In the sermon 'Saved in this Hope', Peter Allison delves into Proverbs 17:22, exploring the profound connection between the heart and the body. He explains that the biblical 'heart' refers to our intellect and mind, rather than emotions, while emotions are associated with the bowels or intestines. The sermon highlights the mind-body connection, emphasizing that our thoughts and spiritual state significantly impact our physical health. Allison discusses the duality of spirit and body, describing it as a 'duplexity' rather than a dichotomy, where the heart (mind) and body interact closely. He further explores the effects of sin on this relationship, noting how sinful habits formed in the body can persist even after spiritual regeneration. The sermon underscores the ongoing battle between the renewed mind and the sinful habits of the body, drawing on Paul's struggle in Romans 7. Despite this struggle, there is hope in the process of sanctification, where the renewed mind can retrain the body into new, righteous habits, aided by the Holy Spirit. This process leads to the redemption of the body, a hope that is both assured and anticipated in the Christian faith. Ultimately, Allison encourages believers to maintain a joyful heart, as it is beneficial like medicine, and to avoid anxiety, which can have detrimental effects on the body.

Now please turn with me in your copy of God's Word to Proverbs chapter 17. I had intended last week to finish this chapter, this Lord's Day, but I had wanted to say more about verse 22. So last night I decided to go back and pick that verse up and look at it in more depth. So this morning we will go back to that verse that we flew over last week. Verse 22.

Hear God's word. A merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. The grass withers, the flower fades and passes away, but the word of God endures forever. It is true. May God be praised at the reading and the hearing of His Word.

Almighty Heavenly Father, Your Word is true, refined seven times. It is right, even though it contradicts the words of every man. Your Word is true and righteous altogether. We ask that you would instruct us this morning out of your Word, that you would open our minds to behold the wonderful truth that is in your word. For we confess, Father, that by nature our minds are blinded to the truth of your word.

We ask for your Holy Spirit this morning to anoint our understanding and to anoint these sinful lips that they might proclaim the wonders and the riches of your grace. May Christ be exalted here in our midst this morning. In His name we pray. Amen. Well, have you ever gotten a love note, Maybe a Valentine, maybe a card from your spouse, your husband or your wife, or even somebody in your family.

Maybe your children. Have any of them ever said, I love you with all my intestines? No, probably never got one. I never got one like that. But people have said I love you with all my heart.

A merry heart does good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones." This mind-body connection is well known, but not well understood. It's well known, everybody recognizes that it's there, but we don't understand it. So, this verse is speaking directly to that connection. This connection between our heart, what it's saying our heart, and our body. What goes on in our heart affects our body.

But if we're going To understand this passage, we first need to understand what the Bible means by heart. It's not referring to this organ that is pumping blood directly. It's not referring to what we think of as the seat of our emotions when we say, I love you with all of my heart. Bible doesn't talk that way. The Bible refers to our guts, our intestines, our bowels, as that seat of our emotions.

In the Bible, if you loved somebody very deeply, you said you loved them with all of your intestines. Just think about it, just look with me a minute. You might be surprised. Remember when Joseph received his brothers? That he hadn't seen for years?

The very brothers that had sold him into bondage. And they came and they didn't realize who he was, but he knew who they were. Remember he was overcome with emotion as they stood desolate before Him, broken, suffering under famine, in need of the food that He could give them. And it says that Joseph made haste, for his bowels did yearn for his brothers. And he sought where to weep, and he entered into his chamber and wept there.

His bowels, his intestines, yearned for his brothers. He loved his brothers with all of his intestines. Remember the harlot? Yes, you can laugh, it's different. But if we're going to think biblically, We have to orient our mind and our thinking and our vocabulary to be biblical.

Remember the harlot who stood before Solomon? The one whose baby was the live baby? These two prostitutes had babies and one laid on her baby, and so she stole the other mother's baby. And they're before Solomon. And the one woman whose baby was living said, no, give it to this other woman, because she loved that child and she didn't want to see that child killed when Solomon said, well divide the living baby in two and give half to each mother.

And it says, then this woman spoke, who was the living child, under the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son. And she said, O my Lord, give the living child, and in her wise slay it. She loved that son, her son, with her guts. But this gets even more dramatic. In the Song of Solomon, The song of Solomon speaks of marital love in more depth than any other book of the Bible.

It describes the affection that a husband and a wife have for each other. It even describes the physical act of marriage in three places. And this woman in this love song in the Song of Solomon says, My beloved put his in his hand by the hole of the door, And my bowels were moved for him. She loved her husband with all of her bowels. In Jeremiah, God is bringing judgment upon Israel.

Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore my bowels are troubled for him. I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord.

The Lord loved this wayward son, Ephraim, and said, his bowels yearn for him and he would have mercy on him. My lamentations too, 11, my eyes do fail with tears, My bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth for the destruction of the daughter of my people." It's not just the Old Testament, it's in the New Testament too. Paul told the Philippians, "'For God is my record, how greatly I long after you in all the bowels of Jesus Christ." Or Colossians 3, We, we, Paul exhorts us, as the people of the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on therefore bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, and suffering. Today we might say, put on a compassionate heart. But that's not what the Greek says.

Some translations have said put on a compassionate heart. But the Greek says put on compassionate bowels for each other. Philemon, that letter that Paul wrote to Inesimus, for we have great joy and consolation and love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by you. But even John, in that book that we call the love letter, John in his epistles speaks probably more about love than many other places. He says, but whoso has this world's good, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his bowels of compassion from Him, how dwells the love of God in Him?

If you see a brother in need and you don't love him with your bowels of compassion, then John says, how can the love of God dwell in you? See, It's not the heart that the Bible speaks of, of loving. It's with our bowels. The heart in the Bible is not so much the seat of this emotion. It's rather the seat of the intellect.

It's the seat of the mind. And so the heart-mind dichotomy is really not a biblical dichotomy at all. In the Bible, the dichotomy is between the heart and the body. The heart is the seat of the intellect. In that sense it's the organ that is used to refer to our mind.

So look at this comparison in the Bible. Matthew 15, 8. Jesus said, this people draws near unto me with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away. With their body they are drawing near. Their lips which you see, their mouth which you can hear, these things are saying the right things, it sounds right, but it is saying their mind, their heart is far away.

Their mind, with their thoughts and their intentions of their will, are far away from me. But even in salvation, this heart and body distinction is talked about in Romans 10.10, which talks about salvation. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. What is believing? The organ that is said to be believing is the heart.

This is the intellect, this is the mind, this is where our thoughts and our will is said to originate. Believing is a function of the mind. Confession is something that is done with the lips and with the body. Proverbs 16-23 says, the heart of the wise teaches his mouth and adds learning to the lips. The heart is teaching the mouth, not the brain teaching the mouth, the heart is teaching the mouth in the Bible.

That's the duality and it's really not a dichotomy, it's really a duplexity. Dichotomy is something, a division where two things are separated. A duplex is a house where two sides are brought together. They are in union with each other. That is really what this is.

We have a heart-body duplexity. And It is the heart that teaches our mouth what to say. The mind of the wise teaches their body. Jesus said in Matthew 15, 19, it is out of the heart that proceed evil thoughts. Wait a minute, the heart is thinking.

He didn't say out of the brain comes evil thoughts, it's out of the heart that comes evil thoughts. Murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies. These things proceed out of the heart because the heart in the Bible is the seat of our intellect, our thoughts. Solomon said in Proverbs 4.23, Solomon said in Proverbs 4.23, Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Out of the heart we think.

Proverbs says that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. It doesn't say as he thinks in his brain. As he thinks in his heart, so is he. This is something that is hidden. This heart is hidden from other people to a large extent.

But it is accessible to God and seen by God. The Lord said to Samuel, when Samuel was going to anoint the next king of Israel after Saul, and he has gone to the house of Jesse, the son of Ubin, And he is going through these sons, and Jesse had a lot of sons. He's gone through a number of sons that looked good. They looked intelligent. They looked handsome.

They looked capable. They looked kingly. But God told Samuel, don't look on his countenance or on the height of his stature. Don't look at these guys, their physique. Because I have refused him.

For the Lord sees not as man sees, for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." The Lord sees our heart. He looks at the thoughts of our mind. That's what he's saying here. When he looks at our heart, he's looking at our mind. He sees into our mind that which is not visible to us is visible to the Lord.

He looks on it. He looks in the thoughts. Are they evil thoughts, as Jesus said? Murders, adulteries, or are they righteous thoughts? The Proverb says the thoughts of the righteous are right.

Jesus asked the Pharisees when they thought he had blasphemed and forgiven the sins of an invalid. He saw his faith and said, your sins are forgiven. The Pharisees are thinking, and Jesus perceives their thoughts and he says to them, why are you thinking evil in your hearts? Thinking in your heart. The Bible says that we think in our heart.

Good or evil. So in the Bible view of man, we have these two parts. You probably all know that. We're created with two parts. We're created with a body and with a spirit.

The spirit is that immaterial part of us. You can't see it. It's the immaterial part of man when it's not connected or associated with the body. And the body is that material or fleshly part of man when it's not connected with the Spirit. Remember when Jesus came in to see the disciples after he had risen and they were gathered in the upper room that night after he had walked with the disciples on their way to Emmaus.

They thought they were alone in this room and Jesus all of a sudden appeared there and came right through the door. They thought they saw a ghost and He said to them, Why are you troubled? Why do thoughts arise in your hearts? There again, thoughts in their hearts. He said, Behold, my hands and feet, that it is I myself, handle me and see.

For a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have. A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. So when our spirit and our flesh are joined together, that body and that spirit form a living soul. Now you say, how can material flesh be joined with immaterial spirit? How can you put that together?

They're two things that don't go together. You can't put them together. If you know metallurgy, You may be aware that you can't just take two different metals and melt them and mix them together. They're not necessarily going to mix. They may just stay separate.

If they have different densities and things, they may not go together at all. How do you put a spirit and a body together? But that's exactly the miracle that God performed at creation when He made man. God joined our spirit and our body. Two things that don't mix.

Genesis says, Genesis 2 says, that God formed man from the dust of the earth, shaped his body, and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. The body, the flesh, and the spirit joined together, produced a living soul, nephesh. The creation of life then. God created life. He is doing this miraculous joining of flesh and spirit to form a living soul.

James tells us that The body without the Spirit is dead. And so death then is the separation, the undoing of the creation of life, the separation of the Spirit from the body. And so we in the Bible, we as people, as living people, flesh and spirit joined together, are referred to as souls. Remember Hebrews 13 says what? Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities.

It's not talking about some immaterial part of us that is supposed to be subject to the King. That's a command, so we could probably better say it. Every soul must be in submission to the King. Every soul. It's referring to us, body and spirit together.

Our mind and our flesh are to be subject to the governing authorities. Luke reports in Acts 27, remember in the ship that Paul was put on when he appealed to Caesar, the ship that carried him to Rome, it sank. And Luke reports in Acts that there were 276 souls on that ship. He wasn't referring to some immaterial thing that was on that ship, 276 immaterial things. He was referring to flesh, blood, bodies, and a spirit joined together to create a living soul.

See, soul and spirit aren't exactly the same thing. A spirit, Jesus said, does not have flesh and blood. And so, we talk about God the Holy Spirit, because God is a Spirit. But We don't talk about God the Holy Soul. God is the Holy Spirit.

He doesn't have a body. We have this union of a spirit and a body, and that is a soul. The essence of life then is the soul. And so when we die, as James says, the body and spirit are separated from each other. We are said to go to heaven.

David speaks about that hope that he would see his son in heaven. Hebrews 12, when it speaks about us coming to worship, it says we haven't come to a mountain, that's Sinai, that smokes and fires and so on. He says, we've come instead, and he describes a heavenly picture. And one of the things there, along with Jesus the mediator and God the Father and the hosts of heaven and so on. One of the things that's described there is the spirits of just men made perfect.

These are the people who have died and gone to heaven, that we are said to be gathered together with, coming to, into their presence, when we are gathered here in corporate worship. But it's the spirits of just man made perfect. The Bible speaks about our souls being in heaven because that is the essence of us, the essence of life. When somebody dies and their spirit leaves, and their body is left behind, That's not them. That's not them.

They're gone. And so in the Bible then, this heart, when the Bible speaks about heart, It has reference to this immaterial aspect of us, this spirit or soul. It's the inner person that can't be directly seen, but which God sees. And this inner person is contrasted with our body, our lips, our mouth, and so forth. And it is here, in this inner man, that our thinking is said to occur.

And What about the brain? The Bible never says anything about our brain. We in our culture today talk all about our brain. And we think of it as the seat of our thinking. But I think it's very interesting that nowhere in the Bible does it talk about our brain.

It's not in the Bible. Heart is, guts are, liver, but not a brain. Did they not know about the brain? No, they knew about the brain. God knew about the brain.

He made it. The brain is our computer, but it's not the programmer that directs what that computer does. A computer just sits there until somebody programs it. And our brain is, in a sense, just a computer. It's part of our body.

It's the computer of our body. But what drives the brain? What makes the brain work and do what it can do. That's our mind. Wilbur Penfield was a very famous neuroscientist.

He spent the better part of 30 years cutting off holes in people's heads and cutting off the tops of their heads and putting electrodes into their brains and measuring all the electrical signals that exist in the brain. He wrote a very remarkable paper that's become very famous, delivered in 1961 at a conference on the mind in San Francisco. He described some of his research there, where by touching the right area of the brain, he could cause people's arms to move. He could control their arm by figuring out where in their brain to touch his electrode. That's quite an accomplishment actually.

In fact, that's where we get the word brain surgery. And he asked one of his patients why he moved his arm, why the patient moved his arm. And the patient replied that he didn't. I didn't move my arm. He said, you moved my arm.

And he writes, once when I warned a patient of my intention to stimulate the motor area of the cortex of the brain, he said, okay, I'm going to stimulate your brain, I'm going to make your arm move, and I want you to keep your arm from moving. Okay, I'm going to try and make your arm move, I'm going to be playing around in your brain, and I want you to keep your arm from moving. I'm going to try and make your arm move. I'm going to be playing around in your brain. And I want you to keep your arm from moving.

And so this patient seized his arm with his other hand and tried, struggled to hold it still. And so thus we have one hand under the control of this electrode, fighting against the other hand that's under the control of this man's mind. But they were both using the brain to direct the muscle movement, to create the voltages that are needed to move the muscles. But who was controlling what arm? The man's mind was not controlling this arm, but his mind was controlling the other arm.

And so he says, thus one hand under the control of the right hemisphere, driven by an electrode, and the other hand, which is controlled to the left hemisphere, were caused to struggle against each other. Behind the brain action of one hemisphere was the patient's mind, behind the action of the other hemisphere was the electrode. So we concluded there are as you see many demonstrable mechanisms in the brain. They work for the purpose of the mind automatically when called upon. But what agency is it that calls upon these mechanisms?

He realized there is a question here, A fundamental question here. Yes, we can make the brain do all sorts of things, control muscles, but what is causing the brain to act? What agency calls upon these mechanisms, choosing one rather than another? What is telling the brain, well, move this arm and not the leg or the other arm? There's something else, he realized, that's outside of the brain.

The Bible tells us. It's our mind. It's our heart. He says, is it another mechanism? Or is there in the mind something of a different essence?

There is. The Bible says there is. There is a whole other essence to us. That of the Spirit. And that is where our thinking comes from.

That is where evil thoughts come from. Sin arises out of the thinking of our heart. That's why we're to keep our heart, our thoughts, our mind, for out of it spring the issues of life. He goes on to talk about another man by the name of Kornhuber, discovered the existence of electrical potentials generated in the brain following the exercise of the will to action and prior to the actual performance of the motor activity. What's he saying?

He's saying, I could go into somebody's brain and time and record electrical signals that form after the will decides to do something, but before the body is able to carry it out. There's a delay there. It's short, but it's a measurable delay. It's called the reaction time. If you've ever taken any class dealing with safety or factory safety or any sort of safety, you have to account for this delay, this reaction time, between when the mind decides to do something and the body's ability to carry it out.

Well here's a man who is able to measure that delay in the brain. He could see the signals arise in the brain at the formation of, at the will's formation of the desire to do something, and he could see the signals happening before the body responded. And he says, between the conscious act of will and the activity resulting from it, he consistently observed a measurable interval lasting a few seconds or less. During this brief but highly significant interval, there is a flurry of electrical potentials over a wide area that gradually centers or concentrates the signals, which bring about the movement willed. He says the delay between willing and the willed movement is quite measurable.

The nature of the will and the resulting willed action correspond. But the problem remains as to how the neuronal impulses are set in orderly action by the will. One has to assume that there is a bridge of some sort across the interface between the mental world and the physical world. They realize in all their study of the brain that there is something else there that is controlling the brain, that is telling the brain what to do. They are realizing that they are at the limits of their scientific ability.

But the Bible teaches us exactly what they don't know. That is, we are composed of a spirit and a body. And it is out of our heart, out of our spirit, that the will arises, that our thinking occurs. And that is what is directing our body. Discover Magazine in 2007 had an article about the ten unsolved mysteries of the brain, and most of them deal with this mind-body interface.

How is information coded in the brain? How are memories retrieved? What are emotions? You know, neuroscientists can make measurements of the electrical pulses in the brain that are associated with all these things, that are associated with emotions, that are associated with thoughts, but they can't explain where they come from. They just are there.

They can't explain the very idea of why we are conscious, of consciousness, this awareness that we have. Where does guilt come from? They come from the spirit of man. They come out of our heart. This is a reality that can't be sensed by our physical senses.

The Bible speaks of it. A joyful heart does good like a medicine, but rottenness or a broken spirit is rottenness in the bones. The Bible teaches us very clearly that there is a connection between our thoughts, our mind and our body. It's a connection that we can't measure. When somebody dies and that spirit departs, We can't detect any change in weight from the moment that they die to the moment after they die.

The moment before to the moment after. We don't see anything depart the body. There's no mist or vapor. There's nothing that we can observe. This is a spiritual reality.

When God breathed into man the breath of life and he became a living soul, that is the point at which we become a man, a person. This is the point at which the mind enters the body. This is the point at which we receive life. Zechariah describes the Lord as, He who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him. That is the work of creation.

What is the earth set upon? We don't know. We can talk about gravity and all these things, but at the end of the day, what holds the earth up? God's power. What has stretched out to heavens?

It's God's power. What has given us life? What has put this spirit within us that animates and drives our body, that directs our brain. It's God's supernatural work of creation to give us life. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder, Jesus said.

But man sinned, Adam sinned. And as a consequence of that sin, the body and the spirit are separated. They're separated in death. And when life leaves, the mind leaves. That's not natural.

That is not natural. That is the result of the fall, the result of sin. We focus often on the spiritual aspects of the curse, the spiritual death, the legal liability that we have, but there are very real physical effects of sin as well. And we groan under these effects of sin. The effects of our sin and the effects of Adam's sin upon us.

Because Adam's sin is imputed to us. And we bear in our body the effects of Adam's sin as well. That's why an innocent baby that's one month old is subject to death. Because that baby is guilty of Adam's sin. Even we who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown within ourselves under the effects of sin on our body.

The body does affect the mind. A broken and sinful body is a drag on our spirit. In calling his disciples to pray In Jesus' hour of passion before the crucifixion, he said, watch and pray. They had fallen asleep, remember? He came back and said, can't you pray even one hour with me?

He said, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. Then he also acknowledged that the flesh can impede the spirit. He said, the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. The body can impede the spirit, because these two things are joined together. We may not be able to understand how that happens.

We may not be able to replicate it, but they are. They are joined together. And So the body and its fallen state does affect the spirit. It's hard to pray if your body is wracked with pain or overcome with extreme exhaustion. If you remove the pain and you get some rest, then you can pray more easily again.

That's one reason why we need to be careful on Saturday night, what we do, so that when we come to this assembly, we are able, our body is not dragging our spirit down and causing us to fall asleep. But the effect of the body is actually much deeper. See the body is a creature of habit. That's right. In fact, if all habits were removed from us, we wouldn't be out of bed yet this morning.

There are many, many things that we do out of habit that we have gotten to the point where we're good at them. Look at a baby trying to walk, it doesn't have the habit of walking yet. Look at a baby trying to just get out of a bed, it's a long process for them because they haven't gotten the habits yet by which their body is trained to do those things. Just think if we had no habits, no skills, we would have no bodily skills. All the things that we do without having to think about them.

Things that our body is trained to do. From getting out of bed, to putting the toothpaste on the toothbrush, to just walking, to getting dressed, to buttoning a shirt. Ever watch a child that doesn't have that habit try to button their shirt and you realize it takes them a very, very long time. But we can probably do it without even thinking about it. We're probably not even aware of when we did it this morning.

We just did. We put the shirt on and it was buttoned up and our mind was probably elsewhere thinking about other things. We can't live without habits. They're all around us. Or even driving.

Have you ever driven somewhere that you always routinely drive? And then have no recollection of that drive? We did it out of habit. We were thinking about other things. And our body is in a habitual mode, and we do all the things that we need to do to drive completely out of habit.

And maybe, you know, I've had that experience, and you just awake and realize, Oh, that's the exit I need. Oops, I better get over it. Because we were just running in a habit. Our body was operating out of a habit. Well, a sinful and fallen mind forms sinful habits in our body.

Habits that the body keeps even after regeneration. This is a problem for us, for believers. We have a war within ourselves. The sinful habits of our body, war against our renewed mind. This brain we have has been programmed in sinful ways.

It responds sinfully to things out of habit. A bitter word can slip out of our mouth. We can do something before we think about it. And then we realize, oops, I shouldn't have said that. Paul talks about this battle in Romans 7.

When he says, For what I am doing I do not understand, For what I will to do, that I do not practice, but what I hate, that I do. If then I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is my flesh, this body, nothing good dwells. For to will is present with me, I have a new heart, but how to perform what is good I do not find, for the good that I will to do, that which my heart desires to do, I do not do, but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I then find a law that evil is present within me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, This body that has habitual sinful habits, that responds out of habit and sinfully, bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members, in his body. His body has sinful habits. O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

So then with my mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." He's referring to our bodies and the sinful habits that our bodies have been trained in from our days before Christ and from the fact that we are sinners and that Adam's sin has been imputed to us. But thanks be to God, thanks be to the Lord Jesus Christ that a sanctified mind also affects the body And that the renewing of the mind leads to right thoughts. It produces the fruit of the spirit. It produces joy and peace. And these thoughts retrain and reprogram our mind.

So that a joyful heart does good like a medicine. A joyful heart brings health to our body in ways that we cannot understand. The Bible says very clearly that it does. That our heart, out of the heart come the issues of life. There is a connection between our body and our mind, between our thinking and our body.

So that as we are sanctified in our mind, as we are renewed in our thinking, as we put off this old man and these old sinful habits of the body and are renewed in knowledge, in righteousness, in holiness, in our thinking that has an effect on the body like a medicine. Does good like a medicine. Paul talks about this, the necessity of Christians to do this, to put off these old habits and to learn new habits and to put new habits into our body in Ephesians chapter 4. Therefore I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who having past feeling have given themselves over to lewdness to work all on cleanliness with greediness. Verse 20, but you have not learned Christ if indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus.

That you put off concerning your former conduct, you put off concerning these old habits of the body the old man Which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind And that you put on the new man which is created according to God in true righteousness and holiness We're to put off these these old habits and to do that that means we have to learn new habits. You can't unlearn an old habit unless you first replace that old habit with a new habit. A new habit that is coming from a renewed mind. A mind that has been renewed after the image of God. A mind in whom the Holy Spirit dwells.

Paul assured us in Romans 8, that if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." If we are in Christ, the body is dead because of sin, The Spirit is life because of righteousness. And if that Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, and if you are in Christ, it does dwell in you. We can know, we can have confidence that that Spirit will give life to our mortal bodies as He dwells in us. And so by the Spirit we are able to put to death the deeds of the body. By the Spirit, by the sanctified Spirit, we are able to retrain those sinful habits in our body and change those into sanctified habits, into good habits.

We are able to give life to this mortal body. The Holy Spirit gives us that power. We know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. And not only this, but even we who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. The redemption of our body.

That's what we're waiting for. It hasn't happened fully yet. But it isn't. It won't happen fully until we are glorified. But that process begins now.

We think of sanctification as having an effect on our spiritual side, but it also should have an effect on our body as our body learns new habits, as our brain is retrained by a sanctified mind to sanctified habits, to habits and patterns of acting that are pleasing to the Lord. Paul says that we have been saved in this hope. We are saved in this hope that we will see the redemption of our body. Something that has started now and is an ongoing process as we are renewed in our minds. But hope that is seen, He says, is not hope.

For why does one still hope for what he sees? We don't see it. Yes, we are certainly been justified. We are saved in Jesus Christ. But that salvation is not complete.

That there is more that we are hoping for, Paul says, is something that we don't yet see fully. And that is this redemption of our body. Because you see, the body is good. The Gnostics in the days of the New Testament and now said that the body was evil and the spirit is good. And anything to do with the flesh is bad, but That's not what the Bible says.

The Bible says that God created us body and spirit and that it was good. When God looked at all that He had made, He said it was good. That includes all the physical things that He made, including the physical body of Adam and Eve. They were made good. They were made with good habits.

We have been saved in this hope that God will redeem our bodies as well as our spirit and soul. And that we will be raised with an incorruptible body. And that is our hope. That is a Christian's hope. Not a not a improbable or a probable thing, but it's a sure and a certain hope.

It is that which we don't see. The faith is a substance of things that is hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. By faith in this promise, We have a sure and certain hope of our salvation that our body will be redeemed. But while we are here on earth, we are taught that we have to pay attention to this connection between our mind and our body. And that we need to be renewed in our thinking in Philippians.

We are said, we are commanded to rejoice, to rejoice in all things. He says, rejoice in the Lord always. Why? Because a joyful heart is good medicine to the body. It's healing to the body.

A broken spirit is rottenness to the bones. Rejoice always. But there's more. Be anxious for nothing. Anxiety is a concern coupled with fear in our thinking, in our heart.

And anxiety in the heart of man produces depression. And it has an effect upon our physical body, a detrimental effect. It produces stress. Stress is the result of anxiety in the mind having a detrimental effect on the body. Many physicians will tell you that stress is one of the biggest sources of illness.

What is that? That is a mind that is not renewed after the image of God, not renewed in its thinking. That is anxious, has fear, coupled with concern for something. Jesus had concern. He was distressed, but he didn't have fear associated with it.

He wasn't anxious. We are not to be anxious. Because anxiety will hurt our bodies. It will kill us. That's why in the confession that we read this morning, did you notice this section dealing with murder?

Dealing with the physical body? It had some comments in there about our mind and even cheerful thoughts. It's right in there. Read it again if you missed it. Because these things, our mind has an effect upon our body.

There is a connection there. So that's why we have this wonderful promise, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and mind. It will guard our heart. It will bring a calmness to our heart. God will guard our heart.

We are just learning today all that is in that verse right there about our heart and its place in emotions. It actually has in a sense neurons. The heart has its own neuron cells that talk to the brain. In many cases, they tell the brain what to do and what to think. It comes out of a heart.

There is the promise of the Word of God not to be anxious, but to go to the Lord with prayer and thanksgiving, and that He will supernaturally guard our heart with this peace that passes understanding and bring healing to our body, giving life to our mortal body through His Spirit who dwells in us. This is a wonderful thing that God has made. It's beyond our comprehension, this connection, the mind and the body. We need to believe the scriptures. That even though we can't understand it, the mind does affect the body.

A merry heart, a joyful heart does good like a medicine. But a broken spirit is rottenness in the bones. Almighty Heavenly Father, help us to walk by faith and not by sight. Help us to pay attention to these passages in your Word that teach us of this connection between our mind and the thoughts that we think and the anxieties that we allow to exist in our mind and how they do affect our bodies detrimentally. Father, how much Our bodies are affected by our own sin, by our own and grown, and labor as it were with birth pangs, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body.

Father, we Thank you that we have been saved and given in this hope. We ask for your Holy Spirit to dwell with us and to give life to our mortal bodies, to our flesh, to renew our thinking, That we might be more and more conformed to your image, and renewed in our thoughts, putting off our futile way of thinking and being trained in the school of Christ, having the mind of Christ. Lord may you so sanctify us and equip us this week that we might know the healing effect of your Spirit within us, Bringing life to our mortal bodies. Through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.