7 Powerful Principles to Renew Your Mind | Biblical Mind Transformation with Jonny Ardavanis

In this episode, I don't want to walk through seven principles of renewing our mind. I think it's worth asking the question, what do I need to do to be conformed to this world? Answer nothing. You just live in the world when you are immersed in the world. You are allowing yourself to be influenced by it. This whole business of renewing your mind includes recognizing that I focus on God as the greatest supplier of those longings of my heart, true satisfaction. If you're going to renew your mind, you've got to proactively throughout the day engage your mind in the truth that transforms it. And I would want anyone listening to say, number one, born again, transformed by grace, saved by faith, gives you the capacity to have a renewed mind and a renewed heart and a renewed life. Read the Bible, meditate together, rehearse the truth, renounce the lies and watch God change your life. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by the Masters University. If you are or know of a student in your life looking for an education that is committed to Christ and Scripture, you can go and apply at masters.edu. And when you do, you can use our code dial in to waive the application fee. That's where I work to you, Harry. Welcome. Thank you. That's how we know each of us. Hey, so we're in a series on really pursuing holiness. We looked at the reality that seeing God is the primary motivation. Blessed are the pure and heart for this. I'll see God. It means that there's going to be a real intimacy, a real fellowship with God. We looked then secondly a couple episodes ago at this reality of making no provision for the flesh to cut off the things in our life that constantly, Hebrews says, trip us up. They cause us to stumble. But with that said, you know, when I was a boy, when we lived in Chicago, my dad would employ home alone style protection systems in our house in Chicago. Like he was afraid of where we lived. So I'd wake up and I would see my dad putting little Legos, honestly, on the windowsill. Said to think that if a burglary broke into our basement, they would step on a Lego and threw their shoe. They would scream, alerting and awaking my dad two stories up. And we laughed because it's obviously an insufficient system to ward off burglars. And in that same way, knowing sin is bad is not enough. It's not enough to transform our affections, our yearnings, our longings, our desires. We need to have our minds renewed and that's so important, as we see throughout the scripture. Yeah, no, 100% true. You don't have the willpower or the resolve sufficient to motivate and move you to success in fighting the flesh and the enemy and the world. Yeah, we need that. And I want to look to a familiar passage of scripture, at least initially, Romans 12, 1 and 2 says, therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship, you're just saying in light of everything God has done for us in the gospel that our entire life is to be presented on the altar of sacrifice. And then he says in 12, 2, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And he says, so that you may prove what the will of God is, meaning here, God's will for our life doesn't need to be found. It needs to be proven and it's by not being conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I like what Archie Sproul says in the book, pleasing God. He says, the world is a seducer. It seeks to attract our attention and our devotion. It remains close at hand, visible and enticing. It eclipses our view of heaven and what has seen vise for our attention. It entices our eyes, preventing us from watching for a better country whose builder and maker is God. It pleases us much of the time anyway. And alas, we often find our lives trying to please it. He says, there is where the conflict ensues for pleasing the world, seldom overlaps with pleasing God. But this is God's will for our life. And that is that our mind is to be renewed. And I think sometimes here I want you to speak to this because I think sometimes we come to the Christian life and many people have this idea that it's simply the subtraction of bad behaviors with the addition of good behaviors. Like, don't do these things anymore. We got to start doing these things now. But it's more than that fundamentally. It's about the transformation of our desires, our affections, our attention and our allegiance. Speak to that. Yeah. Well, I like that a lot. An Appearance and Pastor by the name of Thomas Chalmers has written a book, preached a sermon called the expulsive power of a greater affection, expulsive meaning the removal, the the jettison of desires that are illicit affections because what dominates your heart is a legitimate affection, a greater affection. So if I love my wife with passion and vigor, it diminishes any interest in an alternative affection. If you have an affection for God, it has the power to expel these lesser affections, these illicit ones, these insufficient ones. So this whole business of renewing your mind includes recognizing that I focus on God as the greatest supplier of those longings of my heart, true satisfaction. And I focus on that. And I establish a pursuit of that. And it removes both opportunity and interest in lesser affections. So it is a positive focus on God, the things of God, the life of God, the word of God, the satisfaction that comes from God. You know, man does not live in when Jesus was tempted. He turned the stones into bread, satisfy, gratify. And he said, listen, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God. There is a kind of soul food through the word of God that satisfies the person of God so that the desire for the lesser things, the provisions. It's just not interested. I just had a good meal. Thanksgiving, we just had it. You know, I eat a lot. Somebody brings out a dessert. I don't have any room. I'm not hungry. It's not because it's not interesting. I just don't desire it. Yeah. And all of these things, and we're going to jump into this, have to do with our mind. I like what John Stott says. He says, the battle for the Christian life is the battle for the Christian mind. This is not only something that an English theologian claims. It's really the testament and anthem of scripture as your mind goes, as my mind goes. So goes the entirety of our Christian life. Proverbs 237 as a man thinks within himself. So he is Ephesians 423 be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Mark 12, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength." 1 Peter 113, "Prepare your minds for action." And then here in Romans 122, your mind is to be renewed. So how does this happen? Well, in this episode, I don't want to walk through seven principles of renewing our mind. Not exhaustive this list, but and there's some overlap here, and we've already touched on a couple of them. But seven principles for how our minds are to be transformed. And the first of which is to fill our mind with God's word. A simple principle would be what you put in shapes, what comes out of your life. And saturation precedes transformation. Like you are a derivative of what you saturate your mind with. So how does the Holy Spirit work? Well, the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and a child of God to transform them into the image of the Son of God. So if you want your mind to be renewed, you have to first and fundamentally have your mind rooted and planted in the truth of Scripture. Yeah, and it parallels what Proverbs 7 begins with by saying the thing that keeps you from the adulterous and the strange woman, the temptation and gratification and the flesh, what keeps you? All involves the truth of God's word. You store it, Solomon says to a son, "Hey, keep my words within you, treasure them in your heart, apply them, treat them as the apple of your eye, rehearse them, memorize them, develop a relationship with them, and they will keep you." That's the words of God, the wisdom of God, the instruction of God, keeps you from immorality, fleshly thoughts, any violation of the Word of God by the desires of the flesh. Hey folks, I want to take a moment and tell you about one of our ministry partners accountable to you. Accountable to you is an accountability software that helps protect and ensure your personal purity and integrity. I've been using this personally for over a year and the way it works is that whatever you look at is sent to the accountability partners that you have in your life. My wife would be one of those. I have other friends that are a part of that and the guys on my church staff are also joining me in this endeavor because one of the paths to purity is eliminating any access to anonymity in your life, meaning that if you can look at things on your iPad, your phone, your computer and say, "No one will ever know about this," it's going to be really hard to battle for holiness in a world that is so littered with impurity. I would highly encourage you to check out accountable to you. You can go to their website, accountabletoyou.com/dialin and use dialin our code to receive 25% off your first year of use. There's nothing more important than protecting your personal purity as you seek to honor the Lord and with it there's a precious promise that we've looked at before. Blessed are the pure and heart for they shall see God and accountability is one of the ways that you can ensure that you are protecting your personal purity and seeking to honor the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, kind of at the foundational level, you become like that which you behold. So the Word of God, Psalm 19 to your point, provides warnings more over by them, your servants is warned, but also promises, rewards and promises, you know, that incentivize us, right? And it transforms our affections. Like in 2 Corinthians 3, 17, I always thought this was interesting, Harry, where it says, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," meaning like the Christian life is freedom, but then you go, "Well, how is the Christian life liberty and freedom?" Wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. When it feels like there's a bunch of rules and regulations and things they can and cannot do, but then we have to read the next verse. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, meaning that the Christian life only feels like liberty to the person whose greatest desire is to become like the one they behold in the Word of God. And you'll never know who God is unless you are saturating and renewing your mind in the truth of Scripture. So that would be the first one. I think the truth is liberating from a dominating incarceration of the flesh. You're under the flesh's dominating control. Unless you're liberated by the Spirit of God through the Word of God, true liberty, I can choose. I have the freedom to say, "No, I have the freedom to say yes." So this idea of freedom is a liberating reality for a Christian dominated by the words of God. I was thinking you mentioned, Johnny, Psalm 19. I like verse seven, which says, "The law of the Lord is perfect. It restores. It refreshes. It renews the soul." The Word of God is both the cleansing agent and the transformational means whereby we're renewed, the way we think, the way we, the affections of the heart. Yeah, it's so important. And that leads us really to secondly here, how to renew our mind. You have to take every thought captive. I wrote in my notes to take the Philippians for eight tests. We know this first, potentially, where Paul says, finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute. If there is any excellence, if anything worthy of praise dwell on these things, meaning that we don't let any thought in our life run unchecked, we can ask those questions. Is it true? Is it honorable? And we talked about this a little bit beforehand. To replace any of the lies that the world flings at us, the world of flesh, the devil, and to replace those lies with truth. And here is where Harry this idea of renewing your mind isn't just kind of like an abiblical exaggeration. It's an actual scientific reality that our minds need to be transformed. Yeah, I was interesting on enough reading recently, very recently, about the fact that when you rehearse certain ideas or certain thoughts, words, when you rehearse them out loud, you literally renew or rewire the neural pathways, the physiological, neural pathways in your brain. So let's suppose the habit of my heart is to think a particular thing. I'm no good. I'll never do any good. Just these thoughts that are so intrusive or dominating, or, hey, nobody will know. I can do this and nobody will know, which is a lie. But it's a lie that I tend to believe and act out on neuroplasticity, which is a scientific thing that I'm becoming more aware of, recognizes the fact that when you rehearse truth after identifying the lie and renouncing verbally that lie, like it is a lie that no one will know. First of all, Proverbs 5-21, the eyes of the Lord be whole to evil and the good. The Lord knows. It's not true that no one knows. That's a lie. Identify it as a lie. I verbally reject it. And then I rehearse the truth out loud. This is neuroplasticity. It's book Biblical and it is scientific that I say out loud, no, God knows. He knows because he holds the evil in the good. What I do in secret, God knows. To Him, darkness is light. So, rehearsing the truth and saying it out loud, and this is the thing I didn't really realize, is the verbalizing it out loud. When my ears hear it, I'm preaching truth to myself from the Word of God that is rewiring my thinking patterns. And the more I repeat that, the more grooved it is. So that might-- That's literally solidified. Yeah, in your head, your brain, and it's the habit of your heart. And therefore, when you're not thinking, you're thinking, you're defaulting to truth rather than lies. Yeah, so important. I think sometimes we talk about the renewing of our mind and we think, you know, well, that's just something the Bible says. But from a scientific level, neuroplasticity is the rewiring of your brain. So third here is not only to saturate your lies with the Word of God, not only to take every thought captive, but to reset your mind on things above. Just bottom line, you can't starve your flesh if you keep feeding it. Scripture says in Colossians 3.2, "Set your mind on things above, comma, not on earthly things," which means that the Scripture is telling us too deliberately. And intentionally set our minds on God, the hope of heaven. For John 3.3 says, "Whoever has this hope fixed on him purifies himself even as he is pure." Meaning that as we dwell on the person in the work of Jesus Christ, where he reigns in heaven right now, Jesus says, "Don't let your heart be troubled. Think about heaven." That becomes a purifying agent in our life when we are dwelling upon the reality that this world is not our home. So many of the temptations in this world are because we want to be a part of it. We think this world lasts forever. But Paul says in Colossians, "No, set your mind not here, but in heaven." Anything to add there? Yeah, I think you mentioned the key thought is what you focus on, and it's also what you choose not to focus on, removing, and ignoring. John Owen in his book, Famous Book on Temptation and the Mortification of Sin, talks about the habitual weakening of sin by denying it what it desires. So the things that you said, fuel it, which can be social media, could be friends, could be things we do by virtue of our association, prompters, triggers. I think social media is just full of triggers and fuel for the flesh. And gay drugs, didn't I? Yeah, it's just like, if you want to succeed on taming your thoughts and controlling your mind, you have to be careful what you expose your mind to. And it's not weakness, it's wisdom. Yeah, well, you think about it. You can read your Bible for 15 hours a day and then go roll around in the mud of the world for 16 hours. You're going to come out polluted. The average person spends seven hours a day on social media looking at their phone or looking at a screen. And that really leads us to number four, Harry, which is guard the gates of your mind. Answer nothing. You just live in the world. When you are immersed in the world, you are allowing yourself to be influenced by it. And that's why it probably was 423. I remember my dad teaching me this when I was young, watch over your heart with all diligence for ferment, flow the springs of life because whatever we consume becomes what we contemplate and whatever we contemplate shapes our character. And so with that, we really need the guard, the gates of our mind. You talked about eliminating some of those things that may be morally neutral in of themselves, but there are a lot of morally neutral things in life that are not explicitly sinful, that robber focus and attention from dwelling on the things of God. Yeah, no. And that's just, I said it earlier, it's just being wise. If I want to be physically fit and I want to lose weight, it's not immoral to go by the buffet. But if I go to the buffet, I am drawn to the buffet. You're speaking from personal experience. Yeah, I love the word buffet over buffet, my body. But the practical point being, if you want to be successful, it's wise to avoid the prompters of temptation. Yeah. It's just wise. You guard the gates of your mind, i.e. by what I allow in it, but also where I frequent go or I am challenged to be exposed to something. And I'm not brutish in the sense that I'm afraid. I'm just aware of the fact that I'd rather not be tempted than to have to fight the battle of temptation. That's the first, you know, like how do people ask, how do I fight temptation? Well, you don't, you know, as much as possible, you run as fast and as far away from it as possible. Make no provision. Yeah, make no provision. Our goal is to be in the battle. You know, we're in a war, but we don't pick, we don't pick fights with the flesh. Five would be to meditate on what is excellent in regards to renewing our mind. We've done an episode on this before Harry, but purity and purity out, there's overlap here. But there is a distinction between studying scripture, which is important. Yeah. Reading scripture, which is very important. And then that is different than meditating on scripture and disciplining and training yourself to think God's thoughts after Him so that your default thoughts going along with what you said about neuroplasticity are towards godliness. Maybe just touch on that briefly. I know we've talked about it before, but just the importance of meditation as it relates to renewal. Yeah, we have talked about it before, and it is a whole consideration in and of itself. But the fundamental idea is that you are feeding on the Word of God and you are ruminating on the Word of God. So you're taking it in, here's the big idea, and you're chewing on it throughout the day throughout the day. It's a day-long process. You know, the mind's going somewhere. Yeah, and it's not it's not passive. It is active and proactive directing my thoughts to the things of God, the truth of God, which renews my mind and transforms my heart. That's why I'm like a tree planted by streams of water. That's why my leaf doesn't wither. That's why I bear fruit in my in season because my delight is in the law of the Lord and the law of the Lord. I ruminate. I meditate day and night throughout the day. So and this is a practical action step. Yeah. You chew on it. You cough it up if you will, and you think about it. You don't want to spend gobs of time, but you need to spend multiple installments of time in order to establish a groove in your head and the nourishment for your heart. So good. Six year would be worship prayer. The people of God had kind of coupled those together, but I think communion with God and His people is a big one for the renewal. We think about the renewal of our mind as something that's private. But and I would say first of all, you have to have real communion with God because if you don't have intimacy with God, then temptation to sin or the the resistance against sin will feel like I don't want to violate a principle rather than I don't I don't want to grieve a personal God who loves me and knows me. So there has to be real intimacy. But then also the people of God, you know, we're not alone, Rangers were in, you know, maybe Harry just reflect on the body of Christ. Like we think about this idea of we need our minds to be renewed as kind of like a solo project. You know, we serve in the church together, but as it relates to my mind being transformed, that's just something I have to do Monday through Saturday. But the scripture says that we're to sing the truth, preach the truth to one another. So how does the body of Christ kind of come together on this? Yeah. Christ's likeness is the goal of God for us. Christ's likeness should be our goal. Christ's likeness is impossible in isolation. The way God has designed sanctification, spiritual progress under Christ's likeness, the way he's designed it includes the gifts of others, the the influence of others, the encouragement of others, the accountability to others, the worship with others, the stimulation of loving good deeds that come through worship when we don't forsake it. There is this communal aspect at the university we would call it a distinctive is sanctifying community, sanctifying relationships. My relationship with you and the closeness that we have stimulates me and encourages me. It challenges me and hopefully vice versa. And this idea of brotherhood and community is so critical to success as a Christian. Brothers need brothers. You've heard me say that. Christians need Christians. Isolation will kill you. You're not strong enough by yourself. Nobody is. So this idea of the body of Christ, functioning collectively and together, encouraging, strengthening, supporting, challenging is part of God's plan. So that I become what he saved me to become, which is like his first born son. Yeah, you can't live the Christian life alone without the body of Christ and Seventh year, lastly, in order to renew your mind, my mind, we have to walk in the spirit, not the flesh, meaning that our transformation is not primarily about willpower, but about the spirit's power working in our life. And when we want to become more like Christ, we need to recognize the nature of our dependence on God. Galatians 5, 16 says, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. I think there are a lot of people that I want to just, my mind has to be, you know, change my mind, change my mind, but this is actually something the spirit of God does in our life. That's why in Ephesians 4, 23, it's a passive verb, meaning it's something we're pursuing, but it's actually something that's being done to us through the power of God's spirit. Maybe just talk about that nature of spirit dependence that we're not the one changing our minds. We have a part to play. I think Ken Hughes calls it Holy Spirit-inspired sweat. We are working out our salvation with fear and trembling, Philippians 2, 12, but the next verse is so important for it is God who works in and through you for his good pleasure. So we need God's spirit. Yeah, and I think this, at least for many of us, including me, sometimes is the overlooking of the necessity Ephesians 5, 18. You know, don't be drunk with wine. Don't be governed by this influence, but be filled. Keep on being filled. Passive verb, present tense. Keep on filling the spirit of God, filling and controlling me so that I won't fulfill the desires of the flesh, so that I will fulfill the desires of God. And so spirit filling, walking in the spirit, there's 5, 25 and if Galatians 5 says, "Since you live by the spirit, walk by the spirit." In the word walk, there's different than the first one in 5, 16. It's staying stuck with the spirit. Like he's calling marching cadence orders. You listen to him. The word of God, I call that the black and white, the loud, the obvious, and the prompting of the Holy Spirit, they're not so obvious. The word of God rules, but the Spirit of God prompts and his clear cadence united with his prompting leading is the direction that you submit to, you obey, and you enjoy both the fruit of the spirit, the power of the spirit and the experience of the Holy Spirit. That includes holiness, purity, life, freedom, the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control. All of those nine facets are expressions of what happens to me when the Spirit of God governs me, when I'm listening, following. And so when you raise the point about walking in the spirit, honestly, it's last because it's foundational. It could be first because it's essential. Yeah, so important. And I think as you come to a close here, the question has to be asked, who can have a renewed mind? And it's truly only those who have a renewed heart. What God does it in us positionally at the moment of salvation, he provides the power to do that progressively until we meet him face to face. But in order to be walking with the Spirit, we have to be indwelt by the Spirit of God, which happens when we place our faith in the finished work of Christ. And so I think there are maybe some people that my mind can't be renewed, I can't be renewed. And you'd have to ask the question, do you have a renewed heart? Because when God changes your heart, He gives you the capacity to have this renewed mind. And you said it already, Harry, like, you're not incarcerated by the flesh anymore if you're in Christ. You don't have to sin. You've been given a way of escape. You can honor the Lord. Anything else just to add before we start? Yeah, I just would want to punctuate that. If I'm a slave to sin, if I'm an addict to this pattern, it is possible that I've not been set free by the power of Christ. Because one of the things that Jesus Christ said, He would do, He would set prisoners free. He would set me free. If the sun sets me free, Jesus said in the gospel of John. We preach here recently. You're free indeed. And so the importance of being born from above, transformed by the Spirit. I'm a sinner. I can't save myself. Jesus did what I couldn't do, paid a debt I couldn't pay, and He's ready to give me a life I can't earn. And by faith, I trust Him to forgive me because He paid the price and to transform me with the righteousness that I can't earn or deserve is. And when that happens, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, I'm a new creation. Old things pass away. All things become new. I'm a new person born again from above. That's the gospel truth. And that's the hope we have. And these things we talked about, God gives us the power to change. He gives us the means to change His Word and the person of His Spirit and with good brothers. And this is the other thing I'd want to punctuate. If you want to tame your thoughts, find a band of brothers or sisters and say, Hey, listen, I need help with this. Will you help me with us do this together? Read the Bible, meditate together, rehearse the truth, renounce the lies, and watch God change your life. Well, Harry, thanks so much. Appreciate you, bro. Thank you, Johnny.