Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - How Can I Renew My Mind? With Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

In this episode, Hank Bowen and Jonny Ardavanis sit down in the new Dial In Ministries studio and discuss the topic of renewing the mind.Jonny Ardavanis is the Lead Pastor at Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, TN and the President of Dial In Ministries. He formerly served as the Dean of Campus Life at The Master’s University and as a Camp Director at Hume Lake Christian Camps. Jonny’s heart is to see people understand and love the Word of God and more so, to love the God of the Word. Jonny is married to Caity Jean and they have two precious daughters.Watch VideosVisit the Website Pre-order Consider the LiliesFollow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Well hey we're back again this is Hank Bowen we are on a mini series here you could call it the pursuit of holiness and our previous episode we talked about fighting sin and I just kind of laid out four principles for fighting sin which first of which was discipline is required in the fight against sin. Paul says in 1 Timothy 4, 7, that we are to train ourself for the purpose of godliness. And then we said, flee, don't fight, which would be the second one, meaning that Joseph encountered the temptation with Potiphar's wife, and then he didn't choose to stay and fight. He chose the wise route, which was to flee. And then you gave a good example with the Mike Tyson. Absolutely. Easiest way not to lose to Mike Tyson. Don't get

in the ring. Yeah. So in regards to temptation, don't get in the ring. If there's something that you struggle with, if there's a sin that is lurking, if you struggle with pornography, don't go to bed with your computer. So there's a lot of different practical elements there in regards to fighting sin. The third of which is starve, don't feed. Romans 13, 14 says, make no provision for the flesh. So there's a lot of morally neutral things probably that are in our life that are not illicitly sinful, but they're like gateway drugs to that which actually causes us to sin. So you could take your phone, not explicitly a bad thing, but you have a brothel in your pocket. If you struggle with certain sin, you should make no provision for the flesh and go get a flip phone, dude. Number four,

regiment, not reckless, meaning that the battle for holiness is a battle that we fight together. So that's part of the strategy. But one of the things we talk through is that it's not just playing defense. Yeah, absolutely. So again, three-part series, kind of halfway through, moving on to the next one. So if we're fighting sin, secondly, we need to be renewing our minds. So Johnny, maybe positionally, would you first just kind of set the table? Who is renewing the mind? So as a Christian, we've been created into being a new creature. And so our heart, we're given from Ezekiel, this new heart of flesh. Practically though, our battle on this earth doesn't end. We looked at that last week. Maybe how can we begin renewing our minds? Why do we even in the

first place need to renew our minds? Yeah. And I think that's a fair point. So, the only person that can have a renewed mind is a believer. And the renewed mind is both something that we seek. It's an imperative in the scripture. Romans 12, 2 says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's an imperative. And yet the renewal, it's a passive verb in Greek, which means it's actually something that's happening to us by the Holy Spirit. But I'd like to maybe frame the time by asking three questions. Why does the mind need to be renewed? How is the mind renewed? And then what is the fruit of the renewed mind? So I think just even going back to your kind of reference to Ezekiel,

if you're a Christian, you've been given a new heart by God. He's given, you're a new creature and you've been declared righteous. You've been justified, which is a legal standing before God as judge. That means that you don't need to do anything to get to heaven.

You didn't have to do anything in the first place because you're saved by the means of faith. But there is a reality where even though we're positionally, which is a key word, made righteous and declared righteous, we are progressively, until we meet Jesus Christ face to face, to be pursuing intimacy with Christ and imitation of the person and work of Christ. Now, knowing sin is bad is not enough to transform our affections. It's not enough to change our desires. It would be wrong to say that the Christian life doesn't include saying no to temptation. We already talked about that in our last episode. That's a large part of the Christian life is saying no to sinful desires. But what God's spirit does in the life of a believer

is not just empower them to say no to sinful desires. God's spirit transforms their desires so that what they desire is holiness and not sin. So the passage again is Romans 12, two says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind. And so the question that, you know, I would ask someone is, hey, do you want to do, I think it's Piper that said this originally, do you want to do what you ought to do? You know, people often say, well, hey, the Christian life where it is, wherever the spirit is, there is liberty. But if the Christian life is liberty,

why does the Christian life feel like there's so many rules and regulations? And so then you have to answer that by really alluding to the reality, if you want the Christian life to be liberty and freedom, then you have to ask God's spirit to make you want to do what you ought to do. And then you would have to ask, well, how do I want to do what I ought to do?

And it's through the renewing of our mind. I like what R.C. Sproul says in the book, Pleasing God. He says, the world is a seducer. It seeks to attract our attention and our devotion. It remains close at hand, visible and enticing. It eclipses our view of heaven. It vies for our attention. It vies for our affection.

Just everything about it is that the world wants us to be partners with it. It wants to press us into its mold. But God's spirit, the aim of it is to transform our thinking. And I don't know about you, but you can speak to this. I think for so long, I thought that holiness was going from the to-do list of the flesh to the to-do list of Christian behavior. Is that something fair? Yeah, 100%. And I think it's a very good point. And so your point is it's not that. We're not getting this divine, new, holy, moral checklist. It's something different entirely. Yeah. So I think just in that regard, we need to up the level of thinking in regards to the Christian and their mind. 1 Peter 1.13 says, prepare your minds for action. Now that's battle language. And I would

just tell you and anybody listening, you're not ready for the first day of the Christian life, unless you have prepared your mind for action. Now, let's even go back to this why. Satan is no longer our Lord, right? We've been redeemed. And Ephesians says that we used to be children of wrath. We used to be under the dominion of the ruler and prince and power of the air, like all of these different factors. And so even though we're not slaves to Satan anymore, we're still vulnerable and susceptible to his schemes. He's prowling like a lion. He's waging war against our souls. And the question would be, well, where does he wage war? And the answer would be, he wages war in our minds. I like what John Stott says. He says,

the battle for the Christian life is the battle for the Christian mind. So I think there's a lot of shallow anti-intellectualism in the Christian faith today where we don't want it to be too mentally exerting. And so we want it to just be simple truths. Our songs are simple. A lot of the preaching and teaching is simple. But Ephesians 4.23 says that we're to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. Mark 12 says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Proverbs 23.7 says, as a man thinks within himself, so he is. Now, before we move on, you would just have to consider if you're a Christian, why is your mind so important? Well, it's because it's the control center

of your affections. And your affections are still at times at odds with the word of God, and you need to ask God's spirit to renew those. And Satan, he loves idle minds. And so that's part of the reason we need to renew them. Yeah, just two things you made me think of. One, off the RC, I think, quote that you said from one of his books, it seems like at our default, we are going to be going the way of the world.

Even as a Christian, there's an element to which we need to join the battle and actually intellectually engage. Because otherwise, we're going to be backsliding, kind of just receiving. Because from a practical standpoint, I mean, we leave this place. I'm spending 14 to 16 hours a day kind of baptized in the ways of the world. So your point would be we need to be actively engaged in the battle. Yeah, I think, yeah, we're baptized in the world, which is why a 15-minute devotion is a great thing. But it's not enough to sustain you for a 16-hour battle. And I think even going back to that word intellectual, what I don't mean by that is that the Christian life is just lofty thoughts. It's that the deep study of the Word of God, the deep contemplation and meditation, which we'll talk about in a moment, is ultimately aimed not just at a filling up of our hearts with truth, but a filling up of

our hearts with a love for God. And so if you want to have high thoughts of God and a great degree of love for him and a transformed thinking, then you have to plunge deeply into the word of God. So why do we need our mind renewed? Because you're still battling the flesh. And until you meet Jesus face to face, the Christian life is that which is a battle for the mind. Anxiety, Jesus says, you know, that we're to be anxious for nothing. And then he says, consider the birds, you know, that he wants you to think. In Philippians 4.6, you're anxious. Paul says in Philippians 4.8, whatever is true, noble, pure, think on those things. So it's always been the mind. And I think sometimes that's missed. Yeah, absolutely. So don't turn off, but actually re-engage, funnel at a different direction. So it's always been the mind. And I think sometimes that's missed. Yeah, absolutely. So don't, don't turn off, but actually re-engage funnel at a different direction.

So maybe can we keep building on this practically? So like how we need to renew the mind, but then practically, how are we to begin that process? Yeah. You renew your mind fundamentally by immersing your mind in the word of God. I think I love one of the passages I've mentioned to you before. 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, well, in 3.17, it says, now the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is,

there is liberty. That's that there's freedom in Christ. And then verse 18 says, but we all with unveiled face, beholding as an emir, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,

just as from the Lord, the Spirit. We are transformed by what we behold. And 2 Corinthians 3.18 says that as we behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, in the contents of his word, God takes, God's Spirit takes his word and transforms us into the image of the one we are beholding. Even other passages on this in the scripture would be, you know, Philippians 4, I mentioned to you that we're to think upon whatever is pure and noble and true and excellent. And then God transforms us as we dwell on his word. Colossians 3, 1 says, set your minds on things above.

So again, the spirit of God takes the word of God and transforms us into the image of God. And the way that God's spirit transforms our minds is not in a subjective way. He does it via the objective means of truth. And so I think a lot of times people are the answer to their own prayers, right? Like God helped me not to be anxious is different than rooting your mind in the scripture and saying, God, please, would you today remind me of your sovereignty, that there's not a maverick molecule? Will you remind me of your love today that from everlasting to everlasting, you've set your love upon me? God, would you remind me today of your presence in my life, that I don't take a step, I don't speak a word, I don't think a thought

in which I'm not totally known and not totally near to you. Those are different prayers in it. And when we immerse our minds in the scripture, it also affects the way we're praying. So, the key to a transformed mind, and you can speak into this, is very simple. It's a steady gaze at the person of Christ and his word. Yeah. And so I think I'm thinking for the person who might be receiving this and they're prone to more of a legalistic end of the spectrum, or maybe they come from that background, how do you guard against almost it can become a crushing weight. I don't think you're speaking to it, but I can see someone receiving it as if like if i'm not constantly

in the word of god if i if under my own power i'm not kind of helping god with the renewal i guess what are the practical guidelines or protections or truths they could reflect on yeah well part of it is there is spiritual discipline so there is something you should do sometimes people view their sanctification as a let go like let god thing and that would be wrong so there is spiritual discipline but it's spirit empowered sweat again that's like my favorite quote from kent hughes it's spirit empowered sweat because it is something that we're doing we do train ourselves for the purpose of godliness david says i wake up and i read your word i meditate on it all day long, but that meditation, that diligence, it's like what Paul

says in Philippians 2, 12, we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, but then he doesn't just acknowledge, he's dependent upon the reality in Philippians 2, 13, for it is God who works in and through you both to will and to do for his good pleasure. So there is an element where we're yielding to God. And so part of that renewal is that it is a perpetual and progressive yielding to the power of God and the way we yield. It's not picking ourself up by our own bootstraps and saying, I want to be holy. I want to be holy. But it is perpetual submission.

And that actually, and the submission of the Christian life is often linked to discipline because you're submitting your mind to the truth of God's word. And I think too, like, I think it's worth saying that even as we talk through this idea of reading the scripture, I mentioned, hey, 15 minutes in the morning is not enough. And I just, what I mean by that is one meal throughout the day, you'll still be hungry. And there's a necessity too for biblical meditation because when Jesus and the word of God repeatedly emphasize setting your mind and consider these truth. And as a man thinks within himself, so he is, it's not an occasional glance towards the truth of scripture and the person of

Christ. It is a prayerful. And just even going back to your question regarding legalism, prayer in of itself is an expression of our dependency which is by very definition and by nature an expression of our inadequacy right like so we're not doing it by ourselves that's we're asking god with the psalmist open my eyes that i can behold the wonderful things within your word and then throughout the day it's not just that we read the bible you know in the morning we we're asking god to drive that truth home or taking a verse and we're kind of gnawing on it. We're ruminating on it as the Puritans used to talk about, because it's not enough to snack on the truth. And even this idea of biblical meditation, if you think about it, like what's Satan's objective with an unbeliever? Well,

it's 2 Corinthians 4, 4, he wants to blind the minds of the unbelievers so that they are prevented from seeing the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ. And for the Christian, he's content if they become saved, but they're still blinded from the glory of God. So, one of the ways that we counteract that is by fixating on the glory of God through meditation. And that's, even when I say meditation, I guess I could ask you, what are the first things that come to your mind? Meditation? I mean, if I'm going to be completely honest, I'm sitting crisscross applesauce. I'm saying ohm maybe over and over again. I know that's the wrong answer, but that's for all the folks listening who that's their mental image.

I'm probably wearing like an orange toga. Is that what you're describing? I think you're crossing cultures with the toga. I definitely am. Thank you for saying crisscross applesauce no i think that yeah like in many ways um eastern religion has hijacked the term meditation from the bible right you think of it as an emptying of your mind yeah it is um inner peace inner peace is a chanting but in order for your mind to be renewed it's a filling and a stocking up of the truth of god's word so that you're thinking upon it constantly.

And this is really the hammer that shatters any sort of superficial Christianity. I like what Thomas Watson, the Puritan says, he says, the devil is an enemy of meditation. He knows that meditation is a means to compose the heart and to bring it into a gracious frame. Satan is content that you be hearing and praying Christians so that you be not yet meditating Christians. He can stand your small shot provided that you do not put in this bullet. He just saying like, and then Richard Baxter alludes to the reality

that you can hear sermon after sermon. You can read chapter after chapter, but if you're not digesting that truth throughout the day, that's the secret sauce. And it's not really any secret. It's in the word of God. But that is the very foundation of your mind being renewed. I was thinking about it even before we sat down that it's so interesting to me that in the beginning of the book of Joshua, following Deuteronomy, Moses is dead. God appears to Joshua, who's going

to be the leader of 2 million people, the leader of the people of God. And when he appears to Joshua, who's going to be the leader of 2 million people, the leader of the people of God. And when he appears to Joshua, God doesn't discuss battle plans for defeating their enemies. He doesn't discuss economic strategies. He just gives him one charge. This book of the law, you shall meditate on it day and night. And that's even Psalm 1, that you're to meditate on the truth of scripture day and night, and you'll be like a tree firmly planted. So much of our life, even as we talk through sin and fighting sin, we feel like we're a branch in the breeze, right? And if you want to be a Christian that stands firm, regardless of the temptation or the trial, you need to not just be a

reading Christian, you need to be a meditating Christian. And then your mind is going to be renewed because you're beholding throughout the day, in the evening, in the morning, the person of Christ. And even going back to your thing about legalism, you know, sometimes people say, well, I don't want to make, I don't want to give anybody a burden of reading the Bible. You know, you're heaping burdens on them. And I would just say, well, don't you want to know your savior? You know, this is heaping burdens on them. And I would just say, well, don't you want to know your savior? You know, this is the delight of the Christian. Of course. That's why David says, he says, oh, how I love your law.

It is my meditation all day long. I can't wait for people to go to bed around me so that I can meditate on the truth of who God is. The idea that reading your Bible is legalistic is you could only say it in the sense of someone said, hey, if you don't read your Bible every single day, you're going to hell. That's different than me telling you and every other Christian, you should read your Bible every day

and you should want to. And I think sometimes people go so far on the other side of the spectrum from legalism that they don't appropriately say, hey, if you're battling sin, David says it real clearly, thy word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you.

That's the truth. Have you been hiding the word of God in your heart? And that's how your mind is renewed is by immersing, use the word baptizing, but baptizing your mind, your brain, baptize that brain in the truth of scripture. Yeah, a hundred percent. Could you maybe just kind of to wrap us up more briefly, describe going back to the tree analogy for a second, what are some of the fruits of a mind under renewal or renewed mind? Describe, paint that picture a little for us, even as we hope to kind of lean into that spiritual reality. Yeah. And I think that's really just the third pillar here. Why does the mind need to be renewed? Because you're still in a fallen condition.

You've been given a new heart. You're a new creature. And you've been given, in large part, new affections. But in order to continue to hate sin, you need your mind to be renewed. So that's the why. The how is by immersing yourself in the Word of God, both intermittently, but throughout the day, meditating on the truth of Scripture. And then third, you're just asking, what's the fruit of the renewed mind? And we've obviously touched on it. But the goal here, if you're a Christian, is not just to not sin. The goal, if you're a Christian, is to love Jesus Christ and emulate his righteousness and be Ephesians 5.1, an imitator of him. So if your mind is renewed, here's a couple of different things that's going to happen. You will grow in your love for Jesus because you're going to grow in your understanding of his character.

And when you grow in your understanding of God's character, you're going to see your sin for what it really is, a rebellion against your creator, the grievance to your father, a wound to your savior. And then you begin to go and ask the question, why would I ever sin against a God who is so good to me? And what sin, what has sin ever given to me that my savior doesn't offer me in regards to satisfaction and pleasure? And you just begin to see your sin and you see the folly of it. That's why I think it's in Acts, like what sin did you use or in Romans, the sin that you used to participate in. Are you glad you ever did it?

You just begin to see reality because the scripture gives you lenses by which you see temptation. This is robbing me of joy. It's stealing me of peace. And in the right hand of God, Psalm 16, 11 says, there are pleasures forevermore. You just begin to think, what am I doing? So you see sin for what it is because you see God for who he is and you love

him. You love him. And I think even that idea of loving God is like, well, obviously, but it's like, I think so much of the Christian life, we think about the doing and we fail to recognize that the Christian life is a relationship with God as our Father and Jesus as our Savior and our elder brother. And I think too, just in regards to the fruit of it, Paul says, you know, be anxious for nothing but by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Make your quest made known to God. That's Philippians 4.6. Philippians 4.8 is think. Use your mind. Renew that mind. Think about what's pure and noble. And then what's in the middle? middle sandwich in the middle. What's one of the fruits of renewed mind. It says the peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. What else is the fruit of renewed mind? Isaiah 26 verse three says, you will keep him in perfect peace. Whose mind is stayed on you. If you want purity, then fix your mind on God.

If you want peace in an anxious world, then fix your mind on God. If you want peace in an anxious world, then fix your mind on God. If you want patience in an impatient world, you fix your mind on God. What's the fruit? Well, the fruit is the fruit of the spirit, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, all these things, gentleness, self-control, and ultimately overarching all those fruits is a love for Jesus Christ. Yeah, absolutely. It just strikes me listening to hear you describe it, the joy, the peace, the vision for what that can be goes far above and beyond the moral checklist of kind of where we started. And it's even, it's just a reminder to my own heart, maybe comment just five seconds. I know I've gotten to know you pretty well over the last couple of years. One of the defining

characteristics is exactly what you've exemplified in this conversation. Your quick memory of a lot of different chapters of the Bible and verses in the Bible. Where does that fit in to the renewal of the mind, committing it to memory? I mean, practically, if we're not going to be doing something and we want to be doing something, it seems like you have an armory of verses kind of at your fingertips constantly. Is it fair to say that's part of the toolkit for renewing the mind? Well, yeah, sure. I think you take the truth of scripture. I don't know who it was, the Puritan that said, memorizing scripture is a pulling down

of your helmet in the battle. And I remember reading that saying, I would never go into a battle without my helmet. And I don't want to go into the fallen world that we live in, nor do I want to face the temptations of my own flesh without the helmet on. And so when we memorize scripture and put it on little postcards on our steering wheel or whatever it may be, take it to the gym, you look at it. And I think too, like over time, I have scripture memorized that I never sought to memorize because of the intake of scripture.

It's like, do you go to memorize the lines of Remember the Titans, you know, with Denzel Washington? Well, maybe because it's the greatest movie of all time. But when I watch it, I'm repeating and reiterating the lines because what? I've seen it so many times.

And because it's one of the greatest movies ever. We love it. Denzel Washington. And the same could be true of any movie. You don't go out to explicitly memorize it, but familiarity breeds memorization. And that's what I want to do with the word of God. You know, I'm investing my life in it

and my memory reaps the dividends. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's probably a realistic place to stop. So we're now two in of three. One, we started with fighting sin. This is helpful. We're not only fighting sin, but we're actually going on the offense to your point.

We're renewing the mind and we're gonna pick up next session here on confession. Is that right? Just talking about biblical confession. Why is that an important reality? If God's already forgiven forgiven us for sin why do we need to confess them so yeah looking forward to it thanks uh thanks so much hank i want to say hanks and thanks at the same time but thank you more often thank you hanks it's good to be on with you johnny yeah