Reading God ’s Mind

This is the final episode in our series.

When you “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” like the tea bag in water, it will change you from the inside out. You will no longer conform to the world, but you will be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Don't forget to check the show notes for discussion questions and the putting it all together segment that will cover the whole series.

Show Notes

CATCHING UP

1.     How did the truths you learned in our last session impact your week? Were you able to share at least one key idea with anyone?

2.     In the Living on Purpose section of your last session, you discussed a group outreach project. Take a few minutes to revisit that idea.

3.     Did you read chapters eleven through fifteen in The Way of a Worshiper this week? Have one or two of you share something you read that was particularly meaningful.

KEY VERSE

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly . . .                                                   Colossians 3:16 (NIV)

When you “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” like the tea bag in water, it will change you from the inside out. You will no longer conform to the world, but you will be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You will absorb the nature and flavor and character of Christ. 

Your prayer life will no longer be relegated to a few minutes in your day. Instead, the memories of your “drive” will become continual impulses to talk to God throughout the day.

 

A constant, silent, and secret conversation with God is the way of a worshiper. And that is the secret to friendship with God.

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

(There are only two discussion questions this week because we want you to have enough time for the Living on Purpose exercise.)

1.     Talk about the tea bag illustration. How is steeping God’s Word into your soul a way to read God’s mind?

2.     What does it mean to “not conform to the pattern of this world” but “be transformed by the renewing of your mind?”

PRAYER DIRECTION

Sung Prayer

Listen to, or sing along with “Word of God Speak” and “Thy Word” on the Songs for The Way of a Worshiper playlist. 

 

Silent Prayer

Send home your postcard. Take a moment in silent prayer to tell God what you saw, heard, felt, and learned at your scenic viewpoint in Colossians 3. 

Group Prayer

Before you pray for each other’s requests, take a few minutes to thank God for your small group and for the lessons you have learned throughout the last four weeks of this study. Ask God to help you follow the way of a worshiper all the days of your life.

LIVING ON PURPOSE

 

Discipleship

The two most important disciplines of a follower of Christ are Bible reading and prayer. They can also be the most difficult. Following the six steps of the “drive” through Scripture, take five minutes to read Colossians 3 silently. Then share your thoughts with your group about the “scenic viewpoints” where you stopped in the text. If your group has more than eight members, you might want to break into smaller groups of three or four to give everyone a chance to share.

 

Colossians 3:1–25 (NIV) 

 

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 

 

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. 

 

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

 

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. 

 

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 

Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. 

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 

Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. 

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism.

 

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE

1.     We suggest you partner with another group member for this exercise. Following the six steps of the drive, take about ten to fifteen minutes each day this week to explore the road of Colossians 3. Stop at a different scenic viewpoint each day. Then make a daily appointment to connect with your partner by phone, e-mail, or over coffee to talk about what you discovered on your drive through the Scriptures.

2.     Who do you know that needs to hear the message of “Reading God’s Mind”? Why not invite them over for a “glass of tea” and show them how life-changing it is to read God’s mind?

3.     Now that you know the way of a worshiper, how will you live it out? Ask God to help you live from now on in view of his mercy, to experience the great exchange of worship, to let your body be the place of his presence, and to read his mind daily.

 

Creators & Guests

Host

Buddy Owens

Teaching Pastor @Saddleback Church, focused on spiritual formation, and author of The Way of a Worshiper & Finding God in the Desert of the Soul.

Producer

Saddleback Church

💙 Find your purpose and place at #SaddlebackChurch! 🏠 One family, many locations.

What is The Way of a Worshiper: A Saddleback Church Small Group Study?

Are you looking for God? The pursuit of God is the chase of a life time. In fact, its been going on since the day you were born. The question is: Have you been the hunter or the prey? This small group study is not about music. Its not even about going to church. Its about living your life as an offering of worship to God. Its about tapping into the source of power to live the Christian life. And its about discovering the secret to friendship with God.

In this four-week study, Buddy Owens, author and teacher, will help you understand the meaning of worship. Through his very practical, engaging, and at times surprising insights, Buddy shares truths from Scripture and from life that will help you understand in a new and deeper way just what it means to be a worshiper.

You know, I've never been very good at this. • • It's funny though, because it kind of reminds me, Amazon, how I used to read in my Bible. • • I wasn't very good at that either. I found myself just kind of skipping over the surface, kind of like that rock going over the surface of the water. But I really wasn't getting anything out of my reading. I had great intentions. I wanted to be a man of the word. • • But reading the Bible was so hard for me to do. It was so hard for me to get anything out of my reading. I had my one year Bible reading plan, • • but I just didn't seem to have the discipline to go through with it. And it seemed like every day they went by, I got a little further behind. • • • But there's a problem with trying to read that way is that you're always trying to play catch up. • • And the biggest problem is that Paul says to us in our text from Romans twelve, verse two, he says, don't conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And what God is saying is, look, don't just try to fit in with the world's way of thinking, but instead I want to change you from the inside out. I want to transform you. To transform means to change the nature and character of something. God says, I want to change your nature and your character by renewing your mind. You see, he doesn't just want to change your behavior, he wants to change the way you think. • • • God wants you to begin to think the way he thinks. And if you want to know how God thinks about something, well, then you have to know the word. Because reading the Bible is reading God's mind. • • Well, when I was reading in that old way, just sort of skipping off the surface, • • I wasn't able to really decipher and discern what God's thinking was on certain situations. And it became very frustrating for me. And then one day I remember uh, sitting at my kitchen table and I said to myself out loud, read for depth, not for distance. • • • Read for depth, not for distance. • • • Now uh, let me tell you what that means. I'll give you a little word picture. Reading for distance is like what I was just doing, skipping stones off the surface of the water. You know, it's fun to do that kind of thing. We have little contests with our friends to see how far, how fast you can make your rock bounce over the surface of the water. You can tell your friend, hey, I read three chapters in five minutes this morning on the Bible, you know, and your friend says, well I read four chapters in five minutes, but did you get anything out of it? That's what reading for distance is. Reading for depth is if you stop in just one spot and you look down under the surface of the water and you begin to see the life and the beauty that's going on just underneath the surface. Those are the things you miss when you're reading, uh, for distance. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • I m want to give you another word picture. • • • • • • Now, I have a glass of water here, and it's not hot water, by the way, because, you know, sometimes when you come to the Bible, you're not all hot and fired up. Sometimes you feel sort of lukewarm. So this is lukewarm water, but I also have a tea bag. Now, watch what happens when I dip the teabag in the water just one time. • • • • • • • • • • • • Absolutely nothing. • • But if I take the teabag and I let it steep into this water and I let it sit in here, • • after about 15 minutes, something very remarkable is going to happen to this glass of water. It's going to absorb the character and the flavor and the aroma of the tea. • • Now, the picture here should be pretty obvious. The glass of water is like your soul. • • And the bag of tea is like a piece of scripture that you let steep into your soul. You concentrate on it. You meditate on it. You talk back to it. You let it steep into you. And after a while, you begin to absorb the nature and the flavor and the character of Christ, because it's coming out of his word. • • Now, there's another picture that I want to tell you about. • • • • A few years ago, on my 44th birthday, • • I was doing a little introspection thinking about my life, and I thought, you know, right about now I should probably be having a midlife, uh, • • crisis. • • So I decided just to go out and get it over with, and I bought a midlife crisis. And it's this really sweet little silvery blue Chrysler convertible. Now, it's not like I went out and bought a Ferrari or something I couldn't afford it's just a Chrysler, but it is a convertible. Kind of like me. • • I like to feel the wind blowing through my scalp. • • • • But, you know, one of my favorite things to do is to just get in that car on a day off, put the top down and go for a drive. And, you know, it doesn't matter where I go. I might come to the ocean. I might go out to the mountains or the desert. The point of the drive is to escape from my environment and to immerse myself in a whole other world. And I realized one day that there is a picture there of how I have learned to read the Bible. And I want to share that picture with you, because there are six things you have to do when you're going to make a drive like that. And the first thing you have to do is fill your tank, • • • • • • • • • • • • • because if your tank's not full, well, you're not going to get very far. Now, what does that have to do with your spiritual life? • • • • Well, actually, it has quite a bit to do with your spiritual life. • • The Bible says in one corinthians two, no one knows the thoughts of God, um, except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God. Why? So that we may understand what God has freely given us. • • The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for, uh, they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. But we have the mind of Christ. • • • • • • • • So what the Bible says is that apart from the Spirit of God, the things of God just aren't going to make any sense. • • So the way I like to start my devotion times, I don't start with an hour of prayer. I just start with a moment of prayer. I'll open my Bible and I'll just say, lord, I know that without the Holy Spirit, none of this is going to make sense to me. So I'm asking You, Lord, would you just fill me in a fresh way today? Give me ears to hear what you want to say and then help me understand what I read. • • And having prayed that way, I can now come to my Bible in faith, believing that the Lord will speak to me out of his word simply because I asked Him to. • • So the first thing you have to do is you have to fill your tank. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Now, the second thing you want to do is you got to choose your road. Where are you going to go today? You might want to drive on a favorite road you've been on many times, or you might want to explore a road that you've always kind of wondered about. Well, it's the same way when you come to the Scriptures. You have to decide, where are you going to read? You might want to read a favorite book or passage, or you might want to explore a book that maybe you've never really read before. • • The point is that you have to choose very carefully and you have to choose prayerfully. You know, the Bible is not a book that you have to read from page one all the way to the end, all in an order. You can if you want to, but you don't have to read it that way. The Bible is actually a collection of 66 books, and God can meet you and speak to you in any book, in any chapter on any verse in the Bible. The Bible says all Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training and righteousness. So God can meet you anywhere in the Bible. You just have to ask Him what road he wants you to take. • • • And then once you've chosen your road, once you've decided on the book you're going to read, stay on that road until you come all the way to the end. Don't just hop around from passage to passage, but stay on that road. Even if it takes you a couple of days or even if it takes you a couple of weeks, stay on the road. So the first thing you do is you fill your tank. The second thing you do is you choose your road. Now, of course, some roads are more interesting and less complicated to drive on, and so are some scripture passages. So if you're just getting started, • • choose a short road like Ephesians or Philippians. And the road I've chosen for our session today is Colossians chapter three. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Now, the third thing you want to do is slow down and enjoy the scenery. • • Sometimes these roads can be a little windy, and if you're driving too fast, you're going to miss something. It's the same way when you come to the scripture, you got to slow down, because if you're reading too fast, you might miss something. When you're driving like this, you might want to just ask yourself, what does this place look like? What does it smell like? What am I seeing in the surroundings? The same way with the text, ask yourself what's going on in the other verses in this chapter? What is God revealing about his character and his nature? Or what am I seeing that maybe I've never seen before in the Bible until right now? • • And if you're reading too fast, you're going to miss out on those kind of details. Remember, when you read the Bible, it's not a race. It's an exploration. • • God is not in a hurry, so you don't need to be in a hurry either. So slow down and enjoy the scenery. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • And that leads us to our fourth step. You pull off at a scenic viewpoint, step out of the car and step into the scene. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Now, uh, you know when you're on a drive like this, you'll see a sign that says scenic Viewpoint One four mile. Well, you want to pull over at one of those and find out what it is that makes that place so special. • • It's the same way when you're reading in the Bible. A scenic viewpoint is one of those times when it almost seems like God just tapped you on the shoulder and he said, hey, hang on a second. I want to show you something. Just pull over right here. I want to talk to you about something for a minute. • • A scenic viewpoint for me in the Scripture can be a paragraph. It might be a verse. Sometimes it's just a little phrase. And I've chosen a phrase from our road today in Colossians three, and it's the first phrase of verse 16. • • It says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Now, when I pull off at a scenic viewpoint, I will often read different words and emphasize them in different ways. So for example, the first time I read it, I might say, let the Word of Christ dwell on you richly. And by thinking about that word, let I realize I have a role to play in this. It's as though the Bible is saying I want to do this, but you've got to let it happen. It's like God is saying make room, give some time to allow this kind of • • • • • process to happen in your life. So let the Word of Christ give it permission to dwell in you richly. Or I might read it this way let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly dwelling as opposed to just stopping by for a quick visit, but let it let it move in, let it inhabit and take up residence in you. Or then I could read it let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, richly as opposed to poorly. Let it move in and inhabit in a deep and a rich and a profound kind of way. And as I start to put these words into my own words, • • I begin to enter a conversation with God. • • And so I'm starting to say back to him, lord, I think this is what I'm hearing you say that you want me to give permission to Your word to move in and inhabit me in a deep and profound and lifechanging way. Is that what I hear you say? • • • • • And that leads us to the fifth step. And the fifth step is you take a picture of yourself. • • You know, when you've been out on a drive like this and you've had a beautiful day, you want something to remind you of what your trip was like. So you take your camera out and you hold it arms link and you smile and you click and you take a picture. M. Well that's the same way with the Scripture. This is where you get into your application • • • because the Bible says that the Word of God is both a light and a mirror to the soul. So as you come to your text, as you're sitting in this scenic viewpoint, you want to ask yourself a question. • • • In this light, is there something I'm seeing that maybe was hidden in dark before • • or in this mirror? How do I look? What is this piece of Scripture telling me about my own life? And then you begin to talk to God about what he's saying to you through His Word. • • And then that leads us to our final step. And the last step is you send home a postcard. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Now, this is when you're reading and your thinking really turned a serious prayer. • • You see, God has started the conversation by telling you what he thinks and now it's your turn to tell Him what you think. This is your part of the conversation and you want to tell God everything you saw, everything you've heard, everything you learned and felt when you were in the Scripture, when you were on your little drive with him through the Scriptures that day. • • You might want to write your prayers down, too. A lot of people like to keep journals of their prayers. And if you do, you should always put a date on that prayer, so that someday in the future, when you come back and you're reading those prayers, it will remind you of your encounter with God in the scripture. • • • • • But what happens when you start praying this way is that you are allowing God to direct your prayer life. Now, sometimes your response might be a prayer of thanksgiving, might be a prayer of confession, it might be a prayer for somebody else. It might even be, uh, a some prayer of praise to God. But the point of it all is that God is directing your prayer life. And in a very real sense, you are agreeing with God in prayer. • • • • • Now, I have to tell you, when I started reading like this and praying like this, • • it changed so much about my character. It changed my thought life and my passions. • • • My behavior started to change, and I began to just see everything in the world differently. • • It reminds me of the, uh, teabag illustration I gave you a minute ago. • • • • Remember I told you it would take about ten minutes? • • But look what's happened to our glass of water. • • It has absorbed the flavor and the color and the aroma and the character of the tea. • • • • • Something else has happened to this water. • • It's taken on a whole new identity. • Uh, • • we don't call it a glass of water anymore. Now we call it a glass of tea. • • • • • • And when you let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, • • • it will change you from the inside out. You will no longer conform to the world, but you'll be transformed by the renewing of your mind. • • You will absorb the nature and flavor and the character and the aroma of Christ, • • • and it will change your whole identity. • • • • You will become the man or woman of God that you always wanted to be. • • • • • When I started reading the Bible this way, I found that my prayer life was no longer relegated to just a few minutes in my day. But instead, • • the memories of my time in the scripture became these continual impulses to talk to God throughout the day. And I became aware of a continual sense of his presence. • • About 300 years ago, a man by the name of Brother Lawrence wrote a book called Practicing the Presence of God. • • And in that book, he says that he learned to develop a constant, silent and secret conversation with God. • • I like that. A, uh, constant, silent and secret conversation with God. • • • That is the way of a worshiper, • • • and that is the secret to friendship with God. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Speaker B
And I will give • • you all my praise. • • • • • You alone • • I long to worship. • • • You alone • • are worthy of my praise. I will give m you all my worship • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • five days. • • • Hmm. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •