Series: Living in the Spirit 2
Sermon: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Hasn’t it been fun to study the Holy Spirit? There are so many amazing facts about the Holy Spirit. It seems behind ever verse we read in the Bible we discover something new and awesome about the Holy Spirit. Jesus really gave us a wonderful gift when he sent the Holy Spirit into the world. The Holy Spirit has sort of being playing with me all through this series. Last week was a good example when he said, “Stop the sermon after the first point” and then this week he has moved this sermon in a total different direction than I ever dreamed.
Last week we began a study of Romans 8 in order to learn what life would look like if we choice to live life in the Spirit. We found that the Holy Spirit was a big deal to Paul. Jesus had saved him from his sin (and there were many) but the Holy Spirit lived with Paul and deepened his relationship with Jesus on a daily basis. The Holy Spirit changed the way Paul lived his daily life and that is what we are trying to learn more about. We are asking, “What would life be like if we lived life in the Spirit?’
In the first four verses of Romans 8 we found that if we live life in the Spirit we will be free: free from the condemnation of sin. It is Living in Spirit that constantly reassures of this forgiveness. If we are free from the condemnation of sin we can enjoy the life God has given us. Living in the Spirit allows us to live in freedom.
Today we want to continue by looking at Romans 8:5-17.
I love music. I love to sing. I love to listen to people sing. Gretchen came across a song this week that she used in her Guidance Classes at Bobby Ray. I am not sure what the topic was but it must have been quite interesting because she went around the house singing it. It goes like this:
Nobody Likes Me
Nobody likes me
Ev’rybody hates me
Guess I’ll go eat worms
Long, thin, slimy ones
Short, fat, juicy ones
Itsy, bitsy, fuzzy, wuzzy worms.
Down goes the first one
Down goes the second one
Oh, how they wiggle and squirm
Long, thin, slimy ones
Short, fat, juicy ones
Itsy, bitsy, fuzzy, wuzzy worms.
Up comes the first one
Up come the second one
Oh, how they wiggle and squirm
Long, thin, slimy ones
Short, fat, juicy ones,
Itsy, bitsy, fuzzy, wuzzy worms.
I can understand why this song would strike such a powerful cord with children especially as they begin a new school year. But the truth of the matter is that each of us often feel the same way. Sometimes our mind tells us, “you are unlovable and that no one will ever love you.” Our thinking tries to convince us that the best we can ever hope for is a big ole fuzzy wuzzy worm.
We can be certain that Paul struggled with such thoughts. In fact, to some extent, they were true. There were a lot of people who did hate Paul. However Paul also learned a powerful truth.
When we choice to live life in the Spirit it can change the way we think.
--Did you notice how many times Paul used the word: Mind? (read vv. 5-9) 5 times
--What is the public service announcement? “A Mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Paul would concur
--There is a popular book out titled: Battlefield of the Mind. Youth are studying it.
Central ideal: battle: good-evil and the mind is often the place the battle rages.
--TRUTH: there is a battle going on for the control of the human mind.
--This is nothing new: this is one of the oldest tricks in the book.
--Serpent got into Eve’s mind and twisted her thinking
Lesson: We must be careful about what we allow into our minds.
--Proverbs 23:7 (KJV)“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
--“You are what you are and where you are because of what has gone into your mind, and you can change what you are and where you are by changing what goes into your mind. In other words, your thinking directly affects your performance, and what you put into your mind affects your thinking.” (Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World, Zig Ziglar, p.4)
--Paul recognized the danger of dwelling on the negative
--spend our time dwelling on the bad things
--thinking on our failures
--often leads to “The I can’t blues.”
--simplified: Garbage in…..Garbage out
There is so much garbage out there, what can we do? How can we guard our minds?
--must not crawl into a hole and pretend it is not out there
--cannot deny that there are bad things going on in the world.
One of the most important tools I used in my ministry is my computer. My good ole, TOSHIBA laptop.
I am not sure how I would get by without my computer. I have perhaps 25 different versions of the Bible on it, study notes, hundreds of sermons, my calendar. It allows me to go out on the WWW and get all kinds of information. Sometimes I think I could get by with out my brain more easily than my computer. virtually ever area of life is some how affected by computer technology.
However a terrible evil lurks out there. An evil has burst on the scene. This demon goes by many names. Perhaps you have heard some of them: viruses; Trojan horses; worms; even SPAM. These deadly and malicious creatures are uninvited and seldom recognized but they can do great harm to a unsuspecting computer. They can whip out an entire hard drive; make the system sluggish; even turn the computer into a malicious weapon against other innocent computers.
However there is now “the virus checker.” This is a program that scans and even filters the information that comes to your computer and guarding it against that which seeks its destruction.
This is the what the Holy Spirit can do in our daily living. When we seek to live life in the spirit the spirit can help guard against invaders of the mind. The Holy Spirit becomes our minds’ Virus Checker. But just like most antivirus programs it must be constantly updated. How do we do that? There fellowship with the father, Bible Study, prayer.
Not only does living in the Spirit help guard our mind against things that will harm us but it can change the way we think about what happens in our life.
Thinking in the spirit helps us discovery that God often takes the bad things in life and use them for something beautiful.
Yes this is a hard one.
Before there was Jay Leno and Kevin Eubanks or David Letterman and Paul Schaffer; and even before Johnny Carson and Doc Severson there was Jack Parr and Jose Mellis. America would tune in regularly to "The Tonight Show" to watch these two work together.
One of the fascinating things that Mellis would do was to invite Parr to come over to his piano and strike the keys in a completely arbitrary manner. Parr would strike a horrendous set on notes and then say to Mellis, "Okay, Jose, let’s see what you can do with that."
Mellis would respond by putting his fingers on the keys struck by Parr and blend the notes into a beautiful piece of music. He would not only start with the discord struck by Parr, he would come back to it time and time again, making it an integral part of the music. Something ugly was trans¬formed into something beautiful while America watched and listened. (How to Be Pentecostal Without Speaking in Tongues, p.81-2, Tony Campolo).
The bad things that have happen in my life, and like you I have had my fair share, were not from God but living in the spirit helps me see those things different. It changed my thinking. God took those things and made me who I am with all my quirks and idiocrencies to his glory. We cannot do this on our own. It is God who does it and it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to think about it differently.
Living in the spirit helps changes our thinking about what is important in life. Living daily with the Holy Spirit changes what we long for in life.
--What do you think is most important in life? Power, fame, money, education, human relationship?
--Romans 8:14-16
--What is important in life? What is the longing of a life lived in the spirit?
--Paul said: “When we cry, Abba! Father!” God… God
Psalm 42:1-2 As a deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.
My Soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
The more we live in the spirit, our thinking will change. We will understand that what really is important is our relationship with God.
