Having the Mind of Christ, Pt. 1 (04/10/2005)

Let's turn to 1st Corinthians chapter 2 verse 1. I'm going to speak to you for a couple of Sundays about having the mind of Christ Having the mind of Christ 1st

Corinthians chapter 2 verse 1 and Mostly today it'll set up it will set this up with this beautiful passage of scripture as we look at it verse by verse

Father we pray for this family who lost their daughter this week We ask you to give them the unusual strength that you do in times like this by your grace

We thank you that we have the confidence. This young lady was saved and she's with you now in heaven and So we ask you to give strength to her family and friends there at school

And her boyfriend and the different people that were so close to her and pray in Jesus name Amen It says and I brethren when

I came to you came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom

Declaring unto you the testimony of God this word testimony is The Greek word martyrion and it means evidence given something evidential evidence given

So the Apostle Paul says that he does not come with excellency of speech or with the world's wisdom but he declares the evidence of God So he considers the

Old Testament scriptures and the things that they had all seen and heard of the Lord Jesus Christ to be

Evidence and he simply declares that evidence to the world Verse 2 for I determined not to know anything among you

Save Jesus Christ and him crucified that reminds me of this same book

But over in chapter 11 verse 3 where it says But I fear less by any means as the serpent beguiled

Eve through his subtlety So your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ the simplicity that's in Christ I've met a gentleman a very wonderful man

This past year named Fred Hillsman who grew up a Latter -day Saint.

They don't like to be called Mormons I didn't realize that till I met Fred but they like to be called

LDS or Latter -day Saint and I've read all three four books on Mormonism I'm sure many of you have read some things about it and understand some things about it

But it's interesting hearing it directly from someone who is one you find out some of the things that you read and hear aren't true and But a lot of it is

But the sad thing to me about it. This man is so genuine seems to love

God Seems to want to live his life for the Lord Jesus Christ And yet is encumbered by their religious system so much and it reminds me this verse where?

they have been led away from the simplicity that is in Jesus Christ and That's part of what we'll learn as we study this chapter

The simplicity that's in Jesus Christ. We'll get to in just a few verses and you'll see it

But the group such as we think about Catholicism a lot in these last days the

Pope was Was he buried this week? I don't know which day Was it

Friday So Now the world is without a

Pope. Do you think we can survive for a few days? but Anyway, you know their system is so complex

I've had my mom led a very wonderful Catholic lady to the

Lord years ago and I was able to lead the two sons to the

Lord But they have a hard time pulling out of that system because all their friends their whole social structures in that church and These groups that we call cult groups and I would include the

Catholics in with that's the huge largest one that's ever existed They have ways to pull people in To hang on to them and they usually use legalism to do that to have sets of rules

If you step outside those rules there are threats against even your life and The secret

Rites and pledges that the Mormons go through in the temple that we're not supposed to know about but you can find books

Written by people who used to be Mormon priests who got saved later wrote a book about those things

So you can find out about them. It's amazing what they pledge and There's there's always

They get a new name in the temple and then they make a pledge and Then there is a warning that they receive and that warning says that your entrails will be cut out if you violate this

I mean those are serious So basically what is it's a brainwashing effort and it works

By and large it works on the people that get involved in these things There's a brainwashing and it takes an average of 16 months from the time a

Mormon And I'm sure it would be same same same with a Catholic if if such were to be saved and Come to know the

Lord. It still takes about 16 months for them to get their mind free and Have peace in their hearts because they're so entangled in that system

I just had the pleasure of getting a phone call last night one of the gentlemen that's in my company out in the

Boston area most of them are Catholics out there and He's a good young man that that works on our sales force and he called and confided in me some things

And I won't relate those but I will say this he said, you know, I've grown up a

Catholic he said it doesn't work He said I want to be born again, but I don't know anything about that.

Could you help me with that? I'm thinking let me pray about that. Yes Isn't that great so He's even he's gonna fly to Texas in a couple of weeks been

Weekend with us. He'll probably come to church here and his name's Anthony so you'll get to meet him

But when that happens, it takes some time even after they're saved it takes a long time to get the brainwashing reversed

Why because they leave the simplicity of the true God and They have man's systems and there's so much of it is psychological.

It's built into their psychology verse 3 now And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling and my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom

But in demonstration of the spirit and of power Why so that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men or of the world

But in the power of God now I'd ask you a question this morning some of you sneak the

TV on from time to time you look at some of the TV preachers, there's this new one now that's out of Houston tall thin young man talks more like this it preaches up here with a high voice and Sounds a little effeminate, but he's just very peaceful and I would ask you the question

How is it with all of this psycho babble and success solutions that are being preached today in this country that People are going to have faith that stands because if you look at verse 5

The Apostle Paul said I preach not with the wisdom of man Because I want their faith to stand in the power of God so if most of the preaching going on today is in the power of the wisdom of this world, which includes psychology and I don't know my men my mentor had four

PhDs earned PhDs two of them were were in council biblical counseling and He told me a hundred times if he told me once he said there is no place in Christianity for psychology

He said the idea of the Christian psychologist is a misnomer he said the only thing that works is biblical counseling and Yet most so much of the preaching today has just pure psychological principles in it

I studied psychology in college and many of you did so you understand what they are

And so when you hear them you recognize them when you hear a preacher Preaching and it's coming from the psychology books you recognize it

That's the wisdom of man when you hear them preaching on success principles That's from the sales manuals out there any of you have ever had to do with sales in business

Those are the principles you hear from the pulpit I've studied both.

I've studied selling I understand the discipline of selling and So I hear that recognize it from the pulpit, but you know what whatever they're hearing preach

That's what their faith is rooted in and Paul said that he said so I'm not going to preach these things because I want

Their faith to stand not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God so that brings us to Luke 18 7 and 8 and Jesus is speaking and he said shall not

God avenge his own elect which cry day and night unto him Though he bear long with them now that reminds me so much of us today

We hear the things going on in the news. We see the Shivo cases, and it's just going to get worse like Brother Otis said in Sunday school today, and we cry unto

God how long God How long will you wait before you stop all this and make it right

Jesus said you'll be crying that way in verse 8 Jesus says I tell you that he will avenge them

Speedily now, you know what the difference is the problem is here for us speed from God's viewpoint is different from speed and our viewpoint look back at verse 8 7 and Shall not

God avenge his own elect which cried day and night unto him though. He bear long with them

That's our viewpoint He bears long with us you ask him and it takes

God a long time You think and I think to answer those prayers

It's like he doesn't even hear us. Why is it so often when you read the Psalms of David? He's saying the Lord attended to my prayer because he thinks

God's not because he's having to wait God God has us to wait all the time because that strengthens our faith

Causes us to love him more cause us to be even more excited when the prayer is answered later

So from our viewpoint, he bears long with us He waits a long time while we're praying for the answer to come but look at it from God's viewpoint in verse 8

I tell you Jesus is viewpoint is this he will avenge them and he'll do it speedily

That's a contract from God's view if Thousand years is as a day to God if he waits 20 years to answer your prayer.

He still answered it speedily You see they see the difference in viewpoint so there's a great lesson learned in that verse and that is that be patient because God's timing is different than you want it to be and that I want it to be and You're going to think many times.

He's just not coming to your aid But he is he's already heard the prayer. The answer is probably already sent

From his viewpoint. He's already sent the answer And it's speedy to him. But look what

Jesus says in the end of verse 8 nevertheless, even though it's so that God is going to avenge his people

Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, so when is it that God's going to avenge his people by the way?

When the Son of Man cometh Nevertheless, he is going to avenge him. But when the

Son of Man cometh shall he find faith on the earth? Now why is that because you can't preach psychobabble and success systems and have people have any true faith

But that's what's being preached In fact any church that has more than about 35 people in it.

It's just wrong I'm kidding but I am jealous if they have more than that, but You know so many of the ones that you see where there are four or five thousand up out there and the guys up there

And you know slicker suits than this. I've had this one a while. I mean they keep the just awesome looking human beings

Now I don't like their feminine little voice as much but most people do especially the women

Some women yeah, I corrected that Diane Gordon some women Some women

America's modern women, you know, their best friends are gay guys And so they like preachers like that.

Now, what is that going to do to faith? Well, Jesus answers what it's going to do to faith at the end of verse 8 now

Let's go back to verse 6 in 1st Corinthians 2. How be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect Now we can talk about the simplicity of Christ a little bit here

What does he mean among them that are perfect I want you to we're gonna come right back into this passage up But I'd like you to flip over to Colossians chapter 2 verse 9

The this Greek word is translated into a couple of different English words. One is perfect.

One is complete It's the same word So you'll see the word complete in Colossians 2 9 and 10

But it's the same word as the word perfect found in 1st Corinthians that we're studying today How be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect?

Colossians 2 9 says for in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

So who we talking about there? Jesus and Look at this next phrase

It's very easy to read over very easy not to pay much attention to but it's extremely powerful

And it shows a dividing line between what? True biblical Christians believe and what the

Mormons the Catholics and so forth believe any Group and and the Independent Baptist. I'm gonna throw them right in with the

Mormons I've been reading a lot of books about Mormonism lately because of my new friend friend Reviewing all of that and What I find is that the more of the true

Mormon beliefs that they really do believe not Sometimes you'll have to be careful because some of those books are written by People that just hate

Mormons, so they don't even tell the truth in the books But if you really discern what they really believe it's not all that different than what an

Independent Baptist does from this viewpoint It's tied up in legalism That part is the same now there are some important differences that the

Mormons today believe in a multitude of gods and They will look at you in the same breath and this is what's amazing

They'll say but we only believe in one true God and You and you say well

Joseph Smith taught You know multitude of gods No, but we only believe in one true

God now see they've been brainwashed to believe it can be both ways at the same time Because when they say one true

God they mean for this planet for her So there's only one true

God that we worship and the truth is now this you wouldn't learn in the Mormon books They don't worship, but one

God But they believe there are others We worship one

God and believe he's the only God you see the difference But there are some similarities between them and in groups that we've been affiliated with They're caught up in a

System that is man -built that's added to what God gave us and the Independent Baptists are the same way in that area and So really if you're worshiping a group of rules, it's almost like a set of gods

It's not quite But the effect can be the same So what is the simplicity of Christ?

We'll look at this phrase in verse 10 of Colossians chapter 2 and we are

That means we stand that way now. It is not something we're growing into It's not a list of rules.

We have to learn or keep it's not Some philosophies that have to be taught to us and then someday we will be there

This is a standing that we currently have the word are is the same in the

Greek and it means present tense We are now today complete

How in him Period you can stop right there, but we won't because I need to use up some more time this morning and For me, it's fun because I'm up here and you're down there.

So I don't have to sit on that hard pew But It is easier to do the talking than the listening

I know that We are complete in him is the bottom line in Christ.

What does it mean to be in Christ? so a study of what it means to have the mind of Christ is also a study of what it means to be in Christ and What it means to be indwelt by the

Spirit, but also filled with the Spirit and All these things but the bottom line is we're already complete we don't need a system

We don't need a set of rules We don't need Standards, you've heard that one

Standards is the word that Baptists use when they want to be a cult group Standard what we're not legalistic, but we have standards here.

Well, what are your standards? Well, if the men have hair that touches their ears, we don't let them preach here My mentor had four earned degrees in theology and the founding pastor of this church wouldn't let him preach in this church because his hair

Touched his ear a little bit right here back in the 70s when everybody's hair was like that, you know

Now you're out of step if your hair is over your ears, you know but What are the standards?

Well ladies if you wear pants, you're ungodly Okay, so there's a standard now does that sound like a standard does that sound like legalism to you?

But you don't have brainwashed ears you see But if you've been brainwashed you couldn't even see it this way the way we see it

You would see well, no you you know The Bible says let not a woman wear that which pertaineth to a man you can't wear pants

Well, I don't know gentlemen, but to me ladies pants look a whole lot different than men's pants

So, I don't think they're way wearing that which pertains to a man gentlemen Do you want to go out and buy some ladies slacks and wear them around next week?

Are they that masculine that you would wear them? I don't think so But anyway, it's a brainwashing effect that takes place and they get away from simplicity of Christ What is the simplicity of Christ that when you receive him?

As your personal Lord and Savior And you're baptized or immersed into the body of Jesus Christ, and you are now in Christ.

You're complete You don't need any baggage with that. You're complete in him

You don't have to have all the others and the Bible tells us why that's true But this just tells us that it is true.

You are complete in him, which is the head of all Principality and power now, can you imagine that here you have one who is all of the fullness of the

Godhead in a body? That's Jesus Christ And he is now the head of all principality and power

Both seen and unseen both in the earth and in the heavens and you are in him

But that's not enough. You need a set of standards to go with that He just set of rules on top of that Then you just moved out of the simplicity that's in Christ Listen, you don't need to worry about Mormon Catholic Any of that independent

Baptist know that they're all the same as far as I'm concerned They're relying on human effort rather than Jesus Christ They're relying on human rules and systems trying to make their bodies be better and do good rather than walking in Christ Rather than having your human spirit merged as one with the

Holy Spirit so that you're one spirit that takes care of it all that's simple and That is complete and there's nothing that can be added to that Not only here, but in the heavenlies, there's nothing that can be added to that for us

So now back to the first Corinthians passage chapter 2 I'm finishing up verse 6 how be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect You see that's the same word as the word you are complete in him

We are those who are perfect notice even in the Corinthians passage it uses the word are which is present tense

Therefore it is a standing that you can't change listen, whether you have a set of rules and Live by him or whether you have a set of rules and you break them.

You cannot change your standing You stand as a perfect child of God in God's view today

What you do doesn't change that I've got five children and One of them may be more or less obedient than the other on a given day

But you know what doesn't change their standing one bit. I love them just as much as the other four what they do does not change their standing as being a child in my family and We are the same way with regard to the

Lord Now He says how be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect yet Not the wisdom of this world you see goes back.

He says I am NOT going to preach psychology. I'm not going to preach sales success techniques to the church

Nor of the princes of this world That kind of wisdom comes to naught

He says when you start looking at the people that have power around you. Do you ever covet that you shouldn't?

because Paul Says their wisdom is going to come to naught It will be found to be faulty verse 7

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery even the hidden wisdom

Which God ordained before the foundation of the world unto our glory which none of the princes of this world knew

For had they known it They would not have crucified the Lord of glory the Old Testament Saints didn't know it the kings of the day didn't know these this mystery.

What is this mystery? This mystery is what he's already been referring to that We can be complete in him without a religious system who had the greatest religious system was it the

Catholics? No, was it the Mormons? No, who was it? the Jews The Jews of Jesus day had the greatest just thousands of concepts that they had to keep

Little bitty details of laws that were created by these men Jesus pointed out several of them and said you say this but the

Bible says this several times. He said that to them But there was a mystery that they didn't know and that is the fact that in Christ.

We're complete without all of that This mystery of being complete in him was not clearly understood by the

Old Testament Saints I would say King David understood it better than anybody I've read in the Old Testament if for some reason

God opened his eyes to some of this beautiful truth And he understood some of it perhaps because of the sin that he had been through in his own life and how he saw that God loved him and his standing never changed

It's interesting that my Mormon friend and I love this man, by the way, he's just a remarkable human being

But you know what David is not one of his favorite Bible characters Isn't that interesting?

Why? David didn't do a real good job of keeping the rules and their

Their theories and systems are based on rule -keeping by and large. Oh, yes

They believe you must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and that his blood was an atonement But you better keep the rules

Well, we ought to keep the rules But how we keep them is what we're talking about this morning.

How does that work? Well, if we are complete in him and the world didn't understand this mystery then there's something to be learned verse 9 says but as it is written

I Hath not seen nor ear heard

Neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has all

Ready prepared for them that love him. What a beautiful verse that is especially in times of tribulation

You start worrying too much about your nation and the world in the direction direction is going to read verse 9 again

Whatever we go through No one can comprehend what

God has prepared for us in the next world with him well verse 10

But God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit.

What did he reveal to us? The very things he just spoke of these mystery these things that he's prepared for us

These gifts that he has given us God revealed them to us by his spirit for the spirit searches all things yea the deep things of God For what man knoweth the things of a man except the spirit of that man

Even so the things of God knoweth no man except the spirit of God Now, what does that teach us?

Just as your own spirit now listen to this. The Bible teaches this that your spirit is

Like a searchlight that searches your whole body Your own spirit searches the depths of your own thoughts in your brain

Your mind your personality your knowledge everything you have become in this life your spirit searches all that Sometimes it'll warn you about it.

Sometimes Everything's peaceful But sometimes you hear two contradictory voices in your mind don't you one of them is just simply the brain part of you the

Personality everything you have both bad input in it and good input and that part has not been saved yet By the way, that's the old man.

And then the other voice you hear arguing against that is you Which is the spirit being that lives in this body?

And so when you hear yourself talking to yourself, that's your spirit which is the real you talking with your personality and yourself, which is generated by this amazing brain that God has built for you an amazing computer in Which your spirit dwells

But it can talk back to you and it is what we call the flesh in the bad sense of that word but your spirit searches the very depths of those thoughts that that brain can produce and Can shed light on it?

Well, the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is like that with regard to God Not that there are any bad thoughts in God's mind

But God does have a mind and a personality. Therefore. We call him a person.

He's a personal being He's not an energy force. He is a person in that sense.

He has a mind personality and will and the Spirit of God Searches God and knows the depths of him

Now you want to think about that here because this is leading up to our study on what it means for us to have the mind

Of Christ, but just as your spirit searches you The Holy Spirit searches the depths of God Now isn't it interesting that the

Holy Spirit then comes and dwells in you what part of you do you think he dwells in? your mind

He brings the depths of God into you To your spirit

Now you can only understand the parts of that depth that he chooses to reveal But it's there

So if we want to have a first Roman numeral In this study, we would call it the preliminary necessities

To have the mind of Christ and the first point in that is this There is a revelatory ministry of the

Holy Spirit or you would never be able to have the mind of Christ the Holy Spirit comes into you and Brings the mind of God and begins to reveal him to you and we don't get the same revelation at the same time all of us

We have the same book But as we studied individually God reveals one thing to me one thing to you one thing to each of us

And we learn little by little That's why it's so important that we come together in fellowship because true fellowship is sharing what

God taught you With the other person hadn't seen that yet. It's a great joy, and that's not just the preachers prerogative

All of us can share the revelation that the Holy Spirit has given you that the other person hadn't seen with and it'll be meaningful to the other brother and help him grow without having to go through whatever

You went through to learn it perhaps isn't that a blessing? So without the

Holy Spirit revealing God to us. We would not know the mind of Christ or anything about God, so that's the first Preliminary now that brings us to verse 12

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God That we might know the things that are freely given to us of God These are these things both that are prepared for us, but also the gifts that he gives us now

You don't need to turn to this for sake of time, but in Romans chapter 5 it talks about a specific thing

That's given to us a gift Verse 18 says therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation

Even so by the righteousness of one the free gift

Came upon all men unto justification of life For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners

So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous

Righteous now the greatest gift that is freely given to us that the

Holy Spirit has made us to know about Is the gift of justification? It is actually the righteousness of Jesus Christ being bestowed to us

Being accounted to our account This is a gift that was not understood in the

Old Testament times It was a mystery they saw into it David could see a little bit of it

They could understand very little of it But as Jesus came he is the one who and through his

Apostles has revealed this and the Holy Spirit Reveals this to us through the New Testament Predominantly, then we can go back to the

Old Testament and see things. We wouldn't have seen though that are there about it They were mysteries in that day and they're clear to us now

One of the greatest free gifts is justification in other words the bestowing of Jesus righteousness on the believer himself

So that he is made unto God righteousness So if the first prerequisite is understanding that the

Holy Spirit has to reveal truth to us the second is The knowledge that we are justified we are made right with God This is part of the completeness that we have in Jesus Christ.

It is not something that we have to strive for We don't strive for justification

It's something we have it's a position that we stand in we are counted righteous before God now verse 13

Which things also we speak not in the words which men's wisdom teacheth, but which the

Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with Spiritual but the natural man cannot receive the things of the

Spirit of God For they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned

But he that is spiritual Judgeth all things yet. He himself is not understood by any man.

That's what that means So the third principle we see is a prerequisite is that one cannot dwell habitually in the flesh and Have the mind of Christ It would be impossible

Romans 8 5 says for they which are after the flesh do think about the things that are of the flesh and they that are after the

Spirit Think about the things of the Spirit Now verse 16 says for who hath known the mind of the

Lord That he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ Now that is what we're going to explore in depth next

Sunday What does it mean that we have? the mind of Christ It is not that we try to do what

Jesus would do. How many of you read the little book? I can't remember the title. It was a famous little book that preacher wrote back in the 1800s

It said always ask what would Jesus do remember that book anybody remember the name of it?

I can't in his steps Okay, well, unfortunately, that's not what the

Bible is saying here To have the mind of Christ does not mean to try to do what

Jesus would do Because try as you may in the flesh you will fail.

That's no different than having standards It's just a different way of saying it really But what it does mean to have the mind of Christ is that we possess his mind

We possess his mind Now that's what we're going to cover next time

But what does it mean It means that as the

Spirit of God indwells your body on the day that you're saved He comes within you and you have your own spirit and When you are filled with the

Spirit the two become one The two become one spirit just as a man and a woman in marriage the two become one flesh

In fact, the Bible uses that as a beautiful physical illustration of the spiritual truth

That the Lord Spirit and your spirit become one spirit when your spirit filled that Places you in the position of having the mind of Christ And we're going to look in in some detail at that next

Sunday. It's very beautiful Scriptures that we'll look at We'll also look at some verses that have to do with the actual attributes of the mind of Christ.

What is his mind like? What was his mind like when he was on this earth and I'm talking about the man

Jesus Christ. What was his mind like? We'll look at scriptures next Sunday that give us in detail the kind of mind he had and Then we'll close by looking at how do we have the mind of Christ and what's that mean for us?

So we'll do that next time the Lord willing We hope each of you will be here to hear the completion of this message.

Let's stand and have prayer together Father We thank you for this passage of scripture that takes us into the knowledge that we have the mind of Christ now

Lord, we pray that you would be with us as we continue to study to understand how to utilize this gift that we have

This marvelous truth that we as believers are complete in him and that we have his mind

Help us next time to learn how to apply this in our lives day by day so that we might bear fruit and Be true salt and light in this world that you've chosen to put us in and in these times

We ask you to bless our fellowship time in a few moments bless our meal together and we ask it in Jesus name.