Hartland Fall Convocation 2021: Christ, Emotional Intelligence, and End-Time Events

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Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Armando Lopez

Renewing the Mind

It's a blessing to be here with you this morning and sharing from the Word of God.

The title of the message this morning is Renewing the Mind and Our scripture reading was in Romans chapter 12.

And this appeal is, to really understand this appeal, we have to see everything that comes before.

This appeal was in the context of everything that he has talked about previously.

If you study the book of Romans, the book of Romans has to deal with righteousness by faith.

In this book, he expounds on this great doctrine of God's gift of his righteousness, the universal need for God's righteousness for humanity, and how God has given this gift freely to all humanity.

So this is, he's building this doctrinal portion of his book, of his letter, in the first chapters.

Well, the majority of the book is this section.

Just building a massive fabric of doctrine.

And once we get to chapter 12, he starts his practical exposition.

From chapters 12 onward, you're going to see that the Apostle Paul becomes very practical in his message, and all these practical applications are based on what he has talked about previously.

Paul is really what he's telling us is, you know, In light of all what God has done for us, in light of the free gift of salvation, in light of the Spirit working in our life, then He makes this appeal.

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." Your reasonable service.

This word reasonable is in the Greek, it's the word that we get our word for logic from.

In other words, this is the logical thing.

In light of what God has done for us, the logical thing is for us to be willing to surrender our lives to His leading.

This is the proper response in light of all what God has done in behalf of humanity.

Then he goes on in verse 2 and he says, "...and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

This is what I want to focus on this morning, this aspect of renewing of the mind.

But this experience of the renewing of the mind, it takes place in the context of someone who has experienced righteousness by faith.

Someone who has, because of all what God has done for them, they have willingly submitted and surrendered their life.

They have laid their life on the altar of sacrifice.

And now begins a whole experience of renewing the mind, of reshaping the mind.

He says, do not be conformed to this world.

And it's interesting, this word conformed, it gives the idea of kind of like, it's like, it's the idea of a mold.

The world is trying to mold us and shape us into something.

The world, sin is like a sculptor and it's trying to shape you into something and Paul is calling us to resist this molding of the world through its customs, through habits.

You know, our life has been shaped and molded by the world.

You know, there's no escaping the reality that human patterns of thinking, of feeling, believing, behaving have been shaped by the cultures in which we live and grow up in.

And Peter speaks about this reality of how sin has shaped us in his epistle.

If we turn to 1 Peter, go to 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 14.

1, verse 14, and in English you can't see it, but he's going to use the same word that he's going to use the same word that is used by Paul in Romans chapter 12, verse 2.

1 Peter 1, verse 14, he says, As obedient children, not what?

Not fashioning or not conforming yourselves to what?

Your former lusts or your former desires.

Peter is saying, you know, your past life has shaped you and Even though you experience genuine conversion, you know, your past life and habits are still going to want to, the world is still going to try to shape and mold you, and you have to resist that by the grace of God.

In the Greek, the word is transliterated as σχηματίσο, to conform oneself to another pattern.

So again, the world has a pattern that it wants to shape you and mold you into.

And as Christians, we need to resist the shaping and the molding, the sculpting of the world's pattern.

At the same time, and again, this is in the light of someone who has experienced genuine conversion.

You know, conversion doesn't just automatically obliterate all your past bad habits and wrong ways of thinking that you have cultivated and the mold of your mind.

Let me read to you a statement from Christ's Object Lessons, page 281.

Ellen White says, and let none flatter themselves that sins cherished for a time can easily be given up by and by.

Every sin cherished weakens the character and strengthens habit.

And physical, mental, and moral depravity is the result.

You may repent of the wrong you have done and set your feet in right paths, but the mold of your mind and your familiarity with evil will make it difficult for you to distinguish between right and wrong.

Through wrong habits formed, Satan will assail you again and again." You can genuinely repent of your past life, and yet you are going to still struggle because of wrong habits that have shaped and molded your mind.

And she says, Satan is going to assail you again and again through those specific avenues.

This is why it's so important, this call, This appeal to renew our minds.

What Paul tells us in Romans chapter 12 verse 2.

He's calling us to have an experience of renewing the mind.

So let's read verse 14 again and we'll read all the way to verse 16.

So, like Paul, he tells us to not conform to this world, right?

Not conform ourselves to our former lust, our former desires that have shaped and molded us.

He says then in verse 14, as obedient children, sorry, verse 15, But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.

So God has called us to a transformation of our mind and that transformation of our mind is the experience of becoming holy or sanctification.

Holiness is not just a divine declaration, it's a human vocation, something we are called to be.

And in this epistle, the Apostle Peter gives us, he enlightens us to some of the sanctifying agents that God uses to make us holy.

In chapter 1, verse 2, he tells us, "...elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in sanctification of the Spirit.

So the Holy Spirit plays a key role in that process of sanctification.

Not just this, but in Chapter 1, he goes on and throughout the Bible, this is not going to be our study today, but throughout the Bible you see that the Holy Spirit works through the Word of God.

So There's a number of passages where the work of what the Holy Spirit does, you'll read other passages being described as, this is something that the Word of God does, because they work together.

You know, in John chapter 3 it talks about being born of the Spirit, right?

Well right here in chapter 1 verse 23, notice what Peter tells us, or Peter refers to as the agent in being born again.

He says, having been born again not of what?

Corruptible seed but of incorruptible through The Word of God which lives and abides forever.

So here he attributes the being born again to something that happens through thee.

And again, it's not either or, it's they work together.

Sanctification of the Spirit, as Paul says in Thessalonians, and belief in the truth.

God's Word, Jesus said in John 17, verse 17, Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is Truth.

So God's Word, God's Truth, and God's Spirit work together in that process and experience of sanctification.

They work together in bringing us new life in Christ and being born again, but they also work in the experience of sanctification.

If we go to chapter 2, verse 1, he says, Therefore laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil, speaking as newborn babes, what does he say?

Desire the sincere milk of the Word, that you may Grow thereby.

Growth, the experience of sanctification.

Growing in Christ takes place through the Word of God.

But here's a distinction that I want to make.

Sometimes we can get mixed up in and it has, I've seen this tendency in my own life to, sometimes we can believe that learning truth, it's about just gaining information, okay?

That sanctification is just about learning things from the Bible, learning right doctrine, right belief.

And that is part of the experience, but It's not just that.

The renewing of the mind, it does take place through new information from the Word of God.

And we need this new information because as it tells us in Isaiah chapter 55, God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways my ways.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

So the way you think is not exactly how God thinks.

And that's why we need an experience of renewing the mind.

We need to have a new way of thinking, but renewing of the mind is not just about new information.

Renewing the Mind

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