Renew Your Mind October 13, 2019

Has anyone ever started thinking about something… gone down a rabbit trail of thought… and wondered: How did I get here?

Allow me to illustrate...

·       Have you ever been mowing & alone with your thoughts? 

·       Or just sitting quietly somewhere? Or driving without the radio on?

·       …and a person’s name or a certain group comes into your mind?

·       Then, suddenly, you’re thinking about all the things you know about them… and it usually might just be an activity or a conversation.

·       Then, you’re thinking about that one time they… offended you… or said something mean to you… or even down right hurt you on purpose.

·       And, then, you’re creating a list of all the ways they’ve wronged you.

·       It might even be something that was resolved years earlier.

·       Suddenly, you’re thinking about how the next time you talk to that person… 

·       And, you’re going to tell them off.

·       Then, you’re putting together the perfect set of ways to “put them in their place” … 

·       And, of course, all the while justifying your actions and words… because you were the one who was wronged in the first place.

·       I mean it’s their fault… they hurt me… don’t I at least have the right to tell them what they’ve done… they need to feel as bad as I do right now.

·       If this is your boss, you begin to decide that you need another job.

·       If it’s a family member, then you’re not going to Thanksgiving dinner this year.

·       If it’s your spouse, maybe divorce is the only answer.

·       How did you get there!?!?

Anyone ever find yourself there? 

·       Most of the time we “wake up” and go “that was weird, how’d I get here?” 

·       But sometimes those thoughts fester and create tension… 

·       and then a “seed of bitterness” creeps into our heart.

·       or worse we even act on it AND relationships get broken. 

·       Why? Because we haven’t learned to Renew our Mind.

The same thing can happen when we entertain a thought about ourselves. 

·       When you’re tired… your defenses are down… or you’re feeling isolated from your family, friends… or church…

·       Maybe it started with an “I’ll never be good enough too…” 

·       And as you go down that rabbit trail of negative thoughts… 

·       you end up in a place of serious depression or anxiety about yourself.

·       Why? Because we haven’t learned to Renew our Mind.

DILEMMA

We hope this has been a helpful series for you on understanding “Who You Are.”

·       Believing the truth

·       Protecting your emotions

·       Grounded in a life of faith

·       Today, we want to talk about our thought lives.

Friends, we need to learn to not only protect our thought processes… but we need to learn that we can actually go on the offensive with the way that we think… we’ve been talking a lot about the “battle that we are in.” And, we need to realize that it’s not OUT THERE… it’s actually right here (pic).

Ephesians 6:17-18 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit,

which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

The problem is that most of us think that every thought is our own. What we don’t realize is that we are hearing and thinking about so many ideas from so many other sources. In our world today, we are constantly bombarded with thoughts from:

·       Family and Friends

·       Bosses and Coworkers

·       The news

·       Social media

·       The music we listen to

·       We actually get a little desensitized to all of the input in our very loud world.

·       And the whispers in our head.

·       The enemy works the hardest against us in our thought life… 

·       He knows that if we are distracted there… then the rest of our lives are affected by what’s going on between our ears.

BIBLE: What Paul is saying in this Ephesians passage is actually a pretty simple concept, but it’s hard to put into practice.

·       6:17a “and take the helmet of salvation…”

·       We are not literally giving you HATS today… rather it’s a gift from God

·       The only protection against dark, depressed or unrealistic thoughts is being reminded of our salvation. 

·       That not only are we Saved, but that we have already been made WHOLE by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

·       Paul says it this way in 1Thessalonias 5 ⁸ But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. ⁹ For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ

·       Salvation is the key word in both Ephesians and 1Thessalonians… it’s not just a word that means saved… it’s much bigger.

·       It’s a word that actually means Complete or Whole.

·       What Paul is saying is that the gospel message of Jesus tells us that we are already complete.

·       And think about our dark thought processes… don’t we go down rabbit trails of thought about ourselves or other people because we feel like we are not Whole?

·       That person took something from me… or a part of me.

·       I’m not good enough in this area… or healthy enough for this thing.

·       Key #1 to living with a renewed mind is KNOW your COMPLETENESS.

We need to get our thoughts connected to the only source that can help us feel complete.

·     6:17b “and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”

·     We need God’s word to continually tell us the truth.

·     Corrie talked about this a lot in week #2 as protection.

·     I love how this Ephesians passage turns the truth on its head here at the end.

·     Not only is truth our protection, but the word of God is our SWORD.

·     Hebrews 4 (New Living) says it’s super valuable in our thought processes.

·     ¹² For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.

·     The word of God is the sword that roots out the lies of the enemy

Key #2 to living with a renewed mind is…SURROUND yourself with JESUS.

·       The word of God

·       Daily devotionals & Christian Books

·       Listening to worship or Christian podcasts

·       Going to church on the weekends

We do this all the time don’t we? Sports team (cubs/cards)… political ideology (democrat/republican/libertarian/green)… they all have a bent or a message that affects the way we think about things.

·       Old Saying: “Garbage in, Garbage out”

·       New Saying: “Jesus in, Jesus out.”

This is about deciding who you want to become! If you want to think and act like a person of faith… a person following after Jesus… then you must cultivate a life of thinking like Him… and trust me there is no greater life ☺

·       Full of hope and joy

·       Filled with compassion and love for those around you

·       Empowered to live above the social and political ideologies of this world

·       Transformed into an eternal and not temporal mind.

VICTORY!

Let’s wrap this up by understanding that we can turn our opening story into a victory.

·       Paul concludes his discourse on our armor by encouraging us to pray:

·       6:18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

Think about how amazing the human mind is… it has such capacity for brilliance, creativity, and thinking of ways to do good. If we can train our mind for the good, then we can literally tear down the Matrix of Lies that many of us have experienced in our lives.

·       We need to learn to turn our thoughts into prayers.

·       To train ourselves to think differently.

·       Illustration - potty training

·       Just like a young child who stops thinking “diapers are great.” Running around with wet pants is “ok.” We can train ourselves to think different.

·       Just like a young child learns to control themselves… we learn “self-control” in our thought processes as we mature in Christ.

·       Ephesians 4 says it this way in the MIRROR translation:

·       21b The truth about you has its ultimate reference in Jesus. 22 Now you are free to strip off that old identity like a filthy worn-out garment. Lust corrupted you and cheated you into wearing it. 23 Be renewed in your innermost mind will cause you to be completely reprogrammed in the way you think about yourself! 24 Immerse yourself fully into this God-shaped new man from above! You are created in the image and likeness of God. This is what righteousness and true holiness are all about.

·       In other words, you can learn to think differently about your life.

·       You can learn to no longer think negatively about yourself… you can turn it on its head… When you begin to think badly about yourself, turn it into a prayer of Thanksgiving instead.

·       When you hear, I’m not good enough… I’ll never accomplish whatever.

·       Begin to THANK GOD that He doesn’t see you that way

·       Begin to THANK GOD that He sees you as He sees Christ

·       Thank GOD that you are now righteous, holy, blameless and complete in Him.

What about my negative thoughts about others? We can turn those into prayers too!

·       2 Corinthians 10 (NIV) says…

·      ³ For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴ The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. ⁵ We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

·       Paul says we have the power to demolish negative thought patterns… to tear down the walls behind which they live… and capture them!

·       Negative thoughts about others are ones we can attack. PROPHETIC WORD

·       Do you realize that God sees everyone on earth through the same lens?

·       We have been learning how Father sees us

·       As we learn this truth

·       We learn how Father sees others

·       Even that person who rubs you the wrong way every time you talk 

·       Either grace is a gift to us all… or we are all doomed.

·       You can learn to no longer think negatively about others too!… 

·       you can turn it on its head… When you begin to think badly about someone, turn it into a prayer of Appeal instead.

·       Begin to THANK GOD for the other person.

·       Begin to THANK GOD they are not defined by how you think about them.

·       Begin to ask God how He sees them.

·       Begin to ask God what their needs in life are… in their family?

Opening Illustration: 

Imagine if we thought so differently that when a person came into our mind it was so that the Holy Spirit could minister to them through us!

·       Mowing/Driving - person comes into our mind

·       We discipline our thoughts to ask God what he wants for them

·       We discipline our minds to PRAY and not criticize

·       Think about it this way

·       When you’re at work and you find yourself being critical of something, you have the opportunity to complain 

·       OR you can get curious & creative to solve the problem… 

·       maybe you’ll even get promoted for it, lol.

·       In our thought processes we have the same choice…

·       When we find ourselves being critical of someone else, we have the invitation to be curious about their life and become compassionate towards them.