A Pure Mind

We’re not in a series currently in the morning, but I was reading this recently and was actually maybe going to bring it at a prayer meeting on a Wednesday, decided otherwise, to look at verse 1 with you. But we’ll read the opening seven verses of 2 Peter chapter 3.

“This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:

“That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:

“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

“And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

“For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

“Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

“But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”

Amen. We’ll end the reading at verse 7. And what you have heard, beloved, is the word of the eternal God, which you are to receive, believe, and obey. And the people of God said, Amen.

Let’s pray.

Lord, we’re thankful that Thine eye is upon the righteous and Thine ear is open unto their prayers. May we, O God, be heard today. And our prayer is this: that we would hear from Thee. Thy Word is opened, but we are very dull. Take away the dimness of our heart. Speak; Thy servant heareth. Oh, that we would leave here with greater love for Thee, for Thy Son, for the Holy Spirit. Give the Holy Spirit to us all now, in wonderful measure, we pray in our Savior’s name. Amen.

Who does the preacher feel an urgency to reach in his sermons? Is it the godly? Is it the backslidden? Is it the unbeliever? Where does he feel an urgency to reach a certain demographic of hearer before him?

The answer is all three. The preacher feels an urgency to reach all men with the truth.

At the beginning of this chapter, the Apostle Peter says, “This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance.” He’s going to address a problem, heresy, falsehood, which false teachers are propagating—the idea that this sense of the return of our Lord Jesus Christ is nothing to be concerned about, nothing to worry about. Everything just continues as it always has, being willfully ignorant.

It’s one thing to be dealing with ignorance, but when men are willfully ignorant, you’re dealing with a real problem. Being willfully ignorant of the very history of our world that shows that God did intervene. Things have not continued in the same fashion all through since the creation, that there’s a tremendous cataclysmic event in which God judged the entire world with water. And that’s to signify to us that the idea that things will always continue as they are is not true. That when God says judgment is coming, that the return of Christ is real and it will bring with it judgment, we ought to sit up, pay attention, and ready ourselves for that event.

This idea of taking advantage of the patience of God and concluding the absence of the fulfillment of His Word is folly. We want to be ready for the judgment that is going to come, to prepare to meet our God, that every one of us will give account of ourselves to God, that Christ will return in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So that’s the problem he’s addressing. But he is not addressing those who are already playing with it, as it were, who are toying with the falsehood. He’s actually dealing with those who are the sincere and the godly. Those who already have escaped the passions and struggles and temptations of this world through lust. Those who have been delivered by the power of the gospel already.

And as to such, he says, I now write unto you, “in both which I stir up.” I want to stir up. I want to awaken your mind. Preachers have a heavy responsibility. And their hearers don’t always make their life any easier. They need their minds to be stirred, awakened. It’s hard work.

I look down sometimes and I see those in the vigor of youth struggling to stay awake. I think to myself, if they can’t stay awake, what hope is there? And my mind starts racing. Oh, how it starts racing. What were they doing last night? What were they doing? Video games till 2:30 a.m.? I don’t know. Something else? Not preparing?

And so it’s even—there’s a natural then need to stir you up, awaken the mind, make sure the truth lands.

The minds he is seeking to stir up are pure minds, pure minds. It has the idea of being sincere. It’s actually translated that way elsewhere in the New Testament. Minds that are sincere, uncorrupted by falsehood. These are not then those that have been corrupted by the problem that he is about to address, though he still foresees the problem and he’s trying to curb it before it becomes a problem. These are minds that are pure, pure minds, uncorrupted, untainted by falsehood.

Some have suggested that the etymology behind the word pure here carries the idea of judging something by light. Judging something by light. So if you imagine a potter taking his pottery and concerned that there may be a hairline fracture or something in it, he might use light, take it out to the sunshine to see whether any light comes through. Is there a problem there?

And so if there is any connection there, if there’s any significance—and we must be careful about leaning too heavily into etymology to understand the meaning of words—but if there’s any truth there, then that’s a sense that these believers have come to the light. Their minds have been exposed to it, and they are willingly submitting themselves to it. They want the light to shine in. The light shows where there may be flaws. They embrace that. They’re not scared of it.

This is what men do. Men generally, by nature, they are cockroaches. They scuttle into the shadows. It’s there where they’ll not be discovered. Jesus said this. He said, “men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

So the Word of God exposes. The truth of God exposes. But what happens in regeneration with the light of truth and submission to Christ, there is a willingness to go to the light even though it may expose.

So these believers then are like that. They have come to the light. And if we could even push it a little further in application, we’ve come to Christ. And in comparison to that light, we know we come up short. The fractures, they’re there to be seen. But oh, how wonderful to see in Him the perfection of His vessel, of His life, and know that the light that He lives out is conferred on us by faith alone. We have His righteousness.

I want to dwell for a moment this morning with you upon this truth, that the believer has a pure mind. God’s people have a pure mind. That the preacher can stand up before those who name the name of Christ and say to them, I want to stir up your pure minds. I want to stir up your pure minds.

Now before there’s any explicit application, there’s a cut to that, isn’t there? When the preacher expects to stand before the people of God and say, I’m seeking to stir up your pure mind. Because the question then is asked: Is my mind pure?

The purity of the mind. What a subject. The purity of the mind. Oh, that men were willing to do battle so close to home. The battle of the mind, that it might be pure.

So this morning we want to consider a pure mind in a polluted world. A pure mind in a polluted world. Many things have changed from 2,000 years ago or so, but many things remain the same. People struggle in the mind.

So we want to consider this with the Lord’s help. And consider first with me then the marks of purifying the mind. The marks of purifying the mind.

There’s a distinction between those that Peter addresses and others. These are those who he can say this about, that they have a pure mind in the sense that there’s a certain objective reality about them.

In the first place, we might say, to get to this place—and you may be here this morning and you’re not a Christian, this is the point where you really need to listen—that they’ve been cleansed from corruption. They have been cleansed from corruption.

In Titus 1, verse 15, the apostle writes, “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.”

So the unbelieving, the position of being an unbeliever means purity of the mind is an impossibility. Purity of the mind is an impossibility. You’re not going to have it. How can you? How can a man make any boast of a purity of mind that at the very starting point, off the blocks, as it were, in the race of life, he will not acknowledge God to be his God?

The unbelieving, then, cannot have any purity. Their mind is defiled. And the mind there must be cleansed. And that’s what had happened to those that the apostle writes of. You go back in this epistle, you’ll see how he can delineate the various distinctions of those that he writes to and the transformation that has happened in them.

The natural mind, the mind by nature which we possess, is not one that is pure. It is corrupt. It distorts everything. It twists everything. And it changes light to darkness. They call evil good and good evil, as Isaiah 5 speaks of. This is the natural mind.

This has changed. Changed. There’s been a transformation in the heart of those that the apostle addresses. They no longer think crookedly about God. They no longer think crookedly about sin and self, of pleasure and judgment and eternity. These things have been straightened out by God’s Word.

The natural man, you see, follows the pattern that’s seen in the very beginning in the garden, where you see the details are given of the very beginnings of the fall, where Eve, she looks. It was a fruit to be desired. And listening to the words of the serpent and then allowing herself to look, it just all goes downhill. But the same pattern is reflected also in the life of Achan.

Achan was a man who was part of the Israelites as they engaged in their conquest into the promised land. And after victory, there is a problem. They fail to take this small city after Jericho and all of that, the walls falling down, the great victory that occurred there, they come up against this tiny little city and the assumption is, well, this is easy. I mean, we took Jericho. Ai is not going to be a problem. But it was a problem. And the reason it was a problem was because there was sin in the camp.

And when that all gets exposed, we’re told in Joshua 7, verse 21, this is how Achan reflects: “When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment,” and 200 shekels of silver, “and a wedge of gold” of 50 shekels weight, “then I coveted them, and took them.” And behold, they’re hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.

He covets, he takes. And this is the mind of man. It is not cleansed. It is corrupted. And it will look on things that God has forbidden and so look at it and try to assess a way to justify taking what God has forbidden. And the whole passions of the soul go after it.

This is what happens. It really illustrates what happens when anyone goes astray at any level. There’s a path they’re trying to follow, and the nature seeks to follow, even in error and falsehood and heresy. They’re trying to get somewhere, and God’s Word’s shining a light here, and they are trying to avoid it and do everything they can to get to the destination, to disobey the Lord.

God’s people have been delivered from this. They’ve been changed in this way. They’ve been cleansed from such a corrupt mind. They want deliverance from vanity and deliverance from bitterness, and deliverance from anxiety, and deliverance from pride, and deliverance from covetousness, and falsehood, and worldliness. They want deliverance from these things that the world doesn’t think is even a problem.

There’s this cleansing that has occurred in them.

Not only cleansed from corruption, renewed by grace. Renewed by grace. In Ephesians 4:23, if you’re reading God’s Word there, it says, “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” Renewed in the spirit of your mind.

So part of what’s happened to believers, genuine believers, is this renewal in the spirit of the mind. The spirit of the mind points to the inward disposition, the governing attitude behind the thoughts. So it’s not just the thought itself. It’s where the thoughts arise from. And the spirit of the mind, that disposition, has been transformed by the believer. Their thought processes change because of conversion, because of the new birth, because they’ve been born again. Everything changes.

Now, it doesn’t all change to the same degree across the board, and we don’t become what we eventually shall be at the moment of conversion, but there’s an initial transformation that takes place. The mind, to speak of the disposition of the frame, is renewed. A renewal of the very frame of the person. So they don’t want to pursue those things. They don’t want to go after.

And they realize that what Christ is involved in doing for them is distinct from every other religion in the world. Every other religion, all forms of man’s religion, every form of the tailor of fig leaves, right, tailoring our fig leaves together to assign ourselves a certain dignity before a holy God, all of that pales in comparison to what the gospel is all about.

The gospel is not about putting makeup on corpses. That’s what man’s religion does. There’s a deadness, and he endeavors to dress up the deadness. But what Jesus Christ is in the business of is actually raising the dead. And there’s a great distinction.

If your testimony does not recognize there has been a real raising in your heart, a transformation of the life, that you live in life, you walk in newness of life, that there’s a vitality, a spiritual vitality within your soul, in your very being. If you have no testimony to that, I’m not asking you, have you prayed a prayer, walked an aisle, and followed a certain procedure? I’m not asking that. You may have gone through all those things, and many people have, and still will end up perishing in their sin. What I want you to examine: Is there a principle of life?

To understand that what Christ has done has renewed my very mind, a change in the very being of who I am. Not absolutely, not ultimately, not perfectly, but there’s definitely a change.

Peter is addressing those who have been renewed. They have a purity in their mind. The first beginnings of that purity is that it leads them into the arms of Jesus. And that’s where they go. It’s like, they come like the Greeks in John 12 to ask, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Something changed. We want to see Him. Be near Him.

They’ve also been captured by truth. Those that Peter addresses, those with pure minds, have been captured by the truth.

This is evidenced and reflected by Paul in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5, where he speaks of “casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God,” and “bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

So there’s a removal of imaginations. Everything that exalts itself, pushes against, seeks to oppose the knowledge of God, and brings into captivity, brings under control, endeavors to fall into line, to obey across the board. This allegiance to Christ. Every thought. Truth must take the throne. It must. Not our imaginations, however well intended.

A pure mind, then, is one that has come through this and submitted to this and has bowed before Christ. Have you? Has your mind bowed to the truth? Can you even conceive of bringing into captivity every thought?

Right? So this is, if we were to take this in the man who’s doing his best to live a religious life by his own effort, he’s actually going through a process in which he is endeavoring to suppress the very thought life, to angle the thought life toward that which is more, as he sees it, pure or right or holy or however you may describe it.

But Paul says specifically of believers, there’s not only that, capturing the mind, laying hold of the thought and the very principle of the idea, bringing it to the obedience of Christ. That’s what distinguishes the Christian from someone who’s trying their best. The Benjamin Franklin types who are in a pursuit of self-improvement. It’s the obedience of Christ.

And then they seek to be conformed to Christ as well. Conformed to Christ. These pure minds, it doesn’t terminate in just control of the thoughts, but their very conformity. Of course, the obedience of Christ leads to likeness to Christ. Philippians 2:5: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”

Your mind—oh, let the mind of Christ be your mind. How you think. And that will reflect in how you act. The pure mind is shaped by the mind of Christ. The pure mind is governed by the mind of Christ. It does not buck against humility. It does not fight against the joy of obedience to the Father. It does not despise holiness. No, no, no, no, no. He wants to be conformed. That self-will is treason against his Master.

So, what we need to remember is, there’s no such thing as a thought without consequences. And if we think our thoughts are harmless, we’re not understanding. We don’t understand ourselves. We don’t understand the world in which we live. The child of God has actually come to realize that the beginning of government is our own mind.

Oh, how swift we are to criticize government. Dealing with the fifth commandment. Listen, I am probably as skeptical as anyone else about political machinery. Those who often occupy offices, I’m probably as critical by nature as anyone else. The real change, the real change, the real change in your life comes when your very thought life comes under the rule and reign submission to Christ. There’s a lot of work in us, not just in our nation, not just in the politics of our world.

In the second place, marks of preserving the mind. Not just purifying the mind, but preserving the mind. God’s people have gone through this purifying experience, being cleansed and renewed and captured by the truth and this beginnings of conformity to Christ. But what are the marks of preserving the mind? We want to preserve it, right? It gets assaulted all the time.

There’s a certain reality, and I want you to pay attention to this, a certain sense in which the only natural protection to your mind is the conscience. The only natural protection to your mind is the conscience.

The reason I say that is because the thought life—I don’t know what you’re thinking. And your family doesn’t know what you’re thinking, not perfectly, not all the time. The thought is a realm for us and God. And so it’s easy for us to justify allowing them free reign, to go loose. As long as I keep my behavior in check, what I think about, where my mind dwells, doesn’t really matter.

But it does matter.

And the only natural protection is not other people. It’s not your spouse, not your family, not the church family. We have no awareness or knowledge or power to really rein in your thoughts. So what God has given to us is a conscience. And the conscience is that natural helper to our thought life.

And what the believer needs to do is to train that conscience, right? Because it’s not perfect. Your conscience is a great help to you, but it is not infallible. And it needs to be trained according to God’s Word, which is a process. It’s a process of humility because your conscience is a very strong governing principle in your life. And it has been certainly influenced by environment and influenced by your own character as well. So nature and nurture has an influence upon the conscience.

And we assume things and we think things. This is, no, there’s nothing wrong with this. There’s maybe something wrong with that. We could be wrong in both cases.

And so the believer comes and he must have his conscience then trained, taught, submissive, and be willing for the Word of God to cut through the assumptions and establish a new principle, that the conscience responds in this way rather than as it did in the past.

And if you don’t embrace that, if you don’t embrace the conscience and the way it speaks, the way it governs, the way it communicates in your own heart, there’s no possible way you’ll gain any victory over your thought life. Because the conscience is right there where man is not, where your spouse is not, where your preacher is not, where your fellow church people, they’re not. They’re not there. So the conscience is there.

We must train it and respond to it.

When that happens, when we take that path, we are on a journey of preserving the mind, which inevitably preserves everything else. It has a downward effect.

Practically speaking, there are a number of things then that will happen then in those who are preserving their mind.

First of all, we might say, their minds will be stirred by remembrance. That’s what Peter’s doing here. “Stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance.” You have heard these things before. I am saying them again. And so they will respond to that. Instead of saying, I’ve heard those all before, they’re like, I need that reminder. I need that reminder.

And you welcome it, and you welcome repetition, and you welcome going over the old things and the foundational things and exposing you afresh to things you already know. Again, these believers weren’t drifting, if I am reading the context. These are pure minds, sincere minds, uncorrupted minds, and there’s a danger there, out there.

So one says, Peter, we don’t have a problem with this. We’re not listening to these people. This isn’t an issue. It’s irrelevant. But they needed this warning. And they needed repetition of the other things that are addressed in his epistles.

Forgetfulness is a real threat. Forgetfulness is a real threat. It’s not just forgetfulness, it’s also proximity.

You know those times when you’re hearing someone preach, me or someone else. Or it could be another context in which truth comes to you, right? Truth is coming to you. And it comes right at a certain moment. Now, some of you have said this. You confess this to me. You ask me, have you got microphones in our home? How is it that you know that this is going on? When you get up there and announce your text or you address this issue, it’s like, how does he know? How does he know?

Well, I don’t, right?

But we’ve all had that sense of timeliness to the truth. Timeliness. It’s like it’s coming in the moment. Now, often, often if you think about it, what I’m saying, what you’re hearing, is nothing new. You knew it already. But there was a certain edge to the proximity. It’s like coming in that moment where you need the—it’s like, I knew it, but it was good to have that fresh reminder.

It’s almost, it’s almost like God is in control of everything. He is, that’s the thing. He is. And He is governing and leading. And He is checking, helping, aiding us with the reminder in the moment to just pay attention to what we already know. Yes, I know this is right. Thank You for the reminder, Lord. It adds resolve, adds steel to your backbone to obey God. It strengthens that sense of commitment.

And so repetition plays that part. It comes in that timely, not knowing what you’re going on about or dealing with or going through, and then the Word comes, and it’s right there in that moment, and that remembrance, and believers embrace it. It’s part of the preservation.

And so it means that we don’t miss the means of grace. Every time there’s an opportunity for the means of grace, when the doors are opened and the Word will be preached and there’s a holy convocation in which you’re declared and invited to come and gather and worship the living God, you say, there’s a moment that I don’t know what I’m going to hear.

It may be something I already know, but the man who says, I’ve heard that all before, and concludes that it’s irrelevant is on dangerous ground. Dangerous ground. I’ve heard it all before and concludes a certain irrelevancy to it. Dangerous ground.

The believer comes, tell me the old, old story. Give to me the repetition of God’s love in Christ, of His incarnation, His perfect life, the sacrificial vicarious death, His rising from the grave. Tell me it again, preacher.

Stirred by remembrance, we embrace then these fundamental basic means of grace: the Lord’s Day, public worship, prayer, catechizing, memorizing Scripture, so on and so forth.

There’s also a mark of preserving the mind in guarding by watchfulness. Not just the stirring by remembrance, but guarding by watchfulness. Proverbs 4:23: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”

Keep thy heart, guard, guard the heart, right? When the heart is taken, the city falls. Keep the heart, preserve the heart. And here’s where the mind and the heart are kind of synonymous. It’s the first impulse. It’s the genesis of the idea. It’s the first glance or the first whisper or the first evidence of intent.

David, you know, man after God’s own heart. I mentioned it recently at a prayer meeting about David and his early life and being before Saul, and Saul’s increasing envy and animosity, the repetition of the term that he behaved himself wisely. David behaved wisely in the presence of Saul.

But that history, that history did not have the power for him to behave wisely in the presence of Bathsheba. Past victory is no certainty of present or future. And the wisdom we have experienced in the past and exercised in the past is no promise of what we’re going to do today or tomorrow. You can be wise one day and foolish the next.

So what do you do? Watch. Keep your heart with all diligence. Keep it with all diligence.

It matters not if a man is set on the watch of a city tower and he stays awake for the entire eight, twelve, whatever hours it might be, four hours. He’s alert for the entire time except the five minutes that matter. And the reason for the watch and the absolute commitment necessary that he does not stop or pause from his watching is because there’s no point if he says to himself, surely five minutes won’t matter. It may be the very point of entry and defeat.

And so the believer has the sense of vigilance. “Keep thy heart with all diligence” is what Scripture warns us. So what comes through the eyes, what comes through the ears, the conversations we hear, the things that we read, the things we watch.

Even making allowance for memories. Oh, oh dear. How social media and reconnecting with people you went to school with and someone you had a crush on. An old flame in the past. And you start letting the mind, you start letting the mind imagine and go to places. And you think it will have no detrimental effect because it’s just here. And it’s the beginnings of devastation.

Quickly, stirred by remembrance, guarded by watchfulness, filled with meditation. Meditating. Go to Philippians 4, verse 8. You’ll see there just the strength of how we are to govern our minds. “Whatsoever things are true,” whatsoever things are honest, just, pure, lovely, good report, think on these things. Think on these things.

Don’t let the mind wander anywhere it wants. It must be—here’s the thing. The mind is a mill that is always grinding out something. And you can’t leave it vacant. You can’t leave it void. You can’t just let it be. It’s going to have something.

And so what the apostle is saying is, here are the positive things. Put this in, and what will come out is positive. Put in the positive, positive will come out. You can’t allow it to feed on things that corrupt. You can’t. You must meditate.

Mary, who kept and pondered these things as it related to Christ, her mind was being furnished with details of His person and His works, and she’s thinking about it. That’s what she goes around thinking about. She pondered these things and hid them in her heart. She’s looking and hearing and observing and filling her mind with something positive, Christ-centered. Oh, what a woman Mary was.

And resolved against temptation. Preserving the mind requires being resolved against temptation. Matthew 26:41: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. Don’t open the door to temptation. Resist it in the impulse. Fight it in the beginnings.

It’s like Spurgeon illustrated it once. Charles Spurgeon, the Baptist preacher, illustrated it once about, you know, people worried about thoughts coming into their mind. And they’re struggling with this. And he tried to—there’s a certain sense in which we cannot stop all thoughts and so govern our minds that we prevent anything that we don’t want ever to infiltrate or come in. Sometimes things are gonna come and knock on the door, and it’s there.

And Spurgeon illustrated it this way. He said, I cannot stop a bird from landing on my head, but I can stop it from building its nest there. It’s the driving away. It’s the immediate impulse. Get out of here. You’re not welcome. Substituting it with things then that are pure and holy.

Then marks of perfecting the mind. Finally, marks of perfecting the mind. It must be very quick here. What are the marks of someone who has a pure mind, who’s living and growing and coming to maturity in their Christianity as to their very thought life, as to the purity of their mind?

Well, you will see in them, first of all, that sin is judged more honestly. Sin is judged more honestly. We still bring, we still carry a little bit of defensiveness in even after our conversion. But if we’re really maturing in our thought life and we’re becoming purer, sin will always be judged honestly.

Go and read Psalm 51. Go and read there how David, yes, he’s done this wickedness and evil. I get it. I understand it. He owns it. He owns it. He owns it specifically. It’s sin. It’s before God. I’m not just upset about the consequences. I’m upset about breaking His law. This is against Thee, Thee only, he says. I can’t believe I did this against God.

He forgot what Joseph remembered. How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? It’s not just against Potiphar and his wife. It’s against God. And David forgot that. He forgot that. But he owns it fully. And more than that, he has a certain honesty about it in which he, I’m going to put this in a song and I’m going to say, sing this. Because you all can learn from me. The mighty can fall. Here’s how to repent. And there is a way back. Our God is gracious.

Judging sin more honestly. Dangers are avoided more discerningly. Dangers are avoided more discerningly. As you begin to see patterns, right? If I go there, why would I go there? Why would I go there?

Proverbs warns us, Proverbs 22:3, “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on,” and are punished. A prudent man foresees the evil and hides. There’s so much application there. I was talking to a brother yesterday about this. There’s so much application, but there’s a certain discernment that sets in. It’s like, well, I’m not gonna go there. I don’t want even to go there.

It’s like Job when he illustrated, “I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?” So he’s saying, I don’t want to ponder and fighting the thought of a young virgin in my mind. I’m not even gonna—I’m driving that out.

Daniel purposed in his heart not to defile himself. Purposed in his heart. Dangers are avoided more discerningly. As we mature in holiness, we discern the very possibility of sin. And that brings a fear. We don’t trifle. We don’t trifle.

It’s, you know, the man who’s riding his chariot along the cliff edge. I think you know that illustration. He rides his chariot along the cliff edge trying to show the king how much of a skillful rider he is. And I can get, you know, within an inch of the edge and still keep it on course, showing his skill. But the man who mattered, the one the king would want, is the one who stays well inside as far as possible, be safe.

Take the safer way.

Christ is desired more deeply. Christ is desired more deeply. The maturing mind is wanting to reflect on Christ, dwell on Christ like Mary, ponder, think upon, have in his mind, her mind, Christ.

Psalm 73:25: “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.” There’s none upon earth that I desire beside thee.

Oh God, oh that He would bring that and make that real. Do you feel the power of that? Do you feel, I feel it. None upon earth that I desire beside Thee. All bent of the frame is toward the Lord. Desiring Him more deeply. And He is chief desire.

The lesser things lose their power, you see. Parents learn this with the kids. How do you keep them out of trouble? Well, if you can give them something to do that they really love, that you’re in favor of, and they just love it, it’ll take care of itself. It will take care of it. They love the thing. That’s safe. Don’t have to worry. They love it. Let them go. Unsupervised. Let them go at it.

In other words, you can keep them from the trouble and all the bad stuff, all the stuff that you—stop bothering the neighbors and stop whatever, destroying those things, whatever. If you can put in there, put before them a thing that they love, and it’ll fill all their time, right?

And it’s no different. It’s not just fighting against impurity. It is being governed by what is pure and holy. And when Christians have a revived affection for Jesus Christ, so much of this takes care of itself. When you have a revived affection for Jesus Christ, this is it, beloved. I mean, this is bottom line. I’ve gone through different parts and aspects of this, but bottom line is this: if I’m struggling to even want to have a pure mind, then my struggle fundamentally is, He has little thought of in my heart. He is little thought of in my heart. I hold Him in low estimation.

Time is gone. I’ve said enough. If you want the victory in life, by God’s grace, the mind, the mind. Don’t underestimate it. Don’t think it’s not territory that you can ignore.

The old saying is, take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves. Talking about financial advice. Be careful in the little and the wealth will come. Pay attention to the thought life, and the rest of godliness, holiness, and likeness of Christ will take care of itself.

Let’s bow together in prayer.

Now is the time when you try to put your arms around the main point of the sermon. Has the Lord come and put before you the importance of a pure mind? You put your arm around that truth, you embrace it, you invite it, you cherish it, and then you pray, O God, grant me a pure mind.

God help us all. Help us all. We’re thankful for the power of divine grace. We’re thankful that we can come to the One. Mary was filled with seven devils and was made clean, whiter than snow. We’re thankful we can bring all the sinfulness and corruption of our lives to the cross, where there is cleansing, and where hangs One who would rise from the dead and give power to His people.

Lord Jesus, send the Holy Spirit to elevate our affection for Thee. Grant us power through the Spirit to live the Christian life. Have mercy on those here this morning whose minds are filled with filth, with no repentance. God, O God, before they destroy themselves, have mercy. Hear our prayers. Thank You for this day. Make us appreciate our fathers. May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of all the people of God, now and evermore. Amen.