Stinkin’ Thinkin’ – Part 5
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 565 aired on June 26, 2016
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line. I’m your host Rick Hughes and for the next few
minutes please stay with me. It will be 30 minutes of motivation, education, information, all
done without any manipulation. You know the drill. We are here to give you accurate
information, not any sort of emotional stimulation, accurate information whereby you can hear
clearly what God’s plan is for your life. If you can orient and adjust to the plan, that would be
fantastic because then you can tap into the wonderful resources that the Lord has for you in time
as you live here in the devil’s world. The FLOT Line is all about giving you this accurate
information, not human speculation, and this is why we predicate this show on teaching God’s
Word. The last few weeks we have been talking about avoiding stinkin’ thinkin’. We’ve done four
shows on this and we want to try to wrap this up today if we can.
The key thought is this, you
are what you think, not what you think you are.
Proverbs 23:7 says,
“As a man thinks in his
heart, so he is.”
If God wants to look at you, He’s not going to look at your image nor your style.
He is going to look at what you’re thinking, He has the ability to do this. In His omniscience He
can see what you’re thinking. In Philippians 4:8 the Apostle Paul went on to say, and we’ve been
on this subject for several weeks now,
“Finally brethren
[these are believers in the town of
Philippi where he had established a local church],
whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any
excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think on these things.”
We saw this is an imperative
mood verb,
“Think on these things.”
This is a command, not a request. The real you, the
invisible you, is what you think. This is your soul. Your soul has mentality. Your soul has
volition. Your soul has conscience and self-consciousness. Your body will die and go to the
grave, there’s no doubt about this, but your soul and your spirit will go to heaven. In heaven your
soul and your spirit will be united with a resurrection body. This is a body like our Lord Jesus
Christ enjoys now. This is the body we will have forever but we will take our mentality to heaven
with us. We will take this ability to think, comprehend, logic, and reason with us. It’s part of the
format of your soul, so remember this. In Romans 12:2 Paul gives a mandate to be transformed
in your thinking. He said,
“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind
[changing the way you think, renovating your thinking]
so that you may
prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
We have been
going through the believer’s mindset. There is no magical button to push I told you. You can’t go
to a campfire and throw a piece of wood on the fire and say, “Lord, make me like You.” This is
not going to happen, there is no magical button. It only comes through the constant renovation of
your thinking.
The only way you can constantly renovate your thinking is to take in the
Word of God on a consistent basis, and you hear me tell you this all the time, you must be
under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor who can teach you God’s Word.
When you take
in God’s Word on a consistent basis, it builds up a Biblical inventory of ideas. When this Biblical
565-Stinkin-Thinkin-p5-transcript.pdf
inventory of ideas gets built up, then your frame of reference changes, your memory center gets
full of God’s Word, and you begin to think differently. You begin to act differently and you can
even get rid of the stress in your soul. You have heard me say, adversity is inevitable, stress is
optional because adversity is what circumstances do to you and stress, that’s thinking, is what
you do to yourself. Worry, fear, anxiety, bitterness, guilt, implacability, these are all self-induced.
As you take in God’s Word, remember I told you four things, you assemble to hear it, you
concentrate as you listen to it, recall it to remember it, and use your volition to apply it. When
you do these things, then you are doing what the Lord says,
“Happiness belongs to those who
hear My Father’s Word and keep it”
(Luke 11:28). You can’t apply what you don’t know. When
Paul says to these people,
“Whatever is true,”
this is the Greek word
alethes
for truth.
“Whatever is truth,” he required them to seek truth, not false information. I told you that Satan
was in the false information business. I gave you a verse that we looked at in 2 Corinthians 2:11
where Paul said,
“So that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of
his schemes.”
Paul again said in Ephesians 4:27,
“Do not give the devil an opportunity.”
We are
told in
Ephesians 6:11,
“Put on the armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against
the schemes of the devil.”
Satan has satanic strategies. There is an international strategy and
there is a local strategy. This local strategy is you. How does he get you to move away from the
filling of the Holy Spirit? How does he get you to use your volition to reject God’s plan? How
does he use you to further his plan? It’s always through a system of religious instructions, this is
what he uses mostly. His ace in the hole is always religion and it appeals to human arrogance.
This is why 2 Timothy 4:1 says,
“Some are going to fall away from the faith and pay attention to
deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.”
That’s right, doctrines of demons, Satan has his own
doctrines. We went over how to know truth when you hear it. How can you identify truth when
you hear it? Paul also said,
“Whatever is honorable.”
This means dignified, worthy of respect,
reverent. As believers, we must respect God’s Word since it
“Is alive and powerful, sharper than
a two-edged sword”
(Hebrews 4:12). Within the Word of God we’ve got to respect the laws of
establishment which God put forth. Freedom for us means volition, He gives you the right to
choose. Marriage, God ordains marriage for all members of the human race. The family, God
ordains the family for the raising of children. Nationalism, not internationalism like at the Tower
of Babel where the world tried to come to be under one order. God separated the nations,
different languages, different looks, different colors. He did this, not man. There was a reason for
this, so that man cannot be easily manipulated by Satan.
We have to understand these divine
institutions and be loyal to the individual with volition, marriage, family, and nationalism.
“Whatever is right.”
Paul went on to say
dikaios
and this is referring to the laws of morality,
right conduct, right thinking, following the protocol plan of God, understanding the protocol plan
of God. Then he went on to say,
“Whatever is pure, think on these things,” hagnos.
For example
Titus 1:15,
“To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving,
nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.”
Being free from fault is
basically what it boils down to. We are not allowed to share in another person’s sin by gossip or
565-Stinkin-Thinkin-p5-transcript.pdf
maligning or slandering. We are to keep ourselves pure which means staying in fellowship, not
being stained with personal sin.
We went over how unconfessed sin will pollute your thinking
and block you from understanding God’s Word.
I showed you this in Ephesians 4:17 where
you build up scar tissue in your soul and your thinking gets darkened. Then we saw
“Whatever is
lovely,” prosphiles
.
“Whatever is right”
or acceptable to God, we discussed this. Then we went
on to see
“Whatever is of good repute,”
whatever promotes peace not division. We saw
“If there
is any excellence,”
a behavior showing high moral standards. I would like to continue with this
today. Paul said,
“If there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think on these
things.”
The last time you heard me, we wound up with
“Whatever is of good repute,”
euphemos,
well or good, good report, whatever promotes peace, not division, whatever is
positive in construction.
I went into the fact that you must not allow Satan to use your
tongue to start a fire, this would be giving a bad report.
James 1:26,
“If anyone thinks himself
to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion
is worthless.”
He went on to say in James 3:5-6,
“See how great a forest is set aflame by such a
small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity.”
A lot of people, maybe even you,
never consider sins of the tongue to be worthy of confession, but ill-spoken words are the root of
many problems in the body of Christ.
All verbal sins originate with a mental attitude sin.
In
other words jealousy will motivate you to complain or jealousy will motivate you to slander or
malign someone. The blindly arrogant person is the person who actually commits the worst sins
rather than the person who has done an overt sin. The blindly arrogant person will judge, malign,
and criticize him. So Romans 2:1 says,
“Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who
passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge
practice the same things.”
This may shock you. If you’ll take your Bible and if you read the last
part of Romans 1, you’ll see what Paul is talking about, what you should not judge. I’m not going
to tell you. You’re going to have to pick up the Bible and read the last few verses in chapter 1
and then jump over to Romans 2:1 and see what he’s talking about. Look at it, take time today.
Get your Bible out and look at the last part of Romans 1 and the first part of Romans 2 and
consider are you guilty of judging another’s sin? Paul finishes up by saying,
“If there is any
excellence,” arete,
virtue, virtuous, what a wonderful word. This is a sort of behavior that has
high moral standards. The synonyms for virtue would include integrity, I like that, dignity, honor,
respectability, and what the apostle is doing here is telling these believers here in Philippi that
they must set a higher standard for themselves.
The spiritual life, the Christian life, when you
learn the protocol plan of God and you follow the protocol plan of God, you will produce a
lifestyle of virtue.
I say protocol plan of God, God’s plan requires protocol. You cannot build a
FLOT line without following the protocol plan of God. What is the protocol plan of God? The
believer in time, the believer in eternity. The protocol plan of God says “How do I get saved?
Acts 16:31,
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
This is what Paul told the
Roman jailer. John 3:16,
“God so loved the world that He gave His uniquely born Son that
whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.”
If you want to find out if
565-Stinkin-Thinkin-p5-transcript.pdf
someone is a Christian, ask them, “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the anointed Son of God?”
Listen to what they say. If they believe this, the Bible says in 1 John 5:1,
“He that believes that
Jesus is the Christ is born of God.”
There it is. It’s plain, it could not be any plainer. It doesn’t
say anything about going forward or joining up or raising your hand or jumping up or going
backwards. It says,
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
You are believing
what He did for you on the cross,
“He who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we might be
made the righteousness of God through Him”
(2 Corinthians 5:21). When you understand this
and you believe this, you become a Christian. You usually signify this by means of a prayer.
Romans 10:13 says,
“Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
In prayer you
can simply tell the Father, “I am believing what I heard. I believe that Christ is Your Son. I
believe He died for my sins and I am willing to receive Him as my Savior.” This is how the
protocol plan of God starts and this is what Paul is telling them. They must have a higher
lifestyle, a lifestyle motivated by virtue. There are two types of virtue I want to bring to your
attention, motivational virtue and functional virtue. Motivational virtue is you loving God. It is
personal love for God. 1 John 5:3 says,
“If you love Me you will obey Me and My mandates are
not grievous,”
they’re not hard. If you love God, you will be motivated to obey God. This is
motivational virtue. Then functional virtue is,
“If you say you love God and hate your brother,
you are a liar”
(1 John 4:20).
“The truth is not in you”
(1 John 1:8). Functional virtue is you
using impersonal love with other people. You are loving them based on your integrity not theirs
just like God loved you based on His integrity, not yours. When you understand motivational
virtue and functional virtue, then you begin to live the life of virtue. This doesn’t mean you never
sin again, that’s impossible. You are plagued with a sin nature. You have a sin nature. You are
going to sin but you can learn God’s Word. You can stay filled with the Holy Spirit consistently,
rebound when you fail, get back up and resume your spiritual life, and you can begin to re-
present Jesus Christ to your family, your friends, even to your nation.
“If there is any excellence”
Paul said, this is something he wants you to think on. A virtuous lifestyle is not being a legalistic
do-gooder. It’s not some self-righteous saint judging everybody, “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I
don’t swear, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.” He thinks he’s better than everybody else. Stay away from
this idiot. This is the wrong guy to be around. A virtuous lifestyle is not this way. It is related to
what you think and what motivates you to do what you do. This is the virtuous lifestyle. It’s not
the fact that you don’t go honky-tonkin as some people might say in the South. Listen, honky-
tonkin is what you think and often is a sin. The virtuous believer doesn’t have this sort of attitude.
He’s not looking for a place to make him happy. He’s not looking for a nightclub to party in and
spend some money in and try to find happiness in an overnight affair. This is not the Christian
life. A virtuous lifestyle depends on what you think. What’s your motivation? What are your
values? What makes you do what you do? Do you do what you do because you love God? Is this
why you do it? The virtuous believer is not going to talk about you behind your back. He is
going to forgive you if you fail and not going to put any sort of unrealistic expectations on you.
Paul said,
“If there is any excellence”
and then he goes on to say
“and if anything worthy of
565-Stinkin-Thinkin-p5-transcript.pdf
praise,”
epainos,
praiseworthy, anything worthy of commendation or approbation. In order to
concentrate on that which is praiseworthy, we have to know the attributes of God, correct? Do
you know what they are?
The attributes of God include His sovereignty, righteousness,
justice, love, immutability, veracity, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and eternal
life.
Do you know these things? Do you know anything about them? How can you really love a
God you don’t even understand? If you have an image of God with a beard sitting on the throne,
this is not what God is. God is omnipresent. He’s not seated in a room. Jesus Christ is, He’s in
heaven in a resurrection body and He is God. God the Father is not in a body. He’s omnipresent.
This means He is in California, Wyoming, Texas and Alabama at the same time. He is in all these
places at the same time. When you pray and I pray, we may be thousands of miles apart but God
is there. He hears us, He’s omnipresent.
In order to concentrate on these things that are
praiseworthy, you need to know His integrity, His character, His essence. Worthy of praise
is the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
This is why we take communion, to
remember the work of Christ on the cross. Don’t ever take communion and let it become a ritual
that has no reality to it. When you put that wafer in your mouth, that piece of bread in your
mouth, you better remember what that represents. It represents the body of Jesus Christ our Lord.
It represents the hypostatic union, true humanity and deity in one body forever. It represents His
virgin birth, that He was born without a sin nature. He had no earthly father to pass on the sin
nature. He was born without a sin nature just like the first Adam was created without a sin nature.
The first Adam sinned and fell. The second Adam, Christ our Lord, did not sin and did not fail.
Think about this during communion. Think about the virgin birth of Christ. Think that He is the
King of kings and the Lord of lords when you put that wafer in your mouth. Remember that He
is impeccable, without fault, the worthy Lamb of God without sin who takes away the sin of the
world. When you put that wafer in your mouth, you should know these doctrines, hypostatic
union, virgin born, King of kings, impeccable. You should know what that cup represents. When
you sip that communion cup you should know that it is representing His blood which means
redemption, imputation, justification, propitiation, big words I know, theological words. Do you
even know what they mean? How can you celebrate communion, just go through the ritual, and
not understand what you are doing? Another thing worthy of praise is prayer.
An effective
prayer life will always concentrate on the adoration of God’s plan and the provision of
God’s plan before you begin making requests or petitions for your personal needs.
This is
how you renovate your thinking. This is how you get rid of stinkin’ thinkin’. In Luke 6:13 our
Lord appoints 12 disciples and teaches them many things. One subject was to stop judging other
people like the Pharisees did. The key passage about this judging is Matthew 7:1-7 where triple
compound discipline is taught when you stick your nose into someone else’s business when you
judge them. Our Lord in Luke 6:46-49 and Matthew 7:24-29 speaks frankly about not obeying
His mandates. These are parallel passages, two passages that basically say the same thing. I’m
going to read to you Matthew 7:24-29, I’m going to read it out of something called
God’s Word
Translation,
an interesting translation. Listen to what it says.
“‘Therefore everyone who hears
565-Stinkin-Thinkin-p5-transcript.pdf
what I say and obeys it will be like a wise person who built a house on rock. Rain poured, floods
came, wind blew and beat against that house, but it did not collapse because its foundation was
on rock. And everyone who hears what I say and does not
o
bey it will be like a foolish person
who built a house on sand. Rain poured, floods came, winds blew and struck that house and it
collapsed. The result was a total disaster.’ When Jesus finished this speech the crowds were
amazed at His teaching. Unlike the scribes, He taught them with authority.”
Do you hear this
passage?
“Anyone who hears what I say and obeys it,”
wow. Luke says, “Why do you listen to
Me and you don’t obey Me?” Could this be you?
Have you heard God’s Word and you won’t
obey it? You are essentially building a ruin in your soul.
It’s like building a house on the
beach on the gulf waiting on a hurricane to come and you didn’t even sink pilings in the ground.
You just put it on top of the sand, what do you think is going to happen? In your life, if you
ignore the mandates of God and you build your house on sand as this passage says,
“When the
rains come and the floods hit and the winds blow,”
you are going to be destroyed. It is going to
be a disaster because you have nothing to hold on to. Where did you build your house? What is it
based on? That’s a good question. The motivation to obey our Lord comes from 1 John 5:3,
“This
is the love of God, that we keep His mandates and His mandates are not hard.”
They’re not
burdensome, they’re not impossible. The question is, do you love God? Because if you love Him,
you will obey Him. You’ve heard it, you’ve heard it over and over and over again. You just don’t
choose to obey do you? My prayer is you will build your house on the rock that will endure any
storm that you may face in the future because believe it or not, America is about to go into a
terrific storm and only a few are going to make it. I hope you’ll be with me. Come back next
week, same time, same place. Until then, this is your host Rick Hughes. Thank you for listening
to The FLOT Line