Last week we talked about the remedy for a heart that has become diluted of its willpower to live for Christ. The remedy is you coming before God and praying, "God, my heart isn’t what it should be. Create in me a pure heart. Fill up whatever is lacking within me. Help me want to even desire our will. Be my Lord. "In order to get the spiritual growth process started, a small part of our heart must surrender itself to God. Once God has a foothold he begins to renovate our heart.
Philippians 2:13 (NIV) says, "… it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”
What an exciting prospect. God will never act or choose for us. But he will grow us to a point where obedience comes naturally and spontaneously, even joyously. We don’t have to muster up all the willpower necessary to live for God by ourselves. God strengthens our resolve. God motivates our obedience. You will remember God’s promise in Jeremiah 24:7 (NIV) which says, "I will give them a heart to know me..." And don’t forget God’s promise in Ezekiel 18:31 (NIV), "Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit." The first key to spiritual growth is to claim these promises and make them a reality by seeking a new heart from Christ.
A key to spiritual growth is to focus our minds on Christ.
This morning we are going to talk about a second key to spiritual growth. The second key to spiritual growth is to focus our minds on Christ. Before we do this, I want to reemphasize something else that we discussed last week. We talked about the importance of a multi-dimensional strategy for spiritual growth that encompasses every dimension of our humanity. Jesus said in Mark 12:30 (NIV), "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." We cannot give God our heart, but not give him our mind. We cannot give God our mind, but not our body or our soul or our relationships. An effective strategy for spiritual growth engages every dimension of our humanity.
Last week we distributed packets of seeds to everyone attending worship with the promise that we would give you another unique item this week. If you miss a week you can still pick up the item that you missed. This week we want to give you a flowerpot. Next week we will give you a new item. We want to reinforce this lesson that spiritual growth is a process that requires patience and must encompass every dimension of our humanity. A seed doesn’t grow with water or dirt or nutrients only. It only grows when all those elements are present. Likewise, we don’t grow by loving God with our heart or mind or body or soul or our relationships. We grow by loving God when all those elements of our humanity are present!
Last week we learned to love God with our heart. This week we learn to love God with our mind. Recently a company named Vital Basics came out with a product called Focus Factor. Focus Factor is a dietary supplement that supports healthy brain function. By taking this supplement they claim that our thoughts, our behavior, our ability to form words, our ability to understand and calculate numbers, and our ability to communicate will be significantly enhanced. The supplement is also reported to cause people to become more gullible. Does anyone here find that to be true? Who knows, maybe their product does work!
It just so happens that one of the vital basics to spiritual growth is a spiritual discipline called focus factor. The spiritual discipline focus factor involves giving God a piece of prime real estate in our mind. It is letting him take up residence in our thoughts. I like what the psalmist says in Psalm 16:8 (NIV). He says, "I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken." Translation. I have made the Lord my focus. He is the greatest factor in my mind.
In his book Renovation of the Heart Dallas Willard discusses why it is important for us to make the Lord the focus of our thoughts. He says, "The mind is the place where we can and must begin to change." The mind is where, "...the light of God first begins to move upon us" and where, "...the divine Spirit begins to direct our will (hearts)..." The mind is the doorway through which God enters the heart. Until we give God a piece of our mind, it is unlikely he’ll ever get a piece of our hearts.
Speaking of focus factors, Dallas Willard explores four focus factors that can either enrich or erode the fertile soil of our mind.
A first factor is ideas.
Ideas are the assumptions that we hold about reality, about God, and about life. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, they were drawn away from God by a powerful, but destructive idea. The evil one questioned Eve in Genesis 3:1-5 (NIV). "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?' The woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' ''You will not surely die,' the serpent said to the woman. 'For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' "
In that moment an idea was planted like a seed in Eve’s mind. She was persuaded that God could not be trusted and that she must act independently of God to secure her own well-being. That same idea continues to draw men and women away from God today. Ideas are tremendously powerful.
A second factor is images.
Images are concrete and specific. They are heavily laced with feeling and emotion. This year politicians paid out almost a billion dollars to craft image ads to manipulate public perceptions about their opponents. Likewise, companies pay out billions of dollars to associate their products with our physical desires like hunger and thirst, and our emotional needs like loneliness, self-esteem, intimacy, meaning, and purpose.
One of the things I appreciated about my Bible college education is that they taught me how to discern the meanings of images, whether they appear in films, music videos, as artwork, advertisements, billboards, or the like. What frightens me about images is they don’t have to be true in order to influence people. Do we really believe that buying name brand clothing will make people accept us? Do we really believe that drinking a certain beverage will make us desirable?
Do we really believe that using a certain soap product will energize our entire day? Do we really believe that credit card will give us total piece of mind? Or that pill will cure all our ills? Or that politician will solve all of our problems? Or that we will instantly fall asleep the moment we lay on that mattress? Like ideas, images are powerfully persuasive.
A third factor is information.
We all know what information is. Information confirms or refutes ideas and images. The internet has a wealth of information. Some of that information is true, but a significant amount of it is misinformation. Likewise, newspapers and print media, books and periodicals contain statistics, quotations, research, data, facts, and the like. We rely upon this information to make informed decisions, but sometimes we disregard information when it contradicts an image or idea we hold dear.
There is an expression that you may have picked up that says "truth is power." Whoever defines truth holds power. The media and the networks are very powerful. Our educational system, our teachers' unions, and universities are very powerful. These institutions spin the facts to favor one ideology and to dismiss another.
A fourth factor is thinking.
Thinking is the process whereby we search out what must be true and what must be false. Thinking is the gift that God has given us to protect us from false ideas, deceptive images, and misinformation. Thinking serves the truth and poses the greatest threat to those who would emotionally manipulate us or take advantage of us with falsehoods.
So what does an academic discussion like this have to do with spiritual growth? Simple. In order to grow spiritually we must allow godly ideas, images, information, and thinking to permeate our minds and to combat all falsehoods. The Bible is a seedbed for godly ideas, images, information and thinking.
The Bible is a seedbed for godly ideas, images, information and thinking.
A few weeks ago the survey you took asked a series of questions about basic habits. How often do you read your Bible? How often do you study your Bible? How often do you pray? How often do you pray for over five minutes? If you indicated that you do not practice these habits consistently, that is less than three to five times a week, the survey threw out a red flag. This person will likely regress spiritually if they do not become consistent in the basic habits.
That sounds like a rather snap judgment, but let me assure you that it is not. Every day we inundated with thousands of images. If we do not crack our Bible but once a week, how will we ever compensate for the imbalance? If we give all the prime real estate in our minds to CNN, MTV, the internet, our textbooks, our professors, advertisers, and publishers, what’s really left? If we don’t give God a piece of our mind, he’ll never get a piece of our heart!
The basic habits of prayer and Bible study aren’t optional. If we don’t do them with consistency, we will stagnate and backslide spiritually. Guaranteed. As we read scripture God critiques our ideas. He corrects our assumptions. He tweaks our perceptions. He says to our minds, "Where did you ever get an idea like that?" In the Bible God gives us correct ideas about his nature. He loves us. He is trustworthy. He is faithful. He is good. He is connected. He is involved. He is present. He is alive. He exists. He is powerful. He is holy. He is perfect. He is just. He is compassionate. He cares. He is fun. He is creative. He is adventurous. He is a friend of man.
Through scripture, God gives us images to connect with his truth.
These ideas of God which are described in scripture stand in stark contrast to many of the ideas we would otherwise carry about God from our limited experiences and from the distorted ideas of men. In the Bible God gives us wholesome images to help us emotionally connect with the powerful and true ideas these images represent. The cross is a powerful image that communicates God’s unconditional love, but also the enormous price that had to be paid for our sin. Communion is a powerful image that reminds us about the sacrifice Christ paid to make peace between us and God. Christ's blood was shed and his body was broken. Baptism is a powerful image that reenacts the Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection, and signals the beginning of a new life in Christ.
Jesus continually taught with parables loaded with metaphors and images. The image of the mustard seed. The image of the prodigal son. The image of the lost coin, the lost sheep, the sower, the yeast, the home owner, the net, the good Samaritan, the unmerciful servant, the hidden treasure, the pearl, the wedding banquet, and the talents. He related images to every day people. In fact, in Colossians 1:15 (NIV) we are told that Jesus is, "the image of the invisible God."
In Hebrews 1:1-3 (NIV) we read, "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven." Praise God for giving us such a powerful image!
In the Bible we also discover God giving us correct information about life, death, and sin. In Hosea we find two interesting statements about information and knowledge. In Hosea 4:6 (NIV) God tells Hosea, "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." In Hosea 4:14 (NIV) he says, "...a people without understanding will come to ruin."
In the Bible God gives us the facts about where our choices lead. We get the facts about how violence, unwholesome speech, jealousy, gossip, divorce, infidelity, homosexuality, pornography, lying, and other vices ruin the soul. Unfortunately, the latest episode of "Friends" or MTV’s "Real World" don’t show us what is really real. These programs promote misinformation. They intentionally cloud our perceptions about reality in order to sell merchandise.
I like what Dallas Willard says on this point. "Without correct information our ability to think has nothing to work on. The first task of Jesus was to proclaim God: to inform those around of him of the availability of eternal life from God through himself. Jesus had to combat much false information and bring to light the correct 'Father facts' "
Willard continues, "… the Gospel of Jesus directly repudiates all false information about God and, therewith, about the meaning of human life; and it works to undermine the power of those ideas and images that structure life away from God."
If you never read or study your Bible or only do it occasionally, if you only get a Sunday morning sound-byte but nothing more, if you never attend an Adult Bible fellowship or a small group, how will you ever get proper information about God on which to base your life choices? You won’t! You will only go on what information the world tells you about God. And to the world God is whatever or whoever you want him to be.
The Bible is God’s gift to the thinking mind. God is not anti-thought. He invites us to explore his ideas, to understand his image, and to process the facts of life. Unlike the world, he doesn’t use ideas or images or information to manipulate us. He uses these things to invite us into a relationship with himself. That is his supreme desire for us. He wants our hearts. But if we never give God a piece of our mind, through ideas and images and information, he will never get the piece of our heart that he desires.
Deeper Life groups.
There is much more that can be said about this topic, so we’ll save some for next week. Let me tell you what I am passionate about and fully devoted to right now. I have been talking about Deeper Life groups for quite some time now. I have told you that Jay and I have been training over a dozen leaders for these groups.
Right now we have two model Deeper Life groups. The leaders who are in these groups are personally experiencing everything we want you to experience when you join a group early next year. The groups will be unlike any small group you have every participated in before. The purpose of groups is to help you cultivate the basic habits that are absolutely necessary to allow God to get a piece of your mind. They emphasize Bible study, daily devotions, scripture memorization, and prayer. These are things that allow God to work his ideas, images, and information deep into our soul.
When these groups are launched in January, they will deliver everything we promise. These groups will ignite your spiritual passion. They will cause you to grow in a way that would be cheapened if I tried to describe it now. You will have a chance to sign up to participate in these groups in the coming weeks.
But for now I want you to be challenged by the words of the psalmist in Psalm 16:8 (NIV).He said, "I have set the Lord always before me." I have made the Lord my focus. He is the greatest factor in my thinking. I have given him the greatest piece of my mind. I have given him prime real estate. And because of that, he has my heart. May this be your pledge this morning.