How to Renew Your Mind

Last week I explained that the rest of the Sermon on the mount is about what it means to be a disciple. And disciple is not a confusing or mysterious or even particularly religious term. A disciple is someone who’s committed to being with another person to learn from them how to do something. You are someone’s disciple — you have learned how to live from someone. || And you and I have the opportunity to commit ourselves to being a disciple of Jesus — to learn from him how to live life. And I asked you to start thinking and praying about that last week. || Today, we look at what Jesus teaches about what’s going on inside our hearts and minds, and how that’s bound to come out through our words and actions. || This is what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. (Matthew 7:15-20) Jesus teaches a similar principle in Luke 6: No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. (Luke 6:43-45) || I want to point out two laws — two principles from these passages in the next few moments, and then lay out a couple options for your life and mine. || Jesus starts with a point so simple, yet profound, that people miss it all the time. || What kind of fruit does a fig tree produce? || That’s not a trick question. A fig tree produces figs. This is deep I know. || What Jesus is getting at here is what might be called — The Law of the Tree. Which is just this — what goes on inside the tree determines what gets produced outside the tree. || Inside each of us is this constant flow of thoughts and feelings that are happening all the time. || There’s a stream of perceptions and emotions, and they take on certain patterns, certain tendencies. || And they inevitably determine your fruit. || Now, fruit here represents your behaviors — your actions. But they’re determined by that stream of thoughts and feelings going on inside you all the time. || Now, I believe this starts to get to the point Jesus wanted to make here in these passages. Our thoughts and feelings take on certain patterns, certain tendencies that inevitably determine the fruit that we bear — the kind of things that we say and do. || And when we do something or when we open our mouths, we’re just letting out the thoughts and feelings that flow inside the tree. || People who do well at loving are simply the kind of people who have loving thoughts and loving feelings. Cranky people are simply people who tend to have bitter, resentment-producing thoughts and feelings. || This is what we mean when we talk about a person’s character — what’s happening on the inside comes out. || || Over the last several decades, so many studies have demonstrated that what is happening on the inside is bound to come out, that the single most dominant movement in American psychology has come to be known as “Cognitive Psychology.” It’s built around the idea that the way you think is the most important thing about you. It determines your attitude. It determines your emotions. It determines your behaviors. Scientists have actually discovered that it determines whether or not you’re vulnerable to illness. || The inside of the tree — the flow of thoughts and feelings — is what determines your life. It is your life! || Now, Jesus is teaching this passage in the Sermon on the Mount within the context of watching out for false teachers. || Both Jesus and the Pharisees (who Jesus continually warned his followers about) were very concerned about obeying God. But there was a fundamental difference in their approach. || The Pharisees talked about all the laws God had. They wanted to obey them, but their approach was to do what they called “build a fence around the law.” || And it worked like this: In Genesis 2:17, God says to Adam and Eve they were not to EAT of the fruit of the tree. And then in Genesis 3:2, Eve, the woman, says, “God told us we weren’t supposed to TOUCH the fruit.” Now, the rabbis read that and they said, “What must have been going on is there must have been a supplemental law that said, ‘Don’t touch the fruit,’ because if you don’t touch the fruit, then it will be very difficult to eat the fruit.” Makes sense, right? || So their approach to the law was to build fences around the law. || For instance, the law says, “Don’t commit adultery.” So one rabbi made it a law, a rule, that you should not talk to a woman. — “No one should talk to a woman.” And the idea was if you don’t talk to a woman, you are less likely to commit adultery with a woman. Makes sense, right? || So they just built fences around the law. || || This was known as the tradition of the elders. It finally was written down in the Mishna — 523 sections, 5-10 paragraphs each. And it was all about — where do you put a fence around the law? || And they would argue about things like… If an unclean bird sits on the eggs of a clean bird — clean eggs — do those eggs become unclean? Or if a dog eats from a corpse, the dog becomes unclean, and then if the dog lies on the threshold of a house, does that make the house unclean? Or — this is actually in the Mishna — if a man makes a dough offering out of barley when he’s naked, does the offering become unclean? And they’d argue about this stuff to try to figure out, where do you put a fence around the law to make sure people obey the law? || Jesus has a fundamentally different approach to obeying God. And this is his insight — it’s absolutely brilliant. Jesus says, “If you aim at behavior — if you aim at doing what’s right and avoiding what’s wrong — it’s a set up for failure.” This is fundamental: You must aim at becoming the kind of person who wants to do right things. Because they’re right and they make sense to you. You must aim at becoming the kind of person who doesn’t want to do wrong things. Because it just looks misguided and kind of sad. || In our day, we might put it like this: There’s a huge difference between Christ-Centered living and behavior modification. || And this is the key point: The fundamental mistake people make in spiritual life — and it was true for the Pharisees and it’s true in our day — the fundamental mistake people make in spiritual life is people aim at changing or managing their behaviors. And they don’t know how to take concrete, practical steps to allow God to change the stream of thoughts and emotions that flow in them from one moment to the next. || The fundamental mistake people make is they aim at trying to manage behaviors — control behaviors — and they don’t know how to take practical, concrete steps to allow God to change the constant stream of thoughts and feelings that flow in them all the time. The thoughts and feelings that inevitably determine what they do. || They think, “I can by sheer willpower, override habitual patterns of thinking and feeling.” || || The goal, Jesus’ goal, is the Law of the Tree — the inside of the tree. It’s the stream of thoughts and perceptions and feelings inside of you and me — that’s the target. That’s what must be changed. Not just behaviors. || Aim at behaviors and it’s a set up for failure. || || And then Jesus goes on to a second law. The first law is The Law of the Tree. No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. || The second law is The Law of Exposure. He says: A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. You see, we’re storing up stuff in our hearts all the time: Good, bad. True, false. Noble, dishonoring. And the idea here is that your mind will think most about whatever you most expose it to. What enters your mind repeatedly, occupies it, and over time, fills it. Then it’s expressed in what you do and say — in your character and your life. || || This is a strange thing to me. No one who races a Formula One car fills it with low-octane fuel. No one puts low-octane fuel in a high-performance car. No one joins the Olympic Team and goes on a Twinkie and potato chip diet. No one has a baby that they really love, and then just lets it eat whatever it wants. || When our first child was born, the first year of Lily’s life, Kathy would slice up and puree vegetables and fruit. And that’s all Lily was allowed to eat. She was our first child, and first-child parents are real careful. || There’s an old story that illustrates this: The pacifier falls out of the firstborn child’s mouth — the mom picks it up and puts it in a pot of boiling hot water, sterilizes it, pulls it out with tongs, and waves it around to air-dry before putting it back into the child’s mouth. The second born child drops the pacifier — the mom runs it under some cold tap water, dries it off with a dishtowel and gives it back. The third born kid drops the pacifier — the mom picks it up, spits on it, rubs it off on her jeans and sticks it back in the kid’s mouth. || But as a general rule, we’re very careful about what we put into something that is valuable to us. We know that what we put in it determines its performance and well-being. || Which is why it’s so ironic that in the most important area of life — our minds — we sometimes disregard this piece of human wisdom. “The Law of Exposure” — of what goes into our minds — is as solid as “The Law of Gravity.” “The Law of Gravity” doesn’t surprise anyone. No one steps off a six-foot ladder and falls to the ground and says, “Oh, wow, what were the odds of that? I never saw that coming.” || But people violate the “Law of Exposure” all the time. And people act as if it’s a total shock. || || We live in a culture where our children are exposed to an unceasing flow of violent images, and highly sexualized images, and images that stimulate the desire for more and more and more and more. And then we act like it’s a surprise that we have a society filled with violence and sexual misconduct and greed. It’s not surprising at all — it’s utterly predictable. || We have a society that says to women, “You have to look a certain way. You have to be incredibly thin to be attractive.” And then we raise a generation of young women who are bombarded by that message and grow up thinking, “I’ve got to starve myself in order to be valuable.” And we wonder, “How did that happen?” || You see… The events we attend The materials we read The music we listen to The images we look at The videos we watch The conversations we have with people The daydreams we entertain These are all shaping our minds and, ultimately, they’re shaping our actions, they’re shaping our character, and they’re shaping the person we will become. || || I want you to notice the way Jesus is teaching here. None of Jesus’ statements are commands. He’s not giving orders here. Jesus often teaches this way. He’s simply observing that this is the way things are — “A certain kind of fruit comes from a certain kind of tree. You store up certain stuff, and it will come out.” He’s not giving orders. He’s a brilliant teacher, and this is often what He does — He just observes: “Here’s the way life works.” || And therefore, we can decide what we want to do with His teaching. And what we do depends on the kind of person we want to be. We will store up certain inner realities, and from there, the results are entirely predictable. || || And we really only have two options — two kinds of minds that we can cultivate. || Paul describes these two kinds of minds in Romans 8, verses 5-6: Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. || The first option is to live according to the sinful nature. And the reality is — if you want to cultivate this kind of mind, it’s not hard. Just consider what you put in (or don’t put in) your mind. || Those who live according to the sinful nature go through a day and their mind is constantly thinking about how: “He’s more successful than I am. That makes me feel bad. I hope he fails at something. If he fails, I’ll feel better. “What if my boss is mad at me? What will I do then? I don’t know. So I’ll carry a cloud of anxiety with me all day. “There’s a girl running in front of me. I wonder if she’s attractive enough that I can get a little jolt of sexual gratification just by looking at her. “I’m late for this meeting. The truth is, I didn’t allow enough time to get there, but I’ll tell everyone I’m late because the traffic was bad. I’ll spin the truth to manage people’s impressions of me. “She’s so intelligent. I feel threatened by her. I’d like to believe bad things about her. I’ll probably spread them to other people. || These are just a few of the thoughts of a mind that’s living according to the sinful nature. || Now, because of our fallenness, the reality is we all have these thoughts from time to time. But if you live continually with this kind of mind, the moods that will dominate your life will be resentment unresolved anger anxiety chronic fear unsatisfied desire Those are the moods that will dominate a mind from which God is excluded. || And the key to maintaining this kind of inner life is found in the Psalm 10:4. In their pride, the wicked do not seek Him; in all their thoughts there is no room for God. It’s not hard to cultivate this kind of mind. All you have to do is avoid contact with anything that would get in the way of these thoughts. Avoid Scripture. Avoid wise, honest people who know you deeply and speak the truth to you. Avoid the teaching of God’s word. Avoid honest self-examination. Avoid contact with people in need that might move you to compassion. This happens to a lot of people. || So many people in our culture don’t take seriously what goes into their minds. || || Do you know the number one leisure activity in our society? Watching TV — for some people it’s Youtube, for others it’s Netflix, for others it’s sports. || If watching TV is where you spend most of your time, it will fill your mind with certain thoughts. || Robert Putnam has researched this and describes what type of fruit is produced in people by chronic TV watching. He shows the correlation of people’s behavior with whether or not they say, “TV watching is my primary form of entertainment — when I have some time on my own, that’s the primary ‘mental storage’ activity that I do.” Putnam says, that statement is the number one predictor of whether or not someone is likely to be involved in their church. People who say, “TV is my primary leisure activity,” are unlikely to be involved in worshipping and learning and giving and serving in a community of faith. It’s a direct correlation. || Now, mostly what you have to do if you want to live this kind of life is make sure there’s no room for God in your thoughts. And in our culture, that’s not too difficult. Just avoid being in places where you know God is at work. Avoid going to church. Avoid a community of faith. Avoid people who will speak truth to you. Avoid serving. Avoid times of reflection and meditation. There are a lot of different ways you can do it. But if you want to have this kind of mind, if you want to be dominated by these kinds of thoughts, mostly what you have to do is make sure that, in your thoughts, there is no room for God. || And this is happening to a lot of people in our society. So many people in our society don’t take seriously what goes into their minds. || || So in the time we have left I want to talk about how it’s possible to renew our minds. || || Let’s start with — what does a mind controlled by the Spirit look like? || || Think about the fruit of the Spirit. What are the first three characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit? Love — instead of resentment, there’s love. Joy — instead of discontentment and unsatisfied desire, there’s joy. And peace — Instead of anxiety, there’s peace. || And you can use this as kind of a diagnostic test. You become aware of the thoughts that are running through your mind. Those thoughts always have feelings attached to them. They always do. And you can’t feel your way into thinking differently. By guiding the flow of your thoughts, your feelings will change. But you’ll find that your thoughts are always leading you either toward joy, peace and love… or toward unsatisfied desire, anxiety and resentment. They’re always leading you one way or the other. || And as a general rule, you can be pretty sure that the thoughts that are leading you toward love, joy and peace are being guided by the Spirit. And the thoughts that are leading you toward resentment, anxiety and unsatisfied desire are not being guided by the Spirit. || || Here’s a staggering statement that Paul writes – 1 Corinthians 2:16 – think about this. Paul says: But we have the mind of Christ. Imagine what it would be like if your inner life — your thoughts, feelings, desires, perceptions, and understandings were the same as if Jesus were in your place. || Imagine when someone hurts you that your immediate thoughts are not to inflict pain back on that person, or to run and hide from that person, but to honestly and courageously seek authentic reconciliation. Imagine if your mind worked that way. || Imagine when someone succeeds, instead of comparing yourself to them or feeling depressed because they’ve succeeded more, feeling authentic joy at what they’ve accomplished. You just naturally feel the way you would feel if you yourself had succeeded. || Imagine when you sin that you didn’t respond by wanting to run and hide from it, or trying to excuse it, or spiraling down into this endless depression by beating yourself up over it. Imagine instead that when you sin, you respond by having an appropriate level of pain because you know it has grieved God, and possibly hurt another person. So you confess it openly and honestly to God, and you desire to do whatever it takes to set things right with whoever you may have hurt. And you learn from it. Then you move forward, confidently, assured that God has forgiven you and he still loves you. || Imagine feeling confident instead of anxious generous instead of selfish rested instead of fatigued patient instead of irritable loved instead of lonely Imagine what that would be like. Anyone here besides me wish you had the mind of Christ? || This kind of mind is the absolute key to spiritual transformation. That’s why Paul says in Romans 12: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing (of your what?) of your mind. — a new inner life, thoughts, feelings, and so on. || || So I want to challenge us today around having our minds renewed. || And I want to talk a bit about storing up good things from the words of God — the thoughts of God from Scripture. I want to challenge us all to immerse our minds in Scripture — in what’s good and pure and noble. || And I want to give you an example of what this looks like. || The classic language for this is — the discipline of study. || I hate to mention that word, because most people don’t have wonderful, warm connotations when they think of the word “study.” Most people think of classes and teachers and grades and tests, and it’s not something we want to do. || So get rid of all those ideas about studying, okay? || I want to talk to you about — how do you open your mind to things that are good and pure and noble and wonderful? — That will lead to love and joy and peace. || I’ll give you a picture of this in the life of a real person. This is a woman who had never been to church. She had a young daughter and someone invited her daughter to church, and her daughter became a Christian. And the mom was very upset about this. She was not happy about this at all. She went to bed one night. She woke up at midnight. She couldn’t sleep. And she decided that she wanted to read the Bible. She had never, to her best remembrance, read the Bible in her life. So she dug around their home and found a Bible. She opened it up, looked at the table of contents, saw that there was an Old Testament and a New Testament. She had no idea what that meant. She figured the New Testament must be like the updated version. So she turned to the New Testament and started reading through the gospel of Matthew. This was at midnight. She just kept reading. At 3 in the morning, she got to the gospel of John. And that’s when she said she began to fall in love with Jesus. And she got down on her knees, and she made him the Leader and Forgiver of her life — at 3:00 in the morning. Because in utter stillness, in utter solitude, with nothing to disturb her, she became utterly absorbed in Scripture — the words and thoughts of God. || || This is a sad thing to me — too often, people who have been around the faith for a while, and have been around church for a while, forget or neglect to take leisurely chunks of time to just immerse themselves in Scripture. || You know one thing a lot of people got right in Jesus’ day? They loved Scripture. They loved the bible. They loved the thoughts of God and the words of God. || One of the great rabbis in Jesus’ day was Rabbi Hillel. This is one of his sayings — “The more Torah” — the first five books in the Old Testament — “the more life is like life.” || In the Talmud it says this: “He who teaches Torah to the child of another, it’s as if he gave birth to him.” It’s just life to have a mind filled with the thoughts of God through Scripture. || So let me ask you, when is the last time you wanted to be with God so much that you made time and space to read, in an unhurried, unrushed, unfrenzied way, through one of the gospels, so that you could come to know and love and admire Jesus more deeply? || You know, in any relationship, you need some encounters that aren’t rushed — where you’re in the right setting and there are no distractions. And then the relationship gets real deep. || It’s no different when it comes to encountering God in Scripture. || || Now, it doesn’t mean you’re going to do that everyday. But on some regular basis, you need to have an unhurried, unfrenzied, unrushed chunk of time to open up the Bible and read it and remember again why God is worth giving your heart to. || So my challenge to you is — when are you going to do this? Will you make a commitment to do it this week sometime? || || If you’re willing to do this, I want to give you two things to incorporate into your time of study. And these are both words that you’re not going to like either. So just get ready for that right now, okay? || The first word is “memorize.” Let’s all groan together just to get it over with. || I want to talk about this for a moment. The point of this memory business is not to get every detail perfect. It’s not about earning Brownie points. It’s not about impressing anyone else. It’s simply about allowing God’s thoughts to get absorbed deeply into my mind. || And you just need to know that throughout history, the memorization of choice portions of Scripture has been indispensable for the renewing of the mind — indispensable. || || It had to happen in Jesus’ day, for one thing, because of the literacy rate. || Turn to the person next to you (real quick) and tell them what you think the literacy rate was in Israel in Jesus’ day. Take a quick guess. || I just read about this in the last couple weeks. According to historians, the best estimates based on research they’ve done in the Mediterranean Basin in the First Century, they pegged the literacy rate at 5 percent. In Israel, they peg it at three percent — three percent of the people could read. || So how did people get immersed in Scripture? || They listened to the stories, and they would tell the stories. They would tell them over and over and over and over again. || Did you ever tell a favorite story to a kid when they’re going to bed at night and get one detail wrong? It was like that in Jesus’ day. They knew those stories. They loved those stories. || Think about it — there was no radio, no TV, no social media, no magazines, no newspapers, no movies. And I’m telling you, they were immersed in the stories of Scripture. I want to show you a clip from one of our families favorite movies — The Nativity Story. We watch it every Christmas Eve. Video clip — The Nativity Story || The point of learning these stories wasn’t to show off. It was about creating a really good tree so that love and joy and peace just flowed out of you. || || So I thought today we could memorize a passage together. || Take a look at the screens. Here’s the passage we’re going to memorize. Psalm 16:8 || Let’s say this together out loud. I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. || And sometimes, it can be helpful (if it helps you to use props) to look at your right hand and think about that. || Let’s say it again — “I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” || If it would be helpful for you to write it down, write it down on a card. Put it on a note card someplace where you can see it, so you can fill your mind with it. Put it in your car. Put it on your desk. Put it wherever you are the most. || || Dallas Willard wrote this. This is so beautiful. This is a slight paraphrase… but this is what he wrote: A mind controlled by the Spirit is one in which the glorious Spirit of Jesus is always present and gradually crowds out every distorted belief, every destructive feeling, every misguided intention. I’m telling you, if we could just grasp and learn that one thought — and again, a bit of a paraphrase, but — A Spirit-filled mind is one in which the glorious, wonderful, lovely, joy-filled Spirit of our great Savior Jesus Christ is always present, and just gradually crowds out every distorted belief, every destructive feeling, every misguided intention. They just get crowded out. || So studying Scripture… memorizing Scripture… and then the third word. || You might not like this one a whole lot either — meditate. || In Genesis 24 we learn — “Isaac went out to the field in the evening to meditate.” What do you think he was doing? || || The word “meditate” scares a lot of people. It just sounds strange. It sounds like an Eastern thing. People wonder, “Don’t Buddhists meditate?” Well they do, but they eat breakfast too, and it’s still a good idea. || Scripture has a lot to say about meditation. Psalm 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. That’s quite a lot. || Joshua 1:8 Keep this Book of the Law always (where?) on your lips. Because, again, most people were illiterate. How did they keep the Scripture always before them? They had to say it and hear it all the time. || “Keep it on your lips. Meditate on it day and night.” || Meditating is actually quite simple. How many of you already know how to worry? || If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate. || When you worry, you just let that thought come back to your mind over and over and over again. That’s what you do when you meditate — you take that one verse, “I have set the Lord always before me.” And then you start thinking, “What would it be like to set the Lord always before me… when I wake up in the morning when I go to sleep at night when I have a problem when I get bad news when something makes me happy when I’m tempted to sin What would it be like to have God always set before me? || You begin to think, “What would it look like if I were to wake up first thing in the morning and, instead of being overwhelmed by how much I have to do, or worried about something, I knew that God was right there with me. “And as I greeted people first thing in the day, God is right there. “And as I go to work, maybe something bad happens — someone challenges me, or a project doesn’t go well, or I have financial problems — but I have set the Lord before me.” || And then you go on — “Because he’s at my right hand.” That’s the hand of action. That’s the place of honor. “Because he’s at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” And you picture yourself going through your day “not shaken.” || What would it be like to never be shaken? || That’s peace — never afraid, never anxious. You just live with that. || And you move from information to desire — “I’d like to never be shaken. I’d like that kind of life.” || And you move from desire to intention — “God, I want that kind of life. I’ll do whatever I need to do to set you always before me.” || And the inside of the tree starts to change. That really can happen. || || This is what I recommend we do — take one thought from the Bible early in the day and live with it throughout the day. Maybe you take a thought that relates to something you struggle with like fear or anger or lust or a lack of peace. Take one thought from Scripture, and just let it stay with you all day long. Let it come back to your mind over and over throughout the day. Just keep bringing it back to your mind. If you need help finding a verse, let me know, I’ll find one that’s unique to your life and circumstances. || || And then, what will happen is — that will move you from from intention to worship. || Study and immersion in Scripture and meditation on Scripture always leads to worship — “God, what a good God you are to always be with me.” || || Imagine what would happen if all of us were to develop a Spirit-filled mind — if our church, if every small group was full of people with Spirit-filled minds. Imagine what our behavior would look like. || We wouldn’t have to psych each other up anymore. You wouldn’t have to have someone trying to hype you up to do right things. It would just flow out of you because you’re filled with the spirit and the fruit — love, joy and peace — will be flowing from your life. || Alright, let me pray for you as Michaela and the team come to lead us in a closing song. Blue Oaks Church Pleasanton, CA