New Minds

Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Introduction

We have reached the end of this series: The New Creation. Because of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ we are, in fact the whole cosmos is, a New Creation. Next Sunday we start a new series on New Testament healing. We are going to take a look at how the folks of Jesus day understood healing and curing. I think you are really going to find this interesting. If you know somone who is struggling with health issues, this is a great time to invite them to worship with you. But today its back to and finishing up with Ephesians and The New Creation.

Background

As we said last week, Paul is praising the Ephesians, in fact telling them to celebrate their salvation. Today he is reminding them from whence they came. He again is giving them two choices. Darkness as a gentile or the true way of life in Christ .He is specifically talking about their lives post justification and the process of sanctification. Paul is reminding them of the fundamentals if you will. Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Let’s unpack this and see what we can learn.

Paul is reminding them of the fundamentals if you will. practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Let’s unpack this and see what we can learn.

Exegesis

Paul is addressing believing and practicing gentile Christians. Like I said, he is just revisiting the fundamentals. He says what he is about to say comes as a direct revelation from the Lord. Do not go back to your old way of living, because it is futile. In other words, he is saying that wihotut being-in Christ and Christ in you, your life lacks meaning it is futile. Paul goes on to say that this takes place in your mind, the seat of one’s person hood. For Paul the mind was the mind, and soul and heart. it was what made a person a person. Furthermore, as yo will see, it is in the mind where this transformation will occur.

That’s logical isn’t it? If your behavior is going to change, your thinking needs to change. Paul makes this point in a number of his writing but probably most plainly in

Romans 12:2 NRSV

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

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As Christians we do not live with futile minds, alienated form God. We are in Jesus and Jesus is in us, thus our minds are constantly in a process of renewal. Being a new creation, creates a new way of thinking. Our mind doesn’t change once, we have to continually yield our mind to the thinking of God. Paul writes in verse 23 we must be renewed in the spirit of our minds, this is a complete, but continuous renewal. We are all works in progress.

If you think about it, repentance, the act of turning back to God is the start of a new mind” Wait, let’s diverge for just a second and talk about what repentance really is. Somehow we have allowed this term to become an emotional description of feeling guilty or remorseful. The word repent is a verb. repentance is the act of repenting. It’s not how you feel, it is an action it is what you do. To repent is to turn away from what you have done back to God. The word for repent in Greek actually means to change your mind. We should repent every morning. We should turn to God every morning, because every day we wake up we have a choice. We can choose the way of death or the way of life.

Sanctification is the process of (verse 24 paraphrase) of clothing ourselves with the new self re-created and conforming more and more ‘to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Paul is remind us that we don’t think like the unsaved world.

Application

There is an old saying of computer programmers: “Garbage in. Garbage out.” This saying expresses the idea that poor quality input will always produce faulty output. If our renewal starts in our minds, doesn’t it make sense that we put the proper kind of things into it. We truly are what we eat, we truly are what we put into our minds.

Here’s what one commentator says about this:

As the mind understands the truth of God’s Word, it is gradually transformed by the Spirit, and this renewal leads to a changed life. Physically, you are what you eat, but spiritually, you are what you think. “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (). This is why it is important for us as Christians to spend time daily meditating on the Word, praying, and fellowshipping with Christ.

This is good input, daily meditating on the word, praying and fellowship with Jesus. If you are doing these things your out put will be different. (Story of ordination process here) So, if your attitudes, your goals, your world view, is not constantly being challenged by your relationship with Christ, i think you need to take a close look and see if you are really responding to the Spirit! If you think what you’ve always thought you will always get what you already got. In other words, you are not growing, you are not “repenting” and your faith has become stagnant. In fact, I’ll say this, if something is not growing it’s dying. So you might have wandered off the path a bit. Not to worry, that’s where that repentance thing comes in and the HS will get you back on the right path.

As Christians we have not just changed our minds, we have changed our address. Our address is now in the Kingdom of God, the New Creation. We are part of God’s creation in Christ, so the desires and ideas of our old neighborhood should no longer control our lives. We have clothed ourselves with the new self. This is baptismal imagery here. In Paul’s day you were baptized in the nude and given a new set of clothes to wear, literally clothing yourself in the new self. Here again is NT Wright:

“But the truth is that genuine Christianity opens the mind (as Paul has been saying throughout this letter, and in its companion piece, the letter to Colossae) so that it can grasp truth at deeper and deeper levels. This isn’t a matter of university degrees and paper qualifications, helpful though they may be. It’s a matter of the heart and mind being open to the ever wider range of insight and imagination that comes with ‘learning the king’ (verse 20).”

The renewing of the mind is a never ending process of renewal in clothing ourselves with the new life, or better yet living into our baptismal vows. Let’s take a quick look at those. turn to page 34 in the Hymnal. Here is what you vowed to:

You repented of your sin and renounced the “powers of the air”

You accepted God’s power to resist all forms of evil

You confessed Jesus as your savior

You vowed to remain faithful to Jesus an his church and to be Christ’s ambassador.

You and the church vowed together to nurture each other in the Christian faith. To pray for each other and support each other in our walk with Christ, that is our discipleship. it takes a community to renew minds, we cannot do it alone.

Of course you all know who John Newton is? John Newton is he composer of the hymn Amazing Grace. But you might also know that Newton was the captain of slave ships and heavily involved in the slave trade. You might have even heard that he was converted to Christianity during a storm on one of his voyages. His boat was taking on water and he thought he was going to die. What you may not know is that after his initial conversion in 1748 he continued in the slave until 1755! 7 years!What's with that you might ask? If you had only heard part of the story like I had you might think his conversion was not a gradual one, but a sudden one. It was not! It wasn't until some point around 1755 that he decided to become a disciple of Christ. See there is a difference between saying yes to Christ and walking with him. Paul’s words here hit home. Newton accepted Christ, but his mind was still darkened, he still was futile in his thinking. In 1748 he quit drinking, quit cussing, and quit playing cards. But he continued in the slave trade for 7 more years! But Jesus loses no one and he continued to work in his heart. It wasn't until 1779 that he wrote Amazing Grace as an ordained priest in the Church of England and one of the fighters in the forefront against slavery. Let’s take a look at this.

A new mind. From darkness and futility to light an meaning. I once was lost, but know I see.

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