The Mind Changer

In the spirit of that song, we read together Ephesians 4, beginning at verse 17 and concluding at verse 24. Please follow in your Bible as I read the word of God. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart.

Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness? But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former manner of life, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man, which after God is being created in righteousness and true holiness. And may this be our experience as we surrender to the Holy Spirit of God. Your doctor tells you that you are what you eat, and of course this is true, but the word of God tells us that we are what we think.

Proverbs 23, verse 7, as he thinketh in his heart, so he is. We're prone to have the idea that thoughts come and go, that thoughts are sort of like tennis balls that go across the court of life, but this is not true. You sow a thought and you reap an action, and you sow an action and you reap a habit, and you sow a habit and you reap a character, and you sow a character and you reap a destiny, and destiny begins with thinking.

It's a marvelous thing that God did when he made us in his image. This does not mean that God looks like us, it means that we have a personality that responds to his personality. God gave us emotions to feel with, and we can laugh and we can weep.

God gave us wills and we can make decisions. And God gave us minds, we can think, and this is a marvelous gift, to be able to think, to reason, to imagine, to create in the mind, and then to do with the hand, and yet the tragedy is that very few people really cultivate the kind of a mind that they ought to have. The greatest psychology book in the world is the Bible, and one of the greatest sections on the mind is here in Ephesians 4, verses 17 through 24.

We have moved into the practical section of Ephesians. In chapters 1, 2, and 3, Paul has been doctrinal. He's been describing for us the blessings that we have in Christ.

Now in chapters 4, 5, and 6, he's going to be practical and tell us the behavior that we ought to have because we belong to Christ. The first half of the letter deals with my wealth as a believer, the last half deals with my walk, and he gives a fourfold walk. Chapter 4, verses 1 to 16, walk in unity, my relationship to the local church.

4.17 to 5.17, walk in purity, my relationship to the world around me and the old life that I used to live. 5.18 to 6.9, walk in harmony, husbands and wives and parents and children and servants and masters, how to get along with each other. Chapter 6.10 through the end of the letter, walk in victory, how to get victory over Satan.

All of this begins with walking in the Spirit with a mind that is yielded to the Lord. We didn't read the section, but in verses 25 through 29, he talks about some of the everyday sins of life. He talks about anger, he talks about stealing, he talks about lying, blasphemy, bitterness and anger, unforgiving spirit.

All of us face problems with these things. I'm sure this past week we had a hard time forgiving someone or a difficult time controlling our temper. A fellow said, I don't lose my temper, but I do misplace it occasionally.

And the secret of getting victory over lying and anger and bitterness and these things that he lists is just simply the right kind of a mind. As he thinketh, so he is. This is practical biblical psychology.

The tragedy of some of the teaching going around today is that it fails to come to grips with two important essentials, man's sinfulness and the power of the Holy Spirit. There are many books that are written about how to have a successful attitude, how to have an outlook on life that changes you, and these are all well and good. I suppose it all really began with Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, where he uses some biblical principles, but most of these books leave out the sinfulness of man and the power of God.

It's as though you're pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps and your attitude determines everything. Well, that's just not so. As he thinketh, so he is is true, but you've got to remember that we're sinners who are thinking—saved sinners—and we have to have our minds controlled by the Holy Spirit of God.

In order for us to understand the working of the mind and how our thinking can change our living, Paul presents to us three different minds. In Ephesians 4, verses 17-19, there is the rebellious mind of the old man. He describes how the sinner thinks and lives.

Then in Ephesians 4, verses 20-21, we have the repentant mind of the convicted man, how God goes to work to bring us out of the old into the new. So we have the rebellious mind of the old man in 17-19, the repentant mind of the convicted man in 20-21, and then the renewed mind of the new man, verses 22-24. So we're moving out of the pigpen of the old life to the mountaintop of the new life, with God working in our minds.

Let's begin with the first mind that he describes, the rebellious mind of the old man, Ephesians 4, verses 17-19. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth, now that you're saved, walk not as other unsaved people walk. And he tells us how they walk.

He describes the life of the old man. Now to make it very simple, there are three characteristics of the old man that make his life miserable. Number one, he's lost.

Look at it. In the vanity of their mind. That word vanity means aimlessness, futility.

It's the word that Solomon uses back in Ecclesiastes 40 times. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. The Hebrew word means what is left when a soap bubble is broken, nothing.

And so the unsaved person is lost because his mind is not functioning in a spiritual way and his life is aimless, purposeless. It's futile. Now secondly, he is ignorant, having the understanding darkened through the ignorance that is in them.

Now this doesn't mean the unsaved man is stupid. Many, many unsaved people are brilliant. I have witnessed unsaved men who know so much about science.

They have forgotten more about science than ever I could learn if I were to study the rest of my life. Paul is not talking about knowledge, he's talking about wisdom. Paul is not talking about the understanding of the material universe.

He's talking about the understanding of spiritual things. It's the same thing that Jesus had to say to Nicodemus, who was one of the key teachers of the Jews, a graduate of their finest schools, a brilliant man, and yet Nicodemus did not understand how to become a Christian, how to be saved, how to be born again. And so not only is the unsaved person lost, that's the vanity of the mind, but the unsaved person is ignorant.

His understanding is darkened. He doesn't understand spiritual things. It's remarkable when you're talking to well-educated unsaved people.

They get this blank look on their face and say, Pastor, I don't even know what you're talking about. And then you've got to pray that the Holy Spirit of God will take the Word of God and just shine into their hearts, because the entrance of God's Word giveth light. So the unsaved person with the rebellious mind is lost because of the emptiness, the vanity, the futility of his thinking.

He is ignorant, his understanding is darkened, and he's dead. Look at it. Being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that's in them.

Remember when the devil came to Eve, he said, Oh, you shall be as God's. You'll know, you'll understand good and evil. If you sin, you'll really get knowledge.

Quite the opposite is true. If you sin, you lose knowledge and you die. And the unsaved person is spiritually dead.

He is lost. He is ignorant. He is dead.

Now, to be spiritually dead means you don't respond to spiritual things. All of us have been to funerals at one time or another, and it's rather strange how quiet everybody is in the funeral home, but the corpse can't hear you. And so often we have gone up to the loved one after the service, and we've said, Well, Mother, we'll see you in glory, but she couldn't hear us.

Now, the Lord knows what we mean when we do this, but you see, when you're physically dead, you don't respond to physical things. You bend over and give them that last kiss, but they don't return it. They don't even feel it.

Now, when you're spiritually dead, you don't respond to spiritual things. The spiritually dead person, his spiritual eyes are blind. His spiritual ears are deaf.

His spiritual senses are dead, and it's only when the Holy Spirit of God comes in and takes the Word of God and works in his life that he comes alive. So here's the sad condition of every unsaved person, and it's all because of the mind. Lost, ignorant, dead.

Now what caused this? Why is it that a person should have an empty mind, a vain, purposeless mind? Why is it his understanding should be darkened? Why is it that he should be separated from God's life? Well, he tells us at the end of verse 18, because of the blindness, or the hardness of their heart. This word that is translated blindness means to be petrified. I remember the first time I ever saw petrified wood.

I was just a little kid, and my neighbor down the street had gone to California, and back in those days, if you went to California, that was a great achievement. Now you can hop a plane and be there in just a short time, but he drove out, and he came back and brought petrified wood. I said, oh, that's a rock.

He said, I'm sorry, that's wood. That's the word that's used here. Their heart has gradually gotten petrified.

Because of the hardness of the heart toward the truth of God, they have caused these spiritual conditions in their life. You see, when God's truth comes to you and you resist it, your heart gets hard. When you receive it, your heart is softened.

And the longer a person resists the truth, rebels against the truth, the harder his heart becomes. And if you were to read Ephesians 4.18 backwards, you'd see the process. The heart gets hard, which creates ignorance, which separates them from the life of God, which darkens their understanding even more, and they can't think the way they're supposed to think, and so they are like corks on an ocean.

They are like feathers blowing in a hurricane, aimless and purposeless. And you say to them, what is your life all about? I don't know. Where are you going? I don't know.

What are you here for? I don't know. And it all starts with the hardness of the heart. Now the result of this is given in verse 19.

You say, what difference does it make whether or not a person has his mind and heart yielded to God? It makes all the difference in the world. Because what you think and what you feel, you are. Notice what happens to the unsaved person, verse 19, who being past feeling.

They lose the enjoyment of the things they ought to enjoy. Not only does the heart become petrified, but the spiritual senses become dull. This explains why unsaved people always have to get a new thrill, a little stronger fix of narcotics, a couple of more bottles of alcohol, a novel that's that much more lurid, a movie that is that much more spectacular and lustful.

The unsaved person, having jaded his senses, has to have something more and more and more. But it doesn't satisfy. Who being past feeling, there's the emotions, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness.

There's the will. They abandon themselves to sensuality. Now it need not be gross sensuality.

I have talked with unsaved people who have abandoned themselves to education. And they live on education. They're thrilled with education or the earning of money.

They wouldn't be caught committing adultery. They wouldn't go to an X-rated movie, but they're living for the world just the same. And they're trying to satisfy their appetites with that which does not satisfy.

And so the emotions, past feeling, the will, given themselves over to lasciviousness, which means dirty appetites, to work all uncleanness with greediness. Greedy after what? Greedy after more to satisfy them. But it doesn't satisfy.

So they try to get more, and the more they get, the darker they get. The more ignorant they become, the blacker the picture becomes. And the more aimless the life becomes.

I tell you, it's not a very pretty picture. But this is the condition of the unsaved person. This is the rebellious mind of the old man.

Now I could illustrate this, and I will, from the most famous parable that Jesus gave, the parable of the prodigal son. Turn back to Luke chapter 15. A certain man had two sons, said verse 11.

And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after that, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

And when he'd spent all, there arose a mighty famine in the land. He began to be in want, and he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into the fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him.

And when he came to himself, that's an important phrase, and when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare, and I am perishing with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven before thee, am no more worthy to be called thy son. Son, make me as one of thy hired servants. And of course, he went home, the father met him, kissed him, forgave him.

I want us to notice verse 24. The father describes the boy's condition, This my son was dead, he's alive again. He was lost, and he's found.

Now what was the condition of this boy? Number one, he was lost. Remember we said from Ephesians 4, the unsaved person's lost. Number two, he was ignorant.

It says in verse 17, he came to himself. Up until then, he'd been stupid. And number three, he was dead.

This my son was dead. He's alive again. Now how'd he get there? He hardened his heart.

He hardened his heart against his father, against his father's good gifts. He wouldn't submit himself. He hardened himself.

And consequently, he ends up abandoning himself to lasciviousness and dirty living and greediness. He ends up living like the pigs and with the pigs and then worse than the pigs. They at least were being fed.

Somebody was taking care of them. And you say to this kid, you're crazy. But he would have argued with you, this is living.

Here's a boy who wanted to live and he ended up dying. Now that's the unsaved person, the rebellious mind of the old man. Now back to Ephesians 4, verses 20 and 21, the repentant mind of the convicted man.

What happens? Jesus Christ comes on the scene, but ye have not so learned Christ. Now what is it that changes people? Christ, not religion, not ritual, Christ. These people met Jesus Christ.

How'd they meet Jesus Christ? But ye have not so learned Christ. It doesn't say learned about Christ or learned of Christ. You learned him.

He says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Get to know me. How do you do this? If so, be that ye have heard him through the word, have been taught by him through the spirit as the truth is in Jesus.

Here's how you get saved. Here's Jesus Christ who died for you. And you meet Jesus Christ and you start to change your mind.

Jesus said, look, sin is a horrible thing. Change your mind about sin. That's what repentance is, changing your mind.

Judgment is coming. Change your mind about God. Change your mind about yourself.

Change your mind about life. Change your mind. That's repentance.

Now this is what the Lord Jesus Christ does for you. When God comes to you in Jesus Christ and Jesus says to you, look, why do you want to live such an aimless life? Why do you want to be lost and ignorant and dead when you can be found and you can have truth and you can have life? It's rather interesting that it says in the parable of the prodigal son about this boy who was lost and ignorant and dead, it says he came to the Father. I will arise and go to my Father.

And he came to his Father. The only other verse I know of in the New Testament that talks about coming to the Father is John 14, 6. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.

Isn't this interesting? The boy was lost and Jesus says, I am the way. The boy was ignorant and Jesus says, I am the truth. The boy was dead and Jesus said, I am the life.

You see, what the unsaved person needs is Christ. What you need is Jesus Christ. Now change your mind about yourself.

Realize that your futile way of living is just going to lead you to hell. Change your mind about the Lord Jesus and come to him and trust him. And this will lead you into the third mind, which is the renewed mind of the new man.

And this is given to us in verses 22 through 24. Now you've learned the truth in Jesus. The truth about sin, the truth about heaven, the truth about hell, the truth about man, the truth about God.

We've learned the truth in Jesus. We have received Jesus Christ as our Savior. Now this is a crisis that leads to a process.

The crisis is being born. The process is growing. The crisis is entering the kingdom.

The process is enjoying the kingdom. And the process is described in verses 22 through 24. This is where many Christians miss it.

Oh, they're saved and they know they're saved. And if they were to die, they would go to heaven. But heaven hasn't yet come to them.

What's he telling us here? When you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior, a change takes place. You put off the old manner of life. That is a commandment once and for all.

He said, just like you take off garments, take off those old dirty garments, put it off and put on the new life. That doesn't mean save yourself. He's simply saying, live up to what we've done for you.

When the prodigal son came home, the father said, get rid of those smelly. You smell like a pig. Get rid of those smelly clothes.

Put a robe on him. Change clothes. This takes us back to Ephesians 2, where you and I were lying in the graveyard of sin, wrapped up in those smelly grave clothes, like Lazarus.

For four days, Lazarus had been dead, lying in those grave clothes. And Jesus said, roll away the stone from the door of the tomb. And Martha said, Lord, by now he smells.

Every unsaved person smells. The fragrance of sin is not a very lovely thing. And Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth.

And he that was dead came forth. And the next thing Jesus said was, loose him. Let him go.

Change clothes. Take off the old. Put on the new.

Would you want to live with Lazarus if he were wearing smelly grave clothes? I wonder how many of us are still wearing some of the old grave clothes of malice and anger and bitterness and bad temper and lying and stealing and drinking and lusting. That's what he's talking about. The renewed mind.

Now, how do you put off the old and put on the new? It's the process of the renewed mind. By faith, we yield ourselves to God. By faith, we say, I'm putting off the old.

I'm taking on the new. Every day we do this. Instead of having a vain, empty mind, we start filling our minds with the word of God.

Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12, 2. How do you renew your mind? With this book. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word.

It's the word of God. Up till now, we have believed lies. The mind of the unsaved man lives on lies.

The mind of the Christian person lives on truth. And so we spend time every day in the word of God. I'm amazed how many of you people do not avail yourselves of opportunities to study the Bible.

I'm not only amazed, I'm shocked. Here at the Moody Church, we have some of the finest teaching that can possibly be gotten anywhere in our Sunday school classes, but you don't need it. You have so much.

Do you? Do you? Do you know all about the Bible you should know? We have in Chicago one of the finest schools you could find anywhere with correspondence courses and all sorts of opportunities to learn, but it's so close we don't need it. We know so much about the Bible. Our minds are so filled with truth that we don't need any more.

We have time for television and time for sports and time for newspapers and time for novels, time for parties and time for this and time for that. No time for God's word. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

There are some of you who have never darkened the door of this church in a Sunday evening service. You don't need it. The word of God taught on Sunday evening is not necessary.

We have it on Sunday morning. I wonder how you manage to get along week after week without spending time in the word of God. You say, well, I do it every day.

I'm glad you do. We have to. I don't know about you, but there's something about assembling with God's people and listening to God's spirit speak.

We learn from each other. Oh, but we don't need it. We're such good Christians.

We don't need it, are we? Instead of having a vain, empty mind, we fill our minds with the word of God. Instead of being dead, we're alive with the word of God. Instead of being in bondage, we're set free by the word of God.

That's what he's talking about here. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind through the word of God. Now, how do you do this? Well, of course, obviously we must study the word and memorize the word and understand the word, but that's only the beginning.

We have to practice the word. As we practice the word, we grow in the spirit of the word of God in our minds. This is what the church is all about.

This is why Paul has a therefore in verse 17. He's just been talking about in verse 16, every part of the church ministering. From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies.

Moody Church needs everybody. Every joint has something to supply. According to the effectual working in the measure of every part.

You see, when we're together with God's people, we minister to each other. Oh, what I have learned from you people in these past four years and several months. How much you have taught me in over a lunch table or in a prayer meeting or in a hospital room or in a home.

You've taught me and it's been a blessing to me. That's what the church is all about. How do you get renewed in the spirit of your mind? You fellowship with God's people.

Oh, but you don't need that. You're one of God's isolated people. You're one of God's separated people.

You have your own little corner of the world and don't bother me. My friend, you'll never grow that way. Jesus said, I will build my church and he builds Christians as he builds his church and he builds his church as he builds Christians.

And so we grow in our spiritual mind by the word of God, by worship, by prayer, by fellowship, by the trials of life, by fighting against sin, by sharing with others. Oh, to watch you grow is a marvelous thing. When I see people who are making visits and people who are witnessing, you don't do it for show.

You do it because God leads you to do it and you keep it quiet and God blesses you and you're growing. We are renewed in the spirit of the mind by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. This is what Romans 8 calls a spiritual mind.

To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. And my friend, you can tell if you're spiritually minded because you have life. Where there's life, there's growth.

Where there's life, there's fruit. Where there's life, there's joy. Burdens, yes.

Sorrows, yes. But where there's life, there's that inner creativity and God just keeps working in you and through you and you have the joy of touching the lives of other people and there's peace. Now, the carnal mind never has any peace because the Word of God says, there is no peace saith my Lord to the wicked.

If I have a carnal mind, if my mind is run by my flesh, there'll be no peace. But the spiritual mind is life and peace, which means that you and I need to be spending a little more time cultivating the spiritual mind. There is the rebellious mind of the old man.

Now, if that's your condition today, my friend, I plead with you, stop hardening your heart. It'll just lead to decay and destruction and doom. He tells us here in verse 22, put off concerning the former manner of life, the old man which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts, deceitful appetites.

Sin deceives you. It makes you think you're gonna get freedom, you get slavery. It makes you think you're gonna be satisfied, you'll be dissatisfied.

It makes you think you're gonna have life and you get death. It makes you think you're gonna have happiness and you get sorrow. It makes you think you're gonna have pleasure and you get pain.

Sin is deceptive. And because sin is deceptive, it leads to corruption. Whatever is dead decays.

And so if you have this rebellious mind of the old man, I would plead with you to come to Christ and surrender to him. You're lost and he's the way and you're ignorant and he's the truth and you're dead and he's the life. Come to him.

And if you have already come to him, learn of him. Let the truth that is in Jesus Christ get a hold of your mind. I guarantee it'll change your life.

For the carnal mind is enmity against God, but the spiritual mind brings life and peace. What kind of a mind do you have today? A darkened mind, a deceived mind? Then come to Jesus Christ, repent and experience the renewed mind, which leads to a life of power and poise and peace and productivity. Oh, it's a marvelous thing to experience day by day the renewing of the mind.

Our Father, forgive us for damaging this marvelous machine that you gave to us, for daring to pollute it with thoughts that are unworthy of Christians, for harboring within our minds things that have poisoned, polluted, robbed us of peace and power. Oh God, by faith just now we would yield to the Holy Spirit who alone through the word can give us the renewed mind. Father, we want to be smarter spiritually.

We want to have discernment. We want to have not just knowledge, but wisdom. Lord, we don't want to just be able to take things apart, we want to be able to put them together.

We don't want to walk in aimless existence going nowhere. We want, oh God, that our lives shall be guided by your word and your will. So use this word now to change our minds.

May the sinner change his mind and come and be saved. May the believer, oh God, may we change our minds and be renewed day by day. For Jesus' sake we pray, amen.