(# 387) Romans 12 - Renewing of Your Mind Defeats Worry

Class Outline:

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Welcome To

BARAH MINISTRIES

a Christian Church

Rory Clark

Pastor-Teacher

 

Good Morning!

 

Welcome to Barah Ministries…a Christian Church with worldwide impact based in Mesa, AZ…my name is Pastor Rory Clark.  At Barah Ministries, our God is the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

Renewing of Your Mind Defeats Worry

 

The renewing of your mind is the reason you participate in bible study.  It’s you listening to your God, if you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and letting the truth of His Word cleanse you.  Romans, Chapter 12, Verse 2 says…

 

ROMANS 12:2

…keep on being transformed by God the Holy Spirit through the RENEWING OF YOUR MIND (by studying the Word of God)…

 

God the Holy Spirit is the member of the Godhead in charge of renewing your mind, and His motto is “out with the old and in with the new.”  You may ask, “Out with the old what?”  Second Corinthians, Chapter 10, Verses 3 to 6 tells us…

 

SECOND CORINTHIANS 10:3

For though we believers in Christ walk in the flesh (we live our lives in a physical body), we do not war according to the flesh (using the weapons the world uses…like slick persuasive speech, gimmicks, and credentials) …

 

God can do amazing things with people who have no credentials!

SECOND CORINTHIANS 10:4

…for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but they are divinely powerful weapons (directed by God the Holy Spirit’s omnipotence…perfect weapons…) for the destruction of fortresses (also known as strongholds).

 

SECOND CORINTHIANS 10:5

We are demolishing speculations…every argument and every pretense and every lofty thought raised up in arrogance against the knowledge of God… and instead we are taking every thought captive to in obedience to Christ…

 

SECOND CORINTHIANS 10:6

…and we are ready to avenge all disobedience (through use of the Word of God), whenever your obedience is complete.

 

Out with the old what?  Strongholds…the thoughts that take you prisoner.  What are the strongholds that you allow to be resident in your mind?  What are the thoughts that rob you of your peace?  God the Holy Spirit is always ready to tear these mind dividers down!  One of the great enemies of a renewed mind is worry.  What are you worried about?   Welcome to a place where you can learn to put worry in your rear view mirror.

 

MUSIC AND REFLECTION

Be Occupied with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ

Enjoy the Singing of His Praises

 

LORD RENEW MY MIND

Bart de Krijger

 

As you listen to Bart de Krijger sing LORD RENEW MY MIND...I would like you to reflect on and write down the worry you want God to cleanse from your mind and your life.  What are you worried about?  Let’s ask the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to handle our worries for us, especially the burden of stinking thinking called worry.

 

OPENING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

Almighty God and Father you desire truth in the innermost being.  We appreciate it that you keep on pouring the enabling power of God the Holy Spirit into us…to cleanse us…we appreciate the gift of God the Holy Spirit who leads us into all the truth…

 

Cleanse us from all pretense so the world can see our true selves, that ideally are a reflection of you…cleanse us from all bitterness…cleanse us from the hatred that occurs when others hurt us and don’t live up to our expectations of fairness…cleanse us from lustful desires that rob us of our focus…help us to forgive…help us to purge the past from our memories so it doesn’t crowd out the magnificent future you have planned for us…most of all cleanse us from our worries…create in us clean hearts and renew in us a steadfast spirit…powered by Your divine omnipotence…

 

We ask this through the power of God the Holy Spirit…in Christ’s name...

Amen.

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

Renewing of Your Mind Defeats Worry

 

The renewing of your mind is the reason you participate in bible study.  It’s you listening to your God, if you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and giving His Word a chance to cleanse you.  The current passage under study is Romans, Chapter 12, Verse 2…

 

ROMANS 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world (by Satan, by his world system of thought, and by the flesh)…instead, keep on being transformed by (God the Holy Spirit)…through the renewing of your mind (by studying the Word of God)…

 

ROMANS 12:2

…so that you may see clearly…through testing…what the will of God is…and the will of God is that which is good and that which is acceptable and that which is perfect.

 

Believers in Christ…don’t be conformed…which means…

 

CONFORM

To be made similar in form…similar in nature…or similar in character to

Satan, to the world, and to the flesh.

Instead, keep on being transformed by God, which means…

 

TRANSFORM

To undergo a complete change in form or substance or structure especially to a completely different form of energy…the energy of the new man…that is a reflection of the attribute of The Living God

 

How?  By the renewing of your mind…which means…

 

RENEW

To become completely new in mentality

 

Think of yourselves a vessel.  Two leaders seek to intoxicate you with their thinking…both Satan and the Lord Jesus Christ.  What thinking will you choose?  To be intoxicated means to be affected by a substance… when you are conformed you are affected in a way that hurts you… inculcated with stinking thinking…when you are transformed you are completely changed in a way that makes you unrecognizable to the world, because God’s Word is intoxicating!  What thinking will you allow to be placed in and stored in your vessel?  Christians are not designed to serve two masters.  As believers in Christ, God asks us to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ…a much more fulfilling way to fuel our vessel.

 

When I was a batboy for the White Sox, I brought my “neat freak” habits to the team.  There is a brownish, thick, sticky liquid produced by high-temperature distillation of pine wood, called “pine tar,” which baseball players love to use on their bats, to keep their bats from slipping out of their hands.  One player in particular, Ed Herrmann, a catcher, would cake on the “pine tar” on his bat until it was layer upon layer of sludge.  It was absolutely disgusting to me.  I asked the team trainer, Charley Saad, to scrape the pine tar off of Ed’s bat.  As he began doing it, carving it off with the flat edge of a knife, he asked, “Did Hermie tell you to do this?”  When I said, “No,” he looked at me as if he wanted to kill me.  He asked, “Are you trying to get me killed?”  It had taken Ed Herrmann months to build up the “pine tar” on the bat to be just like he likes it.  Here I was cleaning off the sludge.

 

I’ve always wanted to be clean.  Lately, I have frequent thoughts of wishing that I could just start all over again, knowing what I know today, to see how

different my life could be.  I wish I could rid myself of the sludge that has accumulated like “pine tar” in my life…I wish I could just get in a washing machine and wash off all the sludge.  When I entertain these thoughts, and I consider what the Word of God has to say, I realize that I am asking for what I already have…God has already done it…First John, Chapter 1, Verse 9…

 

FIRST JOHN 1:9

If we (when we are unbelievers…we) confess our sins, God the Father is faithful and He is righteous, thus He is able to forgive us our sins (through the propitiatory work of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, at the Cross)…and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

Believers in Christ are cleansed, by God the Father, from ALL of our unrighteousness…He has removed all of the sludge from us.

 

Most of us have a series of lousy, ineffective thoughts that we have built up in our minds over the years…just like the build up of “pine tar”…whether or not the thoughts are useful…and we keep piling on ineffective thought on top of ineffective thought on top of ineffective thought.

 

For example…thoughts propelled by the emotion called WORRY…or as the bible sometimes describes it, ANXIETY.  What are people worried about?

 

TOP TWENTY WORRIES OF PEOPLE

Getting Old

No Savings

Low Energy Levels

Nutrition

Debt

 

TOP TWENTY WORRIES OF PEOPLE

Job Security

Wrinkles in the Aging Process

Physique

The Mortgage

Unhappiness

 

TOP TWENTY WORRIES OF PEOPLE

A New Job

Attractiveness

Love (does my partner love me?)

Finding a Partner

A Broken Relationship

 

TOP TWENTY WORRIES OF PEOPLE

Being a Good Parent

Achievement at Work

Dressing Well

A Pet’s Health

Crime in the Area Where They Live

         

Occasional worry about any of all of these is normal, but there are some people who worry about what they worry about.  There are some people who let these worries become strongholds that strangle the life out of them and make them prisoners of emotion filled existence.  Like fear, worry is a sin…and it cuts off rational, lucid thinking.

 

Worry is an attack on the integrity of God when it is engaged in by a Christian…it is the thought that God is not going to take care of your problems as He promises.  Worry erodes your trust in God.

 

God did not build Christians to worry.  Worry is the opposite of faith. In Matthew, Chapter 6, Verses 25 to 34 the Lord says at least three times…don’t worry!

 

MATTHEW 6:25

“For this reason I (the Lord Jesus Christ) say to you, DO NOT BE WORRIED about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink…nor for your body, as to what you will put on.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

 

Our God is a God of provision!  Who does He provide for?

 

MATTHEW 6:26

“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor do they reap nor do they gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?”

 

Here, the Lord presents a debater’s a fortiori argument…if the bigger thing is true…the smaller thing has to be true.  If God does the big thing… feeding every bird in the world and clothing every lily…doesn’t it follow that God absolutely will do the small thing…to feed and clothe all of His creatures?  Of course He will!  God always comes through for us!

 

MATTHEW 6:27

“And who of you by being WORRIED can add a single hour to his life?”

 

Worrying doesn’t change anything for the positive…but it sure does destroy something…it drains your energy reserves.  Funny thing…about 90% of the things we worry about never occur.

 

MATTHEW 6:28

“And WHY are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow…they do not toil nor do they spin…”

 

MATTHEW 6:29

“…yet I say to you that even Solomon…(the best dressed man ever)…in all his glory…never clothed himself like one of these lilies.”

 

MATTHEW 6:30

“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, and of course He does, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!”

 

MATTHEW 6:31

“DO NOT WORRY then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’”

 

MATTHEW 6:32

“For the Gentiles (ungodly, unrighteous unbelievers…like the Pharisees) eagerly seek after all these (physical need) things…your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”

 

MATTHEW 6:33

“But seek first His kingdom (salvation) and His righteousness (sanctification), and all these things (physical needs…food…shelter… clothing…will be added to you.”

God ALWAYS takes care of His own.

 

MATTHEW 6:34

“So DO NOT WORRY about tomorrow…for tomorrow will care for itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

 

God will give you tomorrow’s provision tomorrow.  He will give you today’s provision today.  You have already received yesterday’s provision.  So focus!  Lamentations, Chapter 3, Verses 22 and 23…

 

LAMENTATIONS 3:22

The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease…for His compassions never fail.

 

LAMENTATIONS 3:23

They are new every morning…great is Your faithfulness.

 

When you think about the things you worry about instead of fixing your mind on the Word of the One who keeps on solving your problems for you, it produces a destructive inner turmoil that robs you of happiness and peace.  In Philippians, Chapter 4, Verses 6 and 7, the Lord tells us…

 

PHILIPPIANS 4:6

BE ANXIOUS FOR NOTHING (in other words, stop worrying about anything), but in everything by (regular) prayer and supplication (urgent prayer…akin to begging…and always…) with thanksgiving…let your requests be made known to God the Father.

 

PHILIPPIANS 4:7

And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will be a garrison for your hearts and your minds…(for those) in union with Christ Jesus.

 

Are you filling your vessel up with thoughts that produce worry?  Fill it with hopefulness by taking in the Word of God instead!  Let God clean up the toxic thoughts that rob you of serenity.  Let God renew your mind.  As we take a music break, let’s remember that Christians are not designed to worry.

Here’s Bobby McFerrin to remind us of that…

 

MUSIC BREAK

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY

Bobby McFerrin

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

Renewing of Your Mind Defeats Worry

 

Let’s begin the next portion of our lesson by giving you a chance to make an offering…we need and we value your financial support to continue the work of this ministry…please welcome up Deacon Denny Goodall with the offering message.

 

THE OFFERING

Deacon Denny Goodall

 

OFFERING VERSE

 

PHILIPPIANS 4:12-13

I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity…in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.//I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

 

OFFERING

FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE

Dave McClure, Instrumental

 

TODAY’S BIBLE LESSON

Renewing of Your Mind Defeats Worry

 

The renewing of your mind is the reason you participate in bible study.  It’s you listening to your God, if you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and giving His Word a chance to cleanse you.  We continue our study of Romans, Chapter 12, Verse 2…

 

ROMANS 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world (by Satan, by his world system of thought, and by the flesh)…instead, keep on being transformed by (God the Holy Spirit)…through THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND (by studying the Word of God)…

 

ROMANS 12:2

…so that you may see clearly…through testing…what the will of God is…and the will of God is that which is good and that which is acceptable and that which is perfect.

 

Why worry?  If you worry all the time, it is a stronghold in your life…in other words, Satan has set up a condo in your head…and he is constantly reshuffling the furniture to make you worry.  Renew your mind!  Do you let biblical promises from your God renew your mind?  Promises like the one in Psalm 127, Verse 2, where the Lord reminds us…

 

PSALM 127:2

It is vain for you to rise up early…to retire late…to eat the bread of painful labors…for the Lord gives to His beloved (His divinely loved ones… believers in Christ) even in his sleep.

 

We can depend on God to cleanse us from worry by renewing our minds.  Will you let Him?  Here’s another promise from God…Luke, Chapter 14, Verses 28 to 30…

 

LUKE 14:28

“For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?”

 

LUKE 14:29

“Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him…”

 

LUKE 14:30

“…saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’”

 

You are God’s tower.  You are God’s possession.  You are an adult child of The Living God!  He did not bring you to earth to be on your own…He did not take possession of you at the moment of salvation to have fun watching you suffer…God wants to give you the desires of your heart!  Will you let Him?  Will you be active in moving toward the thoughts that renew your

 mind?  In Philippians, Chapter 4, Verse 19, the apostle Paul says…

 

PHILIPPIANS 4:19

And my God will supply ALL your needs according to His glorious riches directed toward those who are in union with Christ Jesus.

 

Worry is a movie called, “What if…” Yeah but what if I can’t pay my bills?  Yeah but what if I never find someone to love me like I want to be loved?  Yeah but what if I don’t have enough money when I retire?  Yeah but what if I die all alone?  Yeah but what if I get cancer?  Yeah but what if I have a heart attack?  Yeah but what happens when my long-term debt really comes due?  “What if…” is a movie you make up in your head and that you feed with negative and powerless thoughts.  Things aren’t going to work out for you are they?

 

When you are a believer in Christ, you need to see yourself as the star in your own movie!

 

Whenever you start worrying, it is an invitation to PRAY.  Take your worries to God.  “Father, I’m worried about this…I don’t know how to fix it so I am turning it over to You for resolution…my preferred fix would be this…but Father, Your will be done…”

 

Worry is like the Wizard of Oz…he seems really big, but he is really just a little man with a microphone behind a curtain.  The sin of worry can manifest itself in physical symptoms…it can prompt overeating comfort food…which leads to obesity…which leads to ill health…do you really want to treat yourself this way?

 

Birds don’t worry.  They work!  They get up every day with their eyes wide open looking for God’s provisions.  Aren’t you smarter than birds?  You can be.  Let the Lord transform you by renewing your mind!

 

GOD WANTS YOU!

Make the Most Important Decision of Your Life

 

There is only ONE WAY to get to heaven…a single road…a narrow gate you must pass through.  The Lord Jesus Christ says, in Matthew Chapter 7, Verses 13 and 14…

 

MATTHEW 7:13

“Enter through the narrow gate…for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through the wide gate.  For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to the resurrection life, and there are few who find the narrow way.”

 

Do you want to be one of the few who finds the narrow way?

 

To get to heaven, you need someone to take you there…and the Person who volunteers to take you there says HE is THE WAY to get to heaven in John, Chapter 14, Verse 6…

 

JOHN 14:6

The Lord Jesus Christ said to doubting Thomas, “I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the resurrection life…and no one comes to God the Father but through believing in Me.”

 

The Lord Jesus Christ died on a Cross and shed His blood to make a way for you to get to heaven, and He is the ONLY WAY.  Philippians, Chapter 2, Verse 8 says…

 

PHILIPPIANS 2:8

Being found in appearance as a man, the Lord Jesus Christ humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a Cross.

 

Three days later Jesus Christ rose from the dead for you, to prove to you that He is God.  No one else has ever risen from the dead.  Colossians, Chapter 1, Verse 18 says…

 

COLOSSIANS 1:18

The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the body, the church…and He is the

Beginning…the firstborn from the (resurrection of the) dead, so that the Lord Himself will come to have first place in everything.

 

And so right now, right where you sit you can ask the Lord Jesus Christ to take you to heaven when you close your eyes in this life.  The Lord is always offering a free trip to heaven for anyone who wants it…but you have to come to Him to ask for a ride.  Acts, Chapter 16, Verse 31 says…

 

ACTS 16:31

“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and everyone in your household who also believes.”

 

John, Chapter 3, Verse 36 says…

 

JOHN 3:36

“He who believes in the Son has the resurrection life right at that moment… but he who does not obey the command to believe in the Son will not see the resurrection life…instead the wrath of God (the Lake of Fire) abides on him.”

 

Once you have salvation you cannot lose it…John, Chapter 10, Verse 28 says…

 

JOHN 10:28

…I (the Lord Jesus Christ) give eternal life to believers in Christ, and they will never perish…and no one will snatch them out of My hand.

 

Jesus DIED for you.  Jesus ROSE FROM THE DEAD for you.  Jesus LOVES you.  Jesus FORGIVES all of your sins.  Jesus wants to welcome you with open arms into heaven.  Jesus protects your salvation forever.  All you have to do to get to heaven is to place your TRUST in the Lord Jesus Christ alone, and He will come through for you.  He is your ONE and ONLY WAY to get to heaven.  Do it now!  Don’t wait.  Turn over your salvation to the only One who can deliver you…the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Here is His invitation…and June Murphy to sing about it…

 

CLOSING SONG

TAKE MY HAND

June Murphy

 

CLOSING PRAYER

Let us pray...

 

          THANKS - INTERCESSION - PETITION

 

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