The Home Office
Dr. Larry Thorson
Last
week I introduced a new sermon series based on Robert Munger’s classic sermon, My
Heart, Christ’s Home. That sermon which he first preached at the
First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley has challenged over 10 million
people to walk more closely with Jesus. It helps us understand the Christian
life by comparing the human heart to a home with many rooms, each of which
corresponds to a different area of our life. Each week we’re looking at a different
room.
Today
we look at what Dr. Munger describes as “the
study” – a room which
corresponds to our minds. Let’s read a couple of passages from the Word of God[1]…
Philippians 4:8-9,
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever
is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is
lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think
about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or
heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be
with you.
Romans 12:2
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and
approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
I
grew up in a little house built in 1948.
They didn’t build studies in post World War II starter homes in those
days. What I’ve noticed in a lot of
houses built since the 80’s, however, is they have a room just off the front
door with double doors. That’s what the
home builders usually call the study. My
present house came with a room like that and we converted it to a guest
bedroom. I use an upstairs bedroom
that’s designated our daughter’s room when she’s in town. I put a desk in there and use it as my home
office. Perhaps you have a space like
that.
A
study or a library is a place we go to read, to write, to do research, and to
think. That’s where we fill our minds. In
your house it may be your living room or your kitchen. For busy parents it may be the toilet room. What Dr. Munger focuses on in this chapter is
a need to be careful about what we fill our minds with - and not fill our
minds with garbage.
When we fill our minds
with garbage it leads to a spiritually diseased life. For what comes out of our
lives is a function of what we are filled with.
Jesus said in Matthew 12:34-35 “You
brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the
overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 Good people bring
good things out of the good stored up in them, and evil people bring evil
things out of the evil stored up in them.
But
it’s not that easy to keep the garbage out. In fact, it is a real
struggle. Why? We
are a people inundated with garbage! Just think how thoughts stick in
our minds. I read a story recently by a
dad whose son was at a summer camp, and someone started singing a jingle for “freecreditreport.com”.
Guess what? Almost every one of the kids at the camp joined in! None of these
kids were old enough to even know what a credit report was. But they knew the
song from the commercials! While that
song probably fits in the category of harmless, what it show us is that this
stuff finds its way into our minds
whether we realize it or not.
Not
only are we inundated with garbage, but we are also drawn
to garbage! Here’s how Paul puts
it in Galatians 5:17: For the sinful
nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary
to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not
do what you want.
Why
is it that we are drawn toward materialism, even though it is not good for us?
Why do we seek revenge, when the Scripture says it is not healthy to do so? Why
do we naturally harbor resentment, why are we drawn to lust, why are we prone
to addiction – why are we attracted to what is harmful to us?
The Scripture says it is
due to our sinful nature. Which means simply that our rebelliousness against
God has warped and distorted so that we don’t care what God wants, and are
naturally drawn toward what is spiritually unhealthy and self destructive.
How
do we prevent our minds from being filled with garbage
when we live in a world in
which we are inundated with it and are
even drawn to it? While it
might sound kind of odd, part of the
good news is that we can’t
do it. At least, we can’t do it alone.
What we need is God’s help
– what we need is for God to
transform our minds. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern
of this world”
is how Paul says it in Romans 12, “but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Now
notice that Paul doesn’t say “transform yourselves.” He doesn’t say, “make your
mind what God wants it to be on your own.” No! The verb “be transformed”
here is a passive verb – which means that the transforming is not something we
do, but something that God is doing in us. And so what we need is for God to
help us transform our minds and make them what He wants.
So
how does this come about? It begins, as we saw last week, by
making an invitation to Jesus – by asking Him to come and make His home
in our hearts. In the Scripture, we hear Jesus making this invitation: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone
hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with
me.” (Rev. 3:20)
This
is the starting point. It means acknowledging your need of God, and asking
Jesus to make His home in your heart as your
Savior and Lord. If you’ve
never done so, this is the first step.
And when you do this, the
Scripture says that God will do
something supernatural in
you – the first part of His transforming work – one place in Scriptures calls
it being “born anew” – and make you His own. If you’ve never done this, you can
today. Just ask Him.
But
asking Jesus to make His home in your heart is not the end, but just the
beginning. God wants to do an Extreme Home Makeover in our hearts. And so we
not only make an invitation for Jesus to live in our hearts, but we also continue
to submit our minds to Jesus. In other words, we recognize that we need
His help, and ask Him to protect it, renew it, and fill it with what He wants.
While
Jesus is the one doing the renovating in our hearts, we cooperate with
Jesus in His work. We have a part in the renewing of our minds. And
there are three things that are implied in our Philippians passage that I think
can be helpful in this.
The
first thing we can do to cooperate with God in His
transforming work in our
minds is recognize God’s presence with us. “The Lord is near!”
Paul reminds us in our text.
He’s always around. And
when we recognize that He is with us –
it will make a difference
in what we fill our minds with.
Dr.
Munger writes that as Jesus and he went through the room of his mind, "I became uncomfortable. Strangely
enough, I had not felt badly about this room before, but now that He was there
with me looking at those things, I was embarrassed.”
Imagine
Jesus walking around your reading area and the only thing he sees is a remote
control. That’s ok if you don’t
read. Some people don’t like to
read. So imagine Jesus flipping through
the programs you’ve watched recently on TV and he asks “So this is filling your
mind?” When you sit down in your reading
area picture Jesus sitting there with you and asking you what you’re reading.
Secondly,
we cooperate with Jesus by bringing the garbage to God. Sometimes
we think that God wants us to get our act together before He is willing to
interact with us. But the truth about God is that He wants to help us deal with
the things that we struggle with.
Finally
we cooperate with Jesus by filling our minds with what is good.
We replace the bad with “…whatever is
true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is
lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy –
think about such things”.
Fill
your mind with the Scripture. Find time to read it – every day if possible. And
then go deeper – study it! Get involved with one of our small groups here at
the church. Find a way to allow the
Scripture to make its way into your mind.
Another
way is to fill your mind with songs of worship. For music has a way of being
able to stick in one’s mind – we’ve all had the experience of having a dumb
song get stuck in our heads? Well, why not fill our minds with songs that focus
us on God? If you don’t play an instrument, you could get a CD of songs you
could sing with. Or listen to Christian radio.
A
third thing I’m doing now is doing a devotional reading at night – just a short
one page that doesn’t take long – but which helps the last thing your mind is filled
with will be something good – because it is focused on God.
My
prayer for us is that we won’t let the world fill us with what’s
unhelpful. That we might be filled with
God’s truth within, and because of it experience God’s life flowing out. Let’s
ask Him for it right now. Let’s pray.