Be Renewed In The Spirit of Your Minds

In my life, I have fought the demon of conformity for far too long. Maybe your are better at this than me but I think there are several of us that need to truly learn what scripture means by the phrase "Be Renewed in the Spirit of your minds". The world, the sin filled world, has such an ability to corrupt and distract. How do we open ourselves to the renewing of our minds from scripture without allowing the world to equally influence us? How can we better reflect the "way you learned Christ"? In the next two weeks I hope to help us learn the truths of scripture that will truly help us to "Be Renewed In The Spirit of Your Minds".

Be Renewed In The Spirit of Your Minds, Wk 1

This is a two week message. I am hoping to be able to help us learn how to open ourselves to possibility that true change can occur in our lives. This week we will focus on what we were and what the world around us still is.

Ephesians 4:17–24 ESV

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

A Couple weeks ago, we talked about,

What we were like before

Alienated from the life of God

Alienated - To be a stranger to God

Callous, Sensual, Greed and Impure

Callous - Insensitive or Cruel

this is probably the definition that we think of first. Why? Because that is how we use it today.

But there is another definition when you look at the greek word. (Al Paw Gayo)

Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains 25.197 ἀπαλγέω

ἀπαλγέω: to lose the capacity to feel shame or embarrassment—‘to lose a feeling of shame, to become calloused.’

Because they had become callous to the things of God, they gave themselves over to

Sensuality - behavior completely lacking in moral restraint.

Greedy - a strong desire to acquire more and more, never obtaining enough.

Impurity - the state of moral impurity, especially in relationship to sexual sin.

Romans 1:18–32 ESV

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Anytime we allow something other than God to define us we fail to be renewed in the spirit of our minds.

The reasons all these sins seem so familiar to us is that sin in the first century and sin in the 20th century are both still sin.

Sinners are sinners. They were then and they are now.

I want you to notice four things about these passages in Romans and in Ephesians .

God has revealed himself to man

Through invisible attributes from creation and more pointedly in the person and work of Christ.

Man still rejected or suppressed the knowledge of God despite this revelation

Because of their willful rejection, God’s wrath is upon them.

The result of their rejection is that their foolish hearts are darkened.

Just like in Romans, here in Ephesians, we see the issue is a hardness of our hearts against God

At least, that is what we were.

Ephesians 4:20 ESV

But that is not the way you learned Christ!—

So how did we learn Christ?

Isaiah 53:4–6 ESV

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

We recognize our sin and because we recognize it, we value the sacrifice it took to pay for it.

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

That is why we put off the old self

Marge Philpot once said, “I hear the call of God to put off the old self, I go to the alter and lay it at the feet of Jesus. Then, I get missing my stuff and go right back there and pick it back up again”.

Old - obsolete, antiquated, worn out or inferior.

As we put off the old, we can then begin to be renewed.

We need to pray for Godly sorrow

2 Corinthians 7:10 ESV

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Repentance - to change one’s way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness

Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 509.

Renewal - to cause something to become new and different, with the implication of becoming superior—‘to make new, renewal.’

Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 593.

So if we desire a renewal of the Spirit of our minds,

We need to recognize our sin and recognize the value of the sacrifice to free us of that sin.

We need to repent of that sin

We need to pursue renewal through the person and work of Christ.

That means knowing Him, His Word and his completed work on our behalf.

The change is not so He will come into my heart, it is because He has come into my heart.

We can now “Put On” the new self and be renewed in the spirit of our minds.

Or as Paul tells us hear,

Ephesians 4:23 ESV

and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

Romans 12:2 ESV

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Because that is “the way you learned Christ”