How do you get that mind, that inner part of me, strong? Verse 16, He prays to the Father, Guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life. Of course, when Scripture refers to the heart, it doesn't simply mean the muscle that pumps blood. It means the mind, the will, really, your whole spiritual being. And indeed, you need to protect it, strengthen it, and keep it free from error. Well, keeping your heart free from error was one of the Apostle Paul's chief concerns, and he laid out concrete steps for doing just that.
What are those steps? John MacArthur considers that today on Grace to You, as he continues his series titled, Complete in Christ. And now, here's John. By way of introduction, let me say this. People might argue, and they have, over the primary requisite for an effective minister of Jesus Christ. They might debate about what, if there was one quality that a minister would have, what would it be? What would the one thing be that would make the shepherd, the true shepherd of the sheep, the pastor, the true pastor of the flock? I think the most basic, the most effective, the most necessary ingredient in the life of any minister is the love of the church. The love of the church.
Because that becomes the catalyst that motivates him in every other dimension. Paul loved the church. And you would have to say, I think, that his entire life was a love affair with the church, the people, the believing community. And the reason he loved the church so much is because he loved the Lord so much. Now, in his love for the church, as he comes to chapter 2, he's looking at the Colossian assembly. And as I said, Paul's emotion is not simple personal love. It isn't just that he's concerned about some people he likes a lot. He has this agony over people he's never even met because he loves the church, the church anywhere. And so out of this love comes the deepest desires for the church.
And let's look at them. Number one, the first thing. The first thing that he wants for the church is that it be strong in heart. Strong in heart. You say, well, what is the heart?
Symbolica. Revelation 2.23, and I'll show you something very interesting. Revelation 2.23, and we could look at, you know, stacks and stacks of Bible verses related to the heart to show this, but I'll just give you a couple and you can study it on your own.
I want to show you the point. Revelation 2.23, middle of the verse. I am he, the Lord's talking, I am he who searches the minds and hearts.
Now what you have here is judgment because he's just talked about the fact that he's going to cast this particular sinful situation into great tribulation if they don't repent and kill the children with death and et cetera, et cetera. And he says, I will search the minds and the hearts. What is the heart?
Listen to me. First of all, we see from that passage, the heart is the place of responsibility. It's the place of responsibility. The heart is that which is wicked in Jeremiah 17. The heart of man is what? Deceitful above all things and what?
Desperately wicked. It is the seat of responsibility. It is that which God is going to judge and he will try men's what? Hearts. It is that which is righteous or wicked. When God redeems Israel, he will take away their stony heart and give them a new what? Heart. It is the seat of responsibility. It is that which is judged.
Take you a step further. It can't be emotion then. It can't be emotion.
What is it? Let's look at Revelation 18 verse 7. And here he's talking about Babel and the great, the destruction of the final world system in the tribulation. How much she hath glorified, Revelation 18 7, glorified herself and live luxuriously, so much torment and sorrow give her. Listen, for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, pen him no widow and shall see no sorrow.
Now notice something. To say in her heart is a metaphor for doing what? Thinking. She said in her heart, what does that mean?
She thought in her mind. What then does the heart picture? Not the emotions, but the mind. The intellect and the mind is made up of two things, the intellect and the will. That's the heart in biblical terminology. In ancient times, you don't find them referring to the brain. Listen to this one. The fool hath said in his brain.
No. Fool has said in his what? Heart.
Why? Because the heart was the seat of thought. It was the seat of thinking. And so that the heart represents the mind that sets the pace and the bowels represent the responding emotion. You say, well, how did they get to this discovery? Well, it's easy to know how they got to the bowels being connected with emotion because when they got emotional, they began to have what we have today, upset stomachs, colitis, and all those symptoms that we get. Ulcers, right?
All right here. But how did they get the heart out of the brain? Well, some have surmised that because when the brain is really functioning, the heart is really working and they could feel it throbbing and pulsing.
But that's the way they did it. Real serious thinking, says a Hebrew, can be felt in the beat of the heart. So the heart thinks and the bowels respond with emotion.
That's the way you are. Now remember this. In the mind of the Hebrew and in the revelation of God, emotions never initiate. They always respond. The heart thinks and the emotions respond.
That is the divine pattern. You know when somebody comes to me and says, I can't control my emotions. Oh, your bowels are running wild. Is that it?
Hebrew terminology. You got a real problem. I can't control my emotions. You know why? Because your emotions will only be controlled by your mind. Because emotion is a responder. The key to controlling your emotions is filling your mind with divine truth. That's the key to controlling your emotion. You see, the emotions respond to what the mind perceives as true. You get that? Your emotions will respond to what your mind perceives as true. Even if it isn't true.
That's right. Have you ever been lying in bed and all of a sudden you woke up with a jolt when you landed after falling off that 40 story building? You weren't falling, but your mind perceived it and your emotions responded to it. You know what that teaches me about emotions? Don't ever what? Trust them.
Don't trust them. Because you can make your emotions do anything if you can just make your mind think it perceives that. And the only way to control your emotions is to make sure that your mind is filled with divine truth. Emotions are like bad little children. They'll run amok if you don't control them. And you say, how do you control them?
You control them indirectly by feeding the mind. When people start putting emotion first, then they really get into problems. You see, emotion should always respond to the truth. The key then to behavior and the key to the control of emotion is the heart. The heart as seen as the mind. We need to plant the truth in the mind and it will control the emotional responses.
It's the way it ought to be. And that's why Proverbs 4 23 says, and this is good, guard your heart. What does it mean? Guard your mind, your brain with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. You see? You want to control life, guard your mind.
And don't let anybody short circuit it. And Proverbs, that's 4 23, Proverbs 22 5 further says, thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse. But he that doth guard his soul shall be far from them.
The same basic terminology. The guarding of the mind, the Hebrew. You find it in Proverbs 23 19. Hear thou my son and be wise and guide your heart in the way. Guide your heart. Guard it and guide it.
That it might hear and perceive the truth and that your emotion might respond to the truth. A beautiful passage Deuteronomy 4 9. I can't resist reading it to you. Take heed to yourself. Keep your soul diligently lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen unless they depart from your heart.
I'll read it again. Listen to this. Take heed to yourself. Guard your soul diligently lest you forget the things which you have seen and they depart from out of your heart.
Don't forget the truth. Guard your heart. In Psalm 139, beautiful portion of scripture in verses 23 and 24, search me, O God, and know my what? My heart.
Try me. Know my thoughts. You see the heart equated with thinking.
And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Guard the heart. Guide the heart.
Ask God to protect the heart. That's your brain, your mind. A good man, said Jesus in Matthew 12 35, out of the good treasure of the what?
What? Heart brings forth good things. All the goodness will come out of the mind.
The mind must guide the pattern of behavior. One other passage, Matthew 15 19. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, theft, false witness, blasphemy. Jesus said in Matthew 12, all the good things come out of the thinking processes. Jesus said in Matthew 15, all the bad things come out of the thinking processes. So the Bible says, God, guard my thinking processes.
Now let's go back to Colossians and watch what this means to you now. I wish you knew how great a conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh that their what? Hearts might be strengthened. What do hearts mean?
Minds. Paul says, number one thing I want out of you is to be strong in heart. What is the word comforted? You say it's comfort in my Bible.
Sure. Parakaleo. Parakaleo. A very beautiful word. A word used repeatedly in the New Testament and a word that always contains the idea of strengthening. In Ephesians 6 22, it says that he might strengthen your hearts.
In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, strengthen your hearts. The word parakaleo includes in it the idea of comfort. It includes in it the idea of courage. It includes in it the idea of being strengthened.
And it always carries all those aspects. In fact, we can look backwards into etymology and we can find the use of this word to mean specifically strengthened. It means to strengthen. It means to provide a strong, courageous inner man. An intellect and a will that will act heroically for God. A strong heart means a firm mind. A mind that has courage. A mind that has conviction. A mind that believes. A mind that has principle. You say, but how do you do that, John? How do you get a strong mind?
And Paul is really saying, I don't want you people to fall prey to the false teaching of the errorists. I don't want you to fall to these people who are teaching you lies. I want you to be strong in your mind. I want you to hold the truth. You say, but how do you get strong like that?
I'll show you. Ephesians chapter 3 verse 16 tells you in one verse. How do you get that mind, that inner part of me strong? Verse 16, he prays to the Father that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power by his what? Spirit. Who is the strengthener of the heart?
Who is it? It's the Holy Spirit. And we need it. We live in a world with a weak heart. People don't have convictions. People don't believe in things. People don't know the truth. People don't learn the truth. They don't pursue the truth.
They don't mind the truth. And he says, I want you to be strong in it. I want you to be courageous. I want you to be comforted, encouraged, and strengthened by it.
All of that's in the word parakeleo. And the Holy Spirit is the one that can do it. You say, how does it happen, John? I believe as you yield to the power of the Spirit of God, as you walk in the Spirit, he strengthens the inner man.
I think that's what he's saying here. You give the Spirit of God control of your life on a day-to-day, moment-by-moment basis, and the Spirit of God will feed that inner man. The Spirit of God, by the revelation of God, will feed your mind and strengthen your mind. As we yield moment by moment to the presence of the Spirit of God, we're strengthened.
Paul is a perfect illustration of that. In Acts 9, it tells us that he was converted, and immediately one of the things that began to happen after he was converted was he began to be strengthened. Acts 9, 22, but Saul increased the more in strength. He became stronger and stronger. It wasn't that he was lifting weights, and it wasn't that he was eating a lot of food. It was that he was being equipped by the Spirit of God, and he became so strong in his heart. He became so solid in his confidence. He became so unflinching in his ministry that in chapter 20, verse 22, he said, I go bound into the Spirit, to the Spirit, to Jerusalem. I don't know what's going to happen, except I hear that bonds and afflictions await me, but none of these things, what?
Move me. Strong. Strong in his heart. He had convictions about God. He had convictions about God's will for his life. He had convictions about the acts of obedience that God was asking of him, and he was strong enough to carry them out.
He was strong. Tremendous courage did Paul have. In 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 9, he says, we're persecuted, but not forsaken. We're cast down, but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be manifest in our body. He says in verse 8, we're troubled on every side, yet not distressed, perplexed, but not in despair. As we go through a lot, we never flinch.
Why Paul? Because we're strong. How'd you get strong? By walking in the Spirit, and the Spirit pouring divine strength.
After all, now listen to me. If the word parakaleo means to strengthen, it is the very same word that is used in John 14, 15, and 60 as the name of the Holy Spirit. Do you remember the Holy Spirit being called parakletos, the parakle?
That's the identical word. You could just as well translate those verses this way. John 14, 16, this would be accurate according to the meaning of the word. John 14, 16, Jesus said, and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another strengthener. Verse 26, but the strengthener, who is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things. John 15, 26, but when the strengthener is come. John 16, 7, if I go not away, the strengthener will not come.
It's the same word. If you're going to be strong in heart, then you're going to be strengthened by the strengthener, and that's the Holy Spirit. And I'll tell you what makes a weak Christian. That's a Christian who walks all the time in the flesh, right? Listen, every step you take walking in the Spirit is a step like spiritual weightlifting, just that much stronger in your mind, in your convictions, in the things you know and believe about God.
Now, I want to go a step further. Although the Holy Spirit is the strengthener, he uses human instruments. He uses people like me to strengthen you, people like you to strengthen you, people like you to strengthen each other. Listen to Acts 18, 23, and after he had spent some time there, that's Paul, he departed and went over the country of Galatia and Phrygia.
Now listen, strengthening all the disciples. What was he doing? What was Paul doing?
What did he do to them? He went in there and poured into their minds divine truth, and that strengthened them. God uses human instruments empowered by His Spirit to strengthen. Listen, people don't get strong by exercising their emotions.
Do you understand that? You must understand when it says, I want you to have strong hearts, it doesn't mean I want you to have over-exercised emotions. What it means is I want you to have the input of the Spirit of God and the truth of God in your mind. And so it'll come from the Holy Spirit who is the strengthener, and it'll come from other instruments such as Paul, such as me, such as anybody.
And you know something? It'll come from you, because if you're strong, you'll be able to pass that truth on. Paul says, I pray for you, Colossians. I pray you be strong in heart. What do you mean, Paul? I don't mean that you have over-exercised emotion.
What I mean is that you take your heart, which is the mind, the source of intellect and will, and strengthen it so that it knows the truth and has the will to act on the truth. And then the emotions will flow along. You ever have one of those little toys with a flywheel in it? You know what a flywheel, a big heavy wheel?
And you give it a little push and it goes right across the floor for the first day, second day it doesn't do anything because your kid broke it. Now listen, emotions are like that flywheel. Truth is like your hand. Truth gives it the initial impetus and drives it. Then the emotion will take over and carry it. But you can't do it the other way around. You can't just sit there and say, little machine, go.
Go. Your emotions are a responder. They are the appreciator of your soul. And when the truth of God is poured into your mind and you understand it and you act on it, it spins the flywheel of emotion and it'll carry you out. Paul's prayer for you, his prayer for me, his prayer for all of us is that we have strong hearts. Because if we have strong hearts, we're not going to be sucked into false doctrine.
No. We're not going to be sucked into emotionalism and we're not going to be sucked into disobedience because a strong heart has a will to obey. And I'll tell you something, when you have a strong heart, man, the results are so exciting.
I'll close with this. Ephesians 3 17 to 21 gives you the results. When you have a strong heart, when you are strengthened with might by the Spirit, when you have a strong heart, when you are strengthened with might by the Spirit, here's what happens in verse 17. Verse 16 says, strengthened by the Spirit. When that happens and your heart is strong, Christ will dwell in your heart by faith.
That is, He will settle down and be at home in you. You will be rooted and grounded in love. You will find a new dimension of understanding. Verse 18, you will begin to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. You will be filled with all the fullness of God. You will be able to do exceeding abundantly above all.
You can ask or think according to the power that works in you. And unto Him will be glory in the church. You see the results from strong hearts? Paul says, I love you people.
I care about you. And what I want to see in your life, first of all, is that you be strong and high. Father, thank you for things we've shared and learned. We do not desire that this should be the end of our pursuit of these truths, but that it just be the beginning. We thank you, our Lord, that you have provided for us the food to feed the mind, that you have provided for us the flywheel of the emotions to respond and carry us out, excited, thrilled, happy, blessed, to fulfill your will in response to truth.
Help us to control the emotions by filling the mind with your truth and activating the will to respond. We thank you for Paul and his love of the church. Give us the same in Jesus. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.
Thanks for being with us. John's current study from Colossians 1 and 2 is titled, Complete in Christ. Now, John, this idea of having strength of heart, strength of mind, as you said today, that sort of strength comes almost paradoxically when you yield to the power of the Spirit of God. It's a clear statement, but for some listeners, the actual yielding to the Spirit might not be so clear. So in practical terms, what does this look like to yield to the Spirit?
How should that play out on a daily basis for the Christian? Yeah, it's a very insightful question, because there are plenty of people in the Christian world who think yielding to the Spirit means sitting somewhere in a corner and waiting for the Holy Spirit to talk. I just saw this morning, when I was browsing through some of the current Christian literature, an article on how to hear the voice of the Spirit. And the suggestion is that you sort of quiet and empty your brain, and you sit there in some meditative kind of posture and wait to hear the voice of the Spirit.
Nothing could be more ridiculous than that. When we yield to the power of the Spirit, it is that we are walking in obedience to the Spirit, and the commands of the Spirit are found in the Scripture in the Word of God. If you want to hear the voice of the Spirit, read the Bible. If you want to hear the voice of God, read the Bible. If you want to hear the voice of Christ, if you want Christ to speak to you, read the Bible. So yielding to the Spirit is really just another word for obedience. And I think that makes sense.
If obedience is anything, it is yielding to the will of someone else. And that someone else is God. And based on our current series in Colossians 1 and 2, you have some understanding, I think, of this very important aspect of Christian living, yielding to the power of the Holy Spirit.
But we'd like to give you a tool that we've been talking about, if you haven't already ordered one, and I want to say a word about it again today. It's the study guide titled, Complete in Christ. I would venture to say that if you have this, no matter what other study guide you may have or not have, you're going to find yourself going back to this again and again and again, because the realities that are bound up in being complete in Christ are the treasure house for all believers as they live in the world and follow the path of obedience and sanctification. You need to get a copy of Complete in Christ Study Guide, 250 pages long, available today. Order the Complete in Christ Study Guide and do it today. Yes, friend, understanding how to yield to the Spirit and to be strengthened by him is foundational to living a life that glorifies our Lord and overcomes sin and fights off discouragement. So I encourage you to pick up the Complete in Christ Study Guide when you contact us today. Call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. This book could be especially beneficial to go through with a new Christian.
The questions at the end of each chapter will reinforce what you are learning and will encourage practical discussions. Again, the title of the new study guide, Complete in Christ, ask for it when you call 800-55-GRACE or order online at gty.org. Also, friend, if you are benefiting from John's current study, know that that's happening across the globe.
People are benefiting because men and women like you support us financially. We are able to reach pastors, Sunday school teachers, people on the job, stay-at-home moms, students, and many others, and you help make that ministry possible when you stand with us. To express your financial support, write to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Or you can call us at 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John looks at Christ's intense love for you and how you can passionately love His church. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
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