The born again Christian has been saved to serve God. It is our reasonable service. The born again Christian needs to be a continual student of God’s Word and as he faithfully and humbly studies God’s Word, he must consciously reject being conformed to this world, but must be transformed by the renewing of the mind.
The mind and the heart of the lost person must be changed by God in salvation. After salvation, the new believer needs to continue to have his mind changed by being transformed. This transformation can only take place by the Word of God being applied to the heart and mind of the saved person.
As we see in our opening text, salvation is a spiritual work. It is not an effort in coercion. Humanistic philosophies must be rejected. We must look at how Jesus Christ approached people. We need to look at how the apostles approached people.
In Genesis 3 we are told that the serpent was more subtle than any other beast of the field. The serpent in this context is the devil. The devil uses trickery. God never uses trickery. We are studying the book of Daniel in our afternoon services and we find in chapter 6 that the bulk of king Darius’ princes and presidents were engaged in subtilty. They tricked the king into signing an evil decree that was designed to get rid of Daniel. Their evil scheme backfired on them and they ended up being devoured by the hungry lions.
It is important to note that it is the faithful presentation of the Word of God that God blesses to bring the lost sinner to repentance. There are some organizations that have “perfected” a subtil means of tricking a person into making a prayer. However, there is no life in many of those people. There is no pursuit of holiness.
As we see in I Corinthians 2:12, the true child of God has received the spirit of God. The purpose of that gift is that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. God is at work to save the lost sinner. He is also at work in perfecting the saint. The saved person needs to be memorizing
Scripture in order to be able to quote Bible verses when witnessing. He or she also needs to be memorizing Scripture in order to keep from sinning. The saved person also needs to become very familiar with his Bible to be able to find a particular passage to help the lost person see their need of salvation.
Today, many people use their phone to find verses. The phone can be a handy tool, but it should not replace the printed Word of God. We need to be careful how bound we become to modern technology. The providers of that technology can also block accessibility to that technology. The written page is still a good way to use God’s Word.
As a saved person is witnessing to a lost person, he or she needs to be constantly praying for God’s leading in their witnessing. As you memorize God’s Word, the Holy Spirit can bring back to your memory a particular verse that He knows would be helpful in the situation you are facing. The more the saved person spends time studying God’s Word, the more the Holy Spirit can bring particular verses to mind or at least guide you to the place in the Bible where a particular verse is found.
Verse 13 of our opening text reminds us that when the sinner is making their futile argument, the saved person is led to bring up another verse that further presents the facts. The lost person may not be satisfied. He or she may be so hardened that they refuse to listen to any verse. Verse 14 reminds us that the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. They either dismiss them as foolish or they simply cannot understand it because they do not have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them.
God will lead the saved person to the necessary verses for the particular person you are witnessing to. He will also work in the heart and mind of the lost person regarding those verses. The person may reject all efforts to show them the truth. However, the Word of God is powerful. After you leave that person, the Word of God will still work on their heart and mind. They may work hard to dismiss the truth. The devil has developed many ways to help his followers to dismiss the truth. However, his tactics are not more powerful than the Work of the Holy Spirit in convincing the lost person that they are lost.
Learning the tactics of the world may get people to repeat a prayer, but it will not lead a person to Christ. The Spirit of God will lead a person to bow the knee before a holy and just God. It is exciting to be able to be used of God to provide the Word of God that the Spirit of God can use to convince the lost person to bow before God and be saved. God wants people saved far more than we do. He is not interested in lists of names of people who were deceived into doing something they did not really accept and believe.
God directed Paul to remind the saints that they have the mind of Christ. In Philippians 2 Paul challenged the saints to let the mind of Christ be in them. True saints need to be governed by the mind of Christ. In salvation, every true child of God is given the mind of Christ. We need to learn to listen to His mind through His Word and we need to reject the garbage that has cluttered our minds prior to salvation. God’s Work must be done God’s way. That is what He blesses.
Pastor Bartel