Mind your mind

I'm reading from Romans 8, 1 to 17. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do, and that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

And so he condemned sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have set their minds set on what the nature desires, but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.

The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation, but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die.

But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of sonship.

And by him we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now, if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings, in order that we may also share in his glory.

Amen. Our second reading reminds us that to understand the truths of Scripture, the eyes of our understanding have to be opened by the Lord. It concludes by telling us that the Christian has the mind of Christ.

Our second reading is taken from 1 Corinthians 2, verses 6 to 16. We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.

None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.

This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment.

For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. Well, let's turn to Romans and chapter 8. Not the easiest passage of Scripture that we're going to be looking at, but I do assure you of this, that if you'll just spare some concentration, then you can work through the teaching of the Apostle Paul, understand him, and respond to the Spirit of God speaking to you through this passage. I'm going to read again the words that Jill read, but just a short synopsis.

From the fifth through to the eighth verse of Romans 8, those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires, but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God.

It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. Verse 16, the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.

Verse 14, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. You can gain at least one obvious teaching from these verses, and that is that there are two types of people. There are the Christian and the non-Christian, who by implication are referred to in these verses.

There are two mind sets. Look at verse 5, their minds set on what nature desires. Continue in that verse, but there are those who also have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

Two types of people, two types of attitudes. This text has a negative. There are those who do not live according to God's law.

This text also has a positive. There are those who live in accordance to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Did you have the blessings of doing chemistry lessons when you went to school? You know what a litmus test is? A bit of paper, put it in a liquid, turns red, turns blue, tells you whether it's an alkali or an acid.

In one sense, this text is a litmus test, because it will tell you whether or not you are a Christian. Those who live according to the sinful nature, their minds set on what that nature desires. Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

The latter description of the Christian, the former description of the non-Christian. What is the mindset? No mother has any problems in defining it, because their little Johnny or their little Sally has his, her mindset on something, and will bawl and scream until it is provided. Unless they get a clip around the ear and said, you know, but you don't do that these days, do you? You should let the children have their way, or should you? Some people might have their minds set on a Michael Jackson concert, God bless them.

Some might have had their mindset on voting Labour, and as a result are in sorrow. Some had their mindset on voting Conservative, and still might be in sorrow as the months go by, we'll discover. If you set your mind, it's like putting concrete into it.

It's fixing yourself in an immovable situation. Let's take the word mind. Mind's a very remarkable thing.

It's the thing that sort of distinguishes you from any other member of the animal kingdom. You can think, you can reason, you can reflect, you can draw your own conclusions. I was visiting some beloved folk from our tab, fellowship, the other day, they, with my wifey, and they got a budgie.

Very intelligent budgie. Here's a kiss, here's a kiss, here's a kiss, you know, they were really showing... They also had sort of got this bird ready for the visit of a pastor, because he also, if it was a he, I don't know, I spot the difference actually, he would also say praise the Lord. But when you get those two sort of mixed up, they don't really seem to flow together.

I mean, the budgie, well, it can please its owner, but it can't really think, it can't enter into any intelligent description of praise. Do you know there are people who use their minds almost like budgies? Did you really mean what you were singing? You see, if you didn't, then it was a sort of budgie attitude to worship. Not so? Really? God gives us a mind to use.

If you are engaged in religious functions, in a mechanical, habitual, dutiful way, with no deep conviction and emotion, then that's not the mindset that this text really wants you to follow. It wants you to be spiritually minded, to have your mind set in concrete along a spiritual way. The mind is a very wonderful thing, it's also a very delicate thing, you can blow your mind.

I was some years ago on the Kathmandu Trail, where the hippies went from Kabul to Kathmandu. I met a group of naked American fellows in one of the Hindu temple areas. They were bereft of reason.

They'd blown their minds on the drugs which are so easily available out there. You can knock your mind out with alcohol, that's what some people do in Worthing. It's quite a problem in this oh-so-sophisticated, respectable society.

Why do they go to the alcohol? Well, because they can't cope with what the mind is throwing up, and so they try to dull the mind. Tim was to have been leading the service this evening, but he's not very well, so Brother Eric stepped in at the last moment. That's why he wasn't too primed in some of the things that we'd pre-arranged.

I do wish he'd been wearing his blue jersey. He's got a beautiful royal blue jumper, and it's got, sort of, just up there, some Greek words. Ta-a-no-fro-ni-ty.

Now, he knows what they mean. Think high things. It's the motto of London Bible College, where, strangely enough, by coincidence, both Tim, myself, and Eric have been in at different times.

How does Eric think high things? Climb Everest? Live in High Salvington? But then, if only all the intelligent people come from High Salvington, what about Charmondene? Or Goring? Or Shakespeare Road? To be spiritually minded has obviously got nothing to do with location. It's how you use your mind. And the Bible here is talking about those who use their mind, and they're concerned only about their carnal, their natural desires.

And then there are other people who are spiritually inclined. And the Apostle Paul is very concerned to argue that your mind should be controlled by the Spirit. You should be Spirit-minded.

Well, what does it mean to be spiritually minded? It doesn't necessarily mean that you've got to be super-intelligent. Neither does it mean that you're interested in religion. You say, well, that's a curious comment for you to make from the pulpit.

But hear me out. You see, one of the greatest problems that was directed towards our Lord Jesus when he was on Earth came from those who were religiously-minded. Not so? The Pharisees.

I mean, he had more trouble with a religious bunch than he had with a working-class people. Well, when the Apostle Paul here talks about being spiritually-minded, he's not talking about being religious. There is a bigotry in religion that can be obnoxious and most unpleasant.

You ever heard of the Protestant Reformation? These days, we don't talk much about the Reformation. We don't talk much about the word Protestant. I think it's unfortunate.

The Protestant Reformation was something that was so wonderful in history that actually the freedom that Europe has had over these years, even though it's been threatened from time to time, has been founded and preserved by the Protestant ethic. But when Martin Luther discovered afresh the doctrine of justification by faith, who was it who tried to dampen his enthusiasm? Well, it was the religious people. Here's John Calvin, that asthmatic man who had so many problems in France and also in Switzerland.

Here he is in Geneva, and he's preaching the simple gospel. Who is it that created problems for Calvin? It was the religious people. I tell you, to be spiritually-minded doesn't mean that you need to be super-intelligent, and it certainly doesn't mean to say that you have to be religious.

Do you know sometimes members of a church can oppose the things of the Spirit? No, to be spiritually-minded does not mean that you have to be religious in the popular sense of the word. Neither does it mean to be spiritually-minded that you must be taken up with theology. If you did yourself the injustice of listening to the television the other Sunday evening, last Sunday evening, the religious program, don't they call it Everyman? That's not at 10 o'clock.

You would have been brought face-to-face with a number of Anglicans who were theologically competent and yet were certainly not spiritually-minded. They were denying the resurrection of Christ. They were denying the divinity of Christ.

In fact, so much were the denials that one of the newspapers carried a very interesting letter addressed basically to the Archbishop of Canterbury. At least the help was directed to him. To get Anglican clergy back into an orthodox commitment to faith.

It suggested that of the 39 articles in the Book of Common Prayer, on a rating of an annual salary, the vicar should get 500 pounds for every one he believed. So the one who got 39, well obviously he was on just short of 20,000 and the ones who were just down in one, two, or three, or four beliefs, then well they'd have to survive on 1,000 or 2,000 or what have you. I say that as a light-hearted note, but to be spiritually-minded does not necessarily mean that you are well-immersed in theology.

To be spiritually-minded does not mean that you are in effect just a philosopher. To be spiritually-minded does not necessarily mean that you're interested solely in spiritual phenomena. Do you know the Natural Law Party got 80,000 votes? Sorry, 60,000 votes in the recent election.

Now spiritually-minded does not mean that you belong to the Natural Law Party. I mean, to master the art of yoga flying might be quite helpful for those who are engaged in international travel. And to put a magician in the cabinet as they were suggesting, well some of us might feel that that was a consideration, something that we ought to consider.

There are those who are interested in spiritual phenomena, clairvoyance and crystals and the New Age thing. I listened to Elizabeth Taylor once talking about her belief in the afterlife and she got applauded for it. Spiritually-minded, no, it doesn't necessarily mean that because you're interested in spiritual phenomena that you come into this definition of being spiritually-minded, a man or a woman who is trying to follow the dictates of the Holy Spirit.

Well, what does it mean? I've dealt with it negatively. What does it mean positively to be a man or a woman who is described as after the Spirit or being led by the Spirit or being able by the Spirit to say of God, Abba, Father? Well, to be spiritually-minded, it means that your eyes have been opened by the Holy Ghost and when you read Scripture, it makes sense to you. There were the two on the Emmaus Road.

You remember Jesus drew alongside in one of his resurrection appearances and by the time he'd finished with them and they opened the Scriptures, they discovered that they understood what they were reading and similarly, when our Lord Jesus came alongside the 11, you remember how he penetrated, I spoke on this the other Sunday, how he penetrated the room, the locked doors in the room where the disciples were gathered and as he revealed himself, so he directed their attention to Scripture and they began to understand what Scripture teaches. When we had our second reading, you remember it made reference to mental illumination. Look at that second chapter of 1 Corinthians, will you? In the 11th verse, it puts up a question.

Who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Verse 14, the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. I say that the man who is spiritually minded is a man who has responded to the work of the Holy Spirit in his own mind and he has begun, she has begun to understand the essence of the gospel.

That's what it means in part. To be spiritually minded, to have your eyes opened by the Holy Ghost. A man who's spiritually minded is a man who puts great value on his soul.

We live in a materialistic world. Concerns, well, we show them towards our family, that's honorable in one sense. Towards our job, that's honorable.

Towards our health. But Jesus said that a man could gain the whole world. He could have a good marriage, he could have a good job, he could have good health and yet, if he did not pay attention to the needs of his soul, then Jesus said he was a fool.

To be spiritually minded means the most important thing on the scale of priorities is your soul. Your condition before God. Here's a man, our Lord spoke about him who lived for making money.

He was a tycoon in the realm of agriculture. He bought farms. He built barns.

He made thousands, thousands, thousands of shekels and one day, he died. But really, all the implication is before he had the opportunity to benefit from the material wealth that he had acquired. And the comment in the parable is this, thou fool, this night, thy soul will be required of thee.

What is the soul? The Bible teaches us that we have a soul and a body. It also makes reference to the spirit. I'm not too sure how carefully you can distinguish between the soul and the spirit.

They're almost two of the same. But the soulish part of us is that part that can be in alignment with God. It is that which is utterly indestructible.

And when your body dies, your soul goes on. Look, the scientists have got very excited this week, haven't they? Independent took half of its front page in telling us of new advances in understanding how the world, how the universe was formed. And so immediately, the letters to the editor of the Times and other papers are written by those who are suggesting that now we've actually resolved the whole issue of where we came from.

So there can't be a God. The religion in general and Christianity in particular has got no intellectual basis at all. And I think, here we go again.

They were saying that at the time of Darwin. They were saying that at the great epochs of human knowledge as it was developed from one stage to another stage, we have got to the position that now we can explain the universe. And here's my question.

How does a material thing cause a spiritual entity to emerge? You see, you were not just material. There is the material about you. You've got your hands.

You've got your blood. You've got your eyes. You've got your ears.

But you can't just define yourself in terms of the body. What's the difference between a dead man and a live man? Well, sometimes I have to ask myself when I'm preaching. Surely the distinguishing factor is this, that the man who is alive is a man who has within the body the soul.

And when the soul goes, the body no longer has life. It's still material, but it's not living. Now, here's a question that even the discovery as I've been able to understand it in my reading this week does not resolve.

How does something that began... In fact, even the word began is a very difficult word in this particular context. How does the material create the immaterial? This man who can think, who can reason, who can appreciate art, who can compose music. How can all this have come about just by a material cause? However far back you get, you still have to ask the question, who is behind the human soul, the human spirit? And this is a question which science cannot resolve.

And it needs, if there is to be an answer, some revelation from a supernatural being assuming that there is such who can respond to the issue. And when our blessed Lord came on earth, the fundamental thing that he was arguing for that was intrinsic in all the teaching that he gave is this, that man is born in the image of God, however fragmented that image may be. He has a desire for God in his heart.

And Jesus said, for man to live as a material entity, just acquiring things and living for time is to be so short-sighted and stunted in his intellectual development. He is a soul. And one day he will be brought before the God who gives him life.

And the man who is spiritually minded is someone who puts a premier value on his soul. And what's more, he's concerned about the souls of other people. He's concerned about the state of the world.

The Christian is a man who realizes that this world in which we're living is a passing world. It's a fading world. Savior, if of Zion's city, I through grace a member am.

Let the world deride or pity. I will glory in thy name. Fading is the worldling's pleasure.

All his boasted pomp and show, solid joys and lasting treasure, none but Zion's children's know. You see, the Christian is concerned about his soul. And he's concerned about the souls of men and women in our world.

The spiritually minded man is a person who makes the Holy Spirit feel at home. Verse 14 of our chapter, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. The Holy Spirit comes into your heart and into your life, and he gives you impulses.

He gives you indications of which way to go, what to do, what not to do. The voice of God is internalized within the Christian, and he has an ability to work through circumstances and problems and difficulties by having recourse to the Word of God and the Spirit of God within him. You say, do you really mean this? I tell you that some of the greatest men that ever lived have known what it has been to turn from being carnally minded, concerned only for their own natural desires, and they have become spiritually minded.

You take a man like the French philosopher Pascal, one of the greatest brains that Europe ever produced. You can still read his pensées, his pensées, his philosophy of thought. But you know, towards the end of his life, he had such a remarkable encounter of God's Holy Spirit that he wrote about it.

It was so precious to him, he put the piece of paper in the lining of his coat and he stitched it up, and when they found him dead, they opened the lining and they read his testimony. And he talked about this God of fire and love who'd revealed himself to him. The greatest philosopher the Roman Catholic Church ever produced was a man called Thomas Aquinas, and he wrote the Summa Theologiae, one of the great works on theology and philosophy.

But towards the end of his life, he had such a remarkable encounter with God, they asked him, when are you going to complete your books? And he says, I'm not. All I have experienced now has made what I have lived for pale into insignificance. God has stepped into my life.

Jonathan Edwards, the greatest philosopher and intellectual that America, the United States of America, ever produced. He has the same experience. Here he is.

I'm talking about the 17th century. He's riding on his horse. He's going off into the woods.

He's a deeply religious man, I don't want to deceive you. But as he rides away that particular afternoon, taking some fresh air, suddenly he's filled with a sense of the greatness and the glory of God. He gets off his horse.

He has a remarkable encounter with the Lord, which completely transforms and revolutionizes him. You don't generally associate the name of Hugh Hefner, do you, with Thomas Aquinas or Pascal? Hefner was the Labour MP for one of the constituencies in Liverpool for many a long year. I was in Liverpool Cathedral not so long ago.

I took down from the bookshelf a little paperback. Eric Hefner's... I've got the wrong surname, haven't I? Heffer. Eric Heffer's testimony.

He's in Jerusalem. He's walking on the Via Dolorosa. And suddenly he's filled with a sense of the presence of Jesus Christ.

And in a clumsy way, he writes his testimony, and it's almost the last thing that he produces before a heart attack takes him from this world to the next world. A person who is spiritually minded is a man who has opened his heart and his life at the promptings of the Holy Ghost to the gospel of Jesus Christ. You say, how can I know if I am spiritually minded? Here is a test.

And now I mean this very seriously. When you come to the tab and hear someone like me or any other church and listen to addresses like this, do they warm your heart? Or is it a bit of a dirge? When a man speaks about Jesus Christ and his death on the cross, does it quicken your pulse beat? When you hear about what God in Christ has done for you, does it cause your heart to race that little bit more quickly? When you hear that God in his love has a place and a position for you in your life, does it bring an emotional response in your heart? Does it affect your mind? Does it go out through the whole of your personality? Then I say, if that's something of your reaction to the proclamation of the gospel, then make no mistake about it. You are spiritually minded.

Those who live according to the sinful nature, you see, they have no interest in these things at all. Why? Well, their minds are set on what that nature desires. But those who live in accordance with the spirit have their minds set on what the spirit desires.

So I ask you, are you spiritually minded? And you say to me, well, is it really important? It is indeed, my friend. How so? Well, look at verse six. And with this, I close.

The mind of the sinful man is death. And by this, it means destruction. Destruction of the body and destruction of the soul in terms that in eternity, the soul will have no contact with God at all.

But the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace. And this is the important thing about the gospel. This is what makes it so vitally important that you respond to it.

It's a spiritually minded man who on death passes into the presence of God and is prepared to live with God in the universe and in the eternity that he has in store. You say, can I move from being carnally minded to being spiritually minded, from being a sinful nature to a spiritual nature? And the answer is this. You would not ask that question if you couldn't.

The sinful minded man who's set is not interested in this. You talk to him about the gospel. You talk to him about Jesus.

You talk to him about the cross. You talk to him about the church. He doesn't want to know.

But you're asking the question. You're asking it sincerely. And I tell you the reason why you're asking it.

The reason why you're asking is because the first promptings of the Holy Spirit are doing their work in your life, bringing you to the point of interest, bringing you to the point of conviction, bringing you to the point of acceptance. The spiritually minded man is destined for life eternally with God. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your word and for the way that your word can be applied to each one of us. We pray for the power of your Holy Spirit to be working in our experiences, illuminating our eyes, quickening our wills, warming our emotions, enabling us to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In his name, amen.

Let's sing 480. 480, may the mind of Christ, my savior, live in me from day to day. Now, Julian, it's the man singing the fourth verse and the ladies the second, is that right? The ladies will sing verse four and the men will sing verse two.

480.