The Renewing of the Holy Ghost: Christianity, the Spirit, and the Perfect Man. God Calls Us to Renew Our Minds by Jesus

Renewing of the Holy Ghost.

Pastor Grosjean

Titus 3:3 “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, [and] hating one another. 4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, 5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; 7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

God wants to make all things new in our lives. He is not just interested in our eternity. He wants us to have victory in our lives right now as well. When God comes into someone’s life, He does not just fix up the broken down pieces. With some parts of us (our spirit) He completely starts from scratch. With other places (our soul), He fixes step by step. And the last part of our life (our body) will never be fixed until we are resurrected. Until then, there are some parts of our person that we are just going to have to bring into subjection to God’s will, even though that is not natural for us to do so.

I. Renew a Perfect Spirit. (Right Spirit: salvation) Psalm 51:6 “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden [part] thou shalt make me to know wisdom. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; [that] the bones [which] thou hast broken may rejoice. 9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

The spirit is the part of us that was hidden in the Old Testament. It is the deepest part of the Human Being. I Thessalonians 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The doctrine of the spirit is in the Old Testament just like the doctrine of the Church is there too. But both are hidden. There is a great deal about the spirit of man in Psalm 51. David prophesied about what would happen in our age. But it could not happen in David’s day. It is by the new revelation of the New Testament that we come to understand that the Spirit and the Soul are really two different aspects of the human person.

Some people are confused to think that the Soul and the Spirit are the same. The apostle Paul did not waste words. He says that God will preserve our whole spirit and soul and body. Without the Spirit, man is not whole.

A. He Sees the Hidden Section. (Conviction) vs. 6.

What is the Spirit? It is that “hidden” part that can know truth and know wisdom. Both truth and wisdom are spiritual principles that cannot be understood by the carnal man, nor defined by the natural mind. They are spirits. So, it takes a living spirit to understand them. The spirit is that section of a man that no animal can sense and no computer will ever simulate. It is the part of the human that knows right from wrong, good from bad, holiness from evil. This is the part of us that is dead before we come to Jesus Christ for salvation. But when the Holy Spirit comes into our spirit, He makes our spirit alive. Ephesians 2:1 “And you [hath he quickened], who were dead in trespasses and sins;”

B. He Sacrificed His Son. (Christ) vs. 7

We see David’s view of this internal cleansing of our spirit in verse Psalm 51:7. Hyssop is a bitter herb, it speaks of the pain and bitterness of Jesus sacrifice. He endured that pain for us, and it is bitter for us to accept that sacrifice. We hate the thought that the only way we can be cleansed is through the suffering of an innocent, but that is the truth. Jesus willingly made that sacrifice, pictured with the dipping of hyssop into the blood and the application onto the Passover door. Because His sacrificial blood is applied to our spirit by the Holy Spirit, we have a reborn spirit once we ask God to save us. That internal change is called being born again by Jesus. John 3:3 “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” We are not physically born again when we get saved. We are spiritually born again.

C. His Sanctified Hear new Song. (Conversion) vs. 8

Psalm 51:8 Shows what happens once we go through the bitterness of God’s cleansing. We receive the joy and gladness. The problem that many cults have is that they want to skip God’s sacrifice and forgiveness. They do not like the blood. So, they stop talking about the sacrifice of Jesus. They take the blood out of songs. They reduce how often the blood is read in the text of the Bible. They say we are saved by Jesus life, not by His death. They want to skip His death and get into His joy and gladness without going through the bitterness of Sacrifice. But if you deny the only Sacrifice that is able to clean you, you will never get to the joy of the Lord. No, my friend, we are only saved by the bitter sacrifice of His blood and we are sanctified by His life. Because He lives for us, we now have the joy and gladness of the Lord in our lives.

When we are saved and born again, God gives us a sinless nature in our new spirit. It is not just fixed and patched together by God. No, God gives us a completely new spirit that is without sin. I John 3:9 “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”

God will renew our spirit at the time of salvation if we only call on His name for salvation.

II. Renew Perfecting Soul (Rational Purchased Soul: daily sanctification) Rom. 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

I say "perfecting soul" because it is not made perfect in a moment, but daily. What is the soul? The soul is the personality of man. It is the psychology of man. It is the part of man that has the faculties of mind (the ability to reason), the will (the ability to choose), the emotions (the ability to feel), and self-awareness (the knowledge that you and others exist). This is the soul.

While our spirit is born again perfect and sinless deep within us, our soul is not. That is because when Jesus comes into our life, He does not come into our soul. He comes into our spirit and makes that perfect. If He came into our mind, we would never think a bad thing again. If He came into our emotions, we would never feel anything bad again. If He came into our wills, we would never choose anything bad again. If He came into our social awareness, we would never be anti-social again. But He does not indwell our soul.

He calls us to daily sanctify our soul by renewing it. This means that we must learn to think like God does. We must think His thoughts after Him. We read the Bible to see how He thinks, and we learn to think that way too. We must learn to feel the way that God does, and choose the things that God does. This is how we renew our minds.

A. Good vs. Evil III Jn. 11 “Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.”

We must learn to tell the difference between good and evil. While our spirit knows that perfectly at salvation, our mind does not know how to listen to our spirit immediately or to the Holy Spirit either. We have to learn with our minds to recognize the Spirit’s leading. We do this by getting God’s Word into our lives. We cannot realize what is right and wrong but by learning what God tells us in His Word.

B. Acceptable vs. Lawful I Cor. 6:12 “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”

Beyond knowing what is right and wrong, there is a maturing that must come for the experienced Christian. We need to go beyond just the question of what is right and wrong. There are things that may be right for a Christian to do. But that does not mean that God wants you or me individually to do them. This is the difference between “Can I do this?” and “Should I do this?” There are things that you can do that will not further God’s will for your life. Just because God has removed the restrictions on what a Christian may eat in his Christian liberty, does not mean we should eat everything.

C. Perfect vs. Weighty. Heb. 12:1 “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

This is the Highest place of decision. It is no longer “Is it wrong?” It is beyond, “Am I allowed to do this?” It is now at the place of asking, “What does God actually want me to do?” This is the highest place because it is the place of the athlete who is ready to run the race. As it says above in Hebrews 12:1-2, it is the place of recognizing that some things that we could do will only weigh us down so that we cannot run the race.

There are some things that a runner can eat, but when he is getting ready for a race, he will not. The runner takes of the weights on his ankles when it is time to run the race. A boxer must make his weigh-in. So, he controls what he eats so that he can lose or gain. The boxer takes off his headgear, because now it is time for the real thing.

In our lives as spiritual warriors for God, we need to recognize when it is no longer time for practice. It is now time to run! It is now time to fight!

God will renew us if we know what things we are supposed to avoid and what we should embrace. God will renew our soul if we try to think, choose, and feel the way He does.

III. Renew a Physical Strength (Received Structure [slave]: service) Isa. 40:28 “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, [that] the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? [there is] no searching of his understanding. 29 He giveth power to the faint; and to [them that have] no might he increaseth strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew [their] strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; [and] they shall walk, and not faint.”

While our spirit is made perfect in the moment of our salvation, and the soul is made perfect day by day in being renewed, our bodies will not be made sinless until they die. This physical body has a sin nature. We can enslave our bodies to God’s will or we will walk by this fallen sin nature. We have that choice. But one day these bodies will be made free of the sin nature. In the resurrection, this body will also become perfect. In that day, we will be like Jesus is, for we shall see him as he is.

Until the day of resurrection, we must use this flesh. God promises the strength to do what this body finds unnatural. Our sinful nature finds it unnatural to obey the directions of God. But God will give us the strength to do what He calls us to do.

     A. In spite of Perception vs. 28

God calls us to trust in Him even though we do not understand how He works or how His power works in us. We have not known and heard even though He has shown us. In our sinfulness, too often we have eyes but do not see. We have ears, but we refuse to hear. But if we will hear and see, He will renew our physical strength in this world.

     B. In spite of Practice vs 29

In Isaiah 40:29, God says that He give strength to the weary. Why? We practice and fight to get what and where we want. When we have worn our selves out by practicing things our way, God then comes along and gives us supernatural strength to get back up and go on if we will wait on Him.

      C. In spite of Power (of youth) vs 30

Even the youth grow weary. Why? They have the strength of youth. They should be the strongest, yet they faint. So, the struggles of this life are too much even for the youth if they do it on their own strength. If, however, he will wait on the Lord, God will renew even the youth’s physical strength.

      D. Because of Patience vs. 31

The point is that nobody has the physical strength to do right for all their lives by themselves. But the power of God comes upon those wait on Him. God pours out the oil of His Spirit and gives us even physical power to go on and do right, especially when we cannot physically go on. That is when God loves to pour out unexplainable power on His children to do what is right.

So, my friends, we need to find God’s power to renew us. We need to be renewed in our spirit. This happens when we are born again. We need to be renewed in our souls. This happens in our daily walk by learning the mind of Christ. We need to be renewed in our physical strength as well. While we will not have perfect bodies until the resurrection, His power is sufficient for us. He can do miraculous things when we are at the end ourselves. He loves to show Himself mighty! He will, if you allow Him to show Himself in your life.

By Andrew Grosjean

December 31, 2006: New Years eve, Sun. Night; Decembe