The Christian's Mind: Opened, Disciplined

Jesus said we are to love our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. But what does that look like in the life of the follower of Christ in the 21st century?

Luke 24 is devoted to openings. Rather strange for the last chapter in a book, you'd think it would be conclusions, but no, it's openings. In verses 1 through 12, you have an open tomb. Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead. The stone has been rolled back and the grave clothes are lying there empty—the open tomb. Then you have the open scriptures, verse 27. Talking about Jesus as He ministered to the two Emmaus disciples: And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself. And they said in verse 32: Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the scriptures to us? By the way, if we didn't have an open tomb, we couldn't have the open scriptures, because the Bible would be about a dead person. None of the things that were predicted would take place, and therefore you can't trust the Word of God. But we have an open tomb, which gives to us open scriptures. Verse 31: Then their eyes were opened, and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. You recall Jesus sat down and had a meal with them, and while they were breaking bread, He revealed Himself to them. Open my eyes that I may see. 

Well, the open tomb, the open scriptures, opened eyes to see the Lord, and then verse 45: the opened mind. And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the scriptures. Now our Lord had appeared in the upper room, where His disciples and the Emmaus disciples and some others were gathered together. And they were afraid, they'd locked the doors for fear of the Jewish authorities. Then the Lord Jesus showed up in verse 36 and said: Peace to you. And they were terrified and frightened. And He said: Why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your hearts? He showed them His hands and His feet, and He ate before them to let them know that He was alive and that He was real—He was not a phantom of some kind. Verse 44: Then He said to them: These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms concerning me. And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the scripture. 

Now, the Lord Jesus met their greatest need, which was to understand the Bible. He didn't do a miracle. He just said: I'm going to give you the answer to all of your spiritual needs. I'm going to show you how to understand the scripture. Here they were frightened, verse 37, and doubting, verse 38; troubled and weak and confused. And Jesus said the answer to all of your fears, to all of your doubts, is understanding the Word of God. You may be saying: Oh Lord, do a miracle here, or change this, or change that. And all the while God is saying to you: Oh, if you would just understand my Word, you would not have those fears and doubts and troubles down inside. You see, understanding the Word of God is absolutely essential to a joyful, satisfying, useful Christian life. And therefore, we have to meet the requirements that the Word of God sets down. How does the Lord Jesus go about opening our understanding? What must we do? What are the requirements? 

Number one: knowing the living Christ. That's where it starts. If you don't know the living Christ, then the Word of God will be a blank book to you, a locked book. You will not understand it. 1 Corinthians 2:14, it's familiar, but let's ponder it: But the natural man—that means the unsaved man—does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. You see, if you don't have the Holy Spirit of God who wrote the Bible, you certainly can't understand it. The Bible is the only book ever written where you have to know the author before you can understand it. 2 Corinthians 4 reminds us that the mind of the unsaved person is blinded. Verse 4 of 2 Corinthians 4: whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. We have to know the living Christ. Why? Because He is the theme of the scriptures. His suffering and His glory are the message of the scriptures, and the purpose of the scriptures is to make us more like Him. Now, do you know Him? Have you trusted Him? 

If so, we move to the second requirement: asking for understanding. Now the Lord Jesus is not going to come into my study and speak to me orally and teach me the Bible. But you know He has given us the Holy Spirit—we'll talk about that in a moment—but the Spirit of God is not going to minister to me if I don't ask for help. I have to know my need. I was noticing in Psalm 119, which is devoted to the Word of God, how many times you find the psalmist crying out for wisdom and understanding. For example, verse 34: Give me understanding, and I shall keep your law; indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Why do we want to understand the Word of God? So we can obey it. Verse 73: Your hands have made me and fashioned me; give me understanding, that I may learn your commandments. That's an interesting verse. The Bible is the guidebook for life. God made your body, and the better we understand the Bible, the better we're going to use our bodies to the glory of God. Verse 125, he uses the word understanding again: I am your servant; give me understanding, that I may know your testimonies.

Why do we want understanding? So we can obey, so we can use our lives wisely, and so we can know His will. We're His servants. The Bible is God's instruction book for His servants. And just as a servant comes to the master for the orders for the day, you and I come to the Word of God for the orders for the day. In verse 169, he tells us that we need understanding so we can pray correctly: Let my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding according to your word. Let my supplication come before you; deliver me according to your word. Prayer is such an important part of the Christian life, and you can't separate the Word of God and prayer. 

Knowing the living Christ, asking for understanding. Thirdly: yielding to the Holy Spirit. 1 John 5:20: And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true. Now, how is this done? Through the Holy Spirit of God. Now Luke does not tell us, but John tells us what Jesus did that evening in the upper room. John 20:22: And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit. You know, when God made man back in the creation, Genesis 1 and 2, He breathed the breath of life into man. Genesis 2:7: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Our physical and spiritual life come from the breath of God.

Now God has breathed the Holy Spirit into each of us. When you were saved, you received the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is the one who has produced the God-breathed, inspired Word of God. 2 Timothy 3:16: All scripture is given by inspiration of God—that means all scripture is God-breathed—and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Now, we have the breath of God, the Holy Spirit. The Word of God is the God-breathed inspired scripture. Therefore, the Spirit of God can teach us the Word of God if we will yield to Him. He testifies of Jesus—that's the theme of the Bible. He glorifies the Lord Jesus. He's going to teach me about the Lord Jesus. He reminded the disciples of what He had taught them while He was with them. 

Now, there's another statement in that upper room discourse, John 16:12: I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. God teaches us at the best time in the best way. If there's something in the Word you don't understand now, it's because you aren't ready for it; I'm not ready for it. There are many things in the scriptures we're just not ready for yet. Be patient. I can't give them to you now, says Jesus. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth. Not drag you, not force you—He needs our cooperation. He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. I like that. He reminded the disciples of what Jesus said and did—that gives me the four gospels. And He will show you things to come—that's the book of Revelation. And He will guide you into all truth—and that gives us the Book of Acts and all the epistles. That takes care of the whole New Testament. And Jesus already said the entire Old Testament is full of Him. So we have a whole Bible about Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is there to teach us. Oh, we need to have the Lord Jesus Christ open our minds to His Word. I trust that's the desire of your heart because you want to know Him better and serve Him more.

Reading 2 Timothy 1:1-7: Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy, my beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears, that I may be filled with joy, when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 

If you are in a hard place doing a hard job against all kinds of obstacles, then you will certainly identify with Timothy. He was in Ephesus. Ephesus would not be the easiest place to minister, filled with magic and superstition, opposition to the gospel. And he was following the Apostle Paul, who had led the Ephesian church for about three years. Paul would not be an easy man to follow in some respects. And yet Timothy was left in Ephesus to do a job for the Lord. He was discouraged. He was afraid; he was cowardly. And he wasn't feeling too good; he was sick a little bit. 1 Timothy 5:23, Paul talks about his stomach problems and his frequent illnesses. Well, it was difficult for Timothy, and so Paul wrote to encourage him.

Now Timothy was getting ashamed of the gospel, and ashamed of the fact that he was identified with Paul, who was an official Roman prisoner. Who wants to work with and for somebody who's in prison? But the dynamic of the Holy Spirit—we have power. The Holy Spirit not only gives us our dynamic, but our devotion—power and love. The Spirit of God supplies the love of God. God's love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Romans 5:5. Galatians 5:22: the fruit of the Spirit is love. 

But the Holy Spirit of God gives us a third marvelous gift. Not only our dynamic and not only our devotion, but our discipline: God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. That phrase "sound mind" means a disciplined mind, mental self-control. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control. Now, what does it mean to have a disciplined mind? Remember, how you think is how you live. What does it mean to have a disciplined mind? I'm going to suggest you look at chapter 2 of 2 Timothy, because in chapter 2 he gives us four pictures of the Christian. He compares the Christian to a teacher, chapter 2 verse 2; to a soldier, chapter 2 verses 3 and 4; to an athlete, chapter 2 verse 5; and to a farmer, chapter 2 verse 6. 

Now, each of these pictures illustrates the Christian life. He compares the Christian to a teacher. Now what kind of discipline must a teacher have? The discipline to study and to share. You see, the ability to convey the Word of God to others on a one-to-one basis, the ability to take the Word of God and help other people, is a mark of maturity. This is what is written in Hebrews 5:12: For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God. Doesn't mean God gives everybody the gift of teaching or calls everyone to teach. It just means you have a disciplined mind so that when you have the opportunity of counseling and encouraging a person, you can put it together and hand it to them—the teacher. 

Now the soldier, verses 3 and 4: You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 2 Timothy 2:4: No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. What kind of discipline does the soldier need? The discipline of concentration and dedication. He was enlisted by the Lord. God does not ask us to volunteer; we've been drafted. He has enlisted us. Now He says I want you to be single-minded. I want you to be disciplined so that you are not double-minded. You aren't fighting with two armies, you aren't listening to two generals. A double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. We are devoted like the soldier to that one master, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we don't get entangled. 

Life is a school; we need the discipline of a teacher. Life is a battle; we need the discipline of the soldier, the ability to concentrate and to obey one commander. Verse 5, the athlete. Life is a contest; we're running the race, aren't we? And also if anyone competes in athletics, he's not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. If anybody needs discipline, an athlete does. You've watched the Olympics perhaps on television. The discipline to obey, even to the point of sacrifice. Now he's not talking about salvation—you don't run the race to win your salvation, you run a race to win a reward. They have to keep in training, don't they? You can't eat this, you don't stay up too late at night, every day you must do your exercises, you've got to weigh in. That is discipline. By the way, this body God gave us is to be used for His glory, and some people need a disciplined mind when it comes to caring for their body. The athlete needs the discipline to obey. 

Now the farmer, verse 6 of 2 Timothy 2: The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops. He's talking there about the blessing that comes to the servant of God when he reaps the harvest. But the farmer needs the discipline to wait. Life is a harvest, and you plant seed, and you water seed, and you wait. The farmer has to wait. Just stop to think of how difficult farming is. The farmer can't control the rain, he can't control the weather—he doesn't have any control over these things. He works hard, he plows, he sows, he fertilizes, he waters, he prays for rain, and then he patiently waits for the harvest. Galatians 6:9: in due season we shall reap if we faint not. Now a disciplined mind can wait. Oh, you've been preaching or you've been teaching, you've been ministering, you've been praying, you've been witnessing to people—you don't see much happening. Well, that's all right, the harvest is still coming. 

The discipline of waiting. God has not given us a spirit of fear, cowardliness. A teacher cannot be timid; we have to share the truth. A soldier cannot be a coward; he must fight the battle. The athlete cannot be timid as he faces the competition; he must run. The farmer cannot be timid as he faces the elements out there; he must work. This is a disciplined mind. A disciplined mind that reaches for the Bible and studies it and meditates on it daily. A disciplined mind that can pray. A disciplined mind that like the teacher can share with others, like the soldier concentrates on pleasing the Lord Jesus, like the athlete obeying the training rules, like the farmer disciplined enough to wait until the harvest comes. May God give to us a disciplined mind.