Understanding the Gospel: Mind, Heart, and Will Integration

The Christian must engage their mind, heart, and will to fully embrace the gospel and grow spiritually.

### The Wholeness of the Gospel: Engaging Mind, Heart, and Will in Christian Life
* 🙏 A few weeks ago, the sermon focused on **justification by faith**, emphasizing its **importance for all believers**, not just those with a sensitive conscience.
* 📖 The essential doctrine teaches that true liberation and Christian freedom come through **grace alone, faith alone, and Christ alone**, allowing believers to **approach God with confidence**.
* ⚖ It is crucial to avoid two extremes: **indifference to sin**, leading to **self-righteousness**, and **excessive introspection**, which can cause a **troubled conscience**, both of which divert attention from **Christ**.
* 🧠 The sermon highlights that humans, made in **God's image**, possess a **soul that enables spiritual communication and responsiveness**, distinguishing them from animals.
* ❤ The soul consists of three components: **mind, heart, and will**, which must be **balanced and nurtured through the truths of the Gospel** for healthy spiritual growth.
* 📜 Romans 6:17 illustrates that Christian obedience is rooted in **understanding doctrine**, emphasizing the wholeness of Christian life where the **mind, heart, and will work together**.
* ✨ The Gospel must be presented in its entirety, as **partial truths lead to weak Christianity**, urging believers to engage fully with their **mind, heart, and will** to live a **robust Christian life**.
* 🤝 Lastly, believers are encouraged to gather as a church to spur one another towards **love and good deeds**, reinforcing the **importance of community** in nurturing **spiritual health and growth**.

Good afternoon, church. Now, a few weeks ago, I spoke about how justification by faith can be and should be useful to us. Now, I wonder how much you have used that message to enjoy and exercise your Christian freedom. Now, if you remember, I took pains to mention that justification is not merely a form of Christian doctrine that is only useful for believers who are especially sensitive in their conscience. In fact, it is the essential doctrine that is for every man who cares about being right with God. And remember, we spoke about Martin Luther, who suffered from a troubled conscience, not because he was over-scrupulous, but because he cared about being right with God. Now, man in his sin will find that by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, is the only way he could find true liberation before God. It is the only way he can enjoy the Christian freedom and boldly approach God's throne of grace with confidence to help him in times of need. So, let us be very careful not to fall into the trappings of two spiritual extremes, and one is that we become

indifferent to our sin. We become self-righteous just because we did not sin big time, and that being the case, because we only focus on some particular sin, we forgot about our whole sinful tendency and inclination, which Paul was always conscious about. Now, that's one extreme, and the other extreme will be that we over-introspect ourselves and suffer from a troubled conscience ourselves. Self-reflection becomes overbearing that we unknowingly often accuse ourselves, and in both cases, I would say we are not looking to Christ through faith. Instead, we are looking to ourselves. In other words, we are inevitably full of ourselves, and it only shows that we have not understood the gospel in all its worth. Now, we can be Christians for a very long time, but we can give in to either side of these extremes, and sometimes we could be Christians who can be right in the doctrine and erroneous in the spirit, or sometimes we fail to apply the doctrine in its right sense, and the result of it is we become

what I call confused Christian, and when we are confused, we cannot stand our ground against Satan and all his devices. We will inevitably become unhappy Christians or troubled Christians, which is a very ironic term. Now, and so this is where I'd like to bring in today's sermon about receiving the gospel with our mind, heart, and will. Now listen in our understanding of the Gospel. We must first know about our human makeup, our human makeup. Now, to be sure, we are different from the animals in all of God's creation. Only man was made in the image of God, and it is explicitly displayed through the way we were created. And remember how Man was created. Genesis chapter 2, verse 7, And the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Now notice a living soul. Now a living soul in the biblical sense doesn't mean a living thing. Now our school science textbook will tell us that living things are made up of cells, and then they will have the ability to

reproduce to grow, to metabolize, and so on. Now, all those descriptions fall under the Physical Realm, but what the Bible meant by living here is a spiritual connotation. It is a spiritual aliveness, a spiritual responsiveness, a spiritual metabolism in a sense that man can communicate with God, he can grow in faith in God, he can know the things of God, he can respond to God, and enjoy a personal and amicable relationship with God, who is spiritual. So many, besides his physical making, he is a living soul. In that sense, he is not foreign to anything that is of spiritual. So, what a wonderful creation we are. But, of course, we know sin made us dead spiritually, and Ephesians 2 tells us that when we were dead in sin, by God's grace, we were made alive in Christ. So, the Christian, therefore, is made spiritually alive, and he once again functions as a living soul, a soul that, I said again, responds to God, yields to God. So, in that whole sense, it is enough to tell us that man is peculiarly different from animals.

He is given a soul that enables him to not just live by instinct but to live with knowledge and consciousness of God. And that soul, as the scripture informs us, has three essential parts or components to it, which is what I'm going to speak in detail about now. These three components, with these three components, the Christian grows in knowledge of God. He communicates and responds to God, and these three parts, these three components, which are essential for the whole of our Christian encounter, are none other than our mind, our heart, and our will. And it is so important for our Christian life that we keep these three components healthy and balanced through being fed well with the gospel truths. And we must be conscious about the well-being of our soul by looking after these three components of ours, whether they are functioning well in terms of our relationship with God. Now, before I go on, maybe I should direct you to a verse to establish my case with regards to this soul-cal immaterial part of us, which is given us to connect with God. Now, Romans 6:17, Romans 6, verse 1, 17.

but thanks be to God. Though you used to be slaves to sin, now together you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. Now I say it again, okay, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching, or you could say a form of doctrine, okay, that has now claimed your allegiance. Now in this short verse, there is Paul's description of a Christian. Now if you read him intently about what he says here, you will notice that he is concerned to emphasize the wholeness of Christian life as well as the balance of Christian life. Now you get here that this life is a life which obeys. Now you get the word obey here. The word obey itself tells us that there is a will in us in which we make a decision to obey, all right, and then that obedience is from the heart. You notice that you obey from the heart. Now the heart in this sense talks about the emotions and the sensibility. When the Bible says love God

with all your heart. We know that love involves strong affections and emotions. It cannot be loving with the head; it's loving with the heart. And then lastly, you have obeyed what the form of Doctrine. You notice that, or we call it the pattern of teaching. Now, obviously, this involves what the mind and understanding. Now, you have to know the one whom you love and obey, isn't it? You have to know him. I'm sure when we are in courtship, the usual questions we will face from the other person is, Tell me, why do you love me? Right? We always want to ask why. And probably the lame answer to that question will be, Oh, I don't have a reason. Love has no reason. You, I'm certainly convinced that is a lame answer. There is always a reason why you love somebody, right? You know the person you love, isn't it? And you grow in knowledge of that person. Your love for that person grows, isn't it? And sometimes people talk about love at first sight. I

mean yes, that could be the experience for some people, but we know that kind of love cannot last. Love cannot grow when you do not know, understand. Love cannot grow when you do not know as you love God. You got to know him. You got to get your understanding of him right and grow in that understanding. Then you could love God. So now, if you notice now, the Apostle is emphasizing the wholeness of a Christian Life, the wholeness simply speaking. The whole man is involved: the mind, the heart, and the will. And there must be good balance in this wholeness. A lack of balance is one spiritual problem with Believers, and lack of balance meaning you are either too strong on the side of the mind but so little of the heart, or so much of the heart and less of the mind, or so much of the heart and mind but terribly lacking the will to obey God. You know, in balance, and this is what we call lopsided Christian, lopsided. You know, you know when you imagine you have you encounter

a stroke patient and suffer from this physical lopsidedness. Say, for instance, he suffers a serious stroke on his left side. Then, from then on, he leans on his right side as he walks, and that's not what a healthy physical body should be. And so, if we are spiritually lopsided Christians, we are not spiritually healthy, and that's my point. Now, I will elaborate more on this later, okay? Um, but before we go on, we want to ask what was parallel to this statement that the Apostle made. What brought the Apostle to talk about this? Now, if we follow the argument that was presented in the Book of Romans, the first three chapters talk about sin, all right? The first three chapters. And then, towards the end of the third chapter, Paul brought in the argument of the justification of faith, and that theme runs throughout till chapter 5. And at the start of chapter 5, Paul spoke out about the justification that brings about reconciliation with God, such that we Christians could be filled with hope and

joy even in suffering. And then, at the end of chapter 5, he concluded that all these came from the grace of God and how great the grace of God is. It is greater than our sin. All right, and now maybe we catch a glimpse of that in the 20th verse of chapter 5. Now chapter 5, verse 20. Okay, now let's read this. The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. The trespass might together, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more. Again, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more. Now that's the unimaginable glory of the Gospel of Jesus, because no one in his fallenness will actually think that the law will ultimately lead to grace. The law, being the law, is supposed to be punitive. The law is always meant to bring punishment for our sin. But who would have known that God has intended the law to point men to the glorious grace of God? But how does it work out? How does it work out? Now the law will show man every sin.

every evilness of his thought, the rebellious inclination he has towards God, the darkness in his heart, not just the deep but the evenness in him, in his mind, in his thoughts, that evil inclination. He is such a lawbreaker, and with the law, every sin is shown for what it is. And as man goes on breaking the law, sin goes on increasing. And what can man do about it? Nothing. Man can only be condemned by the perfect standard of God's law. But praise be to God because the good news is that grace, as a result, increases all the more. The magnitude of man's sin can never exceed the magnitude of God's grace. So in Christ, the more you see your sin, the more you are astounded by the grace of God. Now, how can anyone not be filled with gratitude when he has understood these truths, this doctrine of sin and grace? But then, as soon as Paul made that wonderful statement, something went wrong. Something went wrong. There came a rhetorical fallacy or an illogical argument about sin and grace being put up shortly at

the start of chapter 6. So, I point you to chapter 6 now, and just after Paul talks about as sin increases, grace increases all the more. Chapter 6, verse one says, What should we say then? Should we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Now, let me direct you back to verse one. Verse one says, What then should we say? Should we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Now, I don't know whether is it Paul could have second-guessed that his opponents would have responded this way to the great truths of grace, right? Or he has really, he what? Or is it that he really heard such argument being brought across by those who read.

his letter, whichever it is. Paul knows that after establishing the doctrine of justification by faith, there is a danger of living it as it is. Because someday, someone with his subtle and deceiving heart will come up with such fallacies and say, Well, if Grace comes because of sin, let's just keep on sinning so that the grace of God will keep coming, keep increasing. Isn't it good? Now, there might be people in the early church who argue like that, and sadly, there are still many who tend to do the same thing today. Maybe not in an outright manner, but subtly. You hear people say, Never mind if you've sinned; God is gracious. Never mind if you choose to end your marriage; God is gracious. Never mind if you just tell a little white lie; God is forgiving. You know, you hear this kind of thing. So, that's the danger of living a doctrine as a stand-alone in itself. It's just like the doctrine of predestination. If we were to say God has predestined the elect to be

saved through Jesus Christ. It is 100% God's work. Now, what will you get after that? Now, you will get some people who say, Then what's the point of evangelism since God does all the work? Now, we know that's a fallacy, right? Right, that's a fallacy because the right argument is that our evangelism will only be effective because God has predestined his elect. You get that? And through relentless evangelism, then we will be able to seek out God's elect. So, it is dangerous, as I said, to live one doctrine as itself; it doesn't hold. That's why Paul said there must be a pattern of teaching, there must be a form of doctrine so that truths are chained up, then it can be robust and well defended. So, here we understand why Paul says that you have come to obey from your heart the form of doctrine. These are doctrines involved in the understanding of the word of God, and you can see clearly what Paul was trying to do here in this instance of defending.

the truth was to chain the do of justification together with the doctrine of regeneration. So, here he says, Encounter now you who say we can keep sinning so that Grace can increase. Now you understand this: if we have died to sin, how can we live in it any longer? Unless, of course, you haven't really died to sin. What is your relationship with sin now in terms of a relationship with God? Is sin still your master? Is sin still having control over your mind and will? Have you died to it? And if you have died to it and risen with Christ, why are you still thinking that you could keep on sinning so that Grace could cover you? Regenerate people don't think like that. Regenerated people are raised with Christ so that they live a new life. You saw the argument, so that's what Paul says, right? Regenerate the people, they desire to live that new life, they obey from their heart the form of doctrine that claimed their allegiance. Saw that? So, with that, let me say something about why doctrines are important. Now it

is important not just for the sake of defending the truth. It is also vital for our faith in God. And remember, as I said, the soul is made up of three components, and one of which is the Mind component, which is of critical importance to our faith. If our faith is to be sound, we cannot settle for this inadequate and partial view of the Gospel truth. We cannot be thinking like this in one instance and like that in another instance when we are talking about truths. There must be consistency when we try to understand God and His gospel. It cannot be just a selective one or two things about God. Oh, God is All About Love. What about His righteousness? How does God's love work itself through His righteousness? Now, you have to understand this, then you will appreciate and understand why there are discipline in our lives. God disciplines those He loves. The righteous God disciplines you because He loves you and also because He is righteous. You see, you see that when we preach the gospel, we must preach the whole Council of God as

much as possible when we preach the gospel, we are giving a tremendous and consistent presentation of the truth. And let me say this as a very important note, and this is where I want to start with my first point, is that the greatness of the Gospel is one that comes in full. Now I say it again, the greatness of the Gospel is one that comes in full. It gives you the full counsel of God, and therefore it involves your whole life, the whole of History, the whole world. It tells about creation until the final judgment and everything in between. And that at the end of it, it gives us a complete whole view of life. Life, it leaves us with no choice but to choose between all or nothing. It's either I follow Christ with my all or I don't follow Christ at all. No inet, and it is the power of the Gospel when it is presented in full. It is not partial, it is not a peace meal where you can take it back and feel some comfort and consolation. You TI through

some troubles in life. Then, after that, you back to your old ways, your old dreams. No, no, that's not like that. The gospel is not like that. If that is the way the gospel is presented to you, that is why you never truly grow in your Christian life. So, I am not hesitant to say that one main reason why people are not receiving the gospel in full as a form of Doctrine is because preachers and evangelists these days, they just hate to teach doctrines. Instead, they love to give takeaways, you know, takeaways. Or, if not the doctrines, they taught lacks balance and wholeness. They just love to appeal to people through a superficial understanding of the Gospel instead of renewing their mind by the full counsel of God. Why? Why is that so? Because first, they are lazy to study the word. And second, because it is easier to appeal to people with partial truths. Why so? Because partial truths are accommodative. You don't have to die to yourself. You don't have to renew your

mind you, you don't have to unlearn everything that you got wrongly in the past and reconstruct your whole understanding of Christianity in terms of its values, beliefs, ethics, purpose, methodology, everything. See, partial gospel gives room for cherry-picking. You can be selective. You can be selective in the way you want to go about your faith, your life, your marriage, your career, your finance, your interpersonal relationship, your future, so on. Partial gospel, it's a weak Christianity, it's easy Christianity, so to speak. And to be fair, I would say also that the problem sometimes doesn't just lie entirely with the preachers and evangelists, but also with the hearers. Because as hearers, sometimes we can practice selective listening, and we know that's wrong, okay? And so with that, I'm going to bring you to the second point now. The second point, the first point I talk about the greatness of the Gospel, is one that comes in full. But with the second point, the gospel goel involves the whole of the person. I say it again, the gospel involves the whole of the person. And

this is the whole point I'm getting at since the beginning of this sermon. I want all of us to understand that whole men must be involved in receiving the gospel. I repeat what the apostles say: you have come to obey from your heart the form of doctrine that has claimed Your Allegiance. Now you see, man is an amazing creature. Man is the Mind, man is heart, man is, well, you get what I mean. His soul is made up of these three components. God has given him a mind so that he can know, and God has given him a heart so that he can feel, and God has given him a will so that he can act. Now that's the wonderful thing about man. He is not just driven by Instinct. Now he is not driven by instinct to survive, and in his attempt to do so, brings harm to people around him. You know, sometimes with our Instinct, we jum at people, we slander people, we become defensive, we become offensive. Now you see, Instinct just makes us harm one another, but if only

man knows how to think, feel, and will himself to the truth. He will not fall prey to his instinct. Let me just point out the problem here, the problem of being imbalanced with these three components, which is something very commonly seen among people, even among Christians. So, I'm going to dwell on a few cases here. Number one, I will see that there are some people whose case is only his head is in use. Now, you always see such people. Only his head is in use. He leans on the side of being intellect as far as the gospel is concerned. Such people are tremendously interested in the gospel merely as a point of view, as a form of Christian philosophy or Christian idea. They love Christian jargons and insights. Sometimes, they thought as long as they get their theology right, all problems will be resolved. Now, I've seen enough preachers in the church who just love to hide behind the comfort of theology. They do not wish to engage the crowd. They do not wish to know more about human issues or deal

with difficult situations. They took great pride in writing books that are being published by Rena Publishers. Their understanding of the Gospel is only confined to their studies. It didn't touch so much on their conduct and behavior. And these are the people whose sole interest in the gospel is probably theology, doctrines, metaphysics, and getting into arguments and debates. You see, my problem with these people is not because they are intellectual. My problem with them is that they let the heart component. Their hearts are often not touched to the cost of men. They are unlike Jesus, who had compassion for God's people. When Jesus taught the people, he went among them, he mingled with them, he ministered to them, he healed them. But we have a large number of intellects in churches these days whom I sense lack the kind of human kindness. They are men who are hard to approach. They are the kind of people you will never go to when you have trouble in your life because they lack the sense of empathy and understanding. And usually

When such a person faces death, you will see that they are in a terrible, frightening state because the gospel that they have argued and reasoned about has never really gripped his heart. So, the mind is important, but I do not wish any of us to just have the mind as only. We should not be in that state of imbalanced, okay? Especially, we should not be just full of the hate in terms of the Gospel. Now, be careful of this unbalanced situation. And then there are others, next others I will see, in which case the gospel only appeals to their hearts, okay? There only appeals to their hearts. And I will say this usually constitutes the largest group because these are commoners. They feel more than they think. Usually, in a church at large, you know, it's easy to spot these people because they are always looking for an emotional release. And sometimes you look at them, it could be that they have gone through some emotional crisis in their life. They have deep issues in their lives. They have committed some grievous sin, and they are still very much in guilt.

They tried to erase it from their memories, but they couldn't. And then they come a day, suddenly they have attended some Deliverance services, and they experienced some form of Liberation. And then from then on, they put their trust in such Deliverance. Their understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit from then on is chiefly sensorial. And because of that, they couldn't understand otherwise when people tell them, Hey, you got to learn the word to be guided by the Holy Spirit. It don't make sense to them. You see, I'm not downplaying what they've experienced. However, it is important that they understand that what they had experienced was only a partial, an incomplete experience of God. But their problem is, because of their experience, they become primarily focused on those partial emotional experiences. And in my dealings with such people, I often realize they're pretty interested in mysticism, in mystical phenomena. You know, some people, they are natural Mystics, always saying they see things, they see Jesus, they have some dreams.

you know God tells them to go to this place or that place to do His work. You know, mystical, and some grow to be mystical, some are born mystical, right? And so, be careful, and these are the people. They're very much into the heart component and usually, they are very much drawn and attracted to what is aesthetical, aesthetical. They are always moved by, wow, the grandness of the place. They are moved by music, you know, this good music. They are moved by sermons that are preached passionately. They are and they are moved by people who can tell good stories, interesting testimonies. They always talk about God's presence when they are moved aesthetically, right? Just because of the aesthetic feeling, they say God is here. What about when there's no aesthetic feelings, you ask? Sometimes when I deal with these people, I notice that they are people who could have gone through a hard and cruel past, and that's why they're looking to be soft and comfort in their hearts now. But I'm sorry to say that

these people seriously lack the conception of Truth. There are people full of the heart, but their hate is not engaged at all, neither is their will. They are contented to go on enjoying themselves emotionally, yet the sad thing is they have not learned to think things true. No Christian must learn to think, but these people have not learned to apply the truths to their mind and to their will. Rather, they are contented to go on with just feelings. Now, such people are seriously lopsided Christians, and a word of caution here, okay? If these people do not get out of these tendencies, there will come a time when they will face some real-life crisis, and they'll find themselves in deep trouble. They will become miserable and terribly depressed, and that is why you see an increasing number of people in the church who are depressed these days. And these people are not helped; these people are not corrected. Their ministers continue to feed them with what they want emotionally, and that is a real trouble, okay? And then number three, I would say

that there are those which mostly their will is involved only their will. Now listen, it is unfortunate that there are increasing practices in the church these days to merely provoke people to a decision. A decision: make a decision to believe in Jesus, make a decision to serve God, make a decision. You see, it's all about provoking the will. Pressure has been put on the will. Come on, see everyone is serving, let's serve the Lord, let's do it. No, you see, it's about the will. No, I've even heard pastors who said to non-believing parents, they say, Come on, you people believe in the Lord because your children have already turned to Christianity. Come join them and be of one religion together. You know, now to me, that's provoking the will because not much has been said to these people to help them understand the gospel. Not much has been said to help them understand their sin and the grace of God. And sometimes a popular tactic has been used in church to pressure unbelievers to say the sinner's prayer, and they've been told seemingly

all the good things about Christianity, and they were told that now you must decide, decide now, and all these blessings, peace, joy, good health, smooth sailing life will be yours, decide. So you see, so many people will either pressure or lead to decide to accept Jesus. They've never been brought to this spiritual desperation to realize there is no other way, there's no other way, such that they plead, Oh God, help me, oh Jesus, have mercy on me. You see, they're not brought to that; they only been provoked in the will. And the question I will always want to ask if people were merely pressured or led to accept Jesus, are they really saved? Now that's a very difficult question to answer. Okay now um and now if I may add one more critical understanding to the function of these three components. No, I would say now the order of it is very important, the order of it. It okay there is definitely a critical order about activating our mind, heart, and will in connecting and yielding to God. Now let's visit the key verse again, Romans

6:17 Though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the form of doctrine that has now claimed your allegiance. Now, do you see an order here? I don't know if you see it. What comes first? What comes first? No, I would say the form of doctrine came to them first because over here it says, Remember you were in slavery, you were in slavery. But what saved them? They were not simply moved emotionally in the realms of the heart. It isn't about appealing to their will also, but what came to them first? The truth came to them first. The truth, the form of doctrine, the truth of the Gospel were clearly presented and explained to them first. You notice that the way Paul does things, he didn't rush into appealing to people's emotions and will. He knew that his responsibility is not to provide results but to preach the truth. The truth about Jesus' death, Jesus' resurrection, the truth about sin, the truth about God's grace. You see, this gospel message, this form of doctrine, is

what we must get it clearly across to people with depth and clarity. And when these truths come to the mind, the Holy Spirit moves the heart. The person who hears it sees the sinful life that he is living, and he hates himself. And there you see the heart is engaged, and then come his will being appealed to, and he follows it, and he practices it, and he lives it. That's the way of knowing the gospel. There is no shortcut way of appealing to the heart, emotions, or the will first. And why are people taking these shortcuts? Why? Because they want results, and they want it fast. They are not faithful to help people understand the truths. Now, all of you know I shepherd the youths in our church. When I shepherd them every Friday, now I teach them the truth, I confirm with them the truth, and sometimes and often I ask them critical questions and make them think through the truths. Now, I know there are things that they could not have breakthroughs yet. I know, but I am fine to wait, and I keep reminding myself to be patient. Why?

because the objective in me is that I want them to understand why they should be doing certain things and why they should not be doing certain things. You see, the Christian knows why he is a Christian. He doesn't just say, Oh, I want to be a Christian. You know why you are a Christian, right? I want them, the youths, to know the truth and be moved in the heart and will to follow the truth. And in any case, if I find people having known the truth yet do nothing about abiding to it or obeying it, but willfully go against it, then I will either encourage or rebuke the person through the truth. It definitely involves emotions here, but the truth must be brought across primarily. You notice that a lot of parents, right, they SC their children, they shout at them. You know, the parents don't... the children don't understand what they're saying. They're just taking in their emotions. That's why they don't change. They're not being reasoned at. You get what I mean? Yeah, sometimes you have to

rebu them, give them your reproaches, but make sure they get the message across. They get the message in them, right, in terms of their mind. It's the same thing, you know, that's the way to nurture a life. When you nurture a life, that's the way to help a person grow in balance, in terms of his mind, and then the heart, and the will. And I would even say, right, that's the way we deal with people, not just a child. A child can be everything when you shepherd people. That's the thing you must bear in mind, the wholeness of a person, the balancedness, the mind, then the heart, and the will. Now I'm coming to the end. I want to end with some solutions. You see, I've took pains to emphasize about the wholeness of a person in his involvement with the gospel. So I don't wish to see only one or two parts of his personality involved with the gospel only. That is unhealthy. That is an imbalance. As I've said, the three parts of the person, I say, must

grow together. The mind, heart, and will must grow together; if not, the person will not grow well. We must not lack proportion in our spiritual person, and for that matter, we must be mindful about how we are growing in the Lord. We grow by what now? We grow by reading His word. We grow by prayers. Yes, these are the fundamentals of Christian life. But I want to emphasize here, we also grow through the communion of sins, or I would say the Gathering of the Saints. This is what I want to end with, okay? Now, if I may give a reminder here, I would say in our Christian growth, we must not neglect our church life. We must not neglect such terms where we learn the truths and confirm the word together as a church. Now, no matter how busy you are, make it a point to learn the truths together. Now, you ask why together? Because that is the way our mind, heart, and will can be ministered to in the fastest possible way. Now, let me direct you to my last verse of today's sermon, Hebrews chapter 10:

24 let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Spur one another on towards love and goodness, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching. If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of truth, no sacrifice for sin is left. Now, over here, the Bible speaks about spurring one another on in terms of love and good deeds, right? For a moment, we might think the Bible is talking about provoking the emotions and will of people here. No, because as you read on, you notice that it is done with the basis of the knowledge of truth, because it says here, after we have received the knowledge of truth. So, truth has to be taught and confirmed well, constantly. But if we were to stop at that, okay, if we're going to stop at just learning the truth at home, okay, just learning the truth by myself, staying

home you know just on your internet and listen to some celebrity Pastor Renown Pastor teach the reform teachings and all at the end of it. Now you may get something in your head, but you become individual Christians. You become very individual Christians, you see. So, in fact, it doesn't help you at all. You become only complacent. Yeah, you may have learned something in your head, but you may have just become complacent because you've learned a lot. That's not what the Bible teaches. You see, the Bible understands the sinful nature of men, and that would cause us to be hearing the word and not applying. We can all, we can sometimes enjoy the head work but not the heart work. We could forget the grace of God and lose that sense of gratitude easily. So, the advice which the scripture gives us is, having known the knowledge of Truth, we have to come together, spur one another with, to push one another to live by the truth, that is to love, to serve, to encourage one another, and we are told

that to have a sense of urgency as we do so. We have to leave every day as if the day of the Lord is approaching. There must be a spiritual urgency because the world is increasing in wickedness. It is not a place where we should indulge in. We must protect our mind, our heart, and our will from its corrupt values and beliefs. So, come together to remind, to encourage, to spur one another's heart and will in accordance to the truths that we have learned. Come, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the word that you have given us, and you have taught us clearly to really know our Inner Man, and that is to be responsible with the way our mind and our heart and our will connects with you and grows in you. And Father, help us if we have any blind spot in our lives. Help us be corrected by the message that you've just given us, and such that every one of us will grow spiritually in a balanced and Wholesome Way. Help us, Lord. We thank you in the

Yielding to God through the Mind, Heart and Will

The Life Church and Missions

The Importance of Justification and the Human Soul

Justification by faith is essential for every person seeking to be right with God, offering true liberation and Christian freedom.

Humans are uniquely created in God's image, with a living soul that enables spiritual responsiveness and a relationship with God.

The soul has three essential components—mind, heart, and will—which are crucial for growing in knowledge of God and maintaining a healthy relationship with Him.

The Wholeness and Balance of Christian Life

Paul emphasizes the wholeness and balance of a Christian life, involving the heart, mind, and will in the decision to obey.

Obedience from the heart reflects strong emotions and affections, while understanding the one we love is crucial for genuine love.

The Apostle's teaching highlights the importance of balance in spiritual life, warning against being lopsided in our focus on mind, heart, or will.

Man's rebellious nature and lawbreaking lead to an increase in sin, which is condemned by God's perfect law.

However, God's grace is greater than man's sin, offering forgiveness and a new life in Christ.

Paul addresses the misconception that one can continue to sin for the sake of grace, emphasizing that true believers, having died to sin, should live a new life in obedience to God's teachings.

The Gospel is crucial for a sound faith and must be presented in its entirety for true understanding.

A partial view of God's truth leads to inconsistency and weak Christianity, as it allows for selective listening and cherry-picking.

The Gospel's greatness lies in its holistic approach, involving the whole person—mind, heart, and will—in the process of receiving and obeying its teachings.

The Imbalance of Mind, Heart, and Will in Faith

Many people, including Christians, struggle with an imbalance between thinking, feeling, and willing in their approach to the gospel.

Some individuals focus solely on intellectual understanding, neglecting the heart's compassion and empathy for others.

On the other hand, many are driven by emotional experiences, leading to a partial and incomplete understanding of God's work, often becoming overly focused on mysticism and aesthetic experiences.

Many people in the church focus on emotions and willpower rather than applying the truth to their lives, leading to spiritual imbalance and increasing depression.

The pressure to make quick decisions for Christ often overlooks the need for a deeper understanding of the gospel and personal desperation for salvation.

The proper order of activating the mind, heart, and will is crucial, with the truth of the gospel being the first step in bringing about real change and transformation.

The Importance of Understanding the Gospel

Understanding the truths of the gospel is crucial for genuine heart transformation and life change.

The speaker emphasizes the need for patience and faithfulness in teaching and guiding others, especially the youth, towards a deeper understanding of their Christian faith.

The growth of a person in their spiritual journey involves the balanced development of the mind, heart, and will, and is strengthened through reading the Word, prayer, and communal gathering with fellow believers.

Spurring One Another Towards Love and Good Deeds

The Bible emphasizes the importance of encouraging each other towards love and good deeds, especially in the face of increasing wickedness in the world.

Learning the truth is essential, but it must be coupled with community and mutual support to avoid complacency.

The scripture urges believers to come together with a sense of urgency, reminding and spurring one another to live by the truth as the day of the Lord approaches.