I had occasion to point out, in a sermon on the preceding verse, that the Apostle is, in this context, making the transition from the doctrinal to the practical part of his letter, and that he lays down broad principles, of which all his subsequent injunctions and exhortations are simply the filling up of the details.  One master word, for the whole Christian life, as we then saw, is sacrifice, self-surrender, and that to God.  In like manner, Paul here brackets, with that great conception of the Christian life, another equally dominant and equally comprehensive.  In one aspect, it is self-surrender; in another, it is growing transformation.  And, just as in the former verse we found that an inward surrender preceded the outward sacrifice, and that the inner man, having been consecrated as a priest, by this yielding of himself to God, was then called upon to manifest inward consecration by outward sacrifice, so in this further exhortation, an inward ‘renewing of the mind’ is regarded as the necessary antecedent of transformation of outward life.

So we have here another comprehensive view of what the Christian life ought to be, and that not only grasped, as it were, in its very centre and essence, but traced out in two directions—­as to that which must precede it within, and as to that which follows it as consequence.  An outline of the possibilities, and therefore the duties, of the Christian, is set forth here, in these three thoughts of my text, the renewed mind issuing in a transfigured life, crowned and rewarded by a clearer and ever clearer insight into what we ought to be and do.

I. Note, then, that the foundation of all transformation of character and conduct is laid deep in a renewed mind.

Now it is a matter of world-wide experience, verified by each of us in our own case, if we have ever been honest in the attempt, that the power of self-improvement is limited by very narrow bounds.  Any man that has ever tried to cure himself of the most trivial habit which he desires to get rid of, or to alter in the slightest degree the set of some strong taste or current of his being, knows how little he can do, even by the most determined effort.  Something may be effected, but, alas! as the proverbs of all nations and all lands have taught us, it is very little indeed.  ‘You cannot expel nature with a fork,’ said the Roman.  ’What’s bred in the bone won’t come out of the flesh,’ says the Englishman.  ’Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?’ says the Hebrew.  And we all know what the answer to that question is.  The problem that is set before a man when you tell him to effect self-improvement is something like that which confronted that poor paralytic lying in the porch at the pool:  ’If you can walk you will be able to get to the pool that will make you able to walk.  But you have got to be cured before you can do what you need to do in order to be cured.’  Only one knife can cut the knot.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ presents