Change Your Mind

Hello everyone and thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Roderick caesar the third on the lead pastor of Bethel Gospel Tabernacle in Jamaica queens new york. And I’m so excited that you decided to join me for the full Gospel hour. Right here on Global Seven. My prayers that you will be blessed, You’ll be encouraged and inspired by this message. Thank you so much for joining and God bless today, we’re gonna be talking about changing your mind, Changing your mind are mindset, we’re in the season of reset as a ministry. Uh, and when you’re, whenever we are resetting things that it begins, you have to begin to take a look at how you do what you do, why you do what you do and really shift some areas of your thinking. Uh, it comes, I’m speaking from the Book of romans Today romans chapter 12 versus one and two, you can follow along with me on the screen as we read or if you have your bibles and you can open up in your bibles and follow with me romans. Chapter 12 versus one and two. Very familiar passage of scripture, paul writes and he says, I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That by testing, you may discern what the will of God is, what is good, what is acceptable and what is perfect. We’re talking about changing your mind. Dear God, I thank you so much for this time. I thank you for this word, I thank you for your people. I pray Lord for our mindset. I pray Lord for our attitude. I pray Lord for the things that we focus on. I pray Lord for everything that is affected by how we think, pray Lord for our speech. I pray Lord for our actions, but it deals with our thoughts, God. So I pray that you would continue to give us strength father in the areas of our thought life. I pray Lord that as I speak that you would be heard, you would be felt and do what only you can do and the lives of your people, We thank you, we praise you, we give you glory, we ask these things in jesus name and then and amen. So paul writes the book of romans to strengthen the faith of the church in Rome and to bring them greetings. Uh and it’s it’s important to us because this is one of the most in depth theologically weighty letters about our faith as believers and it shows us the importance of the faith, but also the power that we have in christ jesus in this portion of the book, paul is speaking on the transformative work of the gospel through laying down of one’s self and how in doing so uh the Lord can trend. We can transform the transformed by our minds being renewed. This is important for us because oftentimes we are accustomed to a certain way of thinking a certain way of doing a certain way of being specifically if you are not saved or do not have a relationship with christ, there are certain things that you’re accustomed to doing that when you come into two. Now the family of faith, you have to shift gears, you have to think differently and that takes some time. That is a process. And so for us that are even believers that are walking with jesus, it becomes uh sometimes we find difficulty in ridding ourselves of these old patterns, but we see that it’s something that we must do because paul writes and he says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Uh Many times we may discount the importance of our bodies the importance of what we do with the bodies that God gives us. But we realize that paul is saying, look, present everything you have put your bodies on the altar as living sacrifices, be holy and acceptable to God. You say yes, God loves me as I am. Yeah, that’s wonderful. He does. But he didn’t die for you to stay the same way he died for you to shift. He died for you to change. He died for you to adjust and and present your body as a living sacrifice. He died for you to be holy, but also acceptable and in doing so, you’re giving him worship in doing so. You’re giving him glory a lot of times. We’ll just think of worship as oh, I sing songs to jesus in moments like these. I sing of a song, I sing out a love song to jesus. Yes. You know, we have all these songs that we’re singing and it’s wonderful. That’s an act of worship. But are you laying down your body as a living sacrifice? Are you saying God, All that I have is yours? Yes. This body that you’ve given me is is a temple of the Holy Spirit and I will act accordingly. I will act as such, paul says what helps us in this? What helps us to lay down our bodies as living sacrifices. What helps us to be holy and acceptable to God. I love that. It says acceptable because it also means that there are some other things that God will not accept. The God will not tolerate and we don’t like that. It doesn’t sit well, it doesn’t digest with us. But if we serve a holy God, one that says, we must be holy as he is holy. The only way we can do that is not in our own strength, but by submitting to the will of the father. So paul says the way that we can uh uh submit our bodies as living sacrifices and give worship to God. That is acceptable is if we are not conformed to the world verse two, he says do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing, you may discern what the will of God is, what is good, what is acceptable and what is perfect as believers, as citizens of heaven, as people living in the kingdom of God. While here on this earth, we are called to live differently. We are called to be witnesses. We are called to be disciples. We are called to be sons. We are called to be daughters. We are called to love, jesus. That sounds good. Sounds like, Yeah, we’re cold. Yeah, let’s go. But that’s not gonna happen overnight. It’s not going to happen by itself. What we need to do is make a conscious decision. I’ve decided to follow, jesus, a constant decision, a committed decision to renew our minds and pick up our cross daily, not once a month, not once a week. Every single day, songwriter said, I need thee, Oh, I need thee! Every hour. I need the we need to make a conscious decision to follow christ each day. If not, if we don’t have this resolve, we can remain stuck. We can remain trapped. We can remain connected with the wrong. People engaged in the wrong activities and unwilling to see a sustainable tangible change. And in this season of reset, I encourage us to take a look at our mindset in this season of reset. It is important that we take a look at our mind set and in doing so we’ll realize some patterns in doing so well, realized some habits in doing so. We realized there are some ways of thought that need to be changed and we either need to get rid of them and changing them like get rid of them or we can double down and reinforce them and be stronger in them and change them in that way and add more to them. But we’ll never know if we don’t take the time to look if we don’t take the time to examine ourselves and turn to the Lord. It’s interesting because the text says that we have to be willing to undergo a transformation and transformation sounds like a nice fun word but at its core is change and with us being humans and us being creatures of habit. One thing that we say we like, but uh once we go through it maybe we don’t really like it as much as we said we did is change but transformation is change and we need to let go of things that hold us back, let go of things that uh uh do not reflect christ in our lives. Let go of things that keep us stuck. Let go of things that we realize our counter productive for us in our christian walk, we need to transform, not just on the surface, not just on the outside, not just changing clothes, but transform from the inside out, transform. And paul says the way to be transformed, the way to be transformed truly transformed, not just surface level is to renew your mind just to renew your mind. Many times. You may say, oh you know it’s it’s in my heart, it’s just my heart, it’s my heart. Yeah, that’s that. Me, there may be truth to that, but a lot of what takes place in your heart starts up here, starts with your mindset from the top down. And so we have to be willing to undergo a transformation. Our mind needs renewing. You say oh I’m fine, I’m good man, my my my mind doesn’t even know I’m okay, but paul writes later on in romans, he says all have sinned near the beginning, he says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So everyone has sinned. David writes, I was born in sin and shaped in iniquity and that that is a sentiment that we share as well. We were born in sin, shaped in iniquity. We’ve all sinned and that is why our minds need to be transformed because the way we used to walk was something that was contrary to God If he is in Chapter two. Paul writes and he says you were once dead in your sin and trespasses the ways that you once walked, you followed the course of this world, which way are you following? The Prince of the Power of the Air and the Spirit that is now at work. In the Sons of Disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind and were by nature, Children of wrath like the rest of mankind. We once walked in a way that was so contrary to the things of God. We once walked in a way where we shook our fist at the things of God, where God looked at us day after day after day after day after day and showed Grace by not consuming us. Grace by not wiping us out Grace because we were continually living in sin. And paul says we cannot walk this way anymore. We need to change our minds. We need to be transformed. Don’t be conformed to the ways of the world. Why would paul tell us not to be conformed? Why would paul tell us not to be conformed if we didn’t have a desire to be conformed in christ? If we weren’t prone to being conformed. If in christ if it wasn’t something that came just naturally to us to conform to this world that Jimenez said prone to wander. Lord, I feel it prone to leave the God. I love to fight. It’s a struggle. So here’s my heart, Lord take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above and so for us, what we realize is that following christ and being transformed and walking out in a transformed way with the transformed mind is something that does not come naturally walking in the flesh doing what we want to do, doing what seems right to us. Yeah, sure that comes naturally but walking out in the ways that God has called us to that is that’s a bit different and in our nature as sinful individuals who were born in sin, shaped in iniquity. We are, it doesn’t take much to walk in the pattern of this world. It’s easy to walk in the patterns of this world. It’s easy you don’t have to teach a child to lie right. You don’t have to teach a child to be a disobedient or to not listen, but christ calls us to true transformation as believers. So now we have the ability to walk in the power of the spirit with the renewed mind and this is not the ability that we have on our own. We don’t just wake up and say, hey, I’ve got the power let’s go, okay, we are transformed by the spirit of God living on the inside of us that then allows us to walk with this renewed mind. Think about how far we were from God, think about how God drew us closer to himself and brings us close to himself. It takes time. It’s not an overnight process. It takes time to shed the old man, it takes time 22 be someone that is committed to the ways of christ. It takes time to get rid of the ways that we use to process or the ways that we used to think or the ways that we used to talk or the ways that we used to walk and be. It takes time to unlearn learned behavior, but God calls us to do this. So we can be new creations and new creatures For our sake, Texas and 2nd Corinthians, he made him to be sin. Who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God. So jesus becomes a sins on calvary’s cross so that we could be made righteous and in us being made righteous. We are the righteousness of God. And we walk with a renewed mind because of the spirit of God that is on the inside of us. We walk with a new a new and renewed mind and we can renew. Be renewed because God is on the inside of us. We are reconciled. We are Children of God. We are citizens of heaven. And as a result of these things, we must be renewed and oftentimes we can deceive ourselves by saying yes, I pray the sinner’s prayer. Boom, I’m new, I’m renewed. Everything is great, but that renewal, it takes some time, you can be saved, you can be on your way to heaven. You can pray the sinner’s prayer, you can say God forgive me of my sins. You can mean it with all that you have with all that you are and get up and still need to fight to be changed. Get up and still need to fight to be sanctified. Get up and still need to push to stop thoughts from coming and still need to push to not act out on thoughts that come excuse me and still need to push to be a changed individual that God has, has has called you to be a lot of times we may think, okay, well, I’m sanctified now, I’ve, I’m saved. So, and I’ve reached this specific level. So I’m good. I can stop. No, no, no, it’s, it’s a consistent walk. It’s a consistent renewal. It’s a continual uh, process of saying, yes, I I can be transformed where I don’t think the way I used to think, I don’t talk the way I used to talk, but I don’t say, okay, now that I’m here, I stop. What got me here in the first place. If you look in the sports world, all of the athletes that are at the top of their game, they don’t stop the practices that got them there. They continue to practice. They continue to shoot in the gym. They continue to throw on the field, They continue to do the things that made them excellent and for us as believers. if we hit a wonderful streak where we say, okay, uh Lord, I’ve I’ve I’ve been able to uh obey you. I’ve been able to think more positive and healthy thoughts. I’ve been able to act in a way that glorifies you and I’ve been able to lean on your grace and your mercy and all these things. We don’t just stop because we’ve we’ve been doing good or we’ve been uh exalting the Lord with our lives. No, no, no by no means. We continue in this same vein of lifting up the name of jesus and the same vein of working every day towards continual transformation. One thing I want us to realize is that as human beings, we become what we think we become, what we think, Proverbs says as a man thinketh so is he Philippians. Chapter three Paul again writes for many of whom I often told you and now tell you, even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ their end, Is there destruction? Their God! Is their belly. Their glory is in their shame because their mind is set on earthly things. Imagine that your glory is in your shame. We may say, oh man, my Gloria would never be in my shame. But if your mind is set on earthly things, you glorify what God detests. If your mind is set on earthly things, you glorify things that you should be ashamed of. If your mind is set on earthly things, you don’t grasp what grieves the heart of God. So you may lift that up as something to achieve or something or a goal to reach. And it’s contrary to the way God would have you to be as a son of God would have you to move as a daughter. But yet that’s something that we may aspire to if our mind is set on things that are earthly. So, the question I have for us today is what are we setting our minds on? What are we setting our minds on? You can’t control the birds that fly over your head, but you can prevent them from building a nest in your hair. Right thoughts come through. They come and they go, you can decide what stays, You can decide what stays and it’s so important for us to protect your mind, to set up guards for our mind in the battle of war or in fights. Whoever has the high ground is the one that has the advantage. And if your mind is the high place that the enemy wants to, wants to occupy God wants to renew that space. It’s valuable ground. And that’s why we must keep it guarded someone 19 verse nine, how can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it? According to your word. The same applies with a young woman as well. We must guard our minds according to what the popular opinion of the day. According to what the the you know the what what’s trending or what’s new? No, no no the word of God guard your mind with the word of God. It’s no wonder why uh certain thoughts are so prevalent today or certain opinions are so popular today. And if you are a believer, you’re ostracized or you’re the one that is is uh kicked out of certain spaces. But if you guard your heart and guard your mind according to the word The word says, you’re gonna be thinking differently. You’re gonna be moving differently. Why? Because you prescribed to a different set of rules, a different set of laws, a different set of guides psalm 1-19 says I will meditate on your precepts. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word. How many of us read through the bible or read through. You know, maybe the bible app on our phone like the verse of the day or go through a devotional or a book that we may be reading or read a couple of verse or two in a book just to get it done just to say, oh I read my bible today. But did you read your bible today. Thinking about what you would do after. You know I heard someone say oh I uh we say okay, no no phone first thing in the morning, you know. So I get up and instead I’ll read my bible and I’ll pray. But did you read your bible and pray thinking about what you would get to when you got to your phone? You know, I think for us what we need to do what what is what the text says? I will meditate on your precepts. I will think on these things that will repeat it over and over again. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want and we just keep going and say all right, well that’s cool, that’s nice. But let’s think about that, let’s stop right there and let it meditate and marinate in our minds. What does it mean for the Lord to be our shepherd? Let’s meditate on his pre steps. Let’s fix our eyes on his ways. And then when we do this, verse 16 says, I will delight in your statutes. That’s where the transformation comes in. Because for us to delight in the ways of God and the things of God, it takes us separating from ourselves. It takes us separating from maybe some of the things that we would have delighted in before we came to christ But to delight in his ways shows us that were changed, shows us that we’re being transformed, shows us that we’re being renewed and I will not forget your word. Do not be hearers only and not doers deceiving yourselves. Don’t forget because if you are here er and not a doer? It’s like one that looks at themselves in a mirror and forgets what he looks like. We must be one must be of those that do not forget the word of the Lord. We must guard our hearts and guard our minds as written in Philippians chapter four. Guard our hearts and guard our minds in christ jesus. If we’re supposed to guard ourselves, I’m gonna ask us a question, what are we feeding ourselves? What are we feeding ourselves? I don’t think it’s an accident that if you look on on social media and say they’ll say, okay well what’s on your feet, you know what’s on your feet? Or if you go to you know uh your twitter feed or your instagram feed or anything like that. What’s on your feet? What’s on your news feed? Why? Because you are feeding yourself feeding what you want? You’re feeding yourself what you watch, you’re feeding yourself what you hear and what you’re feeding affects you as it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual what you’re feeding yourself is you’re digesting and it’s affecting you, you eat unhealthy. It’s going to show up in one way or another. Both spiritually and physically what you’re feeding yourself affects you and as a man think it so is he that means you are what you eat? You are what you eat? So ask yourself what is it that I’m digesting, am I digesting and and reading through this word, Am I digging deep into the presence of God? Or am I just stuck scrolling through my explore page, scrolling through uh you know this person’s page of that person’s page. Am I stuck laughing at a meme here are doing this there? Why am I stuck? You know, reading news all day things that can cause you to either, you know, branch away from the truth of the Gospel. We’re living maybe in fear by everything that you’re seeing. What is it that we’re meditating on? What is it that we’re feeding ourselves? We have to guard our minds according to the word of God, We have to guard our minds with the helmet of Salvation. As paul writes in Ephesians, put on the full armor of God. What about the helmet of your salvation that will cover your mind and guard you and help you guard it, Guard your mind and remain transformed. Guard your mind and give God glory, Guard your mind and walk not in the ways of the world. How can we be a light? If we look just like the world, how can we be salt? If we’ve lost our flavor? They’re supposed to be a difference. We are supposed to be transformed. Do not be conformed shaped to the image of the world, but be transformed but God, then I won’t fit in exactly there you go because then they’ll call call me names. Exactly. They called me names at their worst to me. And if you’re following me this is look at the path. Look at the path. It was supposed to be transformed. We’re supposed to be different. Every decision that you make nine times out of 10, it starts with a thought. Every decision that you make nine times out of 10, it starts with a thought other than the involuntary things that happened with our lives like breathing. I’m not, you know, thank God. We’re not in a situation where we have to think before we take a breath. Every time you can do that though, that’s the beauty of it. You can if you wanted to you can hold your breath and then you cannot hold your breath. You can inhale, you can accept all those things. If you think about it, you can do it. But those are not things that you have to think about to do walking, right. We’re professionals at this by now. And the only time we had to think about it, we were too young to even know we were thinking about it. And so now it’s so ingrained in us that all we have to think about now is where we want to walk and where we want to move to. But it starts up here, it starts in your mind, it starts with what you want to do. God has given us the will to act on things or not. That’s why our minds must be renewed because if we get a thought we have the will. The freedom, which is the gift of God because we’re not robots that do whatever God tells us to do, we have the freedom to say, I’m not trying to do that. God. Now I’m okay, I’m going to lean into this fleshly desire. We have the freedom to say uh sorry, No, I’m not gonna do that. It’s counterproductive to my christian walk to my faith. How can I do this great thing and sin against my God? That’s free will. That’s what God has given us the process, the ability to think for ourselves to act on the thoughts that come or not. That’s why our minds must be renewed. Especially when dealing with sin. James. Chapter one says with with temptation. Uh each person is tempted when he’s dragged when they are dragged away by their own evil desires. And enticed then after desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown gives birth to death. A lot of times, thoughts sinful thoughts may start up here before we act them out before we engage in them. But just because they start up here does not mean that they need to manifest themselves in our lives does not mean we need to act them out. We can say God, I’m taking every thought captive God, my mind is renewed. So I don’t have to act on this thought. That is contrary to your will, that is contrary to your way. We can take the authority that we have through christ, jesus through the spirit of God. And so I’m not gonna be conformed to the patterns of the world. I’m going to be renewed and transformed by the renewing of my mind. You see, I think we can think ourselves, I don’t think this is actually true. We can think ourselves out of obedience to God. You can think and reason yourself out of why you shouldn’t do what God said to do. Faith is one of the most difficult things, but yet it’s the doorway without faith, it is impossible to please God. Faith is acting in obedience to what God said, even though what you see may be contrary to that thing. When God said to Adam and Eve don’t bite of the fruit of this particular tree Ive the text says, saw the fruit, she looked at the fruit, she saw that it was good for this, She saw that it was pleasing to the eyes. She saw all that she’s using, she’s using her eyes, she’s using her brain, she’s thinking through reasoning with the serpent and sin then enters into the world as a result of disobedience. And a lot of times we spend too much time or we can spend too much time dwelling on things and thinking through things that God would much rather us just run away from that God would much rather us just be obedient in. We need to renew our minds change your mind, type in the chat, change your mind change your mind, change your mind or mind needs to be changed. Oh God, our minds need to be changed. Imagine with me for a moment that we are a church. We as a church, we commit to mind renewal and we say, look, no matter what comes God, I’m going to submit to your way of thought, your way of living your way of being as I’m closing. I want us to think about the fact that if we have the same mind, what we could accomplish, what could we accomplish if we have the same mind? Yeah, we want to renew our minds that we want to be more like God as an individual. We want to give God the glory. We want to say, look, I’m not going to succumb to a temptation on a regular basis, I’m going to submit, I’m going to lean on the grace of God so that when I do fall, I’m not beating myself up. But saying God, I thank you because you could restore me. I thank you because even though I’ve sinned Lord, you can pick me up. But also, I think it’s important for us to realize that that’s the grace of God on, on an individual scale for us as individuals, but for us corporately as a body for us as Bethel Gospel Tabernacle is a ministry. Imagine what we could do if all of us submitting our minds to christ. Being renewed in christ are on the same page, imagine what could be accomplished if just as we see in the Holy Spirit in Acts Chapter Two the Holy Spirit comes on the apostles and and empowers them to do his will. But that starts because they’re all on one accord, they’re all on the same page in the same way. We must also be of the same mind to accomplish what the Lord has called us. To accomplish my prayer for us is that we commit to loving God with our minds. You must love the Lord, your God before your heart or your mind or your soul with all your strength. We must commit to loving God with our minds, paul writes, he says, look true transformation. It starts in the mind, Your mind must be made up, your mind must be dedicated. So the things of God romans, Chapter 12 1 and two, he says, look, I appeal to you brothers by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. You want to worship God. Yes, it’s wonderful to raise your hands. It’s wonderful to say God, you’re worthy. It’s wonderful to uh to maybe read through a devotional and connect with God that way you want to to worship God. You have to lay things down, be a living sacrifice on the altar and we do this by not being conformed to the patterns and the waves of the world. Are you gonna be molded in the ways of the world? Are molded in the ways of God, but be transformed by renewing your mind. God calls us to mind renewal. And by doing this, we can test and see what is acceptable, what is good and what is perfect transformation begins in the mind. So I want us to be prayerful about the fact that God wants us to be transformed wants us to be more like him. But to do that, we must change our minds. Let’s pray. Dear God, I thank you so much for this time. Thank you for your people. I thank you for this word, this word, God of mind transformation of mind to change. I thank you God for the patterns, the habits that you’re calling us to step out of and step into new patterns, new habits that give you glory. They give you honor and praise. So God, I pray Lord that as this word has gone forth that it would fall on good soil and that your people would be edified, would be strengthened with no lord that we need to be renewed in you with you and through you. So we thank you, we praise you. We give you glory. We ask these things in jesus name. Amen and amen if you’ve heard this message and you realize, hey, I don’t know jesus, I don’t have a relationship with him and I want to know him. Text saved to the number at the bottom of the screen, we have people that will be in touch with you in contact with you. This is the most important decision you will ever make is to have a relationship with jesus christ and get your mind right, get your mind renewed, get your heart renewed. So let’s pray dear God, I thank you so much. Thank you Lord for those that maybe do not know you in this time. Is there texting father, I pray that you would be with them. They would strengthen them. That you would help them to know that you are more than able. I thank you God that you rose from the grave that you not only experienced death, but you conquered it so that we could as well. So we could say death. Where is your sting? So we thank you, we praise you for the victory we have in you and we pray that you would continue to be with us as we commit our lives to you. We thank you. We praise you. We ask these things in jesus name and everyone said Amen and amen. God bless you all. Hello again and thank you so much for tuning in to the message at global seven. Once again, my name is roderick caesar the third, the lead pastor of Bethel Gospel Tabernacle. My prayer is that you were blessed and encouraged by the message. And if you want to contribute and give to the ministry, you can text b g t f i 277977 Again, you can text GT 50 277977. We’re so thankful for you and my prayer is that God will continue to strengthen and empower and encourage you as you listen to this message, we hope you tune again later and God bless you. Thank you so much.