Purpose Driven Life

Purpose Driven Life – “Created to be like Christ” - TRANSFORMED BY TRUTH

I. Review

a. Purpose Driven Life has been our focus.

i. Discovering why you are here and getting after “it.”

ii. As we said last week, discover and pursue your destiny!

iii. This study has helped me to pay attention to people in our church as I see God work in their lives, I see their destiny, their legacy unfolding.

II. We are currently learning the third of the 5 purposes that God has for us.

a. Planned for God’s Purpose

b. Formed for God’s Family

c. Created to Become Like Christ.

i. Our church’s mission statement states that “Here’s Hope exists to be a safe harbor of God’s love where people are transformed into devoted followers of Christ.”

ii. We will be spending the next few weeks (except Easter) on this “transformation” process.

1. Becoming a devoted follower of Christ is a process of changing what we once were into what God says we are.

2. To become Christ-like, we have three responsibilities:

a. Let go of the old ways of living.

i. We have to destroy the autopilot of our lives.

ii. A boat can be run on autopilot. And you can force the rudder with brute strength to turn a different direction for awhile, but you will get tired because you are meeting resistance, and the boat will go back in the same direction it was before.

iii. This is the reason we must die to our old way of living.

b. Change the way we think

i. This will be what we speak about today.

c. Put on new ways of living.

i. Your character is the sum of your habits.

ii. We must replace the old with new, or we will end up worse than we were before.

3. You may remember that last week I said that a disciple is one who is becoming what he already is and who is learning to possess what he already owns.

iii. This brought up the distinction between “position” and “practice.”

1. Those of you who went to your Shepherd Group had a chance to more deeply examine what that meant.

2. As a review, your position is what you are in Christ.

a. It is the unchanging, eternal heavenly reality that became yours because of what Jesus did for you.

b. Position describes what you “already are” and “already own”

c. You were once an enemy of God, and now you are His family.

d. Your position changed when you were born again.

e. Some examples:

i. God says that we are “complete and perfect in Christ.”

ii. We are “and without spot” before God.

iii. We are “more than conquerors through Christ.”

3. Your practice, on the other hand, is what our lives look like on a daily basis.

a. Most all of us can probably pretty easily admit that our practice does not match our position.

b. The “work” of the Holy Spirit is bringing our practice into line with our position.

4. When we look at our lives, we see such a different reflection in the mirror, and we are tempted to DISBELIEVE what God says about us!

iv. The importance of understanding POSITION and PRACTICE cannot be understated.

1. When the emphasis in your life is upon your practice, your life will be filled with performance based living and a great deal of guilt and frustration.

a. You will be constantly trying to measure up to the standards of God.

b. You will fail.

2. But when your life is focused upon your Position, you are intently trying to comprehend and understand and apply what God says about you.

a. This action leads to faith based living.

b. This action leads to believing what God says about you.

c. And belief leads to action.

d. And that introduces us to our subject for today.

III. We are transformed by truth.

a. Over the next few weeks we will be learning about the tools God uses to transform us.

i. Transformed by truth

ii. Transformed by trouble

iii. Transformed by temptation

b. Open your bibles to Ephesians 4:17.

c. Ephesians 4:17-24 “So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk (practice your life) 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.

d. 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 self, 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 self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth”

i. Paul is encouraging his readers to bring their practice into line with their position.

ii. I wonder if you paid attention to how many references were in this passage to minds, understanding, ignorance and truth?

a. Mind, understanding, ignorance: 4

b. Truth: 2

iii. The reason I bring this us is that truth is the central point of this passage.

1. The Greek word for “futility of their mind” is a word that means “devoid of truth” or useless.

2. He also brings attention to the fact that they have been “darkened in their understanding” which again is a function of the mind.

3. He tells them that those apart from Christ are excluded from Him because of ignorance which is the result of a hardened heart.

4. And then he speaks about Christians…that we have been taught the truth in Jesus, that we be renewed in the “spirit of our minds” and that we put on the new self which is in the likeness of God…created in righteousness and holiness of the TRUTH.

iv. Do you see a pattern?

1. Truth has the power to transform us, but without it, we are blind and useless!

IV. How does the world believe we are transformed?

i. Psychology – this is a prominent movement. In some ways, they understood correctly that the mind is a central component to a changed life.

1. But what was missing was the core ingredient: Truth.

2. To the Psychologists, guilt is the enemy.

a. The Psychologists tried to change the beliefs of their patients…that is, if you don’t believe something is wrong, then if you do it guilt won’t be your enemy any more.

b. The problem is that this produces people missing a conscience, who don’t feel bad when they hurt someone.

c. This is why it is so important to see Christian Psychologists, who incorporate truth with the changed mind.

ii. Prison reform, rehabilitation – the thinking here was if you could teach someone job skills when they were in prison, that they would come out and stop being a drug addict, murderer or sex offender. But the truth is, without a change of heart, no amount of skills could change a person.

iii. Economic reform: They believe that if we redistributed all the money in the world, everyone will be better off.

1. The truth is, everyone will still act the way they did before they got the money, and within 2 years, the money will be back in the hands of the same people as it was before the redistribution.

iv. Conditioning Reform – BF Skinner (man is just an animal, conditioning).

1. If you stimulate a person, rewarding behavior and punishing others, you can make them act in a certain way. But all you have done is change their actions, you have not changed the reason why they act that way.

V. The composition of man – we need to know how man is made.

a. He is comprised of a body (earth suit with which he interacts with the physical world)

b. He has a soul: comprised of a mind, will, and emotions.

c. He has a spirit: (which he interacts with the spiritual world)

d. Some of you have been here when I have taught more extensively on this composition of man, but to simplify it, the soul- (the mind, the will and the emotions) is the tool by which we control the body and interpret or understand the impressions from the spirit.

i. Unfortunately, our bodies try to control us from the outside in, through its appetites and cravings.

ii. Our spirit, once connected to Christ, cries out to have God control us from the inside out.

iii. But our soul (mind, will and emotions) is the battlefield for control of our lives.

VI. Today, we are going to look at the mind.

i. The Mind’s role & function

1. The things of God are sensed in the spirit but they are understood in the mind.

2. Because of this (and the passage we read from Ephesians), there is a tremendous danger of misunderstanding the things of God that are sensed in the spirit because our mind is not grounded in truth.

3. (Rom 12:2) tells us that the mind is essential to understanding the will of God.

4. Our mind is not our brain. Our brain is an organ. It will die and remain.

a. But our mind (which includes our thoughts, personality, memory, will and emotions) will live forever.

b. It is part of our eternal soul.

ii. The Mind’s limitations and condition

1. We cannot serve God with our minds alone.

a. Our minds are too weak to simply “will” something to happen.

b. Paul discovered that his mind was not capable of obeying God: “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and brining me into captivity which is in my members.” (Rom 7:23).

c. Our mind alone is not able to know God’s thoughts, because God’s thoughts are so much different and higher than ours. Reason and faith are often opposed because God often acts in ways that are counter-intuitive to us.

i. Is 55:8-9 “The Lord’s thoughts are not our thoughts, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His thoughts higher than our thoughts”

2. The mind of the non-Christian cannot understand the truths and concepts of the bible by itself.

a. 1 Cor 2:14 “But people who aren't Christians can't understand these truths from God's Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them because only those who have the Spirit can understand what the Spirit means”

b. 2 Cor 4:4 “They do not believe, because their minds have been kept in the dark by the evil god of this world. He keeps them from seeing the light shining on them, the light that comes from the Good News about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

3. The conclusion these points are leading to is that the mind was not designed to work apart from the Spirit of God.

a. In our fall from grace in the garden, man chose the fruit of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. Some scholars view this as the exaltation of knowledge apart from the Spirit of God. Rebellion that says, “I know better than God.”

VII. What happens when the mind is “renewed” (Renewed means to make new or different)

a. Before we were Christians, we acted as we pleased, believed what we wanted to, and bought into just about everything that our society told us.

i. We had unrenewed minds

b. When we become Christians, we get a new heart, but we still have our old minds.

i. You can liken it to someone who has a bunch of recordings on tape.

1. He has collected all these tapes from his entire life.

2. He has some that his parents helped him record, things that tell him what a bad person he is or that he will never amount to anything.

3. He has others that his friends and schools helped him to record, that tell him he needs approval of others, that he will find value in success and money and pleasure.

4. Still other recordings lay all over the place, in the closets of his life, where he has learned something from someone and believed it.

ii. But a life with a new heart and old mind is still a slave to the lies he believes.

1. He has the desire to do right but lacks the power because he doesn’t know the truths about what God says about him.

2. He is still replaying the tapes that he recorded his whole life.

iii. And his mind is like a blocked pipe.

1. The Spirit of God desires to express Himself through your mind, but when it is blocked with lies and filled with things that don’t belong to God, God is unable to be expressed through your life.

2. Jesse Penn Lewis says that “a blocked mind is a spirit unexpressed.”

3. People won’t see anything different about you, because you aren’t any different.

4. Your actions reflect your beliefs and your beliefs come from the tapes you play in your head.

5. This is the tragedy and the scandal of the church. Paul saw it and addressed it in the first century, and it still persists today.

6. We live with new hearts but old minds.

a. We want to be holy, we want to serve God, but we have blocked pipes, backing up with the sewage of our old beliefs and are unable to.

7. Some Christians simply give up and don’t even try to be different any more.

a. They view it as an impossible task.

8. Others move into the “pretend” mode.

a. They pretend to be holy, because they cannot stand to see the contradiction in their lives.

b. But they can seldom hide it for long, as others eventually see contradictions as well.

9. There is only one place to go.

a. That is to Christ for renewal!

c. How to renew the mind.

i. Become a Positional Believer.

1. Last week we spoke about our “position” as opposed to practice.

2. We need to study and believe what God says about us.

3. Instead of focusing upon our practices, which will fall short, we need to incorporate the truths God says about us into our lives and build our lives on what God says.

4. This is a process of erasing the old tapes and replacing them with new ones!

5. It is also a walk of faith, as you believe what God says instead of what you feel or experience.

6. Romans 12:2 “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.”

a. Change always starts in the mind.

b. The word for repentance is “metanoia” which means to change your mind.

i. You change the way you think by thinking and believing what God says about you.

ii. Pay attention to what you think about.

1. Ro 8:6 “For the mind set upon the flesh is death, but the mind set upon the spirit is life.”

a. How do we get our mind “set” upon the things of the flesh?

i. What we think about controls our mind.

ii. Watch what you read, what you see, what you hear.

iii. If we live for the flesh, we will be consumed by thoughts of how to satisfy the flesh. But if we live for the Spirit, our mind will be filled with thoughts of how to please the Holy Spirit.

iv. Don’t be a passive participant in this world.

2. NLT: Rom 8:6 “If your sinful nature controls your mind, there is death. But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace.”

a. What we feed (our flesh or our spirit) we give control to.

iii. Stop thinking immature thoughts.

1. “Stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.” (1 Pet 2:2)

2. Babies by nature are selfish. They think only of themselves and their own needs. They are incapable of giving, they can only receive. That is their stage of life…it is called “immature.”

3. The bible says that is the source of sinful behavior.

a. “Those who live according to their sinful desires think only about what their sinful selves want.” (Romans 8:5)

b. When I was a child, I talked as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child. When I became a man (grew up), I put childish ways behind me.” (1 Co 13:11)

iv. Bring every thought under control

1. 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 Cor 10:5)

2. “The truth will set you free, but first it may make you miserable”

3. Source of truth is the Word of God.

a. “Thy word is truth”

i. Receive it

ii. Read it

iii. Research it

iv. Remember it

v. Reflect on it

b. “How I love your teachings! I think about them all day long.” (Ps. 119.97)

VIII. Characteristics of the transformed mind

a. One who is replacing his or her old values with God’s attitudes, belief’s and biblical concepts.

b. A renewed mind is a place where the strongholds of reasonings have been overthrown so that the mind is no longer in control of the enemy.

c. A renewed mind is a place where every thought is submitted to Christ.

i. Thoughts don’t run free and wild, but are ordered and submitted to Christ.

ii. Literally, the thoughts are captured.

d. Our thoughts are no longer independent of Christ.

i. Our mind is working in conjunction with our spirit and the Spirit of God.

What about you today? Has your life been filled with contradictions and self-condemnation? Are you ready to be freed from the lies that you have heard so often that you believe them as the truth? You can begin that process today, through a choice of your will. To surrender your mind to Christ and to His truth. You can choose to stop living independently from God and choose to begin to depend upon Him for your every need. Dependency upon Jesus Christ is at the core of a Renewed mind as you make the choice to believe what God says about you.

1. Will you read your bible? Will you look for the truths that God says about you? Will you believe them?
(Next session) Colossians 3:10 PUT ON: put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created ⁸ him—

2. Next session: Logizomai from Eph. 4:22-24 – reckon (41 times in NT, 19 in Romans) deals with reality…to count, compute, calculate; as in your checkbook. These are FACTS not suppositions