Opening illustration: Object lesson using a small cup of milk representing the world in us. We pour a large jug of water (representing the HS) in it till the cup dispenses the milk completely and has water only.
Introduction:
What must be Renewed?
As our belief systems are formed, they can be corrupted. These corrupted belief systems are called “strongholds” or “fortresses.” These fortresses (corrupted beliefs) prevent us from having an accurate picture of God, others, ourselves, and circumstances. The building blocks of these fortresses are “thoughts”.
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For 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, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
Our thoughts need to be captured and renewed because they keep us from knowing God (in a practical and personal way) and from living in obedience to Him.
Why should the mind be renewed?
God’s purpose is that we be set apart from the world, that we not be squeezed into the world’s mold, and therefore reflect the father of this world rather than the glory of God.
The mind is not completely renewed at conversion. This is not an automatic process; it takes time and action. New thinking is a part of the process of experientially moving from our old identity to our new identity; becoming in our thoughts, beliefs, and eventually behavior what we already are in the inner man. Renewing our minds and walking in our new identity is a description of the normal Christian life. We must willfully choose to participate in a new way of thinking, taking “everything thought captive to the obedience of Christ”; “destroying every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.
Our mind or brain is constantly being bombarded by thoughts and ideas from every direction. Each of our five senses contribute to our thoughts and ideas (sight, touch, taste, sound and smell). Therefore, the mind is the largest ever battlefield and for God to have precedence in our life, it must be captive in obedience to God.
How can our mind be renewed?
Before we can renew our minds, we must realize the source for change is in the person of the Holy Spirit. The indwelling Spirit will show us what needs to be renewed, when it is to be renewed as well as provide the power to do so. The renewing process, on our part, requires faith in God’s Word and willful participation.
• Set your minds on the things above. (Colossians 3:1)
• Remove the false ways from me. (Psalms 119:28-29)
• ... take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
• Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12:2)
• Lay aside the old self ... and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self. (Ephesians 4:22-24)
1. Rejecting the Patterns of the World (v. 2a) – External Renewal
The first thing Paul mentions in this verse is our tendency to conform to the philosophy of this age. This tendency constitutes a pressure against transformation. The word conform means to fashion or shape one thing like another, particularly in its outward appearance. Phillips’ now famous paraphrase still conveys the idea best: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.” The tense Paul used indicates that this is the very thing we are prone to do. He said literally, “Stop being fashioned by this age.”
If we have yielded our wills to Christ, Satan is going to try to water down our decision by subtly introducing traces of self-will. Before we met Christ, we operated exclusively on that basis. That’s the only way the people of the world know how to live. They do not even think about doing the will of God. They do as they please, “fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” Satan wants us to revert to that basic life style, that “do your own thing” philosophy of this age. And in his attempt to push us into the world’s mold he attacks us from within and attacks us from without.
For one thing, Satan uses our emotional immaturity and our personality defects to cloud our commitment to Christ and to confuse our understanding of his will. A Christian psychiatrist, writing on the will of God, has explained how childhood conflicts which were never resolved can lodge in our subconscious and affect our decisions. Something such as the unfulfilled need for parental affection could cause us to jump into an unwise marriage. Or resentment against a parent could result in our shutting out of our lives someone else with similar traits, without our ever consciously recognizing why we did it.
In addition to these attacks from within, Satan relentlessly bombards us from without with his attempts to implant the philosophy of the world in our minds. He uses every possible means at his disposal—television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, motion pictures, music, unbelieving friends, loved ones, fellow workers.
Sometimes he even uses Christians, particularly carnal Christians. We hear so much that contradicts God’s Word from so many different sources that we soon begin to accept the world’s standard and doubt God’s.
For example, the world keeps talking about the alleged merits of living together without marriage. They keep saying it and saying it until Christian young people begin to think that God can’t really mean what he says in his Word. They begin to think that God’s Word is outdated and irrelevant. So, they enter into a sinful relationship which God warns will leave scars on their souls and disrupt their lives for years to come. If we ever hope to find God’s plan for our lives, we must stop being fashioned by the people of the world and by the philosophy of the age.
2. Transformation of Mind (v. 2b) – Internal Renewal
Paul turns now from the negative prohibition to a positive plea for transformation: “But be transformed,” he exhorts. The word he uses means “to change into another form.” We get our English word metamorphosis from it.
The lives of Christians are to be different! They are to be marked by increasing obedience to the Word of God. And we shall not be able to discern God’s guidance apart from this kind of transformed living. Why should God reveal his will to us in matters not specifically mentioned in his Word when we have shown little interest in obeying what he has already revealed? It’s not fair of us to ask him for direction in one matter when we have willfully rejected his clear direction in other matters.
We are perfectly useless as Christ-exalting Christians if all we do is conform to the world around us. And the key to not wasting our lives with this kind of success and prosperity, Paul says, is being transformed. “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed.”
I point this out for one reason: to make the point that the nonconformity to the world does not primarily mean the external avoidance of worldly behaviors. That’s included. But you can avoid all kinds of worldly behaviors and not be transformed. “His face shown like the sun, and his clothes became white as light!” Something like that happens to us spiritually and morally. Mentally, first on the inside, and then, later at the resurrection on the outside. Jesus says of us, at the resurrection: “Then the righteous will shine …
Transformation is not switching from the to-do list of the flesh to the to-do list of the law. When Paul replaces the list — the works — of the flesh, he does not replace it with the works of the law, but the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:19–22).
The Christian alternative to immoral behaviors is not a new list of moral behaviors. It is the triumphant power and transformation of the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ — our Savior, our Lord, our Treasure. “[God] has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). So, transformation is a profound, blood-bought, Spirit-wrought change from the inside out.
If you will let God renew your mind, then you can have lasting change through your actions and interactions with others. They will be able to see that even though you might be having severe problems in certain areas of your life, you now handle it in a completely different way than before.
Oh, how crucial this is!
• If you long to break loose from conformity to the world,
• If you long to be transformed and new from the inside out,
• If you long to be free from mere duty-driven Christianity and do what you love to do because what you love to do is what you ought to do,
• If you long to offer up your body as a living sacrifice so that your whole life becomes a spiritual act of worship and displays the worth of Christ above the worth of the world, then give yourself with all your might to pursuing this — the renewal of your mind. Because the Bible says, this is the key to transformation. “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
3. Proving the Perfect Will of God (v. 2c) - Result
Renewing your mind requires faith, and faith is acting on the Word of God. You act on it just as you would act on the word of any honest man. You apply it in order to change the way you think about your life, your work, your relationships—everything.
Through His written Word, God provided the way for you to be changed from the inside out. The Word allows you to know Him and approach your life in a way that pleases Him—and is successful every time. (Read Isaiah 55.)
The renewing of the mind brings your will into agreement with the Father’s will. As you fill your mind with His Word by reading, thinking about, memorizing, praying, speaking out loud, even singing, you begin to think in a way that pleases Him, and His ways become your ways. You become, through His power and wisdom, a master of the circumstances of life. When difficulties or decisions arise, you automatically view them through the eyes of God’s Word. That new perspective changes everything.
Basically, we have two wills of God in our lives:
(i) God’s Will of Decree, or Sovereign Will – One of the clearest is the way Jesus spoke of the will of God in Gethsemane when he was praying. He said, in Matthew 26:39, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” What does the will of God refer to in this verse? It refers to the sovereign plan of God that will happen in the coming hours. You recall how Acts 4:27–28 says this: “Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” So, the “will of God” was that Jesus die. This was his plan, his decree. There was no changing it, and Jesus bowed and said, “Here’s my request, but you do what is best to do.” That’s the sovereign will of God.
(ii) God’s Will of Command - This is the will of God we can disobey and fail to do. The will of decree we do whether we believe in it or not. The will of command we can fail to do. For example, Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Not all do the will of his Father. He says so. “Not everyone will enter the kingdom of heaven.” Why? Because not all do the will of God. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:3, “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality.” Here we have a very specific instance of what God commands of us: holiness, sanctification, sexual purity. This is his will of command. But, oh, so many do not obey.
The answer surely is that Paul is referring to God’s will of command. I say this for at least two reasons. One is that God does not intend for us to know most of his sovereign will ahead of time. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us” (Deuteronomy 29:29). If you want to know the future details of God’s will of decree, you don’t want a renewed mind, you want a crystal ball. This is not called transformation and obedience; it’s called divination, soothsaying.
God’s Word touches every facet of living. If we are really serious about discovering and doing the will of God, then we will get serious about reprogramming our minds with God’s Word and facing every situation of life in the light of it. That kind of living will prepare us to discern God’s plan for our lives as it unfolds before us step by step. “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Illustration: “How can I be absolutely certain that I want to do God’s will?” Jason was a college student who had approached me concerning his future. He was earnestly seeking the will of God, but he doubted his own yieldedness to Christ. “Am I really willing to do anything He asks? I think I am, but how can I be sure?”
His question has been asked by many Christians at some point in their lives. If knowing the will of God depends on the renewal of our mind and our total surrender to him, how can we be sure that it has taken place? Are we really living it out?
Application:
• We need to protect our minds from the onslaught of the enemy.
• We need to bring our thoughts in line with God's thoughts in order to understand His will.
• A mind renewed by God's Word is essential if our lives are to be full of His power.
