says

it's an enemy of God. It's his enemy. We want to have a

renewed mind by allowing God to transform us, bringing every thought into captive,

every thought captive into the obedience to Christ. In Proverbs fifteen fourteen, it

says, the mind of the intelligent seeks knowledge. The mind of the intelligent

seeks knowledge. He wants to know the things of God. One Peter four

vers One, it says, arm yourselves with the same mind. What is

the same mind? He's speaking here of the mind of Jesus Christ. There's

a term out there that we call. We say like mind, that means

thinking alike. And in some ways, I think from the teachings of Paul,

we would see that it's better if a brotherhood is like minded. But

it's also better yet if they're like minded and having the same mind of Jesus

Christ. And that's a high and lofty goal to attain with us as humans.

I think it can be done by the grace of God. So,

just to summarize briefly here and closing the why we need to bring every thought

captive into obedience to Christ. Because one reason is because what we think we

are and God knows not only our thoughts but our intentions, And how do

we accomplish this by allowing God to renew our minds and thereby having our lives

transformed into His image. May God bless you Called for song,