SERMON OUTLINE

Careful Living in 2010 (Ephesians 5.15)

Taught to Renew the Spirit of the Mind Ephesians 4.23

“But you not so learned Christ, if indeed him you heard and in him were taught as truth is in Jesus, to put off you (aorist – single action complete in the past) according to the former conduct the old man being corrupted according to the lusts of deceit, and to be renewed (continuous present – ongoing action) in the spirit of the mind of you, and to put on the new man (aorist – single action complete in the past) according to God created in righteousness and holiness of truth.”                 (Ephesians 4.20-24 – Literal translation)

Introduction

1) You are united to the death of Christ. The old man is dead and has no power over your new life in Christ. So put off the old behaviors. Romans 6.6

2) You are united to the resurrection of Christ. The new man is alive unto God. So put on the new man’s attitude and actions. Romans 6.4; 6.10-14

Taught to Renew the Spirit of the Mind Verse 23

1) Not renewal of the mind. Romans 12.1-2

2) Not a command but a reminder of God’s Work

3) Continuous present – an ongoing activity

4) Passive – God renews the spirit of our mind

5) Not a reference to the Holy Spirit

6) Not a reference to the human spirit

7)The controlling power that influences spiritual

understanding and the pursuits of life.

-v17, the futility of the mind

-v18, darkened understanding and ignorance

-v22, controlling power of deceit

-Radical change by the fall of man into sin

-Romans 8.5-8, the flesh and the Spirit

-1 Corinthians 2.14, the natural man

8) Not brain power but the mind behind the mind

9) Renewal of the spirit of the mind makes a sinner into

a saint who is able to think and live like a saint

10) Obedience is the key to continued spiritual renewal

Conclusion

Have you been renewed in the spirit of your mind?

Are you continually being renewed in the spirit of your mind by obeying God?

SERMON NOTES

Careful Living in 2010 (Ephesians 5.15)

Taught to Renew the Spirit of the Mind Ephesians 4.23

-In the first chapter of the letter to the Ephesians, Paul reminds the saints how God made them saints in Christ. The heavenly blessings that we as saints have been given as a result of the Grace of God makes my head spin. I can hardly grasp it and will need all of eternity to truly understand and appreciate it

-In chapter two, Paul reminds these Gentile (non Jewish) believers that they were condemned and helpless sinners when the Grace of God came to them and that God saved them in Christ and made both Jews and Greeks into one body, the Church, the dwelling place of God by His Spirit.

-In chapter three, Paul reminds these Gentile believers that God has called him to preach God’s Grace to them as well as to the Jews and that all men and women can be partakers of the Grace of God.

-In the first part of chapter 4, Paul describes the Church’s nature, leadership, and purpose. Then beginning at verse 17 of chapter 4 to the end of the letter, Paul calls the saints to live like saints and no longer as the Gentile sinners they used to be. “You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.” They now know Christ and they have been “taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus”. Paul reminds them in verses 20-24 of the doctrinal basis upon which they are to live, and of the process for living like a saint. Then from v25 Paul gives specific commands on how they are to live based on the truth of what God has done for them in Christ.

-Paul reminds them that they were taught three truths about their life in Christ. 1) When they put their faith in Christ, God united them to the death of Christ so that in Christ they died to their old sinful life in Adam. Romans 6.6 says, “the old self was crucified with Christ”. This is a complete action done by God in our union with Christ. The believer is to understand and apply this truth to the daily walk. It is because of what God has done in the death of the old man in Christ that the saint must put off the old sinful thinking and attitudes and actions. Saying no to sin is more than a change in behavior. Saying no to sin is only possible because we are dead to sin in our union with the death of Christ. Sin has lost its power to hold me because I died to sin in the death of Christ.

2) When they put their faith in Christ, God also united them to the resurrection of Christ so that in Christ they have a new life. Romans 6.4 says, “for just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life”. This is a complete action done by God in our union with Christ. The believer must also understand and apply this reality to the daily walk. It is because of what God has done in the resurrection of the new man in Christ that the saint must put on new thinking and attitudes and actions. It is a new man that lives a new life. This new life is more than a new moral behavior. This new behavior is the expression of the new life given by the Holy Spirit because of the believer’s union with the resurrection of Christ.

-Paul sums up this doctrinal teaching and the obedience that is to follow it in Romans 6.10-14. [Read]

-Gloria and I have lived on White Ave for about 2 years. Every so often we get mail for the fellow who lived there before us. That man died even before we purchased the house. When a bill or a letter comes addressed to Mr Beauparlant it has no authority or influence on him because Mr Beauparlant is dead. There is no response or obedience from Mr Beauparlant and none is required. In the same way when sin comes calling upon the old man I used to be and asks for obedience, it has no authority or influence, because that old man has been crucified with Christ. No response or obedience is required. The old man is dead.

-When a letter comes to the mailbox and is addressed to Ron Latulippe, I respond to it, because I am the new resident at 25 White Ave. In the same way I am to respond to the truth of God and offer myself in obedience to God for righteousness and holiness because I am a new man alive unto God in Christ.

-My union with the death and resurrection of Christ is the reality behind offering my body in obedience to God and my saying no to sin.

-In verse 23, between Paul’s reminder to the Ephesians of the doctrine of their union with the death and resurrection of Christ, is his reminder that they were taught “to be made new in the attitude of their minds”. Just some general comments before we look at the meaning of this verse.

1) The literal translation is you were taught, “to be renewed in the spirit of your mind”. Paul is not calling for a renewal of the mind here. There are other places in the NT such as Romans 12.2 that call for the Christian to renew their mind, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”. But Paul is not teaching renewal of the mind in this verse. He is not reminding the saints that they are to change their worldview, their goals and pursuits, and their philosophy of life. Here he is reminding them that the spirit of their mind has been renewed and must continue to be renewed. The renewal of the spirit of the mind is far more important than the renewal of the mind itself. In fact the mind cannot be renewed without first having the spirit of the mind renewed.

2) As we said about “to put off” and “to put on” this is not a command but a reminder of what they were taught. This truth is to be practiced as a command but here Paul is only reminding them of what they have been taught.

3) This is a continuous present tense. Unlike the reminder that God has put off the old man and put on the new man as a one time act in their union with Christ, this renewing of the mind is an ongoing activity.

4) This is in the passive voice which means the action is done to the believer and not by the believer. In other words it is God who does the renewing of the spirit of the mind and not the believer who renews the spirit of his mind.

-So verse 23 could be translated as, “You were taught to have God continually renew the spirit of your mind.”

-What is the spirit of our mind? This is not a reference to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is never called the Spirit of our mind. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ and the indwelling Spirit and does influence the spirit of our minds but the Holy Spirit is not the spirit of our mind.

-This is not a reference to our human spirit. The human mind does not have a spirit. The human spirit is separate from the mind. Our spirit is either dead in sin or alive unto God and our spiritual condition influences the spirit of our mind but the spirit of our mind is not the human spirit.

-So what is the spirit of our mind? The spirit of our mind is the controlling power that influences spiritual understanding and the pursuits of life. We could say that the spirit of our mind is the mind behind our mind and behaviors.

-In verse 17 Paul writes about the “futility of the mind”. This is a description of the mind of the unbeliever that thinks and plans in aimless circles, and for all of its accomplishments is going nowhere in relation to what is truly important. The thinking and planning is futile because the spirit of the mind, the mind behind the mind, has not been renewed and is under the controlling power of sin.

-In verse 18 Paul writes about unbelievers “being darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts”. The understanding is darkened and there is spiritual ignorance because the spirit of the mind has not been renewed and is still controlled by the power of the flesh, the fallen nature inherited in Adam.

-In verse 22 Paul writes how the old man is corrupted by the lusts of deceit. Again the spirit of the mind has not been renewed but is corrupted by the controlling power of deceit.

-The spirit of the mind is the power behind the mind that directs the perception of reality, the ability for spiritual understanding, the capacity to know God’s truth.

-Paul writes about the need for renewal of the spirit of the mind because when Adam sinned the spirit of the mind came under the power of sin and deception. Humanity today is under the blindness and depravity of sin, and Paul makes us aware of that fallen state of the spirit of the mind by saying that we need the spirit of our minds to be renewed. Man naturally has a wrong view of life because sin has blinded the mind. The spirit of our mind must be renewed to view life from God’s perspective. The unrenewed spirit of the mind of this world is deceived and corrupt in its outlook.

-To understand our need for the spirit of our mind to be renewed, we need to be very clear on the doctrine of sin and the fall of man into sin. Without a clear understanding of the fall of man into sin and how sin has distorted man’s spiritual understanding, Christianity and the call for a new birth and the need for a new man, and the renewal of the spirit of our mind, does not make a lot of sense. Christianity will look like nothing more than a call to higher morality. That is very far from what Paul is teaching us here. We need to understand that a fundamental change took place in man’s nature and in his relationship to God when Adam sinned, and that only a supernatural work of God can make that right again.

-Paul speaks of this controlling power that influences the mind in Romans 8. He writes in Romans 8.5-8, “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the Law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” The spirit of our mind is either controlled by the flesh, the nature of the old man in bondage to sin and deceived by sin, or controlled by the Spirit of God. It is only by the spiritual transformation of the Holy Spirit, what the Bible calls being born again, that the spirit of the mind can be renewed and begin to rightly control a person’s outlook.

-Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2.14, “The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” Unless the spirit of the mind is renewed by the Holy Spirit, the mind cannot understand the things of God and they are foolishness to him. The Holy Spirit must renew the spirit of the mind for a man to understand the things of God and be able to respond to God.

-The spirit of the mind has nothing to do with a man’s brain capacity and intelligence. It has everything to do with what controls his outlook on God and God’s truth. When a man is born again his brain capacity does not increase or decrease. What changes is the governing principle of his mind, the spirit of his mind. The deception, blindness, spiritual foolishness, flesh, is replaced with a capacity to see and understand spiritual things. So renewal of the spirit of the mind is absolutely necessary for any kind of real change to take place in a person’s life. The renewal of the mind makes a sinner into a saint and enables the saint to understand like a saint so he can live like a saint.

-We have examined what it means to be renewed in the spirit of the mind and how this renewal of the spirit of the mind begins with the new birth, but how is the spirit of the mind to be continually renewed in the life of the Christian?

-Remember that this is a passive form which means that the renewing is done to us by God. So the first thing is that we must be willing to allow this renewal of the spirit of our mind to take place in us. We show our willingness to allow God to continue to renew the spirit of our minds by obedience to the outlook that we already have.

-Are you putting off those attitudes, desires, and actions that express the conduct of the old man, which are contrary to the spirit of the renewed mind?

-Are you putting on those attitudes, desires and actions that reflect the new man you are in Christ?

-As you obey God, He will give you more capacity to see and understand from His perspective. The Holy Spirit will continue to renew the spirit of your mind that controls your mind and your outlook on the world.  Obedience is the key to spiritual renewal and spiritual growth.

-Now that Paul has reminded the believers of what God has done in their lives and how God has enabled them to live as saints, he is going to give them some detailed commands to obey so they will know how a saint is to live. That is where we will begin next week.