WESTSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH
PASTOR: TERRY VAUGHAN
SERMON TITLE: WHO HATH KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD?
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
TEXT VERSE: ROMANS 11:33-36 “O THE DEPTH OF THE RICHES BOTH OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE OF GOD! HOW UNSEARCHABLE ARE HIS JUDGMENTS, AND HIS WAYS PAST FINDING OUT! FOR WHO HATH KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD? OR WHO HATH BEEN HIS COUNSELOR? OR WHO HATH FIRST GIVEN TO HIM, AND IT SHALL BE RECOMPENSED UNTO HIM AGAIN? FOR OF HIM, AND THROUGH HIM, AND TO HIM, ARE ALL THINGS: TO WHOM BE GLORY FOR EVER. AMEN.”
If you’re here and you’ve been saved by the Grace of God, I want you to know it had nothing to do with your mind. It had nothing to do with how we thought. There’s a lot of people in the world today who will tell you that you need to make a decision in your life to follow Christ. A lot of people will tell you that you need to make up your mind to give your life to Christ and follow him. I want to tell you that that’s false doctrine. I want you to know that Salvation has nothing to do with your mind. It doesn’t matter how smart or how dumb you are. When God made the plan of salvation he left out the mind. I didn’t choose God....He choose me. There is only one way to be saved by God’s grace and that is to be drawn by the Holy Spirit of God. When God through the Spirit let’s you know that you’re an old sinner and that you’re on your way to a devils Hell and that you need redemption in your life...that is when you can be saved! It ain’t got nothing to do with how you think. I believe there’s a lot of people in the world that have a lot of head knowledge about being a Christian but they don’t have any heart knowledge when it comes to being a child of God. I believe you have to get it right down in the soul. Let me share three verses that proves to you that it has nothing to do with the mind. Salvation only has to do with two portions of our body. That’s the mouth and the heart. All three of these verses contains those two words and their back to back.
Romans 10:8-10 “But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteouosness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
These old quiet Christians that don’t ever tell anybody that they’ve been saved by the Grace of God worry me. The Bible says if you have it in your heart, you’ll confess it. I want you to notice that those three verses didn’t say anything about the mind. You don’t have to have a good mind to get saved by the Grace of God. In Sunday School years ago someone asked me how someone who was deaf and dumb could get saved. I told them it wasn’t what you and I do but what God does. I believe my God is able to save anybody. You can not just make a decision to just follow Christ. If you did that, you’re still lost. If the Holy Spirit did not draw you, you’re lost. But once you’re saved by the grace of God your mind is very important when it comes to living a good a fruitful Christian life for the Lord. The mind has nothing to do with getting saved but it has a whole to do with Christ after you’re saved. Let me prove that to you in Romans 7:25 “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God.” He didn’t say with my heart or with my soul. He said with my mind. His heart had already been saved and sealed. His mouth had done confessed it. Philippians 2:5 “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” We need to think with our minds like Christ thought. We need to realize that our souls have already been saved and we need to have the mind of Christ. First Corinthians 2:16 “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” I’m glad I didn’t have to figure out salvation. There’s a lot of people in the world trying to figure out how to get to space and to Mars and they aren’t even trying to figure out how to get to heaven. They always want to think upon things and be somebody but without Christ you are nobody.
Once we’re saved by the Grace of God our mind is very important to our Christian walk.
Number one: We’ve got to have a willing mind. Second Corinthians 8:12 “For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not, according to that he hath not.” All we have to have is a willing mind. How often to do you think about what God wants instead of what you want. How many times do you think about where God wants you to go instead of where you want to go. How many times do you think about what God wants you to say instead of what you want to say. How often do we think about him. People are thinking about their own ways and their own things. Their spending time in their own miseries instead of in Gods mercies. We need to have a willing mind. We need to say God I know I’m nothing but you’re everything. Evidentally there’s not many that do because they don’t have a willing mind enough to come to the house of God on Sundays. Half of you can’t even get up and come to Sunday school at 9:00. You can get up and go to work that early but you can’t get up and come to Sunday School. There’s a lot of people who think their willing but their not obedient.
Number two: You have to have a sound mind. Second Timothy 1:7 “For God hath not given us the Spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Instead of people having a willing mind, they have a wondering mind. Instead of people having a sound mind, they have a split mind. One minute their for God and the next minute their against God. One minute they want God to be their pilot and the next they want God to be their Co-pilot. One minute they want to do what they want to do and when they get in trouble they run to God. They wait until their in trouble or down in their luck and then they call upon God. I’d rather call upon God when things are going good then when their going bad. If you stay close to God when things are going good, you’re not going to see too many bad times. No wonder people live such a miserable sick and sin filled life. Their leaving Christ out of everything. Let me tell you what a sound mind is. A sound mind means everything that you say and you do, you know that you’re in the will of God and you’re trying to follow God and you’re trying to share the gospel of God and you’re trying to love others. Some people get up on Sunday morning and they say, “Oh, today is Church. We better go down to the house of God. The Pastor expects us to be there.” Let me tell you something. If you worship God only on Sundays you’re backslid. I serve God 7 days a week. If you’re a Sunday Christian, you’re a backslid Christian. A sound mind is for 365 days a year.
Number three: You’ve got to have one mind. Philippians 1:27 “Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.”
There’s a lot of people sitting at home and their not getting nothing from God. They don’t have one mind. They have many minds. They think the way they want to think. If you’re not going to follow Gods will, Gods not going to use you and he’s not going to bless you. What does God want? What is your part in the gospel? What’s your part at Westside Baptist Church? What’s your part in reaching out to those that are lost? Don’t you get your instructions from me. If you’re waiting on me, you’re waiting too long. God is the one who gives instructions. I hate to go to work. Forty hours a week but you have to make a living. I spend more time at work than I do with my family. I spend more time at work than I do in the house of God. But the whole time I’m at work I’m still thinking about Christ. I’m trying to share the gospel. I have a willing mind, a sound mind and one mind. I don’t do what Terry wants but what God wants. If you’re trying to get what you want with your own power and glory, you’ll never get it.
Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.” We can have a good Christian life by using our thinker. James 1:8 “A doubled minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
If your heart is already right then start acting like a Child of God. Quit acting like the devils children. Too many Christians are saved and acting like the devil. Their backslid. I like those people I’ve known for years who are out there sharing the gospel, living the gospel and twenty years later their still doing it. too many Christians quitting on God. Just because you think you’re saved, it does not mean that you are.
If you got salvation with your mind, you didn’t get it.
First Timothy 4:14-15 “Neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by the prophecy with the laying on of hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.” With our mind as a Christian we’re supposed to mediate on the things of God. I couldn’t preach if I didn’t have a right mind. You get your heart right with God and you’ll get your mind right with God. You get saved and you can think like a Christian, walk like a Christian and talk like a Christian. One man said that the mind is a window to our soul. That’s how we think.
Let me share these three things about meditating on the things of God.
Psalms 119:148 “Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word.” You know what meditating in Gods word means? Your meditating about what He says. You ever read in the Bible where it says, “Thus saith the Lord?” He wanted to know what God had to say about it. You might just think this is a book but it’s a road map to heaven. Pick up the word of God and God will speak to you every once in a while. God ain’t talking to you because you’re not reading the good book. We need to know what God says. You need to know what the Bible says about being a sinner, about hell, and how you can go to heaven by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
Psalms 77:12 “I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.” meditating in his work means we want to know what he does. We have to know what he says and what he does. If you don’t know what Gods doing, how can you be a part of it?
Psalms 119:15 “I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways.” Precepts means we’re meditating in what can or will do. We walk by faith and not by sight. The last soul to be saved could be sitting here today. I wonder do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior?
You can’t get to heaven by how you think. If you’re here and you don’t know where you’re going when you die I can tell you that you are here for a reason. Is the Holy Spirit drawing you?
Let us pray: Father, I have felt your Holy Spirit drawing me, telling me that I am lost and on my way to Hell. I believe that you are God and that you sent your only begotten son to this earth to die on that old rugged cross and I believe he arose on the third day and now sits on your right side in heaven. I am sorry for my sins and ask you Lord to forgive me. I pray you would save me Lord and allow me to learn and to live a good and Godly life. In Jesus name. Amen
