Dennis Tuuri

# Disciplining Our Minds to Love Our Spouses
## The 10th Word
### October 23, 2011
### Pastor Dennis R. Tuuri

Today will be our second sermon on the 10th word. And the title on your handouts is “Disciplining Our Minds to Love Our Spouses.” So on the front of your order of worship there’s a short form of that: “Train Your Brain.” That’s what our emphasis will be on today—looking at some scriptures about training our brain so that we might obey and understand the 10th commandment, which is found in Deuteronomy 5:21.

Please stand for the reading of that commandment. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for this text, and we thank you, Father, for the requirements it lays upon us in terms not just of our actions, but also of our thoughts. Bless us, Lord God. Now may we train our brains to understand your word now, and in so doing, also discipline our minds for the week that lies ahead of us. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

One of the unique aspects of this particular command—falling at the end of the string of the other nine—is that this, to some degree, internalizes the necessity of our obedience. Up to the 10th word, it’s been clear that God has commanded us in certain actions. He’s said, “Don’t do particular actions,” and he’s commanded us to not speak in particular ways. So our deeds and our tongue—but here in the 10th word, while broader than just thoughts, certainly the covetousness, the kind of evil covetousness that’s described here, involves thinking particular things. And so now the Ten Commandments remind us that not just our actions, nor just our speech, but rather our thoughts are significant for the keeping of God’s word.

Our thoughts are destructive of community. The prohibitions here are placed in the context of our neighbor. And so it’s important to see that the scriptures say that what we think is really important. All lawless deeds—or maybe most lawless deeds—are preceded by lawless thoughts. And they go back even further, which we’ll talk about today. But that’s kind of the transmission belt. If you just work on lawless actions and not try to discipline your thoughts to the mind of Christ, then your sanctification is going to prove very difficult indeed.

So what I wanted to do today is simply return to that basic idea that we’re required to discipline our thoughts. We’re to train our brains in particular ways. And this commandment is specifically oriented toward that particular idea. The immoral act is preceded by an immoral thought. And so it’s important for us in today’s world particularly to recognize the implications of this text for controlling our thoughts.

So what I’ve got here is a simple series of observations based on particular texts relative to our thought life. On your handout or outline for today, we’re just going to go through some texts. I’ve put them in a particular sequence—not the only sequence you could put them in—but I begin with a text from 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 to 6. This is a pretty familiar text in our particular circles because it’s usually thought of in terms of apologetics and in terms of other people.

Right? So 2 Corinthians 10:3 says, “Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” And what I say on your handout is this includes our own thoughts. This involves casting down and out our own sinful thoughts. Here’s what the text actually says:

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. So this teaches us how to do that kind of godly warfare that we’re all about—or we should be all about—in the context of this church. How do we do this warfare? 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, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”

God has said that warfare is inevitable—that’s what your life is. And there are particular weapons that we’re going to use in the way we particularly wage war. They’re not carnal but mighty in God. So there’s a contrast between physical weapons. But these weapons are something a little different. And these weapons can be completely contrasted with carnal weapons, fleshly weapons, old man weapons. These are mighty, which means that when we war according to our old man, those are not mighty. Those are weak weapons. So this is the great, strong, powerful weapons that God has given us to wage effective warfare. They’re mighty in God for a particular purpose: for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

Here’s what I just said—that lawless actions are preceded by lawless thoughts and philosophies. This is certainly being told to us here. God is concerned that a people, or a nation, or a city, or a family is disobedient to him. But he roots the disobedience here in the thought life of the people engaging those actions. And actually, he says the warfare should occur there, at the level of the thoughts, the brain, and what’s going on in these philosophies. We’re to pull down, we’re to demolish strongholds, casting down arguments—that’s an intellectual argument—and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

You know, one way to think of the public school systems is that they’re a whole institution designed to produce all kinds of thoughts about how you do particular things. And every one of those things says it’s not to be rooted in a knowledge of God. So it’s another aspect of why we stress so much in this church Christian education, or correcting your children’s teaching at home if they’re in public school. The reason we do that is in part because of this verse—that all these thoughts, thinking thoughts apart from the knowledge of God, is what we are to attack and to demolish.

And then it says that what we’re doing when we do that, so we’re using the right weapons of warfare—and what we’re doing is summarized in this: we’re to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. So the obedience of Christ is like a stronghold, a fortress here, and we’re to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. That’s what our thoughts are supposed to be—captive.

And as I said, this is normally seen in an apologetic sense—what we’re doing with the world around us. But if it’s true of the world—and clearly it is, right?—so obviously we don’t want to take away that direct interpretation of the text. But of course that means it’s true of us as well. If we’re to do that in the context of our culture and apologetics and political dialogue or whatever it is, then surely we’re to do that with our own thoughts.

But I mean, how can we take other people’s thoughts captive and help them to take them captive if we haven’t self-consciously attempted to discipline our own minds to take our thoughts captive to the Lord Jesus Christ? And so all of this stuff applies to us. You’re battling with sin in your life. You need more sanctification. You’re not happy. You feel guilty. Well, this tells you here that those actions that we see around us in the world are rooted in thoughts that are not subject to Jesus Christ. And so for your particular sanctification—as well as the sanctification of the world—God says, “Here’s a tremendous tool in your arsenal: this tool of bringing thoughts captive.”

So that’s what we’re to do. And the commandment against coveting, well, it’s not just limited to thoughts—certainly includes our thoughts in relationship to that as well. Every thought means every understanding. It means our minds. It means what we think, and it means it down to the last little detail, right? It doesn’t say, “Take your philosophy captive.” It says, “Every thought.” And so what it means is every thought. Every thought. That’s the goal—that everything we think is to be brought into captivity to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, in Philippians 4, God commands us to think in particular ways. And I know you know all this, but I think it’s interesting to sort of pause on some of these verses and think about the implications. Because God in the 10th word is telling us, “Train your brain.”

Philippians 4:4-10 helps us to think about how we train our brains by commanding us to think in a particular way, and it promises to keep our minds when we go about doing this. There’s some preceding remarks, but then down in verse 8—and I’d encourage you to read the whole thing at some point in time—but down in verse 8:

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing. But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.”

So there’s an action but that’s an action that’s supposed to include your thoughts, right? You’re not supposed to be hypocritical about it. He begins by an action or speech, but it involves an attitude. “Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.” You know, one of the reasons why our gentleness isn’t known is because we believe the Lord isn’t at hand. Someone was describing a fight that almost broke out in their local library. And that’s the kind of thing that happens when we forget that the Lord is at hand. The Lord is at hand, yeah. You want to moderate your actions because God is watching. But I think the real point of this verse—at least another point—is that the Lord is at hand. It’ll be okay. You don’t have to let your fear of an out-of-control situation drive you to some kind of lack of gentleness.

“Be anxious for nothing.” Now that’s talking about our thoughts, right? Anxiety. “But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.”

So if we’re trying to train our brains, here’s a verse that has direct reference to God guarding our minds as well as our hearts as we obey these particular verses.

And then it goes on to say this: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there’s any virtue, and if there is any praiseworthy—think 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.”

So what is he saying? He’s saying, “Think about these things. Think this way.” You know, not walk this way, but think this way. And the end result will be walking a particular way in conformity to the mind of Christ. He’s giving us here a description of God’s thoughts, I think. That’s one way to think about it. And he tells us to train our brains to think these particular kinds of things—that our thoughts should fall into these particular categories.

Okay? So we have a command here to think particular ways, to discipline our minds, to train our brains to think particular things. And what he says here is that when we think those things, we end up doing things that are observable by others because he says, “These are the things that you saw in me.” Well, they couldn’t see his thoughts. Or a different way to say it: you can see someone’s thoughts through their actions.

So again the link here is being made between what we think, what Paul thought, and what was observable in his life. And then he says you’re also to do these things. So it’s a command to do a particular way of thinking, which will then change our particular actions. And what’s the end result? “The God of peace will be with you.” Who wants more peace of God in your life? I think we all do, right? I do. I want the peace of God to wash over me on a regular basis.

Well, this tells you how to do that. If you’re troubled of mind, if you’re anxious, if you’re troubled and not at peace, these verses tell you how the God of peace becomes with you. And the God of peace will be with you as you train your brain and as you discipline your mind to think the way that God thinks. This can be seen in that particular way: these are the ways God thinks.

Okay. Next verse: Hebrews 5:14. We are to discern—including in our own mind—between good and evil, which would include our own thoughts.

Hebrews 5:14 says this: “Solid food belongs to those who are of a full age, that is, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

Okay. So we are supposed to, by reason of use, be able to discern good and evil. Our senses are supposed to be exercised to discern good and evil. And while this may have primary application in terms of our actions, I think by at least implication, by application of the text, this is what’s supposed to go on as we train our brains. We are supposed to regularly think about our thoughts and we’re to discern: Is that a good thought or is that a bad thought?

You know, things might have already happened to you today—as you got ready to go to church, or as you came here to church, or things you observed here at church. Now you may already have the need—probably many of us do—to discipline our thoughts. But what does it mean? It means to discern proper and improper thoughts, good and bad thoughts. And you say, “Well, I have a hard time doing that, Pastor Tuuri.” Yeah, it is hard, and it starts out slowly and difficultly. But by reason of use, this becomes second nature to us.

We might say to ourselves, “What was the last time you thought about a thought you had and tried to discern whether it was a good thought or a bad thought? When was the last time that happened?” And I’m telling you, I think that’s supposed to be going on fairly regularly in our lives. If we’re going to train our brain, it means we got to be thinking about it and what it’s saying and what it’s doing. And it means that thinking, you know, is not pragmatic thinking—what will work. No, it has to do with what’s good and evil, what’s right and proper as opposed to improper. What’s a thought of justice as opposed to a thought of injustice?

So we have this “Occupy” movement and a lot of the thoughts involved with that are a direct violation of the 10th word. And so, you know, that’s kind of what we’ve got to do—think about our thoughts. And I know there’s lots of good reasons to complain about what this country’s been doing for the last 5 years. I understand it. But nonetheless, it seems like what’s going on with a lot of the current political dialogue, and certainly in various campaigns, is this ratcheting up of improper thoughts.

How are your thoughts going to be? You’re going to be bombarded by all kinds—millions of billions of dollars they say this time around—of ads trying to affect the way you think. And I’m telling you, you need to regularly, you know, hit the pause button. Don’t just go along thinking whatever you’re going to think. Hit the pause button. Slow down. Get in a quiet space and meditate on what your thoughts are like relative to a particular thing.

Now, this list that we just looked at from Philippians 4 is a good way to do that. If he tells us these are the things you ought to be thinking, then think about what you’re thinking, and does it match that list? You could look at the contrast: each of these particular things, right? So God thinks truth, right? So the opposite of truth is deceptions, negatives, lies, rather, dishonesty, etc. God says think on whatever is honest. So again dishonesty is the opposite of that. Manipulative thoughts—a thought to manipulate someone else—is a dishonest thought. Usually a thought about gossip about somebody is potentially not true at all. Letting yourself think downstream from what the evidence you actually know is a violation of the commandment to think on whatever is honest because you don’t know these particular negative things that you’re making assumptions about.

“Whatever is pure,” well, clearly there’s a lot of sinful thoughts that are trying to be injected into your brain through the public media, and you want to think and discern: Was that a pure thought or an impure thought? And purity can refer to other things as well. But “whatever things are just,” you know, we often tell ourselves these stories, these victim-villain stories about situations we’re in. I was helpless. And we make ourselves into someone who’s unable to act, or the other person is a villain. Those are usually unjust thoughts. You can discern those thoughts by seeing: Am I falling into that kind of blame-shifting sort of pattern that takes responsibility off me? “I had nothing. There’s nothing I could do about it,” right? We always tell ourselves that’s an unjust situation or an unjust set of thoughts.

So we could go on. God’s thoughts are lovely. God’s thoughts are of good report, you know, whatever is of good report. And God’s thoughts are virtuous and praiseworthy. So there’s a list whereby you could begin to think through and discern whether your thoughts are good and bad. Maybe you don’t need the list. Maybe it probably be good just to start doing it and as a result of it take control over your thoughts.

2 Corinthians said casting down high things against God, and I would say cast out as well. So thoughts, we’re supposed to say, “No, that’s an improper thought. You know, I repent of it and I’m not going to do it and Lord God, please cleanse my mind of it.” That’s how we cast out those thoughts.

So we discern our thoughts. We cast out the ones that don’t match up with the mind of Christ.

Psalm 1:1. God commands us not to think the way the ungodly do. So he commands us to think a particular way. And here he commands us not to think the way of the ungodly.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.”

So the thought patterns, the philosophies, the thoughts—we’re not to have those thoughts control our walk because, you know, so what it clearly tells us to do is to not think like them. Don’t think like the council of those who are ungodly.

What happens if you do? Well, you’ll end up standing in the path of sinners and you’ll sit in the seat of the scornful. That’s the end result. But it starts with a warning against our thoughts. You see the actions of becoming scornful—Paul and in our speech, standing in the way of sinners, going along doing things with sinners. It begins with the council, the thoughts of the ungodly.

Now we’re bombarded with the thoughts of the ungodly. I’ve said this many times. It’s quite obvious, but you know, whenever you turn on media of any sort, you’re bombarded with the thoughts typically of the ungodly. Now it doesn’t say that it’s wrong to listen to those things. It says it’s wrong to walk in that counsel. Now again, walking means you’ve taken that counsel, you haven’t exercised that discernment that we’re told to exercise. You haven’t matched up those thoughts with what the word of God says, what the mind of Christ is summarized in Philippians 4.

And as a result, you’re thinking some of those thoughts and that produces a walk. That’s the way it works here. It says, “So what we have to do is discern what the modern culture is doing with us in terms of things that are coming at us and then take those—exercise control over those thoughts.”

Now we put off what the ungodly do, but the verse two says the opposite of this: “His delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates—he thinks—day and night.”

So it says don’t think like the ungodly, but think like the godly. And you think like the godly by understanding, meditating on the Bible. And it’s talking about our thoughts. So we’re told to put on certain kinds of thoughts, put off other particular kinds of thoughts. You can ask yourself: Is this a thought that’s beneficial to the purposes of God in the world? You say, “Well, pastor, I don’t know. I have a lot of thoughts.” And well, that’s what we’re here for, right? You’ve been created for God’s purpose in the world. It’s not like his purpose is, you know, 5% of your life. His purpose is 100% of your life.

And you should be able to think through how a particular thought relates to his purpose or not. The thought that only some of your thoughts are important to examine that way is a thought you should take captive, cast out and change. Because God says all of your thoughts, all of your life—he has given you life and breath. He sent his son to die for the sins of you because he has a purpose for your life, and that is comprehensive. Every bit of your life belongs to Jesus Christ. You’re not your own. And that means your brain isn’t your own. Your amusements aren’t your own. Nothing is your own. You’re here for a purpose.

Now, God’s part of God’s purpose is enjoyment, and it is, you know, entertainment. But it has to be under subjection to the King of Kings. So you can ask yourself as you’re bombarded with thoughts from the world: Is this thought useful to the purposes of God? You’re not just able to do it, you’re commanded to be self-conscious about what you’re thinking.

And what do we do every week? We sit here for 45 minutes or longer usually. And you have to train your brain. It’s hard to listen. You know, it’s much easier to give a sermon than to listen to a sermon. Most pastors will tell you that. Why is that? Because it’s easier to speak than to think. Not that I’m not thinking up here, but you’re trying to put—hit the pause button for 45 minutes while you think about things. That’s hard to do. But see, it’s very useful because this is one of the few places where you’re trained that way.

When you watch, you know, a movie or something, usually you’re putting your brain pretty much out of gear. It’s an amusement, not thinking, not musing, but you’re really having to work here. Now you—not all of you, some of you aren’t working at all. You’re just slipped into doing something else. So, you know, this is a place to train yourself and train your thoughts with what you’re going through right now as you listen to this: Is your thought into captivity, Lord Jesus Christ? Does it help God’s purposes or just your own purposes? Is it destructive or selfish? Does it encourage and build others up or does it degrade and tear down other people?

We got to decide what’s going on with our thoughts. We got to look honestly at them. Which means we got to stop, pause, and deliberate and take our thoughts captive. Our thoughts ultimately—the test is: Are our thoughts beneficial or not beneficial for the kingdom, the manifestation of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ? That’s what we want. That’s what we’ll have most delight in—is that kingdom is made manifest—and our thoughts should be brought captive to that.

Okay. Next verse: 1 Corinthians 2:16 says that we have the mind of Christ as revealed in the Bible and we should use it.

1 Corinthians 2:16: “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

So the Holy Spirit has come upon us and we have the mind, the thinking, the thoughts of Jesus Christ. Now where are those thoughts? Where are they revealed? They’re revealed in that Bible. And so if we’re going to understand the mind of Christ, it’s not a matter of just sort of mystically floating into the Holy Spirit’s way of telling us what Jesus would think. We know what Jesus would think and do based upon the revelation in his word.

His word reveals his thoughts, and his thoughts are revealed there. And so we can look at those thoughts, and that is the mind of Christ described in his particular interaction with us that we have. And so as we go about the task that we’re doing, God gives us great encouragement. This isn’t going to be so hard because you’ve got the mind of Christ. It’s not as if you’re guessing at a lot of this stuff. Christ has revealed his mind, and he’s revealed it primarily in the context of the scriptures.

Now this means that discerning our own thoughts, taking every thought captive, training our brain requires as well a study of the word of God. If you don’t know your Bible, okay, you don’t know anything. You don’t know squat about it. You know a little bit, but not much. You know, you have the mind of Christ because the Holy Spirit is with you, but you haven’t developed your understanding of what that mind is. You haven’t made use of the tremendous gift where Jesus has revealed his thoughts to you in the scriptures. And as a result, you’re poorly equipped to be able to discern your own thoughts and to see if they line up with the kingdom or not.

So to train our brains means to understand Christ’s brain, his mind, and that means a knowledge of his word.

Romans 14:23: Whatever is not of faith, including our thoughts, if they’re not of faith, is sin.

So 14:23 says, “But he who doubts is condemned in the act because he does not eat it from faith, for whatever is not from faith is sin.”

So that text actually is talking about a sinful thought. You know, he’s doing something. He’s doing an action—eating a particular kind of food—that there’s no prohibition against eating. Paul’s made that clear. The problem is he’s eating it with a thought that it’s wrong to do it. So to him, he’s made the act itself sinful because his thought is improper.

So when we don’t correct our thoughts, when we don’t train our brains, and we don’t discipline our minds in particular ways to think the thought of Jesus, that means what our thoughts are doing is sinning. Sin is not—this is what the 10th word says—sin is not just an action. Sin originates in an improper thought. And those very thoughts then are sin.

This isn’t just a good idea. It’s not just a good tool to change the world, although it is that. But it actually is a question of whether or not you’re going to go on sinning by having thoughts that are not discerned and channeled and conquered and brought into the fortress of the obedience of Christ. If you don’t train your brain, you’re engaging in a lot of sin every day. And it doesn’t seem like it’s sin, but it is because you haven’t brought those thoughts captive to King Jesus.

Psalm 1:1—this probably should have been earlier. Avoid malware. Use your protection software, keeping it updated. I put it here because, you know again, council of the ungodly—well, you know, the council of the ungodly changes all the time to get into your head better. So imagine your mind like a computer. You know, one thing that people always talk about at this point is “garbage in, garbage out.”

You have to be careful of the inputs. But it isn’t just, you know, bad things getting in. It’s malware. There are certain philosophies and thoughts of the world that want to get into your programming and destroy it, to make it inoperative. So you have to, you know, you have to be on guard as you interact with the global mind of our world, we could say, right? Part of that global internet. Your mind is interacting with other people’s thoughts. And some of those thoughts, most of those thoughts are random, goofy. But some of those thinking people out there, they’re trying to destroy your mind self-consciously. Just the same way that malware is being produced self-consciously to wreak havoc in particular directions.

And there are people who are given totally over to anti-Christianity who hate Christianity more than anything else. And they are trying to inject malware into your thought system and to internally destroy it. So you’ve got to have protection. You got to have virus software, right? And that’s in large part what the scriptures are. If you’re not using the scriptures, I can guarantee you that malware has injected itself into your thoughts and your philosophy.

And if I go 15 minutes into a conversation with you, I’m going to think, “Man, this guy is so out to lunch.” And he’s not out to lunch because he’s a jerk. He’s out to lunch because he’s not using his virus software. He’s not knowing the scriptures and the basic truths of the scriptures. He doesn’t know the Ten Commandments well enough to identify in this covetous speech about Wall Street a violation of the 10th word. Okay? And so he doesn’t got a chance. You don’t know your scriptures. You don’t have your virus software. And if you don’t keep going with your scriptures and keep it updated and hear about and talk about in relationship to your culture, you’re not going to be ready for the next bug that’s coming down the line at you, the next version of malware.

So to train our brain, you know, is absolutely impossible without, you know, a regular study and interaction with the word of God in some particular way and particularly as it relates to the issues of the day.

People always wonder why I listen to the radio so much and watch television. Well, that’s part of it. What’s the latest bug coming into our congregation’s mind? What’s the latest thing they’re going to try to throw at us in terms of a philosophy of the world that needs to be taken captive to the Lord Jesus Christ and his mind?

Mark 7:20-23. Thoughts come from our hearts and can thus be a diagnostic tool for our sanctification. Working on our thoughts, asking why, we work on our hearts. Okay.

So now God isn’t just interested with our thoughts. Underneath it is our hearts. Now Mark 7:20-23—and let me just introduce this first. You remember last week we said that pietism puts apart spirituality and created reality, so you have this kind of separation. So it’s not really important what you do; it’s only important, you know, how you sort of are. And so remember that when Jesus comes along, he comes to a Jewish culture that has been Hellenized. The Greek thoughts that produce this kind of dualism and Gnosticism, you know, as it spreads through a culture, is referred to as Hellenism. And the people Jesus is speaking to had become highly Hellenized—Greek in their thinking.

And so Jesus in these next few verses is bringing things together. He’s saying that our actions and our mind and our thoughts, they’re all wrapped up together. They’re not separated the way your Hellenistic culture has taught you. So he’s doing a corrective here. But here’s what he says:

“What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

It’s funny because people use this very verse to say how the only thing that’s important is your heart. And that’s not at all what Jesus is saying. He’s saying you have a heart—the basis of who you are. It’s not talking about emotions. Your heart is you. And that heart has sin involved in it. That sin surfaces in sinful thoughts. He says those sinful thoughts become sinful actions.

So he’s talking about a unity of human life. You see, he says, “Out of the heart of men, that’s the basis of everything. Our sinful hearts proceed evil thoughts.” So the thoughts come. So our prime goal in sanctification is not the thoughts; it’s the heart. The thoughts come from the heart. And then the thoughts, he says, the next thing that happens are adulteries, fornication, etc.

So Jesus says it goes: heart, mind, actions. Okay? And we’re talking today about all the verses that tell us to focus on the mind. But this verse reminds us that our minds, discerning our thoughts, good or bad, is one of the mechanisms that God says is going to be used for our sanctification of our heart.

A thought is a diagnostic tool for what’s going on in our hearts. So it’s important to discern our thoughts, to repent of them, to cast them out. But it’s also important—again—to hit the pause button and say, “Why am I thinking like that? What evilness in my heart? What sin in my heart is causing me to think that way?” And that’s the way the Lord God increases sanctification in our lives. Our thoughts, training the brain, disciplining our minds is the way we find out what evil in our heart needs to be repented of, gotten rid of, and sanctification then proceeds.

You understand? So training our brains, commanded over and over again to put on particular thoughts, put off other thoughts—all that stuff—to know the mind of Christ better. We’ve got it, but we need to know it better. Is to the end that we would discern our thoughts, change our thoughts, and in so doing, work on our hearts. Work on our hearts.

Who can know the heart? Thoughts. Wow. Yeah, we can know what we’re thinking. And our thoughts can reveal to us our hearts. Now, actions, of course, do the same thing. But you know, we hopefully you don’t commit sinful actions in order to discern what’s happening. You get a hold of the sinful thought and stop it there and then work on your heart.

Matthew 2:12. In terms of all of this, this isn’t controversial. But God uses dreams to warn us of things, including our own sinful hearts and thoughts. So this is the text where the wise men, you know, they met with Herod, they went and saw Jesus, and then they’re warned in a dream not to return to Herod. So God uses a dream to warn the wise men about something.

And now, I know that doesn’t tell what I’m going to assert now, but I think that God uses our dreams, at least in part, just in part, to warn us of things in ourselves. When we think about our dreams, it’s like thinking about our thoughts, but the thoughts we don’t want to actually have surface in our minds. Our dreams are revealing to us sometimes what’s going on in our hearts.

So we might be covetous of somebody else’s house. We dream of a house, or we dream of our own house and it’s falling apart, whatever it might be. And God can use those dreams to warn you that you’ve got a sinful perspective on property going on in your heart. You’re coveting your neighbor’s house, as an example. Same thing with your neighbor’s wife. So dreams can be part of this diagnostic tool—this tool set—that we use to discern what’s happening in our hearts.

Dreams are a sort of thought, and it’s a thought that reveals—again—or can be used to help us to think through what’s going on in our hearts. Why am I thinking that thought? Why am I dreaming that dream? And God can use that. Now I don’t mean being overly introspective, of course, but God can use that to help us discern the sins in our hearts that need to be repented of.

Romans 8:29. Pray, observe, don’t feed, but repent. So 8:29 says:

“Whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

So God has predestined us to a particular end. And it doesn’t just mean going to heaven. He’s predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son. He wants us to think like Jesus thinks. He wants us to develop our understanding of the mind of Christ to be conformed in that particular way.

When we’ve got evil thoughts that are not for the kingdom and we feed those thoughts by thinking more thoughts and producing justifications for a sinful thought, we’re feeding a thought and it will grow into an action almost certainly. Even if it doesn’t, you’re just down the road toward sin, and you’re moving away from conformity to the image of Christ. And you’re moving in terms of conformity to the old man who has been done away with.

And so God says, “Get with the plan. You’re being conformed to the image of Christ.” And a huge part of that conformity—that programming goal that God has—that conformity goal that God has accomplished in your life—happens through taking every thought captive, training your brain to pray about it, to observe what’s going on, not to feed our sinful thoughts, but to repent of them, to take them captive, to throw them out. And so this works conformity to the character of Christ.

Ephesians 4:22. Having put off sinful thoughts, put on good ones until they become second nature to you.

So Ephesians 4:22 says:

“That you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to his deceitful lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.”

So it’s kind of a chiasm: put off the old man, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, put on the new man. And so central to that basic method of sanctification—of putting off the old man and putting on the new man—is our thoughts. That’s what’s central here in Ephesians 4:22 through 24.

The center of that is to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. It is basic to our sanctification to put off certain thoughts and to put on other thoughts. And that’s how we’re renewed. That’s how we put off the old man. That’s how sanctification happens in the Christian life.

Colossians 3:2 and Hebrews 3:1: Know who you are in Christ. Repent of thinking otherwise.

“Set your mind on things above, not on things in the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Set your mind, your thoughts, train your brain on things above. It doesn’t mean, you know, it’s not important what happens here. It means have a heavenly perspective on what happens here because you’re in union with Jesus and your thoughts should be heavenly thoughts so that his will might be done on earth as it is in heaven. You’ve got to know the heavenly thoughts. And so that’s what he’s calling you to do here—not to escape reality but to transform reality through understanding our union with Christ and therefore that our life, our thoughts, are hid in him.

Hebrews 3:1:

“Therefore, my holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus. Consider—think about—put your mind and thoughts on him and who he is like as revealed in the scriptures—and your thoughts will be conformed to that particular image more and more.”

You know, I was reading in my preparation the story of a guy that came home from one of the wars—probably Afghan or Iraq. He was close to an improvised explosive device, had a bunch of shrapnel and it shot into his body. And you know, it basically just sort of heals over at first. They don’t get it all out. And over a long time, that shrapnel kind of works its way out, right? Sometimes it doesn’t, but sometimes that shrapnel works its way through, gets closer and closer to the skin and starts to come out of your skin. That’s a scenario for many horror movies, “The Fly,” etc. Your inner nature is coming out.

But in this case, it’s something intrusive to your true nature. “Second nature,” by the way, that’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it? “Till something becomes second nature.” As Christians, that’s who we are. We are possessors of a second nature. Our fallen nature has been done away with. But that fallen nature is intrusive into us and it comes out like shrapnel. No. And it comes out sometimes in our dreams. It comes out sometimes in our thoughts. And if we’re not disciplining our thoughts, it comes out in thoughts and actions.

But it comes out. God uses sin sinlessly. And he uses that shrapnel coming to the surface to bring you to more healing. He wants the shrapnel out. And the way he accomplishes that is to make it manifest through your own sinfulness. He uses sin sinlessly in your thoughts. And then you can see, “Oh yeah, I got that piece of shrapnel in me, that piece of stuff that’s making me unhole. And now it’s time to get that piece out and to become healed of that horrific thing happening to me—to get that out of my system, so to speak—through repenting and bringing our thoughts into captivity and changing our hearts.”

Now we can apply this to marriage, and I might come back to this another time. But you know clearly, in Colossians 3, verse 19, there is this command to the husband to not be embittered toward the wife. It’s an interesting word, you know. I mean, it’s sort of like the word “covet.” It has a reference to an attitude but also to treat somebody harshly because of that attitude. And so this is an injunction to us to think a particular way or to avoid thinking a particular way about our spouses.

Now I think this is a sexual comment, and you know, it’s funny because we say “sexual” and we automatically think in terms of pornography, physical imagery, you know, physical intimacy. But you know, it’s so ridiculous because sexuality goes down to the genetic level, right? I mean, men and women are tremendously different in the way they approach things, in the way they operate. Anybody that’s been married—and well, most of you that have been married—you know that it’s not like another guy, you know, with different capacity for reproduction. It’s not like that. You’re different.

And what God wants us to do is to have thoughts—not to get ticked off by the difference. That’s when you get embittered, right? “I don’t get her.” Well, you’re not supposed to get her. You’re supposed to get what you’re supposed to do relative to her, which is to love her. I think that’s what it means in Peter where he says, you know, to know your wife, to know how to treat your wife. It doesn’t mean to know your wife, I think. I don’t know how you could do that because you’re a man and she’s a woman—or vice versa. Women really can’t know men.

But we can know what we’re supposed to think and what we’re not supposed to think. And when we have improper thoughts of bitterness toward the other person because we don’t get what they’re doing and we therefore characterize it as negative, it shows the sin in our hearts relative to thanksgiving or not thanksgiving for our mates.

So all this stuff—to train our brain, to discipline our minds—specifically is in the context of the tenth word: to not covet your neighbor’s wife. That’s an allusion to you, your neighbor’s wife. You don’t know her. You don’t get up every day and talk to her. She’s going to look better. It’s real easy to commit emotional adultery. Okay? Emotional adultery, friendship adultery.

Your wife should be your best friend in terms of the opposite sex. And if she’s not, man, you need to do some repenting right now. And you need to start training your brain, disciplining your minds, and apply all this stuff I’ve said to your relationship to your spouse. Okay? Because the Bible says, “Don’t think bad thoughts, think good thoughts.” And this is particularly true in terms of you’re not loving your wife if you’re not thinking good thoughts about her and you’re thinking embittered thoughts toward her.

So to take every thought captive here is specifically in relationship to your wife. I mean, how much more important could it be—the central relationship of your life. And yet, how often over time marriages disintegrate or become cold because men stop doing this very thing?

There’s a text in Proverbs. I mentioned this text last week. And on your handouts, I’ve got a little overview of it—an outline of a sermon called “Who Are You Embracing?” And I would encourage there are two other outlines there, and I would encourage you to read those over this week as you think about your thoughts toward your mates—those that are married.

Who are you embracing? And I give you an outline of the structure of this section of Proverbs. And right at the heart, I think of this section of Proverbs, is a question of embracing the wrong person. Okay? Embracing the wrong person. And in contrast to that, we’re told to embrace the right person.

In Proverbs 5:15 and following:

“Drink water from your own sister and running water from your own well.”

So okay, water is refreshment. To embrace the wrong person doesn’t just mean sexually—in terms, well, it means sexually, but it doesn’t mean in terms of intimacy. It means to have a close relationship with. And what this text says is the exclusive close relationship, close relationship with a member of the opposite sex should be your spouse and only your spouse. And so when we, when we—when we commit emotional adultery, embracing the wrong women, multiple persons, to make up for a lack in our relationship with our own spouse, and women do this with men, men do this with women—that’s what these verses are saying. Don’t do that.

Drink water from your own sister and receive the sort of satisfaction. You know, you’re not getting satisfaction in terms of emotional relationship, etc., with your spouse. And so what does that mean? It means there’s something going on. It means you got to work at it. It means you got to discipline your mind, train your brain. But instead of doing that, what you want to do is go off to somebody else that you have a really peripheral relationship with, a surface relationship, and pretend somehow you’ve got a tight relationship and friendship with that person. And now that emotional need that was supposed to lead you back to training your thoughts and disciplining your mind, okay, and changing your attitude and heart toward your spouse—that’s all taken care of now by some superficial relationship that really amounts to emotional adultery.

So this idea of training our thoughts and changing our hearts should be applied specifically to our wife. And what does it say?

It goes on to say, “Let your father be blessed. Rejoice with the wife of your youth.” So I think this is relating to older guys, right? You wouldn’t tell a person that had a wife that was only still in the youth. We’re to rejoice with the wife of our youth. We’re supposed to remember what it was like and recover that somehow. Okay? That’s what it seems to say. And joy is the object, not just putting up with each other.

“Let her breasts satisfy you at all times.” Again, you know, we think in terms of modern sensibilities, and yeah, it’s talking about breast, but it’s talking about a lot more than that. It’s talking about being satisfied in the context of a relationship with the totality of your mate. It, you know, come on, let’s get our thoughts out of the gutter that this world wants to put them in and be afraid of talking about breast because we always think it’s some kind of explicit sexual reference.

I mean, it’s got that involved, but it’s got a lot more than that involved. It’s this relationship of satisfaction that really we’re to have with one another. And that the absence of which is a reminder to us that sin’s got to be worked on and thoughts have to be trained. And which, if we go to somebody else, is completely violating this particular text.

“Always be enraptured with her. And this is that verse I talked about last week. Be led off the path—it’s what it sort of the inadvertent sin. And so I think the idea is a general be enraptured, be intoxicated. The very thing that ticks you off—your differences, the difference of male and female—can, as that development, as that marriage relationship develops, and as thoughts become disciplined, be an enrapturment. And the opposite of this goes on to say, ‘For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman, by the wrong woman?’

See, we seek to be enraptured by someone else—in a surface relationship—rather than our own wife. And that’s when the tenth commandment gets violated.

Let me close with an illustration. So we have Isaac. Have that horrible story of Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Esau and the blessing. And the main guy, of course, there’s lots of sin—it seems like—going on there. But here we got Isaac. And here’s Isaac, you know, the word “savory” I think is used six times. Isaac’s God is his belly by this time in his life.

Now this is Isaac. This is the transmission belt of the covenant of blessing. This is the family that’s supposed to save the world. And he knows this. He’s been trained in this. He believed in this. And he’d been given a marriage made in heaven so that they could have this seed that would carry on the covenant blessing.

I mean, this is like, you know, this is the guy. But what do we find after, you know, 40, 50 years of married life together? We find this guy not interested in covenant things at all. He wants to give the blessing to the son that just married Hittite women outside of the faith. He doesn’t give a darn. I could say damn legitimately. A tinker’s dam. It’s a very small little piece of stuff you put in a pot. But he doesn’t really care about the covenant at all. That’s obvious. What he cares about is his belly, what tastes good, who he likes.

He has not disciplined his thoughts to be spiritually minded, but rather he is now carnally minded. And that’s enmity against God. And as a result, he tries to bless the one who they knew everybody knew Jacob was to get the blessing. Now notice: he gives it the story, if we were to read it, we’d recognize he gives it to Esau rather in private. You’re supposed to bring all the kids together for the blessing thing, and it’s supposed to be on the verge of your death. Neither is true in this case.

And a very important detail for my particular purposes today is that Rebecca overhears her husband making plans with Esau to get that stuff back and to receive the blessing. She overhears it. Now why does the text tell us that? Because their marriage has become highly dysfunctional. They’re not talking about the most important thing in their lives—the covenant and the transmission of the covenant blessings to the seed-bearer, preparing for the coming of Messiah, how they’re going to save the world through their faithfulness. They’re not even talking about it anymore.

He’s making plans for the most important decision of his life—the transmission of the covenant blessings—without reference to a discussion even with his wife. She has to overhear it. That’s how bad that marriage has gotten. And the end result is nearly, you know, fratricide. I mean, got to send Jacob away so Esau doesn’t kill him. I mean, it’s horrible.

So this is what happens when we don’t discipline our thoughts to think in terms of the kingdom of Christ but rather the kingdom of our belly. That is related in the text to us to a marriage that has become attenuated, boring, no more communication. He’s not being satisfied by her, and she’s not being satisfied by him in the ultimate sense of friendship and fellowship. Their marriage has fallen apart.

And when we let our marriages fall apart through not training our brains and not disciplining our minds in that most important relationship we have, God wants us to think of the man whose God is his belly. Now—not the covenant blessings of God.

Now the rest of the story is God is faithful when we’re faithless, right? I mean, it looks just horrible. But what’s God going to do? He’s still going to save the world. He’s going to be gracious toward those people. And I believe Isaac rather repents later and becomes covenantally faithful once more.

Maybe that’s your situation. Maybe you’re the guy or the gal here today who has given up on your spouse or in some other reporting relationship who really is much more concerned today about your belly than you are about the covenant blessings of God. And into your week, who is sensual oriented. We’re to be people not of the eye looking at those things or the tongue tasting those things. We’re to be people of the ear who put primary significance on hearing the word of God and having our minds transformed as a result of that and bringing the rest of our senses into obedience to that. That’s who we are to be.

And maybe today the Lord God is calling you as an Isaac to turn and get back on the path. Isaac did, even when he was quite old. Or maybe God’s telling you today, “Be careful. If you blow off what Pastor Tuuri says today, your relationship with your spouse is going to become attenuated. That relationship to your spouse is absolutely critical to your spiritual development, and you’re going to end up some guy that all he cares about is what’s tasty for today’s food and who cares what tomorrow may bring. I want that good tasty stuff today.”

May the Lord God deliver us from that kind of undisciplined thought that produces that kind of horrific relationship and spiritual state.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for giving us minds and giving us the mind of Christ. Help us this week to practice what was said today, to take these scriptures to cause them to go deep into our heart and soul and into our minds. And help us, Lord God, this week to discern our thoughts, to take every thought captive, to train our brains, to discipline our minds, particularly in reference to our spouses. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.