Ep 182: A Renewed Mind (Part 2)

"What shapes your reactions when life hurts? Today we explore filtering everything through Christ’s cross, resisting temptation, renewing your mind, and letting the Holy Spirit transform your responses. What comes out when you're under pressure?"

We build a simple framework for filtering everyday reactions through the cross of Christ, so our words and choices start matching what we say we believe. We contrast the “old filter” of flesh and cultural pressure with a renewed mind shaped by Scripture, conviction, and the radical love of Romans 5:8.
• The cross as a practical filter for hurt, anger, and temptation
• Galatians 2:20 as a daily personal confession
• The “old filter” of deceitful desires and pride
• Guarding inputs when media desensitizes the mind
• Recognizing the Holy Spirit’s still small voice of conviction
• Revisiting H.A.L.T. as a dashboard for vulnerability: hungry, angry, lonely, tired
• Taking intrusive thoughts captive instead of entertaining them
• Asking “Did Christ die for me to do this” before reacting
• The cross revealing the seriousness of sin and the cost of grace
• Romans 5:8 as God’s clear demonstration of agape love

To find out more, check out our website at playsonword.org.

FIRST STOP on OUR TOUR:
SANDY COVE MINISTRIES — Family Vacation 2026: https://www.sandycove.org/family-vacation/

FAMILY VACATION 2026 Offers a Variety of Packages for each of the 4 week sessions:
Summer 2026 Speakers
• July 5 - 10 (Joe & Denise Holman)
   - Pastor Fred Kenney, Jr. - Evening Speaker and Life Coach this week
• July 12 - 17  (Curtis Zackery)
• July 19 - 24  (Richard Dahlstrom)
• July 26 - 31  (Peter Reid)

It's NOT too late to register for a remaining week here: https://www.sandycove.org/family-vacation/book-now/

Recent Podcasts about Sandy Cove!
Ep 176 (Part 1) https://www.buzzsprout.com/2110391/episodes/19294639
Ep 177 (Part 2) https://www.buzzsprout.com/2110391/episodes/19297013

Check out the rest of our Tour Schedule here: https://www.playsonword.org/calendar

If you enjoy Christian podcasts, Calvary Chapel stories, ministry behind-the-scenes moments, and biblical storytelling that sticks with you, hit play and come along. Subscribe and share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so others can find the show. Review Us Here!

Visit our website, where you can donate to help us out... Whether a one-time donation, or if you want to become a monthly partner - PLEASE DONATE HERE: https://playsonword.networkforgood.com/

Please keep this ministry in prayer. This program was made possible by the Plays One Word Family of supporters. To find out more, check out our NEW & IMPROVED Website at playsonword.org

Stay Up To Date with our: Plays On Word E-News Sign Up
The Plays on Word Theater team is always setting up new performance dates! Want us to visit your church/venue/community? Please check out: Book It!

To See the Vision Behind the Mission of Plays On Word Theater & Radio, please visit: https://www.playsonword.org/support

Plays On Word website
Plays On Word YouTube
Plays On Word Facebook
Plays On Word Instagram
Email us: team@playsonword.org

Transcript

Radical Love Sets The Frame

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Lord, you know.

SPEAKER_01 0:01

You're now listening to play is the best. Brothers and sisters, let me tell you, that is the most radical demonstration of love that has ever happened. That's the most radical demonstration of love that has ever happened. Christ on the cross is the demonstration. And the word used is agape. God demonstrated his agape love towards us. That while we weren't even on his team, while we were enemies of him, the demonstration was the cross of Christ.

Why Life Needs A Cross Filter

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Okay, you guys, this is from a series of messages that I delivered at Sandy Cove in Maryland, the Christian Retreat Center for their family vacation. And I just want to share it with y'all, so check it out. All right, so we are continuing, and this is gonna be the last message in our series, what we're we're looking at. And today we're going to be looking at filtering life through the cross of Christ. And I'm gonna hopefully, not hopefully, this will make sense. Like, how can a cross filter life? Trust me. A renewed mind filters every hurt, anger, temptation, desire through the cross filter. Now, we had the old filter. Basically, it's not a filter before we came to Christ, the deceitful desires and the fallen flesh. And we were, there's nothing good living in my in my even Paul says that. There's nothing good living in my flesh. It's my flesh is fallen. It either needs to die or be changed. So we're gonna look at that. The old filter, the desires, and we're gonna look at the new filter, the cross of Christ, and how the word of God plays into that, excuse me, and the cross itself of Christ. Next, that we're gonna look at how a renewed mind responds differently. And these are long, fancy names to just the segments of the body of what we're gonna look at today. But I wanted to give you, you know, where we're gonna be going. And then we're gonna look at cultivating a crossed, a Christ, cultivating a cross-centered mind. So Paul, he the Apostle Paul is just that's that's my favorite, my favorite kindergarten teachers, favorite apostle, right? The apostle Paul, special man. He wrote two-thirds of the New Testament letters, and he really went through it and suffered. The Lord was like, He's my chosen instrument, and I've shown him how much he's gonna suffer. He really caught, really caught it. And Paul wrote a bunch of things, but two things that apply to what we're looking at throughout this family vacation series here, and this message tonight in particular. And I'm gonna give you the first one from 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 10. Paul says, and he's let me say this is talking about he's talking about his sufferings before this. And he says in verse 10, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. He's talking about, he's he keeps the concept of the the death of Christ, but also the life of Christ. And the other verse that I wanted to give you is from a different book. It's and this is something you can say every single day, make it personal, make it your own verse. It's a really good practice. And it's Galatians 2.20. If you don't have it underlined in your Bible, underline it and mark it down. Galatians 2.20, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Notice the cross is right there. I have been crucified with Christ. If I go back to the other one, the death of Jesus, the cross is right there. So this is part of what I'm we're gonna look at tonight. And that Galatians 2.20, I'm telling you, you can say it. You can put your name, take out I, where Paul says I, you know, and and and you can say it almost like third person, you know, put your name in there. I would say Freddie or Teddy or whatever. You know, my wife could put in there and say, Katie has been crucified with Christ. It's no longer Katie who lives, but Christ who lives in her, you know. And you also, I had the dear old friend who's with the Lord now, and she told me, make this personal. Say it every day. You can say it.

The Old Filter And Dirty Inputs

SPEAKER_01 5:20

So let's take a look at the old filter, which is basically no filter at all. The old filter with its deceitful desires and the flesh that just does not care about the things of God. Uh, James says in his book, he he talked about desire leads to deception and then sin, and sin leads to death. And our natural filter, which is no filter, it just wants to do what it wants, what feels good, what protects my pride, what me, myself, and I. Remember last night I talked about the Trinity of Stupidity. The me, myself, and I trinity. All right. So imagine we're talking about a filter now, right? We had no filter pre-Christ. We've got no filter. Let me give you a picture, something to hold on to. This here is a chain link fence. It does not do a good job filtering out dirty water. This is kind of like our filter pre-Christ, if if there is even a filter, there really wasn't a filter. The dirty water that would make its way through or the dirty water of the culture. Uh, yesterday we talked about the breaking free from the mold of the culture. You see that fence? It's not stopping at water. This poor guy, he, you know, uh, he he would never expect that chain link fence to clean or filter that dirty water. Last night we talked about putting practices in place to protect a renewed mind. When your mind is renewed, you want to you can put practices in place and protect it. I gave you guys last night, I gave you this picture also. Sorry about that. Give you this picture. I and I asked, I posed the question. I said, imagine if, and that's that's from, I believe, Haiti, and that's a septic truck that emptied out I don't know how many houses, but it's dumping all of its sewage in with the garbage jump and everything else. Those poor guys, they don't get paid enough. And I posed the question, I said, Would any of you let this truck pull up to your front yard and open up your living room window and put the hose in the window and empty out the truck? And everybody was like, Oh, no way. But yet we do the same thing. We do the same type of thing by allowing media, which is basically sewage for the mind, we let it in. And so we want to be careful and guard the inputs, guard certain things. We can the problem is we can get used to the dirt and the stench. Let me tell you, first, let me tell you the story about getting used to things. We were in Albania and we were sitting in this outdoor restaurant. It was an outdoor restaurant area with a bunch of different restaurants, and we're sitting there. The one problem was the bees kept buzzing us, like these bees flying all over the place. And ladies would be like, ah, and the a lot of the guys were like, whatever. But some of the guys were like, ah. Anyway, one of these bees came and it was just buzzing our food and kept going at our food. And so somebody, I don't think it was me, but somebody took a glass, saw the bee landed, and went and put the glass over the bee. And that bee went nuts. It went crazy. It was going cra it was going crazy trying to get out. It was flying and it was wasn't doing anything. And then after about, I don't know, five minutes, it just calmed down. It was like, okay, I guess this is my fate, I guess. So when we were about to leave, somebody said, Hey, what about the bee? Because we just went back to eating, and one of us went over, and we were like, man. And you know what? We were expecting that thing to come after us. But the bee just stayed there like this, in the same little three inches of the cup. It didn't even know it was free. It got used to the pressure from the outside, and it almost in its mind, if possible, it was like, okay, this is this is it. Okay. And it just stayed there like this, in that little area, until somebody came and bumped the table or did something. We were already on the way out, but somebody, somebody came and went to clean up the dishes, and it was like, oh, oh my goodness, I'm free. And it flew off. But it didn't even realize it was free. Let me give you one other example which will tie to this one. I told you I worked for the cable company many years ago, and I had to go to this sewage treatment place where they treated the sewage. And I don't know, their TVs were all messed up or something. And I was the guy, I had to go figure out why. So man, I went there and I opened the door. And as soon as I walked in, I was like, oh my goodness, man, whoa! Oh, and I had to walk down this hallway, and I'm like, oh God, Lord, please help me, man. Oh man, Lord, I'm praying. And I wasn't even walking with the Lord really at that time. I believed, but I was so compromised. Sure, he was having a laugh at this too. And I'm like, I'm like, oh, this is terrible. So I make my way up to the front where the receptionist was, the reception desk. Did one of y'all call cable company? They're sitting there eating their donuts and sipping their coffee. I couldn't believe I was like, what's wrong with you? You can't smell. And they said, and they said, oh yeah, the TVs came back on last night. I was like, gone. Gone. I turned into a puff of smoke right in front of them. I was gone out of there. And I and the stench stayed with me for like, I don't know, five, ten minutes. I was like, had the windows down. I'm like, oh, this is awful. The thing you don't want to miss is that they were desensitized to the stench. To them, it became normal. Christian, how many of us are desensitized to the stench when the sewage comes across the screen on the computer or on the TV? When they're saying the Lord's name in vain, like they're you could just interchangeably put it with any other low base type of word. They're saying the name that is above every other name, the name in which we are saved, and yet it's coming out of their mouth as a pejorative or something rotten. And we're just like, that's just what it is, okay, whatever. You don't even feel the sting of it sometimes. Not saying, I'm not accusing anybody. This is something we need to guard or guard against. As believers, becoming numb to the constant pressure from the media and the world and the enemy. Everybody wants to blame the devil. Listen, he's he's he's not the primary problem. The primary problem is our fallen flesh, the world, and then the enemy who likes to just take arrows and go bing and just okay, they're right near the edge. Get them. Oh, there we go. We pushed them over the edge. Everybody wants to blame the devil for everything without saying, looking at you know, our own fallen nature first. Point being, let's not let we don't want to become desensitized to the things of the spirit with a renewed mind, letting the spirit of God speak to our hearts.

Desensitization And The Spirit’s Whisper

SPEAKER_01 12:38

He will, and this is a thing that I've learned. The Lord, the Holy Spirit of God, he is a gentleman in the sense that he does speak with a still small voice. And he will often say to me, Not and I've never heard his voice audibly, okay? I didn't hear it, but he put on my heart, that's not right. And it's very subtle like that. It's so subtle. Or what you're about to say to your wife, don't say it. And when I listen to him, I'm so glad. But when I don't listen, I'm like, nah, I got this. Listen, I'm right about this. I'm right about this. Oh, I was wrong. I'm sorry. And it usually causes much many problems not listening to that still small voice. But he's a gentleman. He doesn't come in with a with a loudspeaker unless we need it. For the most part, he's gonna speak to us in a still small voice and say, right and wrong. And how does he operate? If you look at the woman in the at the well, the story in John chapter 4, when Jesus sees this woman and at the well, she's she's getting water in the middle of the day, which is odd. She's by herself. The women didn't go to get the water in the middle of the day, in the heat of the day. Obviously, she's an outcast, something's going on. And the disciples are going into the town and they pass her, you know, and so she comes to get water, and Jesus is basically asks, give me a drink of water. She's like, What? You're asking me to for a drink? And Jesus starts engaging in a conversation with her. And Jesus ends up saying, Go call your husband. She's like, Uh, I don't have a husband. And Jesus says, What you said is right. You've had five husbands, and the the man you're with now is not your husband. And she was like, but she wasn't, she was, she was convicted, but she wasn't condemned. Jesus didn't condemn, but he spoke truth. That's how the Holy Spirit works today. He speaks truth, right? Wrong, black and white. One plus one equals two. He doesn't compromise and doesn't use riddles with us. The Holy Spirit doesn't. So let's take a look at our new filter.

HALT And Taking Thoughts Captive

SPEAKER_01 14:40

What is this guy talking about? The cross of Christ. How can that be a how can that be a filter for us? The cross of Christ. Well, have you ever seen the I don't know if the if it's a Boy Scout thing or not, but I found this out many years ago that if you need clean water, you could take uh take your shirt, as long as it's not a bunch uh with a bunch of dyes like this one. But uh, if it's just a cotton shirt, it will, and you put the the dirty water here and and uh and the thing for the other water lower, the water will migrate up and it will clean, you know, not probably not a hundred percent, but I mean enough for you to drink. Don't anybody go do this and then get sick and sue Sandy Cove, okay? I know they have good insurance, but don't but yeah, and then about a after an hour, that's a picture after an hour of the water, after it did its thing, and the dirt is left behind. That the the crud and all the dirt. And what I'm saying is, if we can remember what Christ did for us when we're angry, when we're hurt, upset, when we're stressing out. And you remember I said there's the acronym HALT, hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. That's your that's your dashboard. And if any of your the needles on those any of those gauges are getting too far, if you're too angry or too hungry, that's the H, or too angry, or too lonely, too isolated, or too tired, or fatigued. That's a demon-possessed fly flying around here. If you're any one of those things, you are you can be you the enemy the enemy can read the gauges too. And he's like, oh, okay, wait a second. Uh uh, they're really tired right now, and they're hungry. Okay, let's let's see if we can let's see if we can hit them with some thoughts here. Some thoughts really, yeah, we can whatever it is, whatever it is. We we need to guard those things. So if you can listen, sometimes you can't help being tired, sometimes you can't help being hungry. But it if you're if you're aware of where the gauges are, that will help when the enemy tries to hit you with a thought that you know you're like, man, where'd that thought? That I don't want I don't want that thought. Chances are it wasn't even you when that thought comes. Take a captive, crumple it up, and throw it away. Don't hold on to it. We talked about actually let me read this, let me read this verse here, the 2nd Corinthians one, again, with this in mind, with this cross filter here, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. So as far as filtering, it's not just the inputs, but now, like what you say to people, somebody's really upset you. The cross, the filter of the cross, what Christ did can help govern my response because if I respond or react from the flesh, the cross filter is not there. But if I take a second, and it's okay to say, Lord, I want to light this person up right now. Please, I need my filter. Think about this carrying around the death of Jesus. He didn't die for us to light up another believer or an unbeliever. Look at the other one, Galatians 2.20. I have been, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Those two things can help to at least get a line, the cross filter on what you're saying to people, how you act towards people. Anytime you want to get revenge or any type of retribution, you can ask the question Did Christ die for me to do this? That's heavy. Did Christ die for me to say this to this person? Right there, the cross is filtering your actions. And it can, I'm telling you, these are techniques you can employ that work. Now, we all laughed at this when I talked about outward pressure. This lady, right? Like she really went to to Walmart into the into the the dish soap section and figured she'd get herself a filter, I guess. I don't know. We laughed at that. You know, that's not that's not really stopping anything, but the concept though, at least for what we're talking about, is kind of interesting. That was really, I was trying to show how people just responded to cultural pressure. And she was like an anomaly, really over-responding with the whole mask thing. But there's something interesting. That mask that she has on also will filter what she's what's coming out of her. And that ties into what talking about with the cross for us as believers. The Spirit of God within us is helping to renew our minds and get our thoughts. We're thinking on things above, we're we're he's slowly transforming our mind to reflect even in the way we think to reflect Christ. And if we can put the cross at the forefront of what we say to people, did Christ die for me to say this? You know, that can help you stop. Mid-sentence. Mid-sentence, you drop a hammer on your foot. If you have a problem with cussing, really, whatever, sounding like a sailor, you drop a hammer on your foot. Did Christ, where's my filter? Alright. I know a guy he he he never cussed, he would always say foot. So he dropped it, dropped a hammer or hit his handy. Oh, foot. Good old John. I remember that guy. The point is the Lord is conforming us, and the he's transforming us, not conforming, he's transforming us, and not just not just our bodies, but our minds. And that's what actually reflects Christ, our thoughts. And that's how we're gonna end up looking. I showed you these guys the the other night. The jalopes here, the beat-up cars that the car collector wanted, and he takes them and makes them into masterpieces.

What The Cross Reveals About Sin

SPEAKER_01 21:12

And the cross reveals how serious sin is. Sin, how how serious sin is. A lot of times we get into our Christian mode and we're like, okay, yeah, but I'm forgiven, and you know, and and Christ died for my sins, blah, blah, blah. I know, yeah. Listen, sin cost the Son of God his life, and he never sinned. That's something to contemplate and not to just gloss over. The seriousness of sin. And if there, believe me, if there was another way to do what needed to be done, if there was a better way, God would have done it. But the fact that he did it the way he did, he doesn't make mistakes, and he does everything perfectly. So the cross of Christ, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the perfect way that God designed things to be done. God was not taken by surprise. God was not caught off guard. If there was a better way to bring redemption for us, he would have done it. Because he does everything perfectly. The cross shows how complete God's forgiveness is and also how costly grace is. A lot of people say, yeah, the, you know, the gospel, the gospel's free. Yeah, yes, the gospel is free to us, but it cost the Son of God his life. Never miss that point. Yes, we experience a free gift of salvation, meaning we don't have to do anything to be saved except to come to Christ and ask him to forgive us of our sins, fill us with his Holy Spirit and live through us. But there, oh yes, there is there is a cost to it that we don't have to pay. And I don't think we're ever going to completely comprehend the level of the payment. Because I often say one drop of the blood of Jesus is worth more than all the real estate in the universe. There's a lot of real estate in the universe. And one drop of Christ's blood is worth more than all the real estate. Yet he shed his blood for us.

Agape Love Demonstrated And Closing

SPEAKER_01 24:00

And my wife knows I'm a little crazy. And she's shaking her head. But you can tell a lot about a person by how they act. In fact, my wife went on a no, I I went on this retreat. I had to go on a retreat and I had to go away. So I left these sticky notes for my wife all over the place. Because I wanted to show her how much I love her. So I I I took the sticky note and I wrote, You're so cool, and I put it in the fridge. So when she opened up the fridge, she was like, Oh. And and I put one in the oven. You're so hot. I put one near the near the coffee cup that was that said, My cup runneth over with love for you. Like all over the house. All these days. So as she would just go about her day, she was getting another sticky note from me. And I even put one on the inside of the toilet lid, like, don't flush my love away. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I get dramatic like that. And so, but the point is, I was I was demonstrating, I was demonstrating how much I love her. And you could tell, you know, by my actions that I I through my demonstration of love for her, that I was I'm crazy about my wife. In Romans 5.8, it says, God demonstrates his love towards us. That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Brothers and sisters, let me tell you, that is the most radical demonstration of love that has ever happened. That's the most radical demonstration of love that has ever happened. Christ on the cross is the demonstration. And the word used is agape. They were talking about that this morning. Yeah. God demonstrated his agape love, his agape towards us, that while we weren't even on his team, while we were enemies of him, the demonstration was the cross of Christ. If anybody ever questions whether or not God loves them, oh my goodness, go to Romans 5. The cross of Christ is the demonstration. How much do you does God love you? More than you can imagine. And you can tell a lot about a person by what they do, not just what they say, but what they do. And look at what God, look at what our God did. When we were enemies, we weren't even on his team, he made a way. He paid a debt he didn't owe because we owed a debt we couldn't pay. This to me shows the character of someone that's unbelievably amazing, incredibly amazing. For him to go to such lengths. But he didn't. He said, Watch this. I'm gonna take he's the only contractor I know that uses broken tools to bring about what he wants. He's like, watch this. I'm gonna make a masterpiece with broken tools. No contractor is gonna do that. When I go to build something and I go to Home Depot, if they try to give me a broken saw, they're like, Yeah, good luck to you. Try to try to make something with a broken saw or a broken hammer. But God, on display of how magnificent He is, He uses broken tools to create his masterpiece. Amen to that.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

This program was made possible by the Plays on Word family of supporters. To find out more, check out our website at playsonword.org.