Your Understanding

"Your Understanding" – Romans 12:2-3 “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind… not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly.” The study starts from an uncomfortable claim: what we have, and we have it entirely, is the mind; and no one betrays you and no one deceives you —you betray yourself and you deceive yourself. The mind sends messages to the body continually, and it always deceives; so much so that saying “no one deceives me” is already pure deception. From that follows the duty: renew it, every day, with the Word and with prayer, because there are people who live a whole life with the same thought and always the same maze. And it marks where the renewal is proved: in humility and in sober judgment, not in words. The study then walks through the mind within the greatest commandment —heart, soul and mind, with the soul weak and self-willed, to which one must speak—, the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom, the sorrow that knowledge adds in Ecclesiastes, wisdom shown in conduct and not in fine words, the house upon the rock, the fool who is counted wise when he holds his peace, and Nebuchadnezzar turned into a beast by vanity until the breaking gave him back his understanding. It closes where Paul determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

I. What we have is the mind.

A. No one betrays you: you betray and deceive yourself.

1. It sends messages continually to our body.

2. If you laugh much one day, at once it tells you something bad will happen.

3. The mind always deceives; saying “no one deceives me” is already pure deception.

4. We must acquire that understanding which rests in the mind.

II. The mind must be renewed.

A. It must be renewed of necessity: made new.

1. You can sleep well and wake feeling something is wrong: fears, doubts.

2. It all depends on how the enemy wants to destroy us.

3. Some live a whole life with the same thought: always the same maze.

4. The mind manipulates the soul; and the soul is subject to the flesh.

B. And how do you renew it? When you read the Bible and when you pray.

1. And it is every day: not “I had this conflict, I prayed, it passed.”

2. It must be renewed to understand and live out the will of God.

3. Otherwise we fill the mind with selfishness and with much wickedness.

4. What we did not grow in today is tomorrow’s tragedy; and the tragedy is one’s own.

III. The renewal is shown in humility.

A. A mind worked by the Holy Spirit is channeled into humility.

1. What we do not renew is what comes out of our mouth, and it comes out as vomit.

2. All we opine, suggest and wish would happen; and the mind torments.

3. It shows in how you grow in humility and in sober judgment.

B. “Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.”

1. You think only of yourself twenty-four hours a day.

2. The mind leads to haughtiness: to the why, the how, the perhaps, the maybe.

3. What the mind does most is throw tantrums: it is the coarsest thing we have untamed.

4. And how do we govern it? On the day we begin to love.

IV. Transform from within.

A. What is inside is what you never bring out.

1. Resentments, hatred, malice, greed: that is inside.

2. The mind tells you: keep quiet, or you will get yourself in trouble.

3. The mind is self-willed: it presumes and rearranges conversations.

4. When one thing is said and changed into another, the punishment falls on the one who schemed.

B. To change the way of thinking and feeling, so as to align with God.

1. God knows the thing before one thinks it, says it or suggests it.

2. Renewing is like a phone update: not to make you spend, but to make yours better.

3. Something annoys you: renew it. Anger comes: renew the mind.

4. Leave behind old thoughts of fear, and the thought of pride.

C. Had you renewed it, you would pray every day.

1. You would pray for your family; you would set apart days of fasting.

2. When do you set aside a day and go into prayer and crying out for a child?

3. Let us drop the complacency of “this is how I am and no one changes me.”

V. The mind must be educated.

A. As one grows old, the mind grows old too.

1. Let us use the good time well, because the good time runs out.

2. I prepare the future: it is sowing and reaping, and I am sowing well.

3. The mind also brings good and useful thoughts: let us be jealous over it.

B. We must let the Word and the Holy Spirit in.

1. The trouble is that we do not let them in, because the mind rejects them.

2. If the teaching is not in your mind, no useful, meek, humble servant appears.

3. The Word and the Spirit cleanse, illumine and guide.

4. What did you master? Your mind. With what? With the knowledge of the Scriptures.

C. We must be transformed.

1. Are you a cheat? Stop it. Are you a liar? Stop it.

2. Do you think deceit never comes to light? Everything comes out.

3. That renewal bears fruit in conduct: patience, humility, self-control.

4. The mastery we lack, we pay for in consequences.

VI. Love Him with all your mind (Matthew 22:37).

A. It is not merely a feeling of the heart, but a complete surrender.

1. If you love God by halves, you are far from who God is; and far off, there is no salvation.

2. The heart is the emotions and the affections.

B. The soul is the whole life, our will.

1. The soul is self-willed: it weeps, it shouts, and you do not know why, but it afflicts you.

2. It makes us seem to enter a spiritual level; but the soul is weak.

3. “My soul, wait thou upon the LORD”: the soul must be spoken to and governed.

C. And the mind is thought and reasoning.

1. The mind speaks, shouts, depresses, despairs and fills us with anguish.

2. The mind says: everything will go badly; and you rise and everything goes badly.

3. This is the greatest commandment, because it encompasses all that we are.

VII. The beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10).

A. The fear of the LORD is to respect Him, be reverent, be obedient and trust Him.

1. If we grow that way, do you know what will die? Your old creature.

2. We need wisdom for everything: in marriage, with the children.

3. The beginning of understanding is in the mind.

B. True wisdom does not begin with books nor experiences.

1. But with a right relationship with God.

2. He who has known God knows the first thing in his life is prayer.

3. When you pray daily the Spirit reproves you, because your mind is renewed.

4. Otherwise you beat the air; when a just man ought to have victories.

C. “And the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”

1. To know God not by hearsay but in intimacy: that relationship brings understanding.

2. And that understanding is innate, in the moment, because it comes by the Holy Spirit.

3. Not by reasoning, nor by experience, nor by what your parents used to say.

4. It leads you to speak wisely: your mouth will impart wisdom to those who lend an ear.

VIII. He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow (Ecclesiastes 1:18).

A. It speaks of a fullness of wisdom: it is not knowledge alone.

1. It is that fear of the Lord, that reverent respect, obeying Him with love.

2. Though you want feasts every day, to life must be added sorrow.

3. Because life is no bed of roses: it is war, betrayal, deceit, devastation.

IX. Wisdom is shown in conduct (James 3:13).

A. It is not proved by fine words, but by the example of a life.

1. Your example and your conduct are what speak of you.

2. Do not say someone judges you: as for talking, everyone talks.

3. Your children are what you have worked in them, or what you have not.

B. Wisdom shows in how we treat others and in our decisions.

1. Do you run over everything, or do you say “let me think it over, let me reason it”?

2. Wise meekness is not weakness, but control, humility and peace in acting.

3. Will we have the mind of Christ? Did He shout there? “Forgive them.”

X. The house upon the rock (Matthew 7:24).

A. The wise man represents the one who lives with wisdom.

1. And to live in wisdom, the one you must work on is yourself.

2. It symbolizes a firm, secure and stable life that withstands the trials.

B. And where else does one endure? In silence.

1. You are firm when you bow the back: the hardest thing for a human being.

2. We can speak, and the face says otherwise: the body takes a stance.

3. “You will not cross me”: is that not haughtiness? Better to keep silence.

XI. Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace (Proverbs 17:28).

A. To keep silence is better than to use all one’s vocabulary.

1. Sometimes we posture with words to impress: all of that is vanity.

2. Pride is the worst thing a person can have: the proud arrive at nothing.

3. Everything is contrived in the mind: from there it comes out through the body.

B. The value of self-control.

1. One without much wisdom can seem wise if he knows to be silent at the right moment.

2. What is in the mind comes out by the tongue: blessing or cursing, strife or peace.

3. To rant is like the horse that bolts and runs off.

4. Unchecked speech is usually complaint: a sign that maturity is lacking.

XII. More than all burnt offerings (Mark 12:33).

A. To love Him with all the heart and all the understanding is more than all sacrifices.

1. Today there are three places to love, and they are one, one and one.

2. From the understanding comes good counsel, or how troubled the mind is.

3. And there is the strength: the action that shows what is supposedly within us.

4. For want of love there are no actions, no acts of loving.

B. Love of neighbor is not the love you have for yourself.

1. That love is easy: loving oneself, pleasing oneself, applauding oneself.

2. All that passes through the mind belongs to the ego that exalts us as mighty.

3. Nebuchadnezzar’s vanity of thinking himself mightiest turned him into a beast.

4. After that breaking he knew God: the mind must be broken by God.

XIII. Jesus Christ, and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2).

A. What matters most is not human knowledge, but Jesus Christ crucified.

1. “I determined”: Paul made a firm decision, with his whole mind.

2. “To know nothing”: he did not let his mind work or opine.

3. Do not be carried by philosophies, nor fine speeches, nor worldly wisdom.

4. They wanted a Messiah with soldiers; but a crucified one was coming.

B. Stop boasting: he who boasts boasts of what he lacks.

1. If anyone had a perfect voice it was He; but He exposed Himself to tell them the truth.

2. Jesus did not keep silence, and that is why they crucified Him.

3. Life is not a game, and it passes faster than you think.

4. What was not done, that day never returns.