Last night we continued our series looking at what the Lordship of Christ and the message of the gospel mean for our practical, everyday living. Here are the notes from the study.
Christ is Lord of Our Minds
Part One: Gen 1 & 2: We Are Made in the Image of God.
1. Gen 1:26-28 – Our minds are part of that image. God has thoughts, emotions, and a will. He thinks, feels, desires. So do we. We Think, Feel, Desire. Just like our bodies, the point of our minds is to display God, that He is a thinking, feeling, desiring God.
2. Gen 1:29 – Our Minds are given to us to receive communication from our creator. That is, they are given to us to relate to Him. He is personal: we are the only part of Creation that can relate to Him personally.Our minds (soul, spirit, heart, etc…) are the part of us that relates.
This is so important, for two reasons. First, the philosophy that rules our culture (and really, every culture) says that the ultimate reality in the universes is impersonal, whether it is modern western naturalistic thinking that says matter is all that is eternal (and so, we are nothing more than molecules), or the eastern (now also western) thinking that says that the ultimate reality is an impersonal “over-soul” or some other unkown, unknowable “force” or omething like that. But we as believers know that the ultimate reality in the universe is personal. God is a greater personality than we are. Our minds demonstrate this. Second, The fact that God has spoken (and continues to speak) to humanity is the basis for all knowledge. It is the only way we can know anything.
In other words: we are given minds to know God, and to communicate with Him.
2a. Duet 6:5 – Really then, our monds have a two-fold purpose: to know and to love Him
3. Gen 2:15-20 – Our minds are given to understand, think about, and put into action God’s purpose for us.
4. Gen 2:21-25 – Our minds are given to us to relate to and communicate with each other. You could say that our minds are given to help us carry out the two greatest commandments: see Mark 12:29-31
When our minds are functioning properly, they show that God is a communicating and loving God.
Part Two: The Gospel & Our Minds
As Christians, we know that the crucial thing in understanding out minds is to know that when humanity fell: our minds fell too.
1. Gen 3:6 – We though autonomously. That is, we shut God out of our thinking.
2. Gen 3:7 – We had “open eyes” but not for the good. Our eyes were open to the experience of sin, and to knowing ourselves without God. What we saw was our own nakedness. This explains all modern philosophy which doesn’t include a personal Creator. Wer have come to the place in our society where the greatest thinkers all say that we can’t really know anything. In other words, if the Creator has not spoken to us in a way we can understand (see above), then the reality is, we have no certain way of knowing what is really real. To use the words of Genesis 3, we are naked.
3. Rom 1:18-23, 28 – Now we use our minds to suppress truth and exclude God. See also Col 1:21 – we are enemies of God in our minds, Eph 4:17-19
4. Also, We now have brokenness (sickness) in our minds. Like our bodies, there is both sin and non-sin we have to deal with.
But the Christian message comes with the news that Jesus came as the ultimate expression of God’s mind for us to know. He lived a perfect life, perfectly pleased His father, loved God with all His heart and mind, and loved His neighbor as Himself. Then He died in our place, took the punichment for our sin, and rose again to proclaim that He had paid the debt and opened the way for reconciliation with God for any who would trust Him as their only hope for those things.
5. Rom 12:1-2 – The Gospel brings the renewing of our minds. They can now function properly.See also Eph 4:17-24, Ps 51:10, Ez 36:26, Col 3:1-2, Phil 4:6-9, 1 Cor 2:16, 1 Cor 14:20
4 Enemies of the mind:
- Pride: makes the mind ignore God
- Lust: makes the mind a slave to desire
- Laziness: dulls the mind to waste time
- Our Current Cultural Climate: Says there is no truth to pursue…will lead to pursuit of “direct experience”
Summing it Up:
1. We live in a time when everyone emphasizes the brokenness of their minds. The message of Lordship tells us why they’re broken. The Gospel tells us we can find wholeness in Christ. We need to see that we have the mind of Christ, we can rely on Him to live the life He has called. (If He leaves brokenness in our minds, we can rely on Him for the grace we need.)
2. Simultaneously, we live in a time when everyone totally trusts their own minds. We are called not to think as our own Lords (autonomy) but as minds under the Eternal Mind. The Gospel tells us not to trust our own minds, but to seek the regeneration of them God gives in Christ
3. We live in a time when we are encouraged to neglect our minds. If our minds are more given to entertainment or technology than God and people, we are out of His will. God’s Lordship means our minds have a purpose, not what we make up. The Gospel tells us there is a mission to live for. God gave us written revelation. So we must be able to read & think.
4. In every time, the climate will be one of the wrong use of the mind. We must acknowledge God in everything We don’t bypass the mind for some direct experience. We believe God made the word and is there to know.
1 Pet 1:13-17 & 4:1-7