Master Your Mind - The Theology and Neurobiology of Renewing Your Mind - Leaders' Talks

You're listening to this week's edition of the World.

Now many of the things that we're gonna face in our modern culture, the battlefield where we are gonna fight a lot of our battles is right here in our mind.

If we're fighting anger, if we're fighting lust, if we're fighting insecurity, if we're fighting shame, these are battles that we have to fight in our mind.

And so today, my prayer is gonna be at the end of today, my hope is that every person here feels encouraged and feels empowered to start winning the battles in our mind, to walk in victory with our thoughts.

At the road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message.

Guys, I'm so thankful for today.

I feel privileged.

This is an honor to be able to share with you.

Um, as Vince mentioned, we lead the high school program, Lifehouse, and uh the millennial program called The Well.

And what I want to do today is I want to take some time to share about what we've been learning at Lifehouse and the Well.

Tonight at Lifehouse is part four of a four-part series that we've done called Master Your Mind.

And we've been looking through what does the word say about renewing our mind, about taking control of our thoughts, about breaking free from cycles and patterns of anxiety, of depression, of discouragement.

And how can we, relying on the word of God and the Holy Spirit, be well in our mind, be healthy in our mind?

And so um this morning I'm gonna be sharing the first part of what we learned at Lifehouse in the Well, and our focus is gonna be on the theology and the neurobiology of renewing our minds.

It's gonna be exciting.

But first off, I'm gonna open up with 2 Corinthians chapter 10.

2 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

So grab your Bible, grab your friend's Bible, grab your phone, let's go.

2 Corinthians chapter 10, and we're gonna start in verse 3.

2 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.

The weapons that we fight with are not the weapons of this world.

On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

So this verse, this passage has been our theme throughout this series.

Because the reality of the situation is, though, although it may might not feel like this at times, the reality is by the power of the Holy Spirit, we have the ability to change the way we think.

And let me just tell you, for some of us, that's some pretty good news.

Because for a long time in my life, I had patterns of thought that were harmful to me.

And I'm excited today to be able to share about how we can be moving forward.

But first off, if we remember Paul and he's writing to the church in Ephesus in the book of Ephesians, and he's really explaining, he's trying to get the church to understand.

He's saying, hey, you are in a battle.

Church, you are in a battle, and it's a spiritual battle.

Now, I just want another show of hands here.

Who feels like you have been walking through a battle this year?

Raise your hand.

You're walking through a battle.

And Paul's explaining.

Now, the thing is, this is not a physical battle, this is a spiritual battle.

We're not battling against you know things that we can even see.

Often this is a battle of the in the spiritual realm.

We're fighting against forces of darkness.

And so Paul is stressing this to the church.

And I believe with our generation, and actually, I don't even want to say our generation, our culture as a whole, we are battling.

We are in the middle of an intense spiritual battle.

Now, many of the things that we're gonna face in our modern culture, the battlefield where we are gonna fight a lot of our battles, is right here in our mind.

If we're fighting anger, if we're fighting lust, if we're fighting insecurity, if we're fighting shame, these are battles that we have to fight in our mind.

And so today, my prayer, and gonna be at the end of today, my hope is that every person here feels encouraged and feels empowered to start winning the battles in our mind, to walk in victory with our thoughts.

So I'm gonna pray and we'll get started today.

Father, we just thank you so much.

God, I ask, would you reveal yourself to us in this place?

Holy Spirit, would you show us what it means to make every thought captive to you?

Would you teach us how to renew our minds?

Would we would we have a new mind?

Would we have your mind, Father?

God, I just asked today, would would you show yourself in this place?

And Father, as we walk out of here, would we be messengers of hope?

Would we be able to take this and encourage people around us?

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

All right.

So for our first text, I want you guys to go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Numbers chapter 13.

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

Numbers 13.

That is the fourth book in the Bible.

And let me also get your hands up.

Is there anybody in here who at some point in your life was involved or associated with a wanas?

Raise your hand.

Come on, look at this crowd.

Yes, let me just tell you, I loved my experience with awanas, okay?

I loved it.

Because I could go and I could memorize scripture and I could learn things and then I would get bucks.

I would get a wana bucks.

It was like money, and you could buy things with this money.

And so I thought this is the best of all the things.

You have the Bible and you have bucks, you have money.

Anyways, I attribute, some of you might have learned the same song: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers.

That's how I learned all the books of the Bible.

So Numbers, let's go, Numbers chapter 13, fourth book of the Bible, Old Testament.

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

Alright, so if you're there, go ahead and look back to Numbers chapter 12 and look at that verse 16.

Numbers 12 · chapter mention

Numbers chapter 12, verse 16.

Numbers 12:16

And it says, after that, the people left Hazaroth and camped in the desert of Paran.

Okay, so the context, what's happening is the children of Israel are being led by God.

There's so Moses and Aaron are leading them, but God is leading them through the desert and to the promised land.

Now they're camped in the desert, and what we're gonna see in chapter 13 is God tells Moses, Hey, send out some spies and go investigate.

Go look at this promised land.

Alright, so let's pick up in chapter 13, Numbers chapter 13, verse 1.

Numbers 13:1

And the Lord said to Moses, send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites.

And then we're gonna kind of fast forward just a little bit.

Moses selects one man from each tribe as spies, and then verse 17, let's pick up in 17.

When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, Go through the Najev and go into the hill country.

See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many.

What kind of land do they live in?

Is it good or bad?

What kind of towns do they live in?

Are they unwalled or fortified?

How is the soil?

Is it fertile or poor?

Are there trees or not?

Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.

We'll fast forward again a little bit.

But what happens is the spies go out and they discover, man, this is good land.

This is the promised land.

This is a land of plenty.

But there's a problem.

Let's pick up in 27.

They gave Moses this account, verse 27.

We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey.

Here's the proof.

And they show the fruit.

But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.

Let's pause there.

Sometimes what happens in our life is God will be leading us to towards the promises that He has for us.

But we have to take an active role in moving forward into the promises that God has called us to.

And what we're gonna see here is that fear can be one of the things that can hold us back, that can paralyze us for moving forward into the promises that God has prepared for us.

Look at let's fast forward one more time.

This is the key verse for this section, verse 33.

We saw the Nephilim there, the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim.

And this is the key part right here.

We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes.

And we looked the same to them.

So the spies go out into the land and they say, Hey, this is a great land, this is a good land, but here's the problem.

There's giants, there's there's barriers to the promise, to the promise of God, to the promised land, and they began to fear.

And what does it say?

They looked like grasshoppers in their own eyes.

Before they had ever encountered a physical battle, they had already lost the battle in their mind.

Alright.

Who has kids?

Raise your hand if you have a kid.

Alright, I have a kid, her name's Penelope.

I have two kids actually.

But Penelope, she is three years old, and she has a mullet, and she wears Elsa dress every day, if she can, if we let her, and she carries a big nerf sword.

Alright, she is fierce, she will fight you.

And let me just say, one thing I love about kids is man, some of these kids are brave.

Anyone really know what I'm talking about?

Raise your hand if you've met a brave kid in your life.

There's some brave kids out there.

Also, I want you to raise your hand if you would say, this is shifting just a little bit.

Are you the type of person that could be described as a very literal person?

I know I'm not the only one.

There's gotta be someone else in here.

Raise your hand, hi.

Are you someone who's very literal?

Well, first off, I literally appreciate you raising your hand, thank you.

But part of my story that I'll share is when I was six or seven, you could describe me as a very literal kid.

Very literal.

And so I was in church, and I remember the pastor was talking about one of my favorite Bible stories, and he's talking about David slaying Goliath.

And I'm engaged, I love hearing about this.

Remember, I'm very literal, and he says, sometimes what will happen is God will put giants in your life for you to overcome, and that will give glory to God.

I remember thinking, okay, it's gonna happen.

This week there's gonna be some giants, there's gonna be some tall people in my life that I have to overcome, but I've gotta do it.

I've gotta be brave.

It's gonna bring glory to God.

And so the next that week, that was a Sunday, I think it was like Tuesday that week, I had been kind of having a verbal battle with my neighbors who live behind me.

Now, this had been going ongoing for about three or four months, and this was military housing, so we had this 10-foot-tall uh cinder block wall separating me from the neighbors.

Now, let me just say, it's pretty easy to make some pretty bold threats when you're separated from the enemy with a 10-foot-tall cinder block fence.

So I was talking pretty big, okay?

You come over here and I'll show you.

And uh, anyways, that week they decided they'd had just about enough of that punk kid, you know, yelling at them, and so they decided it's time, guys.

I look up ten-foot tall cinder block wall, and then I see these two neighbor kids standing on the top of that cinder block wall, and they were tall.

And I was like, Okay, okay, Lord, this is it, this is it.

Those are the giants that you've put in my life, and I have to overcome them to give you glory.

Okay, one hour later, my mother gets a phone call from the neighbor's mom, and she says, Um, would you please tell your son to stop making biblical death threats against my children?

Okay, he's saying he's gonna cut off their heads, he's saying he's gonna feed their bodies to the beasts of the field and the birds of the air.

We don't know what that means, but please tell him to stop.

Oh man, I was in so much trouble.

And I have repented, I have repented of this, but one thing I love about kids is how brave they are.

All of us probably can think, have seen a situation where the the kids the one, I'll do it, I got it, I'll fight them, let's go, let's do it.

And so I have a theory about life.

As I think a lot of us were probably like that when we were kids.

I think that's the reality of the situation.

I think that there's kind of this innate courage that's born into us, and then I think over time, what happens is we have experiences where we learn to be afraid.

And some of this psychology describes as protective instincts.

Some of that is good, but some of it is just fear.

Some of it is just fear.

Things happen and we become afraid.

Now, the problem is when fear paralyzes us.

It's okay to be afraid, but it's not okay to let our fear hold us back from moving forward into the promise that God has for our life.

And so today, what I want to talk about, our focus is gonna be how do we change the way we think.

Because let me tell you, if if maybe like me, you've had fear in your life, maybe you've been held back from things because of fear.

I want to encourage you that there's hope.

Because what Paul is saying to the church in Corinth, and what Paul is saying to the church in Rome, is that we have the power to change the way we think through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So let's look into that a little bit.

We're gonna call this um renewing your mind, and then I'm really excited to share this next part.

Oh, so excited.

Let's go to Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 12, and let's look at verse 2.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Now my Iwanas is failing me.

I probably should have had this one memorized.

I think this is Iwanas top hundred for sure.

Romans chapter 12, verse 2.

Romans 12:2

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 and pleasing and perfect will.

So we can be transformed.

We are transformed by the renewing of our mind.

We are changed by changing the way that we think.

And so let's talk about that a little bit because it's great to have this theory that we believe, but I'm really excited to tell you this next part because it kind of changed my perspective, kind of rocked my world.

All right, once again, raise your hands, help me out.

I'm not the only one.

Is there anybody in this room who would say, Man, I love science?

Like I'm a nerd, man.

I love science, it's so cool, it's amazing.

Yes, thank you for raising your hands.

I love you.

I love science.

That's my background.

I'm a registered nurse, I've been in healthcare for 10 years, and I and I love researching things.

And what I found out is so exciting, and it kind of makes me laugh sometimes.

But in our scientific community, we get really excited when we make a big discovery, right?

It's this groundbreaking discovery.

And often, the more that we look into these discoveries, often what we're discovering are truths that we've known for about 2,000 years that are apparent in the Word of God.

And so let me tell you about a discovery that's really incredible, and it's called neuroplasticity.

Who's heard of this term before?

Neuroplasticity.

Basically, we we have done a bunch of research on the brain over the past 30 years, and we have found out we can prove that the brain, the way that God created our brain, is that it has the ability to change itself.

Cool.

Man, that's awesome! It has the ability to change the way we think.

We, our brain, being aware, can change our thought patterns.

It's called neuroplasticity.

It's been proven, and I believe what it's really referring to is this concept of renewing our mind.

Alright.

So this is what I want, this is how I want to explain this.

This helped me understand neuroplasticity really well.

But I'm gonna need a little bit of imagination.

And so I'm gonna need to ask you to use a little bit of imagination for this illustration, okay?

So I want you to picture, kind of in your mind's eye, I want you to picture a grassy field.

Now, this is like sod, this is like a lawn, and the grass is is thick, it's the middle of summer, it's bright green, it's a little overgrown, and this is gonna represent our mind.

This is how our brain works.

Okay, so this is the picture of this grassy field.

Now, what happens is that, and I'm gonna kind of illustrate using this up here, but when we have a thought, what's happening is we're walking across that field.

Okay, you're walking across that field, and what's beginning to happen is that grass is slowly being trampled down in that area that we're creating a pathway.

And we have that thought again, and that grass becomes more trampled down, and what's happening is we're forming a neurologic pathway, a synaptic pathway.

Now, here's what's happening in the brain, though, is once a pathway is formed, it is now more convenient for us to return to that pathway.

Because think about it, the rest of that grass is still overgrown, but now we have a pathway.

It's more convenient for the brain to return to an established pathway.

And if that was the end of the story, this would be a horrible thing.

Because that means we can't change our brain, right?

But that's not true.

By the power of the Holy Spirit working through us, we have the ability to renew our mind.

This is called neuroplasticity in the science world.

What that means is we can say, hey, I'm aware of this thought that I'm been having, and it's a negative thought.

This thought is harmful to me.

This is a this is a pathway that I go down when I'm beating myself up.

This is a pathway that I go down when I'm tearing other people down to make myself feel better.

And we say that is a negative pathway.

We be we are aware of that.

And then we say, I'm going to choose not to go down that pathway today.

Rather, I'm gonna come over here, and I know that grass is still a little bit overgrown, but I'm gonna start a new pathway today.

And we start walking down a new pathway.

And the first couple times that we do that, it takes a lot of intentionality.

We have to choose.

I'm not gonna be negative today.

I'm not gonna tear people down, I'm gonna, I'm gonna build people up today.

I'm gonna choose, I'm gonna choose not to go that direction, I'm gonna go a new pathway today.

And what happens, we start walking this new pathway.

And over time, after a couple, after choosing this, it starts to become more natural because what's happened is now we have established a new pathway.

There's a new path that we've chosen to walk down.

And here's what's incredible Jesus is the restorer, he's the healer, he gives us a new mind.

Here's my favorite part about all this that area, that old pathway.

What happens to the grass?

Think back to that illustration.

What happens to that grass when we stop walking on it?

What's that grass over time it starts to stand back up, right?

That pathway, that old negative pathway that we used to go down, that grass stands back up.

That part of our brain that we used to go down, that pathway is being healed.

That pathway is being restored.

And now it's no longer more convenient for us to go down an old pathway because it's not there anymore.

It's been healed.

Our mind has been renewed.

And we and instead, it is more convenient for us to go on this new pathway, a new positive pathway that we've established.

Alright, so three things.

I'm gonna tell you, I wanna I'll paraphrase this.

In the youth and at the well, we've been really trying to provide some practical things.

Like this is great as a concept, but what are some practical things?

How about this week?

What can I do this week to start practicing this?

What can I do this week to start changing the way that I think?

And so I'm gonna give you guys today four practical ways that we can start renewing our mind this week.

And I'll paraphrase and I'll kind of give a disclaimer here.

I had to do this at the youth.

These are just recommendations.

Everyone look at me and say, in addition.

Alright, one more time, really loud, so I can hear you.

In addition.

Alright, these things are in addition to whatever you might already be doing for mental wellness.

Okay, the first thing, number one, if you're a note taker, I want you to write this stuff down.

Number one, this week.

Consider a social media fast.

100% social media fast.

Now you might be saying, well, I don't have social media.

Then I would say a media fast.

100% media fast this week.

Two reasons for this.

Reason number one, what we're finding with research is a lot of the content that we take in through social media is passive intake.

What that means is that's when we're standing in line and we're scrolling through our photos, scrolling through Instagram, you're on Facebook, and you're not really paying attention to this content, right?

That's passive intake.

Now the problem with passive intake is that our brain is still working behind the scenes.

And so it can still be kind of creating its own pathways behind the scenes if we're taking in a lot of content and not really paying attention to what we're allowing in.

So that's the first reason to consider a social media fast this week.

The second reason is that studies have found across age demographics, so this is everybody, on average, we're spending about an hour a day on social media.

And so by taking a fast, that's the second thing that's gonna happen, is suddenly you're gonna have an hour that was previously being used, and this isn't everybody, I know some people don't have social media, previously being used for passive intake, and we're gonna reassign that time to evaluate to active intake.

Okay, number two, if you're a note taker, write this down.

This week, choose to not speak anything negative for an entire week.

Okay, as Christians, we know that our that our words contain the power of life and death, right?

The other thing, the other reason for this, that that research supports this, is because what we're doing, yes, think about that lawn analogy.

We are choosing by not saying and by not speaking anything negative for a whole week, we're saying, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna de-emphasize this negative pathway, and I'm going to intentionally practice a positive pathway.

So this week, intentionally choose to not speak anything negative and to replace that with something positive.

And I'm working on this myself.

I'm not I'm not the best, I'll be honest.

Because it's easy to tear people down, but it's it's harder and so much more fruitful to build people up.

Number three, I'm gonna call this, uh, there's lots of names for this, but I call this evaluate your filter or change your filter.

All right, many of us we go to the oils, we go get our oil changed, and they walk out with this filter, and we're like, man, I really hope that's not my filter.

Like that filter is really, really groaty, it's nasty, there's a bird's nest right there, someone spray painted it.

I hope that's not my filter.

And for me, guys, it works every time.

I have to be honest.

I always get a new air filter.

I know, I don't know if it's mine that I'm looking at, or whatever.

Anyways, my point.

And this is for adults too.

Parents and adults.

I want to talk about it specifically.

Parents, I think it's pretty well known that we have a responsibility to protect our kids from the type of content that we're allowing them to be exposed to.

So I want you to continue to be vigilant in that.

But parents, I want to challenge you, if you're a parent, to be equally vigilant about the type of content you are allowing yourself to be exposed to.

Okay, so this week, evaluate your filters, and there's an easy way to do this that's helped me not be legalistic.

This has helped me not be a Pharisee.

Okay, and it's and it's simple.

Just look at the content, look at the relationships, your friendships that are impacting your life, look at your uh look at the movies that you're watching, the TV shows, and the music, and just ask yourself, is this the type of content that I want influencing me?

It's a simple question, but evaluate it.

Be be active, proactive, evaluate the content that you're letting in, and just ask yourself, is this content putting me in the direction that I want to go?

All right, number four.

Harvard calls this one reach out.

And I and I love that because sometimes in scientific papers we really try to talk about forgiveness, but we don't want to use the word forgiveness, right?

So in this situation, reach out, Harvard found that what happens is over time, and it's kind of like a, well, yeah, we all knew that, but over time what happens is we walk through heavy things.

We walk through painful experiences growing up, loss of someone close to us when we're young.

And what happens is we start carrying the weight of these experiences.

And over time we go through more painful experiences, that load gets heavier.

And over time they call it a compounding effect.

That load gets heavier, and what Harvard found is it appears that humans, that individuals, were never intended to carry that weight by themselves.

That's from Harvard.

And so, what I love about this is that kind of something we knew from the Bible, but reach out.

So this week, I want to encourage you guys, number four, it's my last point.

Number four, reach out.

One of the bravest things that you can do when you've been walking through a lot of heavy things, one of the bravest things that you can do is share what you're going through with somebody that you trust and who is trustworthy.

Because what happens is you're unloading, effectively, what the study found is you're unloading part of that weight that you've been carrying by sharing with somebody that you trust.

Here at the road, we call this concept, this principle, bloodstained allies.

And basically, what that means is this week, I want to encourage you, this week, find one person in your life that you trust who is trustworthy, and tell them how are you doing.

Be honest.

One of the bravest things you can do is to be honest.

Be honest about how are you doing this week.

If you're doing great, tell them that.

Be honest.

If you're if you're struggling, tell one person this week, honestly, how you are doing, and what you'll find is that this is a weight being let go.

This is this can be very healing.

I will encourage you guys.

Some of us like that, like the sound of principles, and we like the idea of principles working in our lives.

But some of us here today need to remember that you're not doing this alone.

You're not, you are not called to fix yourself.

And so I want us to remember as I close right now, I just want us to remember, I want us to keep the perspective on the Holy Spirit's power working through us so that we can have a new mind, so that we can change the way that we think.

And at the well and at Life House, I say this so often, but it's three things that I like to remind myself about the Holy Spirit, about who the Holy Spirit is.

And first off, what do we know?

We know that greater is He who is in us than He who is in the world.

Okay, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of us, and nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

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We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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