The Mind of Christ
GRACE
I’d like to begin with a question:
Why did God make us?
Before we address that question, allow me to recommend some classic books on the subject we’re about to examine, Some books about Grace:
All of Grace Charles Spurgeon
The Cost of Discipleship Dietrich Bonnhoffer
What’s So Amazing about Grace Philip Yancy
The Gospel According to Grace (Romans) Chuck Smith
Now, I’ll repeat the question, “Why did God make us?”
We’ll consider the answer later.
Paul had a message for the Philippian Church, and I think that message was central to the Good News of Jesus-and especially for us during the Christmas season.
Philippians 2
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
(Let this mind be in you which is also in Christ Jesus.)
Who, 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 death—
even death on a cross!
. . . Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky
The message today is about Grace, and the outline spells the word
Grumbling (Stop)
Grateful (Be)
Attitude (the Mind of Christ)
Cross (our destination)
Elation evermore (extreme generosity-& our reward)
So, we begin with
Grumbling (stop) & instead, be
Grat(c)eful
Grateful is Graceful spelled with a T
Philippians 4:6
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
All of us like this virse, I think. I think many of us may have also memorized the following:
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.”
1 Thessalonians 5:18
Give thanks IN all things. & I’ve actually heard and read sermons that say, you may not wanna give thanks FOR all things, but IN all things we know that Romans 8:28 still applies (He is working all things together to our good—so we can be grateful in all things, though, maybe not for all things).
But, the Bible does not give us any escape from gratitude. . . Paul also said:
“Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Ephesians 5
The way to overcome an attitude of grumbling is to replace grumbling with gratefulness. . . & we become grateful most effectively when we are communing with our LORD consistently in prayer.
So
Prayer is the key to the best, most spiritual, grateful attitude.
And prayers are profound in our relationship with God-He is anxious to answer us.
That’s why Lewis said:
“Our prayers are heard . . . not only before we make them but before we are made ourselves.”
C S Lewis (Letters)
I know. I always have to quote CS Lewis. Here’s another quote. See if you can guess who wrote it (maybe one of the authors mentioned at the beginning of the message?) A great American preacher taught that prayer and gratefulness are woven together:
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!”
The preacher was Abraham Lincoln
How do we turn grumbling into gratefulness?
Pray about everything with thanksgiving.
Again, Pray about EVERY THING
“as those who do not turn to God in petty trials will have no habit or such resort to help them when the great trials come, so those who have not learned to ask Him for childish things will have less readiness to ask Him for great ones. We must not be too high-minded. I fancy we may sometimes be deterred from small prayers by a sense of our own dignity rather than of God’s”. –CS Lewis
So, we return to GRACE
Grumbling (Stop)
Grateful (Be)
Attitude (the Mind of Christ)
How do we develop the “Mind” or attitude of Christ Jesus?
Paul said it this way in
Romans 12:1-2
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
If we are going to have the Mind of Christ, we have to move ourselves away from the way of thinking of this world- We, as Philips translates it, must not “allow the world to press us into its mould”.
True worship is allowing His ways, His humility, His grace to infuse our souls-to become more like Him.
As some poet said, imitation is the purest form of flattery. We are to imitate our LORD, to even learn to think like Him.
Philippians 2:5
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus
Humility, taking the form/role of a servant
During this season our choir is singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing
One of my favourite verses from that great carol is the fifth, and is often omitted.
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the inner man:
O, to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the New-born king!"
We must
Stop grumbling
Start being grateful
And take on ourselves the attitude of Jesus
Which leads, inevitably, to the cross.
Cross
. . . Even death on the Cross!
Dietrich Bonnhoffer, one of the great Christian martyrs of the 20th Century said “When Jesus calls a man, He bids him, “Come! And die”. -the Cost of Discipleship
I’ll quote a bit more from the Cost of Discipleship in a moment.
Jesus, knowing He was soon to die said
John 12
“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour (to die on the cross). Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
John 12:37-8
If we are to have the MIND of Christ, we also must be willing to share His destination. He was on His way to the cross. Those who follow Him must go there too.
So
Grumble (don’t)
Grateful (be)
Attitude – have the mind of Christ - And following Jesus leads us, inevitably, to the
Cross
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Who, For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3
(for the JOY)
(John 15)
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:9-13
As the great hymn by Isaac Watts says
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride
See, from his head, his hands, his feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown
Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offering far too small
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all
Love. Joy. A relationship of such love that I am willing to die for the One(s) I love. What a great and beautiful calling. Joy. Elation.
Elation Evermore (Extreme Generosity)
Hebrews 12 – for the JOY that was set before Him
The Greek word for joy is Chara ???? (for the joy set before Him endured the cross)
. . . Make my joy complete . . . You will shine like the stars
Galatians 5 Charitos (???????) gift-fruit
So we return to the subject of GRACE. . . . We often think of GRACE as the gift you don’t deserve and cannot earn, that is freely given. That is, certainly, true. Yet, The Bible speaks of many expressions of grace.
Grace-
The Grace of receiving (John 1:16-we have all received grace upon grace)
The grace of forgiveness – Yes. Grace (gift) is in the middle of forgiveness.
The grace of Strength in your weakness (2 Corinthians 12)
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
So, grace is strength God gives us in the midst of our weakness and suffering-and this is right, for love and grace and giving are all intertwined, as Jesus said
John 3:16 (For God so loved the world that He gave . . . )
Grace-
The Grace of receiving (Ephesians)
The grace of forgiveness
The grace of Strength in your weakness (2 Corinthians 12)
The grace of giving
2 Corinthians 8- The Context-
There was a famine in Jerusalem.
Paul wrote to the Corinthian church to arrange for them to take up a collection for a donation to the Church in Jerusalem. . . and he informs the Corinthian church of the enthusiasm with which the Church in Macedonia responded to the invitation to give
“they urgently pleaded with us (begged) for the privilege (grace-charis) of sharing in this service (giving) to the Lord’s people. . . . For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
There is a GRACE of giving.
Peace (Peace on earth, goodwill toward people)
Grumbling (Stop)
Grateful (Be)
Attitude
Cross
Elation evermore (extreme generosity) – there is great joy in giving, in being able to give to another who is in need. and
“Joy is the serious business of heaven”. CS Lewis
But Also,
GRACE. Real grace, giving grace, always comes at a price.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said:
“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'Ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
It’s all about relationship
The message of Christmas is twofold-
1. (above all else) God loves us, and will do anything to have a relationship with us forever.
2. He invites us to have the same attitude/love toward each other.
Concerning this relationship with God, Rick Warren said
“In happy moments, praise God. In difficult moments, seek God. In quiet moments, worship God. In painful moments, trust God. Every moment, thank God.”
Let me carry on from Rick Warren-
In happy moments, share with your neighbour. In difficult times, love your neighbour. In quiet moments, bless your neighbour. In painful moments, comfort your neighbour. Every moment, praise God together.
So, now we can return to the question we began with:
y did God make us?
He made us because He is love. He needed someone to love. (I’ll let theologians debate about whether God can have a need, but the Bible uses human language like this to describe God, so I feel free to do so).
And loving a perfect, beautiful creature is easy-maybe that isn’t even love at all.
But loving someone who hurts you, and hates you, and doesn’t even believe in you, and giving everything to have a relationship with such a person-that’s love. And that is the LOVE He has so abundantly for us.
So John expresses it this way:
1 John 4:7-8
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. He that does not love does not know God, for GOD IS LOVE.”
I believe that as we know Him, and begin to love each other as He loves us, that we all, each of us, begin to shine-His GRACE, LOVE and JOY take over, and in a world that is dark with war, strife, heartbreak, and loss, we begin to glow-like stars, surrounded by darkness, yet radiating the Light of Life.
This past week George HW Bush died. The day he died his son called, and told his dad we was the best dad in the world, and “I love you”. To which George HW Bush said “I love you too”. Those were his last words.
If I could choose my last words ahead of time, I would want to them to be those words-to say with my last breath “I love you”, whether to my son, or daughter, or wife, or to any and all of you. And I would want you to know it was true.
Though none of us will ever love perfectly, there is one Father who would say “I love you” to you today, who gave His Son to be born in a manger, one LORD who gave His life on the cross so we could live.
He loves us. & He has given everything to have a relationship with us. That is the message of the season.
Merry Christmas.
