Being Transformed by the Renewal of Your Mind

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last week we looked at how our fervent faith can bring God’s healing and merciful future into the present. Today I want to look at a different manifestation of our faith. Specifically, I want to look briefly at how the renewal of our mind affects the way we interact with each other as Christ’s body, the Church. As we will see, we have to do our part before we are ready to be part of Christ’s body. But how we renew our mind is ultimately grounded in our faith.

The mission statement of our future church, St. Augustine’s Anglican, is as follows: Changed by God to make a difference for God. If we are going to make a difference for God in his broken and hurting world, we have to first be changed by God so that people will take notice that something is a bit different about us and the way we interact with others. But what does that look like? Paul gives us a partial answer in today’s Epistle lesson. He tells us not to conform to the patterns of this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

And we can relate to what Paul says about conformity because we all know what it means to conform to the ways of the world. We don’t have to be a teenager to remember the pressures that were brought to bear on us to be like everyone else. This often led us to behave in ways we knew were wrong or that made us feel uncomfortable. But we went along with the crowd because we were created to have relationships and we wanted to fit in, to be popular.

Likewise as adults. We are under constant and massive pressure to conform to the ways of the world. Sometimes we are confronted by in-your-face demands to conform as when we are confronted with political correctness. Other times the pressure is more subtle. For example, I heard on the news last week that a study had been released which suggested that it pays to be overbearing and less agreeable in the workplace. If you are, and if you are a male, you can make on average about 18% more than your more agreeable counterparts. Unfortunately, if you are a female you’ll only make about 5% more than your more agreeable counterparts. Apparently the old adage is true. Nice guys (and gals) do finish last.

But this begs the real issue. At what cost? The short answer is “your life” because you are doing the things that indicate you are worshiping a different god instead of the one true and living God. But that’s a different topic for a different day. The point here is that this study illustrates what is important to the world, greed and self-aggrandizement being among the most important characteristics. Consequently, we are encouraged to do what we have to do to make as much as we can and be as powerful as we can. We are told to be a self-made person so we can have as much control as possible in our life. These are some of the things to which the world wants us to conform and it is seductive because we are profoundly broken people. After all, who doesn’t want to be in control?

Paul catalogs other ways of the world in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Galatians. Among other things, Paul identifies sexual immorality, idolatry, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy. We see many of these characteristics in the above mentioned study as well as the recent riots in London, the so-called “flash mobs” in Philadelphia, and the developing story of scandal in the University of Miami’s athletics program. These behaviors will turn heads all right, but not in the manner that most of us would want or desire. Most of us don’t want to be recognized by our picture on the FBI’s Most Wanted list!

So how do we resist being conformed to the patterns of this world, patterns that must lead to destruction and chaos? Paul tells us in today’s Epistle lesson. We are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. But what does that mean? It means we are to use our minds to think biblically about what kind of human beings God created us to be. In fact, Jesus tells us what our goal as humans is–to be perfect just as our Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5.48). Don’t panic. Jesus didn’t have in mind the impossible goal of being mistake-free when he said this. The Greek word Matthew uses is teleios which can mean a goal or end to achieve. But it also refers to completeness, being full grown or fully developed. And when we think about it (there’s that mind renewal thingy again), this should make sense. Who among us doesn’t want to be a whole or complete human? Most of us spend a lifetime chasing after this. Trouble is, most of us don’t know how to get there from here!

But Christians should know how to get there. We, of course, use Jesus as our model because he told us that we must deny ourselves, take up our cross everyday, and follow him. Paul tells us likewise in several of his letters. He urges us to put to death or crucify our sinful nature and put on Christ (cf. Romans 6; Philippians 2; Colossians 3 among others) because Jesus is the true image bearer of God, just the way God created all humans to be.

So what does being an image bearer of God to the world look like? Among other things, our behavior will consistently reflect the fruit of the Spirit–love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Yes, these are fruit of the Spirit but they do not come naturally or easily because we are inherently hostile toward God. Instead, we have to cooperate with the Spirit by working diligently to develop appropriate habits that reflect the Spirit’s fruit so that they become part of us and our character, just like we would work to grow and cultivate a real fruit tree. So, for example, when someone does wrong to us, we learn to forgive rather than to retaliate because forgiveness does not come easily or naturally. If you think that once you are in Christ you will automatically get the Spirit’s fruit without any effort on your part, well, you really ought take something for that.

Furthermore, if we are going to follow Jesus then we would expect to see humility and service in our thinking and acting. We will stop trying to make ourselves the center of the universe. We will actively think about what is good for others and then work to help them achieve this. We will challenge the bizarre notion that love always gives the beloved (ourselves included) what he or she wants or desires because we know what comes out of the heart and we want the best for our beloved instead. But here again, we have to use our minds to do this. We have to think about what we are doing. If you really want to develop the mind and character of Christ, you have to work at it.

And lest you think I am advocating a form of self-help and/or salvation by works, think again. We don’t do any of this to earn our salvation. That is impossible. We do this because we are profoundly grateful for the sheer gift of grace given to us in the cross of Christ and we respond accordingly. Yes, we must make the effort to think about and develop our Christian character but we do not do it on our own. We do it with the help and presence of the Spirit living in us, which of course requires faith. As I have said many times before, the Christian faith is not a program of self-help. It is a program of God-help for what ails us and for that we can and should be profoundly grateful. This, then, is what Paul had in mind when he urges us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. This is the path toward Christian perfection, toward achieving the goal of being fully grown and complete human beings.

So where do we get the stuff to think about all this? From several places but I would mention two here. First, we get the content to renew our minds largely from Scripture. That is why it is so important for us to read the Bible regularly and systematically. When we do, God will use his word to slowly but surely shape and form our thinking (there’s the mind renewal thingy again) so that we can really start developing the mind of Christ and become more fully human in the process. Christians are called to think about how they think and what they do. We are called to think seriously about issues of morality and ethics, and we can get wonderful assistance in that endeavor by reading Scripture regularly and systematically. Not so much to discover a set of rules to be followed arbitrarily but rather to develop character and discover rules to provide us guidelines and guidance for our behavior in situations that the rules don’t specifically cover. There’s a huge difference between the two.

Second, we are to work on developing our Christian character together. The Christian faith never was meant to be lived alone or in isolation. As Paul reminds us in today’s Epistle, we are part of Christ’s body, the Church, and so we are to talk about what Christian character looks like with each other. More importantly, as we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, we will inevitably begin to treat each other differently. We will develop a real love and passion for each other and together we will develop a servant’s heart, with the help of the Spirit, of course. We respect and honor each other and don’t get all puffed up with pride thinking we are better than our fellow believers or have more to offer than they do. Instead, we realize that each of us bring gifts to the table, gifts that God intends for us to use to build each other up, not to tear each other down.

As that starts happening (and this is no small task, mind you!) people will take notice because all of a sudden we are not being conformed to the ways of the world anymore. Instead, we are loving on each other and encouraging each other to use our respective gifts to bring the love of Christ to bear on the world that desperately needs it, just the way his love comes to bear in our own lives when we feel real healing and forgiveness for our sins. And when that happens, we can be confident that God will use us to be his kingdom workers in his world. Not everyone, of course, will appreciate this. In fact many will actively oppose us and when that happens we can trust God to use us to help each other bear our respective burdens.

This is what it means to be transformed by the renewing of our minds because we think about and make the effort to develop Christian character that allows us to start to behave in truly human ways, the ways of Christ. When we do, we really do become living sacrifices, which, as Paul said, is the best and truest form of worship. None of this is quick or easy. But we persevere because we live in the hope of Jesus’ resurrection and the promise of New Creation to which it points. We know that doing so will lead us to a pattern of loving service to others which in turn helps provide us with a God-intended completeness, even in the midst of our suffering. And as God uses the renewal of our mind to transform us and we see ourselves becoming more and more human over time, we are indeed reminded that we have Good News, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.