Have The Mind Of Christ Jesus

Have the Mind of Christ Jesus

Please stand with me as we go over our current memory Scripture:

Matthew 5:6-8

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

And our memory Scripture “refresher” verse is:

1 John 1:5-7

“This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.

“But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.”

Today we will be reading from Philippians 2:1-11

Do you like clear, concise directions?

Generally men and women give directions differently. A man might say, “Go down the road for two miles and turn right onto Main Street and then take the third left onto Temple Street. Whereas as woman might say, “Keep on going the way you’re headed until you see a Tops grocery store and turn right. Then, turn left right after you pass the Burger King that’s on your right.”

One set of directions may make more sense to you but less sense to me and vise versa. Both could be right and both could get you to your destination.

Do you suppose that the Lord was thinking about how different people process information from one another when He inspired the writers of the Bible? I imagine that the Great God of Heaven and Earth considered every option when He communicated His Word to us.

That is why He was making a clear and direct point when He gave this instruction to us through the apostle Paul in Philippians 2:1-11

(prayer for help)

Let’s look at verse 5,

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus …”

Here, the Holy Spirit is speaking to all believers when He says, “In your relationships with one another …”

Here He is setting up the target audience. He is not just speaking to men and He is not just speaking to women; He is speaking to all believers.

If you are a believer in Jesus, this following command is directed to you and it is directed to me.

On the surface it looks as if this command is directed for interaction between believers and it truly is. But when we place it in the full context of the Bible we understand that it is also a command that should be in place when we interact with unbelievers as well.

So we have a command that is for all believers. It is a blanket command covering all believers in all situations.

So what is that command? The command is this, “we should have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”

So what does it mean that we should have the same mindset as Christ Jesus? It seems rather ambiguous doesn’t it?

I mean Jesus had a lot of different emotions for different situations right? Sometimes with His disciples He was exasperated. Sometimes with the Pharisees He was angry. We see that when He entered into Jerusalem He wept and He wept when Lazarus died. We know the He loved of the apostle John.

Yes we know that Jesus had a lot of different emotions. But are these the mindset of Christ Jesus or the mind of Christ? No they are not, but what we see throughout Jesus’ life is one consistent mindset. What was His mindset?

Let’s take a look at verses 6-8 to find out.

“(Jesus), being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient (to the point of) death - even death on a cross!”

His mindset was this, “He humbled Himself”. Jesus was humble. Just try to imagine this, the God who spoke everything into existence, the God who said “Let there be light” and there was light, the God who raised up a nation from a pair of 90 year olds, the God who caused a sea to be parted so that a nation could pass through on dry ground, the God who is worshiped and adored by ten thousand times ten thousand angels at one time; this God humbled Himself and became obedient to God the Father to the point of death - even death on a cross.