Symptoms of the Unrenewed Mind: Heart Hardness

Ephesians 4:23c

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Would you turn to Ephesians please, and we’ll begin at least together and then hope that we stay
together. Ephesians 4:23, and it runs – we’ve looked at it several times Ephesians 4:23, “And be
renewed in the spirit of your minds.” And, “be renewed in the spirit of your minds.” And we’ve
talked again, and again about the reality of that verse in Romans 12, “Do not be conformed to the
image of this world.” And I know it’s old stuff to all of you, but that of course was really God’s
plan and this is of course, the conformity to this world that has taken its place. And God is
saying, “Do not be conformed to the image of this world,” which of course works just one way as you
know. And it just works up like that, and God’s plan is that we would work down that way.

That we would get our security from him and from his love, and we would get our significance from
him and his love, and we would get our happiness from him and his love. And of course, what we have
done is ignore the Creator and turn to the creation. And we would begin to depend on things for our
security, and on people for our sense of significance, and on circumstances for our love. And what
God is saying is, “Don’t be conformed to the image of this world. Don’t live this way, live this
way.” And we’ve often said that in order to do that you really need to have the renewal of your
minds, and that’s that Romans 12 verse, if you just glance at it. It’s, “Do not be conformed to the
image of this world, but be transformed” turned right around, “Do not be conformed.” Romans 12:2 “Do
not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” And what we have
all of course taken to heart is that’s it that’s the key, renew your mind. And you know how we’ve
got involved in all kinds of books that try to teach you to renew your mind and they say, “It’s a
matter of not looking at the world but looking a God and here’s a way to do it.”

Some of them have become very popular as in that latest one, The Purpose Filled Life and some of
them we’ve known for years, and years, just how-to books. And they are trying to renew the mind but
you can see what we’re all doing, we’re trying to renew the mind ourselves by our own efforts.
We’re trying to renew something that has become utterly corrupted and utterly twisted and we try to
do it by our own efforts. And that’s – the whole era of the how-to books, it’s not that they are
bad themselves, they are saying often the right things, but they’re trying to renew the mind, or
people are using them to try to renew the mind by their own will power and that’s where you’ve found
often a dangerous combination of Godless ethics with Christ like ethics. And so many of us in our
churches are preoccupied with trying to renew our minds, trying to get our minds going the right way
because we all agree, our minds are it seems, anchored to the love of the world and so we need to be
freed from that. And we see how again, and again, our security depends on counting up the bank
account. We know it. Or, it depends on counting up our customers, or our appointments that we
have, or the clothes that we have to wear this winter, or the car that we have, and when any of
those go wrong, we do feel insecure.

Yeah, I don’t feel secure. There’s a rattle in the car and I don’t know what it is and outwardly we
try to pretend and it’s a little easier for us in our situation but I know in the state side
situation a tremor goes through the heart, when you think, “Oh there’s a bit of a rattle in the
front wheel and my sales have not been so good this month.” And ordinary people are in that
situation all the time. They find that their security, their sense that everything is right is
utterly dependent on the things that they have their car, their clothes, their house, their income,

their bank account, etcetera. And it’s the same with the significance thing we find our mind going
all the time.

Well the Bible says, “Do you depend on the praise of God or the praise of man?” And repeatedly we
find ourselves of course, being lifted by the praise of man and the admiration of people, and the
adulation, and the approval of other people. And even we who love God, we find that we do want
other people to like us and we don’t want them to dislike us and often it affects our ability to
speak truth to each other because we don’t want to be offensive, and we don’t want people to be put
off by us. So, it ties up with our own feeling of importance, or usefulness to people and so many
of us go out on all kinds of limbs to help people, but really we’re helping ourselves because we’re
giving ourselves a sense of fulfillment, we’re doing something worthwhile.

And so our significance depends also on people’s attitude to us. And then of course, it’s obvious
we know that’s as well with the happiness that we find that when things are good, when the money is
coming in, or it’s Christmas and everybody’s happy we’re happy. And if it’s a nice sunny day, we’re
happy. And if it’s a dark rainy day, or a dull day, or if the money is tight, or generally the
economy is tight, then we’re unhappy. And we love breaks because it’s a break from all the things
that tend to make us not happy and so we love vacations and breaks, because it changes our
circumstances and we understand, I mean, all the old philosophers said, you know, it’s foolishness
to think if you change your circumstances you’d be happy, but still we are tied to that. So that’s
the conformity to this world and we try to be transformed by renewing our minds, and it’ll never
happen.

It’ll never happen because the mind is corrupted, is twisted. Twisted by the spirit of the world
and twisted by its own connection with all the people who have ever lived in the world and there’s
only one way and that’s back to Ephesians 4:23. And I’d ask you just to look at it again, and see
the significance of it. It does not say, “Renew your mind. Ephesians 4:23 says, “And be renewed.”
Be renewed, it’s a passive verb. It’s actually a verb in the passive voice and it’s a verb
“ananeoo”. “Ananeoo” is the ending that they put in Greek on passive verbs and be renewed. Not
renew yourself, but be renewed. And then it’s quite interesting because it says, “And be renewed in
the spirit of your minds.” And there is actually no ‘in’ in the Greek. There is no ‘in’ in the
Greek it’s just the dative it would be in the ablative in Latin, but it’s the dative case in Greek
and it actually means and be renewed by the spirit of your minds and be renewed by the spirit of
your minds.

In other words, the spirit of your minds, by that you will be renewed. What is the spirit of your
minds? Well, look at Philippians 2:5 “Have this mind,” it says, “Among yourselves,” but it’s
actually “en” it’s the Greek word for in, “Have this mind in yourselves, which is yours in Christ
Jesus.” So you’re to be renewed by the spirit of your mind and the way you do that is you have in
yourself the mind that you have in Christ Jesus.

In other words, in Jesus you have a mind that has been destroyed and remade by him completely and so
there is in Christ the perfect mind of God and that is yours. You are in Christ and that has
happened to your mind. Your mind has been completely changed and transformed by Jesus and you have
that mind in him and all you have to do is have that mind in yourself day-by-day. In other words,
it’s a spirit faith thing, an intimate relationship with Jesus by which your mind will be renewed.
It’s having the mind that is in Jesus and thinks of things the way Jesus thinks of them. And you
are in him and he has an attitude to people that is in your mind also. You simply have to accept
the mind that you have in him, accept that in yourself and express it in yourself. But it’s a faith

thing.

Here’s the way – it’s that commentary that I mentioned to you Joanne, it’s Jameson and Faucet and
Brown commentary. It’s in the little power pocket sword Bible computer program you remember, and he
says, “Be renewed, “Ananeoo” implies the continual renewal in the youth of the new man.” It’s quite
interesting, the continual renewal in the youth of the new man not ‘anakainoo’ which is the usual
word for be renewed in the Bible. ‘Anakainoo’ is the renewal from the old state and it’s quite
interesting. He’s saying, “Be renewed in the youth of your new man.” So you’ve to be renewed in
what God has made you in Jesus. So he’s not talking to the old man, he’s not saying, “Old man you
must try to renew your mind as best you can with the how-to books.” But he’s saying, “You new man,
you new woman who have accepted your new creation in Jesus, you’ve to be renewed in that youth
continually day after day.” And then he says, “In the spirit of your mind,” and that’s interesting.
It’s in the spirit of your mind.

It’s your whole attitude of your mind. It’s not just your mind playing games, “Oh now I mustn’t
look at that thing today. I mustn’t look at that car because it will arouse in me a spirit of
greed.” No, it’s not that kind of game. It’s not just renewing the habits of your mind; it’s the
whole spirit of your mind. It’s the whole attitude that you have. You sit in a coffee bar and you
look out upon it and you realize, “I’m in Jesus. The Savior, you Lord, are in me, now what do you
see in these people around me? What are you thinking Lord?” And you dwell in the Jesus in the
place that he has put you and you begin to express the mind that he has created for you.

See, it does mean that you do have to accept that you personally have been placed in Jesus, that
you’ve been made in him, and that you’ve been crucified in him, and that you’ve been resurrected in
him. And then in the light of that, you’ve simply to express what is in you, what Jesus has put in
you and what he is in you. But that comes down to actually what you do with your eyes. So you
don’t sit in the coffee house and say, “Alright, I mustn’t look there,” you remember custody of the
eyes where they taught in the monasteries, custody of the eyes with a’ Kempis in the right hand
pocket and you kept your eyes down so that you wouldn’t see anything that you shouldn’t look at.
But it’s not that. It’s confidence in Jesus that he is sitting in that coffee house in you and that
you are sitting in him, “And now Lord, what do you think?”

It’s a warm intimate relationship with Jesus. It isn’t a dry – Wesley says, “It isn’t a speculative
rational thing, a cold lifeless assent, a train of ideas in the head, but a disposition of the
heart.” So, it’s the inner relationship with Jesus. It’s having the mind in you that he has in
himself that belongs to you. He has a little mind called Trish mind, Trish’s mind. It’s there. It
is filled with his mind and all he’s saying is, “You have this in you there on earth. You express
that on earth.” “In the spirit of your mind, as there is no Greek for in as in Ephesians 4:17 it
doesn’t mean by the spirit of your mind but by the Holy Spirit united with your spirit and
influencing your mind.” So that’s how he puts it.

It means to be renewed in the spirit of your mind – by the spirit of your mind. It means by the
Holy Spirit united with your spirit and influencing your mind, the spirit of man is only then
recognized when it is one spirit with the Lord. The natural or animal “psuchikos” which is soulish,
“The natural or animal man is described as having not the spirit.” So the natural man is the one
who lives in this world and you have to be transformed from the natural man by being filled with the
spirit. Man is described as, “Having not the spirit, not filling its true function as receptacle of
the Holy Spirit, the spirit of the unregenerate is in obeisance.” And your spirit is joined to
Jesus’ Spirit and you have the mind that he has, and our – what we are being encouraged to do is

express that.

It means looking at the people around you and seeing them as Jesus sees them, and thinking of them
as him, and so if they treat you curtly, or brusquely, or indifferently as is so often today’s
practice, if they treat you that way you have the mind of Jesus within you and you express that
mind. And as you do that, his Spirit is able to soften them even if they keep on treating you that
way, his Spirit is acting in a softening way on their conscience and their spirit. And it’s the
same with circumstances. You look upon circumstances as Jesus himself is looking at them and not
you see – you play a game, “What would Jesus do?” You know, that’s the old story, “What would Jesus
do in these circumstances?” It’s not a game, it’s not a mental game, “Oh well, he would thank God
for the rain, you know.” No, you turn to Jesus himself and you say, “Lord, what is you attitude to
these? What do you want to express here in this world through me about these circumstances? Now
the tire is flat, the rain is blasting down, the cars are all sound their horns, what are you
thinking? Lord, express your mind through me.” It’s you and him together.

It’s not you down there saying, “Now, if Jesus were here well he would,” – Jesus is there. You have
his mind in you and you’re simply saying, “Lord, what do you want to think through my mind at this
moment?” And of course, I’m doing it in that way to bring home to you how intimate it is. It’s not
a game like that, it’s not you doing it the way I’ve said, but you are renewed in the – by the
spirit of your mind because your mind is in Jesus and you’re intimately connected with him. And
that’s part of what it means to be a member of his body, you are intimately seamlessly connected to
Jesus and as you live in the reality of that, then your mind is renewed and this is broken. This
whole miserable outward/inward thing is broken by the cross and you are transformed. Transformed by
what Christ himself has done. So it’s a much bigger thing, that’s why the term is the spirit of
your mind. It’s a much bigger thing than playing mental games. It’s an intimacy with Jesus that
really is ours. Let us pray.