
Over the past several weeks, we have sought to understand Romans 12:2 as it describes to us the process of finding the will of God.
// God’s will is good, pleasing, and perfect. It is what
would choose for your life if you could see what God sees, know what He knows, and understands what He understands.
// God’s will is something for you to seek, but finding it has as much to do with what you are as what you are doing.
// God’s will begins with you being ain the world, right where you are. God saves you right where you are but He does not intend for you to stay there. Resist conformity to the world and be transformed by His Spirit and His Word in your mind.
// Being conformed means surrendering to theof this world to make into something displeasing to God in your heart, mind, and body. But being transformed by the Spirit means that you are becoming exactly what God wants you to be, what you want to be, and what He is making you into for His Kingdom.
• But we are not at the end of our journey yet. There is one more phrase in this verse that unlocks the truth of God’s influence on us by His Word and His Spirit.
Extreme Makeover: Mind Edition
• This word “renewal” in Romans 12:2 refers to the outworking of the transformation in the individual believer to look more and more like Jesus. Think of the process as a
• Your
• So, like any renovation, this renovation of your mind involves two things:
// God the Spirit wants to sanctify and purify your mind, your thoughts, your motivations, your imagination, your feelings, your desires. He wants to demolish and remove old ways of thinking, doing relationships, beliefs about money, work, family, habits – anything and everything that could be used by the enemy to constrain your life in Christ or anything and everything that is rooted in the philosophy of the world that is against God.
// Jeremiah 23:29 | Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
// Hebrews 4:12 | For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
• But when you renovate, you don’t just demolish, you also
// Remember last week we talked about the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth? He uses the truth of God’s Word to convict us and show us that areas of our minds that need to be demolished. But He also uses the truth of God’s Word to rebuild.
// 1 Corinthians 3:11-13 | For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. >> The truths of God’s Word are the precious materials that the Holy Spirit wants to use in His renewal of our minds.
// Bible reading, Bible study, Scripture memory, biblical meditation – all of these ways of consuming God’s Word are how we give the Spirit the strong and enduring materials by which He can build the character of Christ within us.
// Don’tyour mind, your mind >> Colossians 3:1-3 | If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
• The result? Psalm 119:11 | I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
Discernment, not Discovery
• Discernment involves
• Discernment involves
• Through this process of saturation and transformation, we get into the Word until the Word gets into us.
// 1 Corinthians 2:13-14, 16 | And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. 14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned….16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
• The believer has the mind of
• We must live in the world of the Word so that we can live out the Word in the world.
Throughout the centuries, this world has bee shaped through believers just like you embracing this path of finding God’s will and going into the world to ask questions like:
• What is good in our culture that we can promote, protect, and celebrate?
• What is missing in our culture that we can creatively contribute?
• What is evil in our culture that we can stop?
• What is broken in our culture that we can restore?