Steve started us on a journey over the last couple of weeks, a journey of offering ourselves to God.

He’s talked about the barriers we have to fully giving ourselves to God, and our need to release control, release the idea that we can do it, as we offer ourselves to God.

Our plan is to continue this idea of offering over the next few weeks, with specific and practical applications. What does it look like to offer specific parts of ourselves to God?

To follow Jesus means to offer all we have to God. It’s relinquishing control, but it’s also putting the good things we have at God’s disposal, for God to use in our world as God sees fit.

Today and next week, we’ll talk about offering our minds to God.

Our theme verse for this series, Romans 12: 1-2, specifically talks about offering our minds to God. We’re to “be transformed by the renewing of our minds.”

Jesus himself, when asked what is the greatest commandment, said “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.”

What comes to “mind” when I say offer your “minds”? How would you define “mind”? What is it, specifically, that we offer God if we offer our minds? [ASK]

Intellect, worldview, creativity. brain, thoughts/thinking

Our view of the mind is often very limited.

We think of “thinking”. We think of academics, or intellect.

Howard Gardner is a Harvard psychologist, and in 1983, he wrote a book called “Frames of Mind.” He was the first to popularize the idea that we have multiple intelligences. The question he wants to ask is NOT: “How smart are you?” but: “How are you smart?”

In the book he defined eight different types of intelligence. IQ tests and schools seem to focus on two: logical-mathematical intelligence and verbal-linguistic intelligence. All of our tests and our grades focus on those two, and we end up making our judgments about whether we’re “smart” or “not smart” on just those two categories.

Gardner reminds us, though, that there are six other types of intelligence: visual-spatial, musical-rhythmic, bodily-kinesthetic, naturalist, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence.

We know this, but we forget it, too.

“He’s good at book learnin’, but he’d get lost in a paper bag.” “She’s amazing at math, but she never remembers my name.” “If they’re so smart, how come they don’t have any common sense?”

We know there are different ways to be smart, different types of intelligence; but our confidence level, our definition of whether we think our minds are worth much, pretty much focuses on the big two we get tested and graded on in school.

So, the first place I want to touch down today is to say this: if we don’t see ourselves as “smart” or “intelligent”, if we never did very well in school…that doesn’t mean we have no “minds” to offer to God. Each of us has a way of being smart. Each of us has a way we perceive the world. To change a little bit what Gardner has to say… The question isn’t: “Do you have a good enough mind to offer to God?” The question is: “HOW will you offer your mind to God?”

Dallas Willard, in his book “Renovation of the Heart”, helps us keep this broader view.

He says that thoughts mean “all the ways we are conscious of things.”

All our beliefs, all our ideas, all our memories and perceptions and language and values…all of that is part of giving our minds to God.

How do we give God control of our minds, and how do we place our minds at God’s disposal, so he can use them?

Let me ask you this question: What are some of the fears we face when we think of offering our minds to God? [ASK: repeat, and then address the two below]

One of our fears is that God won’t want my mind; I’m not smart enough.

Offering God our minds is not just about facts. It’s not just about having the right answers. It’s about letting God shape how we view the world, and how we decide what is true.

We often decide if our minds are valuable by comparing ourselves to others. And, as Gardner noticed, we often limit that to only the two types of intelligence that schools focus on. But what if we compare ourselves to ourselves, instead of others?

Let me ask another question.

What’s something you can do now, that you couldn’t do 5 years ago? Five years ago, I couldn’t play the guitar at all; since then, I’ve learned enough to play simple songs. What have you learned how to do in the last 5 years? [ASK]

I love how people in this church model being lifelong learners! We can always be growing, always learning new things.

What if we compare our minds now with our mind from 5 years ago? Am I growing? Am I changing? Am I finding out what is true? Am I pursuing godliness?

It changes the picture a little bit. It’s not, “Do I have anything in my mind smart enough to offer to God?” Instead, the focus is on letting God continually shape and stretch my mind. It’s joining the pursuit of truth and right living. It’s taking every part of who I am, every way I’m conscious of the world, and letting it be shaped by God and putting it at God’s disposal.

This is exactly what I love about Paul in the bible.

Paul was obviously someone who was very intelligent in a variety of ways, and he offered all of who he was completely to God.

In Acts 22…you can turn there if you want, I’m going to summarize…In Acts 22, Paul’s been arrested, and he gets the chance to speak to a large crowd. He begins by telling them about himself. [READ v. 3]

I got the best education money could by, AND I devoted myself to God’s service zealously. What more could you ask? This must be good, right?

But Paul thought that the best way to serve God was to find these people who called themselves Christians and destroy them. His great education and his zealousness for God led him to be the biggest persecutor of Christians.

Then Paul tells the crowd about the big change in his life. On the way to Damascus to put Jesus-followers in prison, Jesus himself meets Paul on the road, and changes the course of Paul’s life forever. Now, he will use all his education, passion, experience, and creativity to HELP people understand about Jesus-even people who aren’t Jews.

In Paul’s encounter with Jesus, he offers everything to God. Everything, including his mind, is at God’s disposal.

It’s this that Paul has in mind in Philippians 3, part of which we read together earlier in the service.

He was the best of the best. The Jew among Jews. But all that is nothing, now that he knows Jesus Christ. What’s truly important is a mind, a complete life, pursuing Jesus.

Can we read the passage from Philippians together again? [READ]

Knowing Christ, pursuing Christ, pressing on is the most important thing.

But our minds and our thinking don’t have to be opposed to a real knowledge of Jesus. They aren’t opposites. It isn’t like my background, my education, the way I think and believe is on one side, and knowing Jesus is on the other.

Sometimes, people in the church have misinterpreted this part of Philippians to think that our minds and our education don’t matter. They read this and think the only thing that matters is an experience with God.

Sometimes, we’re afraid of learning and our minds. We’ve all heard of and maybe even know people who grow up in the church, and then go off to college and they “lose their faith.”

I think in some parts of the church, there’s a fear that if I pursue intellect, I’ll lose my faith.

We want to shelter our kids and sometimes ourselves from all the wrong thoughts and philosophies that are out in the world. That fear can keep us from pursuing and developing our minds, because we might lose Jesus.

Lee Nash, a member of our church, shared with me something he said years ago as a seminary graduation speaker: “We want no anemic, delicate gospel…one that needs to be sheltered to be preserved. We know we need to continue to hear the principles of separation from worldliness. But we desperately want to learn how to develop the spiritual resources…to leave our evangelical monasteries and flavor the world with the Spirit of the Saviour.”

If we misinterpret what Paul is saying in Acts and in Philippians; if we think the experience of seeing Jesus is an either/or choice with our minds, we’ll go completely against Paul’s example. It will lead us to downplay the intellectual and make feelings or experience the most important thing in life.

Paul isn’t saying his background and his education are bad and must be left behind. He’s saying they are worth nothing in comparison to knowing Jesus. He’s saying that our minds and our way of thinking about the world are worthless unless and until we offer them in submission to God.

The pursuit of truth is wide open. We have nothing to be afraid of! God is the God of all truth. We don’t serve God by downplaying thinking and our perception of the world, we serve God by submitting it all to God and actually letting him change our view of the world.

When we pursue truth, when we pursue God’s way of looking at the world, it actually has amazing outcomes. When we offer our minds to God, that’s when our behaviors finally start to change into what God intends. When we pursue God and God’s truth, we are led to worship God who is infinitely greater than we.

I love this quote from Dallas Willard’s book:

[Some people say, “Your God is too small!”…] “but it’s usually misunderstood. The point is not “Your God is too small to meet your needs,” but “Your God is so small that you can fail to relentlessly worship and adore him.” In the renovated mind, God constantly stands as uniquely and supremely worthy. Hallowed be Thy Name!”

Offering our minds to God, being constantly stretched and renewed, growing, pursuing, submitting how we think and what we learn to God leads us to relentless worship and adoration of God!

Our pursuit of truth is NOT in conflict with our pursuit of Jesus Christ! It leads us directly to worship.

How can we take steps to offer our minds to God this week, this year?

Given all that we’ve looked at, what things come to your mind? [ASK]

You DO have a mind to offer God. Your type of intelligence, your background, your way of thinking is unique and valued by God.

We don’t have to be afraid of using our minds. We don’t have to be afraid of pursuing truth. When our ultimate pursuit is Jesus, and knowing him, when we offer and submit our way of thinking to God, we actually are better able to worship. Read good books; learn; grow; always pursue truth.

How will we offer our minds this week?