Good evening, brothers and sisters.
We have had some rich times of ministry today, and I realize that only by the Holy Spirit can our capacities continue to absorb the things that we are receiving. So, we want to read a few Scriptures and then have a prayer together before we begin tonight.
I would just like to take us to two familiar passages of Scripture. The first is Romans 12, the first two verses.
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.—Romans 12:1-2
Then, in Ephesians 4, beginning in verses 17 through 24:
So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,
being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.
And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
But you did not learn Christ in this way,
if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus,
that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,
and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
and put on the new man, which, in the likeness of God, has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.—Ephesians 4:17-24
A phrase from each one of these Scriptures is going to be the topic for tonight: “transformed by the renewing of your mind” and “renewed in the spirit of your mind.”
Father, we come to You tonight because we know all resources have been given to us through Christ. We do pray for that anointing of the Holy Spirit that can refresh and illumine our minds and our hearts, as You continue to do Your work in our midst toward spiritual mindedness.
Lord, how we thank You that You have gathered us together at this time. Now do speak to us. Make it a profitable time for all of us, we pray, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, I am very thankful for the ministries we had this morning and this afternoon. Once again, I am amazed that, even though I did not know exactly what our brother Stephen or our brother Ed would share, there seems to be some kind of correlation and dovetailing through all these messages. I am very thankful for that.
I want us to talk about this matter of spiritual mindedness tonight, and I just want to introduce it by saying this: we are fearfully and wonderfully made. God works in us a work that is beyond description.
This testimony of the apostle Paul that we just sang about—who can describe that in analytical language? How God reveals, then arrests, then captures, and then has Paul pursuing Him all through his life—it is an amazing work, this work of grace.
Tonight, we want to begin by thinking of spiritual mindedness and looking at Paul as the example of one who is so. Now immediately, I know you would say, “Oh, well, that is not fair.” It is fair.
Paul was saved by the same grace with which we are saved. We do not want to take away at all from the fact that Paul was a most unique vessel, used by God even in laying down the various foundations of truth as we have them recorded in the Scriptures.
But I still say this: he was saved by grace through the same Lord Jesus as you and I. It is no good us saying, “Well, we can never be like the apostle Paul, so that is the end of this journey.” No. The Lord is looking in this last day—perhaps He is even waiting in His return—for spiritually minded people, and just all that that could possibly mean.
Now, you notice our brother so far has resisted a definition of this thing, and you will notice I am resisting it as well. There is something very comprehensive about spiritual mindedness, something that goes beyond just a simple analysis of biblical psychology.
Oswald Chambers called all this—body, soul, spirit, heart, and conscience—“biblical psychology.” Watchman Nee called it The Spiritual Man. But however you want to call it, once you have laid out all the anatomical parts and spiritualized it, it is still a bit of a mystery.
Spiritual mindedness. Well, of course, we get the idea that the Holy Spirit is in control of somebody’s mind. He is illuminating somebody’s mind. He has already disciplined somebody’s mind, and He is finding that mind useful to Him, even as with the apostle.
I do not know what to say about this. We could go through Paul’s letters one by one and show the sharpness of his mind, and yet he was spiritually minded. He was no dummy.
He was not saying, “Well, now that you are saved, forget reading. Do not exercise your mind. We are anti-intellectual.” I mean, Paul was a genius.
But still, there was a work of God—by God’s grace—that had to be done for him to become spiritually minded. And so the Lord wants to do in you and me.
When you think of the whole corpus of Paul’s writings—and I am thinking especially these days of Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, since they were written about the same time—there are two things that are earmarks, I think, of somebody who is spiritually minded. We can see them in a wonderful way in Paul’s writings.
First of all, there is the tremendous clarity of the revelation of Jesus Christ that Paul’s mind has. He so clearly wrote down this revelation of Jesus Christ in its dimensions and proportions.
When we read Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, we can hardly keep up. As a matter of fact, we cannot really keep up with all that Paul has seen and is describing. He is like some kind of mountain climber who has been up at the top of Mount Everest, trying to describe it to us down in the foothills.
When you read Ephesians, you see the glory of Christ as God’s fulfillment of eternal purpose, and the church all in union with Christ. What a clear picture. What a mind, so clear that he can write these things down.
Or Philippians: he sees the glory of that self-humbling of Christ, when He humbled Himself and emptied Himself, and God’s response in exalting and glorifying Christ. What a wonderful mystery this is, which he unveiled for us.
And in Colossians, Christ is the sum of all things, the Master of creation, the indwelling Sanctifier. What a complete picture: Christ, the sum of all things. He is all and in all, he says in Colossians.
You know these revelations. What tremendous clarity. Paul has seen this, and certainly this is one of the fruits of being spiritually minded: your mind is clear, and it is clear in the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Now, you and I probably will not attain to quite that clarity. But have you seen the Lord Jesus? Is it becoming clearer and clearer to you who He is, how great He is, and how comprehensive His finished work is? Then, you see, the Lord is training your mind to discover these wonderful things.
But that is one half of what we call spiritual mindedness, by way of analogy in Paul’s life: the clarity of revelation, doctrine, and knowledge. The other half is not about knowledge at all. It is about an attitude—a walking out of this vision in the mind of Christ.
As Paul says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” He is not talking about knowledge at all. He is saying, “Let this attitude, this mindset, now be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
The genius of Paul, and the fruit of spiritual mindedness, is that you not only clearly see the revelation, but you see how it works out in your walk.
He not only shows in Ephesians the glorious revelation of God’s eternal purpose in Christ and the church, but then he shows how to understand marriage, because the mystery of marriage pertains to our walk. Our attitude has changed because of what we have seen there, and now we walk it out here.
When it comes to Philippians, he shows how great is that self-emptying of Christ. Then he says, “Now, brothers, coworkers, Euodia and Syntyche, do you not see? You have got to have that same self-emptying attitude.” It is not just good enough to have this big thing; it has to be walked out.
Paul says, “Do you see Colossians? How great He is? He is the macrocosmic Christ, the microcosmic Christ.” I am sorry, Ellen—she is trying to translate those things. But He is this macro, this micro Christ.
Then Paul says, “Do you not see? He is so complete that your sanctification is complete in Him. Just be hidden in Christ, and you will be changed into His likeness.”
A lot of Bible commentators do not get the first half and the second half of Paul’s letters. They say the first half goes up into the heavenlies with all kinds of strange and wonderful doctrines, and then suddenly he says, “Oh, yes, chapter 4: let us get practical. Now stop lying, work hard, and do not get angry.”
They do not see the connection: all those practical exhortations in the second half of his letters have come out of the whole foundation in the first part. It is not a full stop. Here is a mind that has been disciplined.
Now, the natural man cannot be like that. There are some people who are supposedly large-minded. They think big. They are conceptualists, philosophers, thinkers, people who handle big affairs.
There are other people who are bean counters—detailed people. But it seems like never the two meet.
I often say, when I see a young man who seems very spiritual and he is single, “Be sure you marry a bean counter.” I mean, I am just being honest with you. Forget about looks. Find the bean counter. You will not survive.
In my own marriage, I handle the big things. All week long, I have been handling the baseball playoffs, the California recall, the bombing of Syria. These are deep matters.
Fortunately, my wife kept cooking, cleaning the house, paying the bills—all those small things that are not important. Only together do we make some kind of strange oneness, you see.
Of course, I need not go into Jose and Ellen. You would not be here tonight if it were not for Ellen. She has got you on her computer. She has probably got a camera watching you right now, taking you home. Not only that, she is back there translating for me, so I have to be careful what I say.
And Ed and Lillian—I mean, there are stories about them. It took them eight hours to get here. This is because Ed was driving. You can find out the details.
But I am telling you, you have big-minded people and bean counters. This is not an excuse for us to say, “That is just the way we are.” The Holy Spirit disciplines our minds.
You detailed people, do not say, “I am just too busy, busy, busy to get involved with these kinds of things.” Oh, no. Because only as you see the large picture can you walk in the practical life.
And those large people, do not say, “Ah, do not bother me with details.” Paul was very detailed, was he not? Most people say, “Somebody like that is so heavenly minded they are no earthly good.” Paul was heavenly minded and very earthly good—very practical.
There is a spiritually minded person. So, just to start off by seeing that, we want to talk about this matter of transformation—transformation by the renewing of our minds.
Let us look in Romans 12 again for a moment and read those verses:
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,
so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.—Romans 12:1-2
The first thing I want us to notice is that this entreaty for the renewing of our mind, and the need for transformation, is being made to Christians.
This is not coming to Christ. This is Christians who need transformation by the renewing of the mind.
When Paul opens it up by saying, “I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God,” he is saying, in other words, “All of the gospel—the good and glorious gospel of Jesus Christ that I have shared in the first eleven chapters—do not let it go in one ear and out the other. Do something with that. Take hold of this thing. Be transformed. Live in the good of this gospel.”
You know the gospel in Romans: how he brings justification by faith; how he shows that the whole race of Adam was taken out, and the new race of Christ, the last Adam, was brought in; how we who used to be in the flesh now have this ascending life in the Spirit—all of these things.
Let us go to Romans 8, because there is a word there that we want to see in connection. Romans 8, verses 28 through 30:
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.—Romans 8:28-30
Now, I beseech you by the mercies of God: live in that predestination. Live in that calling. Live in that justification. Live in that glorification. Do not just say, “La, la, la, la, that is wonderful head knowledge.” Something has to be done with the head knowledge.
In order to understand a little bit about transformation, let us look at the word for a moment, and its sister word which we find right here in Romans 8:29: “conformed to the image of His Son.”
I am going to give you just a little Greek—not to scare you off. The word “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” is a word we all know already: metamorphosis.
That is the word: metamorphosis. Be transformed—metamorphoo. It means to be changed in form. Change the form of your life by the renewing of your mind.
In recent days, they have action figures that morph. They change forms. You have a little figure, and it changes into some kind of beast. They call that morphing. So young people understand what morphing is.
But they do not really understand what morphing is, because morph always implies permanent change—not becoming a monster and then coming back to Charlie Good Shoes. No. When you are transformed, you cross over into another form.
The same word, metamorphosis, is used of Jesus when it says that, when He went up onto the mount with His three disciples, He was transformed—metamorphosed. It is the same word.
It is also used in 2 Corinthians 3:18, where it says:
And we all, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.
—2 Corinthians 3:18
Metamorphosis: changing form. A wonderful word to help us understand what is going on in our lives.
Now, this word in Romans 8:29, “being conformed to the image of His Son,” is also the word morph, but with the prefix syn, which means to be formed together with.
So, “conformed” means formed with. To be conformed to the image of His Son is to be formed into that same image that Christ is. It is used again in the New Testament in Philippians 3:10, where Paul says, “being conformed to His death.” That is when this word, symmorphizo, is being used.
Now, I bring that up because in Romans 12:2 we have another word, translated “conform” in my version: “Do not be conformed to this world.”
Here is the third word. If you stay with this Greek lesson for just another minute, you will begin to see some of the ramifications of the difference.
This word is not symmorphizo, which means to be changed in form with. It is a word called syschematizo, from which we get the word “schematic”—scheme. It is translated fashion or design.
What is a schematic? It is a design of what is going on in the electronic parts and all this kind of stuff. What this word is talking about is an outward change—an outward change of form in your life.
The world can produce outward change in your life by its pressures, you see, but not inward change. As a matter of fact, Vine’s Greek dictionary specifically says that this word, syschematizo, could not be used of inward transformation. It is an outer transformation.
The world influences us from the outside. It influences our soul, but it is an outward transformation. Metamorphosis, however, is an inward transformation.
So we can already see a couple of things. Here they are: the mind—what does the mind do?
The mind is the referee of your soul. Our souls are being bombarded by the world, saying, “Buy me. You need this to be appreciated by other people.”
The world bombards us with lies. Our children go to school, and in some school systems there are all kinds of presuppositions that the children are taught before they even understand what is behind them. They are bombarded with lies, bombarded with attitudes, bombarded with selfishness.
The other night, a couple of nights ago in a prayer meeting in New York City, we were praying about the bombardment of tempo. In New York City, you have to work at a certain speed and with a certain intensity. It is the world’s tempo. You have to get in there, you see.
If you want stuff, you have to sell your soul, and the world is always bombarding, bombarding.
Now, the mind is like your referee. It sits there and says, “Hmm, here comes something. I am going to ignore that. Here comes something. I am going to use that. Here comes something. Let me remember that. Here comes something. Hmm, that is very useful. Here comes something. What is that?”
The mind is that referee of the soul—except when somebody’s emotions run away from them. Then they immediately use their emotions, you see. Usually, that mind is sitting in there, being an arbiter, deciding what it wants and what it does not want.
Of course, if it gets bombarded enough, it starts to believe lies. It starts to take on attitudes.
If we are just bombarded by the world, and we do not have anything else, then all that pride of the world becomes important. Pride becomes the most important thing. We have to provide self-affirmation for our children, and all this kind of stuff is pride, pride, pride: “I can do anything. You can do better. I can do anything better than you.”
That is considered a noble thing. Oh, the world has these things pressing in on us. The mind is only so strong. The enemy’s mind is stronger than our minds.
Slowly but surely, our mind gets eroded. It becomes influenced by things. But thank God, they are only outward fashions. They fashion us on the outside.
People come along and say, “Oh, you are in college. You are just there majoring in something simple, like pre-med.” Somebody else says, “Oh, you need to be in business school.” They give you a line about that, and you say, “Yeah, maybe I am a businessman.” Somebody else says, “No, you are a philosopher.” “Yeah, maybe I am a philosopher.”
Depending on your influence, you think of this and you think of that. Under the influence.
They even have a school of psychology called behavioral modification. It says, “If you just say these things and act this way, you will be changed.” It is not really true.
Now, if we are Christians, we have a choice as to who our processor—our arbiter—is going to be. Is it going to be that mind, or is it going to be the spirit of our mind?
If we take something in and the spirit of our mind is renewed, we are metamorphosed and changed. If our mind is under the influence, we are only outwardly changed in fashion.
Christians need to be changed within. We really need transformation.
First, we need to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, and then we need to be renewed in the spirit of our minds.
Sometimes we hear the Word of God, and we are influenced by the Word of God outwardly. If we hear something, our mind becomes attentive. We say, “Yes, I want to be like that.” We find ourselves temporarily transformed, but not in the long run—not unless something happens more deeply within.
Because many of us here have good minds, our problem is often that we learn a lot of Christian things, but we are not walking in the good of them.
Our minds have grasped things, and even in the atmosphere of the Word of God and the teaching of truth, we have some adjustments of behavior. But they are only temporary unless the Lord can do something more deeply within.
So we find anomalies often in the body of Christ. We find some people who know all about church life, but they do everything independently. They do not check with anybody, and yet they know about church life.
There are people who know about the oneness of the body of Christ, yet everything they do is divisive. Or we worship and acknowledge the glory of Christ—He is all and in all—and yet we walk proud.
These are anomalies. These are part of the sort of hypocrisy that is part of all of us. That is why our prayer needs to be, “Lord, transform us.”
Thank God we have learned many things, but now it is time for these things to get down inside. How will these things get down inside?
The first thing that has to happen is to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. How are we transformed? It is what I call the transformation of presentation.
It is very simple. So, if your heart is true, this is a key, a vital part of the transformation of your spiritual life.
What does this mean? Paul says, “Present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.” Present your body.
Many Christians call it consecration. I would rather call it presentation, because that is what the Bible calls it. Consecration sounds like I am going into the priesthood.
In my Bible, consecration is really only used of consecrating priests or Nazarites. But it is true, it is consecration; it is presentation because it should be done every day.
You present your body as a living sacrifice every day to God. You give it to Him.
Now, I know this is a great mystery, but you and I have no idea how seriously God takes it when you give Him your mind. He will take it. He will keep it. He will discipline it. He will confound it.
Give it to Him. Do you want to be transformed? Give Him your mind, as well as your hands, your feet, your tongue, and the members of your body.
Presentation is the beginning of a process of transformation. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” How does that happen? Present yourself to God as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto Him.
Be a presenter. We have to depend upon the faithfulness of God for the transformation. Do you believe He can transform you? Give your mind to Him.
Along with this, it says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
So, not only do you present your mind and your life to God; you become what I call, in my teenage language, a daily tester.
How are you a daily tester? Prove what is the will of God. Do you find out what the will of God is, or are you just saying, “I do not know”? Test it out. How do you test it out? Ask the Lord.
Just as one example: we say, “Every day you should come to the Word of God. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Now, a lot of people have their morning devotions, and the word goes in one ear and right out the other.
It went through the mind. Ten minutes later, you ask them what they read, and they cannot even tell you where the Scripture was located. What happened there? No testing.
Nobody stops and says, “Okay, Lord, what does that mean? Lord, is that speaking to me? Lord, I praise You for what that says.” Ah, now you have grabbed hold of it. Test it.
If you take that word and hide it in your heart, instead of just letting it go, whoop, whoop—that is the mind process of somebody who says, “Well, I have got to read the Bible. My mom says I cannot go to school until I read the Bible. Okay, here it goes. I read the Bible. Okay, got it. Okay, I have got to get dressed.”
Take it in the mind. Think about it. Hide it in your heart. Test it. The Lord may even use that Scripture that very day in your life.
Suddenly, there is a difference. Not only have you given your life to Him, but you are taking seriously the things that He says.
I am glad to see a number of you take notes. I realize for some of you it is an antidote for falling asleep, but in any case, it is good that you are taking notes. Now, do you ever read the notes?
Do you ever chew on the stuff? Test it out. Prove it out. When God speaks to you by Scripture, do it. Obey it.
How do you find out the will of God? Even in this simple coming to God and presenting your body, then He tells you something in the Word, and you do it. You walk in obedience.
How do you know the will of God? You are walking. You are walking. You are trusting God. You have given your life to Him. You are walking, looking and watching for Him during the day. That is the proving person.
Of course, I always add to this that you need to ask the Lord to fill you with the Holy Spirit. “Lord, fill me with the Spirit. Lord, I need Your power today to resist temptation. I need Your power today to walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh.”
A brand-new Christian can make this kind of daily presentation, and they will grow very rapidly. God takes people seriously who come to Him and present themselves every day.
You, as a young person, will stay out of ninety percent of the trouble you would otherwise get into if you present yourself honestly and faithfully to God every day. He will keep you.
But when you do not present yourself, you are actually asking for it. Your transformation will go with a bit more difficulty and slowly.
So here is the first thing we do: transformation by presentation. Have you done that in your life? Do you do that in your life?
Do you realize the necessity that it says, “Present your body,” and, “Do not be conformed,” and, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”? Through the Word of God, in this daily presentation, walking by the Spirit—what a wonderful process this is in your life.
But, of course, this is just the beginning.
The Lord takes seriously people who commit themselves to Him. I often think that sometimes we belittle the efforts of people who have just come to the Lord.
Sometimes they get a little crazy and go witnessing to everybody, get a little zealous, and sometimes they do not always do things with wisdom. But a young Christian who has really given his heart and life to the Lord, the Lord uses in wonderful ways.
We should never disparage honest commitment to the Lord and service for Him, even when people are young in the Lord. It is a good time to share the gospel with your friends. The Lord will use you. Yes, He will.
You just present your life to Him. Trust Him to do the changing work.
Transformation through presentation. Now, the second one: we look in Ephesians 4 and see it there in verse 23: “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.”
Here there is a contrast that Paul is talking to Christians about. They are Christians, but some of them seem to still be walking as the Gentiles walk.
The old mind is still their attitude—still their pride, still their vanity, still running after even some of the lusts involved in darkened hearts.
Paul appeals to them and says, “You cannot walk like that anymore, because you have heard Christ, and you know the truth is in Jesus.”
Then he tells them in Ephesians 4:22:
That, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,
and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
and that you put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.—Ephesians 4:22-24
I still like “man” better than “self.” I am sorry. A lot of translations have switched to “self,” and there is too much of self already. I do not like self.
Now we are dealing with something here that is a spiritual renewal. A person is a Christian. They have become a new man in Christ. They are a new creation. Old things have passed away; all things have become new. They are a new creature, yet the spirit of their mind needs to be renewed in this transforming process.
What is that all about? The transformation, of course, is not just an outward thing. The transformation is a spiritual thing, and the mind is going to have to be changed in some way from the natural to the spiritual.
You know that this renewing of the spirit of your mind is going to come by the work of the cross in your life. The natural does not become spiritual by a medical metamorphosis, other than by death and resurrection.
So our mind, committed to God and sincerely offered to God, is going to go through a process.
Why? Our brother shared this morning—and I was glad it was at the end of his time, so he did not go into it—this matter of the fortresses that we have in our minds.
Christians have these fortresses in our minds. By now, I think you know where that Scripture is, right? Second Corinthians 10. Let us look there.
Paul is talking about something very specific, actually, which we will just touch on for a moment. Let us read verses 3 through 5:
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh,
for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God,
and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.—2 Corinthians 10:3-5
Every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. So now you see where the fortresses are: they are fortresses in our minds.
These fortresses he talks about here are described, as an example, as speculations or reasonings. What we think we know becomes a fortress to the true knowledge of Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 8:2, Paul says, “If any man thinks that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know.” That is exactly what Paul is talking about.
The things we think we know become fortresses that block the true knowledge of Christ with its transforming power in our lives.
Not only are there reasonings, but there is every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. Lofty things are the pride even of who we think we are: “I am pretty good.”
Paul is specifically dealing with a matter here that we see down in a couple more verses. There have grown up some men who feel like they are apostles. They think they are better than Paul, and they are trying to surreptitiously take over the Corinthian church.
Some of the Corinthians, lacking spiritual discernment, are buying the bluff and bravado of these false apostles.
Paul says, if you look down there in verse 7, that they are looking at things as they are outwardly.
You are looking at things as they are outwardly. If anyone is confident in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again within himself, that just as he is Christ’s, so also are we.
—2 Corinthians 10:7
Why are you looking at things outwardly? Your mind is looking at these apostles. Now, these guys are all over six feet tall, and they are on the football team. Here is Paul: he was in the chess club, and he is five foot four.
They are saying, “Ah, these guys studied a little more rhetoric than Paul did.” Paul says, “I do not use rhetoric. I just tell the truth in Christ.”
Some people, by their minds, say, “Oh, I know who I am, and I know who they are. These guys are pretty good.”
Paul is not trying to fight these guys. As a matter of fact, he is not going to say, “Okay, I am going to come there, and we are going to bring in some snakes. You try to kill them, and then I will try to kill them. Let us see who is really—” No, he is not going to use this kind of tactic.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. “I am not going to fight the situation on that level.” There are divinely powerful weapons. Of course, he is talking about prayer—that kind of divine authority in prayer, in the Spirit, and all of these things that can deal with these men.
Now, look at one little definition of these men in verse 12, because here is somebody who has a lofty idea about who they are and the basis of that lofty idea:
For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.
—2 Corinthians 10:12
These men think they are pretty good. They compare themselves with whom else? Themselves. Well, that is an easy standard. They are pretty good.
But they have no real basis of comparison. What do you compare yourself to as a servant of the Lord? If you compare yourself to Christ, you do not have a leg to stand on. And you do not compare yourself to anybody else.
Paul says, “I would not dare compare myself and say, ‘Well, I am better than that guy.’” When people get a lofty idea of who they are, this becomes a barricade, a fortress, and the true knowledge of Christ cannot come in and transform their lives.
So we all have these things. We have attitudes: “I am not going to do that. That is too spiritual. I am not going to do that. I do not need to do that. I am not going to be like those people who get down on their knees and pray. That is too fanatical.”
Fanaticism is anybody who loves Jesus more than me. We think they are fanatics, you know.
We get attitudes about what we are not going to do. “Well, I do not need to study. I read it one time; I already got it.” All kinds of things. It is all self-confidence—every kind of self-confidence.
That is why, in order for us to be renewed in the spirit of the mind, often there is a lot of breaking-down work that has to happen.
There is nobody as masterful as God at confounding a proud man. God confounds the wisdom of the wise.
A brother or sister who has learned all the truth is going to be confounded until they say, “Lord, I do not know anything except You.”
I do not know if you have ever realized this, but the people even here this weekend whom the Lord is really able to talk to are the people who are no longer sure about themselves.
When people are sure about themselves in this kind of self-confidence, there is little transforming that is going to happen in their lives.
But the Holy Spirit is very faithful. As our brother shared in a very scary way this afternoon, the Lord has a way of breaking down our confidences. When we feel like we are the mountain strong, He suddenly shifts that mountain into the sea.
He undoes that stronghold in our minds in order to renew our minds.
Now, how is He going to do this by the work of the cross? Does He crucify the mind? Well, you cannot. You have to keep thinking.
No, no. Here is the issue: Who is minding the mind? That is the issue.
It is the spirit that needs to be minding the mind—being the filter, saying yes to this, no to this, remember this, use this—that disciplines the mind.
When the Spirit is in control of the mind, the mind is Spirit-controlled. Ah, then there is life and peace.
But there is another controller there, and it is the one we are used to. We will just call him “I.” Who is minding the mind?
Our brother Stephen was very accurate. I do not know if you picked it up today, but he was talking in Romans 8, and he actually said that those who are minding in the flesh lead to death, and those minding in the Spirit know life and peace.
It is because the Greek word there, what I have translated in my New American Standard as “those who set their minds,” actually means “minding.”
In English, we have this double meaning to “mind.” We say, “This is the mind,” but we also say, “Mind your own business.” Or, “I am minding the store.” What does that mean? It means I am the arbiter. I am doing the business here.
So the question is this: our mind has to function. Did Paul’s mind stop functioning in order to be renewed? No. But the minder of the store had to be changed.
It had to be changed from “I am in control of my mind, what I believe, and what I will do,” to the Spirit controlling my mind—what I will receive, what I reject, and what I will do.
There has to be this transition that takes place in our life. The “I,” of course, has to come to the end of himself. So the Lord allows the mountains to tremble, the earthquakes to come, and the dealings in our life.
In the earlier days of my ministry, after I grasped a lot of stuff and read as much of Watchman Nee as I could, and had a lot of things gathered in my mind, I found great satisfaction in speaking on these things.
But I found a certain kind of death in me. I would speak them, and there was not the kind of response I was hoping for.
The Lord has to kind of undo you sometimes out of your knowledge, to get you back to saying, “Lord, I do not know what to say. What do You want me to say?”
Ah, then He says, “Oh, you are giving Me control now? Okay, how about this? What about that?” He kind of leads you in the preparation of a message.
But when you are at the point where you know everything, that is the problem with seminary. When I went to seminary—now, this is not the content; it is the “I” that gets installed. That is the problem.
I know you need to know. There is a lot of professionalism that sort of gets in through the cracks.
I remember when I was in seminary, there was a visiting professor, Dr. Summers, who wrote a book on the Book of Revelation. Right now, I am studying the Book of Revelation up in New York.
I remember studying the Book of Revelation at seminary, and by the time I was through, I understood the whole book. I thought, “I know everything in it. It all fit into a nice pot.”
Then one day—I do not know exactly what day it was—God pulled the plug out of my bathtub of Revelation, and the whole book went down the drain.
There were some things that did not fit. I heard some brothers saying other things, and I started looking. That did not quite fit. The next thing you know, when that did not fit, it was like dominoes. The whole theory I had of how the Book of Revelation works did not work anymore, and that was lost.
Even now, I am still setting up the dominoes one by one, trying to stay a chapter ahead, you know. The Bible says there is a great mystery in that book.
The man is a fool who thinks he has it all figured out and does not respect anybody else.
It is good to come to what God reveals to you and works in your life regarding a great book like the Book of Revelation. But when we get to the place where we do not fellowship with people who have some other view of the millennium, or something like that, what is that?
It is not the mind of Christ.
So the Lord often has to do a brutal work of undoing things. We teach in a class all the things that we know, and people get nothing out of it. It does us no good.
We have all this stuff up here, and it is just not getting into the renewal of the spirit of our minds.
Now, again, I hesitate to get too mechanical about this. But at least we can see by this letter to the Ephesians where the renewing of our mind takes place.
Here it is: the renewing of the spirit of our mind takes place in the valley of exchange.
We are putting off the old man. We are putting on the new man. Something is happening in that process.
This putting off of the old man and putting on of the new man is not the same as Romans 6, which talks about the objective fact that our old man has been crucified. This is talking about walking out in our experience whom we are going to live under.
Putting off the old man is something a Christian can do. Putting on the new man is something a Christian can do. But it happens down in the valley, by the renewing of the spirit of your mind.
What is it that you see? Do you know when we are transformed? It is when we see who we are.
But you do not see who you are by looking inward. We first begin to see who we are by seeing who we are not.
Oftentimes, a Christian will be a Christian in name for years and still have a lot of the fashion of the world. They find defeat in their life and defeat. They keep taking the world, getting the bad taste in the mouth, and being defeated.
Yet you ask them, “Are you crucified with Christ?” They say, “I am trying to be. I want to be. Oh, I want to be so badly. I know I ought to be. If I deny myself a little bit more, maybe I will be.”
You realize they have not seen it yet. They do not know who they are.
When you are down in this valley, in the experience of your walk, that is where you get renewed—not when you are in your study reading a book.
You are down in this valley, and here is the old man, in his lust and darkness and everything, presenting himself to you once again and saying, “That is who you really are, you know.”
“You are not a Christian like Brother Stephen Kong. You are still an old worldly person. That is all you are, and I can prove it to you. Look at that attitude. Look at that negativity. Look at that failure. You are supposed to serve the Lord, and you flunked.”
You say, “Yes, I did. I guess I am not a very good Christian.” You go through that, and you go through that, and you go through that. The devil tells you, “You are still the old man. You see, you are still the old man. You have not been crucified yet.”
Until finally, down in the valley, something you saw from the moment you became a Christian clicks with you: Christ died for me.
“I am no longer the old man. Now, I may have his fashion. My mind is awfully used to work in that way. I still have that attitude. I still have that negativity. I still want that revenge. I still think my rights have been violated.”
“But something deep inside of me knows I am not that old man.”
Now, you can take off the old man. Do you know you do not have to wear him?
A majority of Christians today think they are still the old man trying to become the new man. You will not get anywhere that way.
But somewhere, God shows you down in your heart who you are. You are crucified with Christ.
You do not see who you are by looking at yourself. That is not how you find out who you are. You see who Christ is. That is how you find out who you are.
“I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I.” It is not I anymore. That is not me. That old man—that is not me.
“Well, who are you?” “Well, I am the new man.”
“Well, who is the new man?” “That is me. I am going to be better now.” Oh, no, that is nothing new.
Who is the new man? Christ. Well, no, it is not just Christ. It is Christ in you. But it is not just Christ in you; it is Christ in you with the Spirit in control and not you anymore.
You go walking out of that valley of exchange in the new man.
Now listen: if you do not know you can take off the old man and put on the new man, you are stuck. You do not know who you are.
You are either deceived into thinking you are a good Christian, or you are deceived into thinking you are still the old man.
You look around and say, “Boy, all these other Christians really look like they are worshiping. How come my mind is on business right now?”
The new man’s mind is on Christ. But you have to get down in that valley to see it.
Would it not be great if there were a shortcut? You just go from being the old man to being the new man. You do not have to put off; you do not have to put on. Just like that.
Well, when Christ comes back, we will be changed in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye. Until that time comes, we have to live out of something so deep in us. It is called the spirit of your mind.
This term itself causes us great difficulty. I asked a sister this morning, “What does the NIV translate this: ‘Be renewed in the spirit of your mind’?” Of course, the NIV says, “Be renewed in the attitude of your mind.”
Now let me explain once again the problem with that. The Greek says, “the spirit of the mind.”
Modern evangelical Christianity today does not believe man is body, soul, and spirit. They believe man is body and soul. Therefore, spirit has to be retranslated all the time.
The modern evangelical says, “What is the spirit of your mind? It is the deepest part of your mind. It is the intuitive part of your mind. It is the attitude deep down in your mind.”
But until you see that man is body, soul, and spirit, you will not understand what it means to be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
The spirit of your mind is the deepest part of your mind, but it is the part where the spirit touches your mind. It is the part where the Holy Spirit is revealing to you, right there in the spirit of your mind. That needs to be renewed.
The Holy Spirit needs to be quick and right there, deep in that spot. Deep calls unto deep.
You are hearing the Word of God coming right through the ears right now. It went into that ear, and it is going right out that ear.
Sometimes, if your mind is strong, you say, “Hey, I am going to take this. I am going to live like this.” But it is all outward.
What if a deep word comes and deep calls unto deep? Inside, you know who you are. You are nothing in yourself, but, “Oh, Lord, I know that You live in me. I know I want Your Spirit to take control.”
He will take a word like this, and deep will speak unto deep.
That is why, when people are collapsed about who they are—they used to be so sure who they were, and now they are not so sure—they say, “Who am I, Lord? Who am I? I do not know.” That is when they are always open to transformation.
That is when they receive a word, and it changes their lives. It is because they are not depending on the “I”; the “I” is not minding the mind.
The “I” has been thrown off in a dizzying confounding, and he does not know what to do. The Holy Spirit can speak a still, small voice.
In the spirit of your mind is where there is a still, small voice. In the spirit of the mind is where you can see, and your mind begins to understand things spiritually.
The Spirit has to be on the throne, minding the mind, for us to see these things.
Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. In that deepest part, you need to know who you are: “I am not that old man. I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, but it is not I; it is Christ living in me.”
Paul takes it right out of there and says, “So begin walking like that.”
The proof of this renewal is the walk. You notice in Ephesians that the very next verse is verse 25:
Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.
—Ephesians 4:25
You see it? You see it? A person who has been renewed in the spirit of their mind sees it. They see who they are in Christ, and they begin to walk in that renewed way.
But it happens down in this valley—this valley where the cross is working on us. Sometimes it is working on us blindly, undoing a lot of plans, a lot of hopes, a lot of ideas, a lot of “I know who I am,” and a lot of “I know what I know” stuff.
Sometimes it is a long process in getting “I” fumbled off the throne so that the Spirit can shine some light.
Spiritual mindedness is as the Spirit gains more and more effect on your life, on your mind, and influence on your mind. He disciplines your mind.
Your mind is not controlled by the world. Your mind is controlled and led by the Holy Spirit.
You just do not read that stuff anymore. It is not even a question of what is good or bad. It is just, “Hey, I cannot do that because, in my mind, I am being led in a disciplined way.”
We come out on the other side not only with a greater clarity about who Christ is, and even who Christ is in me, but we also come out with the ability to walk that which we have seen.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
I know something about every Christian here: you have a spirit of your mind.
The Holy Spirit wants to gain, renew, and enable you to live in that area of your mind. Then the rest of your mind will be used.
I think I could just rest and say that Paul’s example is enough testimony to us that a mind under the control of the Holy Spirit is a very clear, very useful tool.
He was clear. He was sure. He was particular. He could be specific. He could be global. That mind was useful to the Lord because it was controlled by the Spirit and not the “I.”
So we find that even in our mind, the “I” has to be dethroned and the Holy Spirit placed in control. That is how we come to this renewing of the mind.
It can only happen by the work of the cross. We cannot naturally do this. Even if you hear this, you cannot naturally make this happen in your life.
But if we know who we really are—do you know who you really are?—know this: if we know who we really are, we will ask the Lord, “Please, Lord, take our lives. Deal with us. Transform us so that we can know You and the true knowledge of God.”
Let us look at one more verse, and then I will close. This is in Colossians 3. It is a parallel verse to Ephesians 4, but again the section has to do with putting off the old man, putting on the new man, and this renewal of the mind that is in between.
We will read verses 9 through 11 of Colossians 3:
Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old man with its evil practices,
and have put on the new man, who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—
a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free man, but Christ is all, and in all.—Colossians 3:9-11
Being renewed in the spirit of our mind, we see that Christ is all and in all. We see Christ in our brother. We see our brother in Christ. We see Christ as all and in all.
There are no more Gentiles and Jews. There are no more moral or cultural strongholds, because we are in Christ. We have put off the old man. We have put on the new man. We are being renewed in a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created us.
Lord, we want to come to You and, in a fresh way, present ourselves—the members of our body, our minds—unto You tonight.
Lord, You are the only One who can work out these things, and You do it in Your own mysterious way, differently in everybody’s life.
Lord, we come to You knowing who we are and what we need, and we present ourselves to You tonight.
Oh Lord, I pray for young and old alike. None of us are beyond a daily presentation.
Lord, we want to commit our lives into Your hands. Your hands transform with permanent, inward transformation in our life.
Lord, we know it is going to cost something for that inward renewing of our minds—for our minds to be transformed in such a way that they see things in a Christ-centered way and from Your perspective.
May our minds be able to live in body life, married life, vocational life, and whatever institution or thing we are involved in. May we see things under the control and discipline of the Holy Spirit.
Lord, deal with us in such a way that we come to an understanding of who we really are in Christ. Having seen, may we begin to walk.
Oh, help us, Lord, to walk it out in spiritual reality, to live by the Spirit and not by the flesh.
Lord, deal with us. Teach us how to do these things. We ask for Your mercy and help, in Jesus’ name. Amen.