Stop Living a Four-Button Life: As a Man Thinketh, So Is He

Sermon outline

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he: if you want a different result on the outside, change your thinking on the inside by studying the Word, thinking big like God and refusing a small, cheap mentality.

1. Become an intelligent Christian

   A Jehovah's Witness is trained to explain what he believes, but many charismatic Christians can only say 'I just know God' and cannot explain salvation, the Trinity, Calvary, redemption or sanctification. Inspiration is good, but out in the pressures of life there is no inspiration; only a solid foundation in the Word, handled skilfully, will sustain you.

   Illustration: Praying without knowing what you are asking for is like going into a supermarket with no grocery list: you push the trolley from aisle 10 to aisle 1 and back until the store closes, and you still haven't done your shopping.

   “Christians must be spoken to as intelligent beings.”

   • Isaiah 28:10
   • Proverbs 4:7

2. Watch your thoughts

   Our lives are the only Bible some people will ever read, so remember that you carry the name of Jesus on your shoulders. Watch your thoughts, because they become words; words become actions, actions become habits, habits become character, and character becomes your destiny.

   Illustration: A new preacher in Houston was given a quarter too much change on a bus and argued with himself about keeping it. He handed it back, and the driver said he had been testing him and would see him in church on Sunday. The preacher stepped off, grabbed a light pole and said, 'O God, I nearly sold your Son for a quarter.'

   “Our lives are the only Bible some people will ever read.”

3. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he

   The church reads Proverbs 23:7 and 3 John 2 aloud together: God wants you to prosper and be in health even as your soul, your mind and intellect, prospers. You will only prosper to the measure of how you think, because there is no outward manifestation without an inward adjustment. Study to rightly divide the Word, or you will misread passages such as 'an evil spirit from the Lord' troubling Saul, which should be read as God permitting it, because God is love and brings evil on nobody.

   Illustration: He explains that the King James translators did a good job, but in places they put in the causative sense what should read as permissive.

   “You're not going to get an exterior manifestation without an internal adjustment.”

   • Proverbs 23:7
   • 3 John 2
   • 2 Timothy 2:15
   • 1 Samuel 16:14
   • Ecclesiastes 10:8
   • 1 John 4:8

4. What you think is what you get

   God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think: ask for prosperity and He gives more than you asked, but think poverty and you get an abundant measure of poverty. You can say 'hallelujah, praise the Lord' in church, but if your thinking stinks, you are in trouble. So meditate on the Word and think on whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report, not on strife or what's cooking in other people's pots. Examine yourself, not your neighbour.

   Illustration: He asks who read 'yesterday's devotional' on assessing yourself from 2 Corinthians 13:5.

   “Your thinking is important.”

   • Ephesians 3:20
   • Romans 8:6
   • Philippians 4:8-9
   • 2 Corinthians 13:5

5. When I became a man, I put away childish things

   He works through the Greek of 1 Corinthians 13:11: the child (nepios) is immature; to understand (phroneo) is to be intensely interested; to think (logizomai) is to take inventory and take stock; and the man (aner) is one who has come to maturity, male or female. Christians are anxious to change their circumstances but unwilling to change their thinking, so they remain bound. If you drive in fear of being hijacked, pleading the blood in fear will not work; you must walk in faith and boldness. The only way to think right is to read and study right.

   Illustration: Three examples: a poor man who sleeps in the sun all day will not prosper; a rich man with gout who won't give up rich food like butter chicken will not get well; and a crooked employer who shortchanges his staff will not prosper. Read a chapter of Proverbs a day, 31 chapters for 31 days, and by the end of the year you will have understanding.

   “Christians are anxious to change their circumstances but are unwilling to change their mind or their thought life. Therefore they remain bound.”

   • 1 Corinthians 13:11

6. Stop living the four-button life

   Most of us live a four-button life: play through the day, stop to rest, pause when a setback comes and refuse to move or forgive, and rewind in every argument to dig up 1960, 1972 and 1982. Some press eject and leave the church; make sure you have a parachute. But the remote has many more buttons, such as reveal, size and update. God is always fresh and on the move, as He was when Israel followed the pillar of cloud and fire, so keep updating yourself: learn from young people, use good information on the internet, and start thinking bigger and broader.

   Illustration: He holds up the remote control of a CD and tape player and reads out its buttons: mute, power, menu, reveal, mode, index, size, update, zoom, scan, random. 'Lord, give me a house.' 'Size?'

   “If I really want to get something great out of you, you can't live a four-button life.”

   • Exodus 13:21-22

7. Stop thinking cheap

   Some Christians are bargain hunters, a mentality brought out of Egypt into the church: they drive far to save a few cents, coast downhill in neutral to save petrol and hoard plastic bags for a rainy day. You won't get big results if you think small; think like God, who is big and thinks big, and trust Him to provide.

   Illustration: When he was first married, 'many Diwalis ago', he kept buying the cheapest chipboard furniture until, after three or four sets, he realised that cheap is not good; quality furniture they bought 15 to 20 years ago is still as good as new. Buying cheap nylon socks only means paying for athlete's-foot cream. Once, low on fuel on a highway with the next garage 30 kilometres away and the gauge showing 10, he laid his hand on the dashboard and prayed, and it showed 53 until he reached a garage. He also retells another preacher's story: God gave a man the million rand he believed for, but not the smaller amount the complaining preacher never really believed for or planned for.

   “I was buying chipboard because I was thinking chipboard.”