WWJD
• A number of years ago an enterprising Christian businessman came up with the idea to sell a wristband to Christian young people with the letters WWJD on it. (What would Jesus do).
• It was supposed to be constant reminder to the wearer to think about now Jesus would act in any given circumstance.
• Well, as you can image it was a great marketing hit and was scooped up by well-intentioned young people to remind them how Jesus would act in any given situation.
• The businessman who came up with the idea made a small fortune on this great marketing ploy.
• Why do I bring up this example, well the theme of the RCL for this week is, “The abundant life begins with changing the way we think?”
• Although the intention of the young people was commendable, children of God have been given much better resources than just wristbands to help us mature in our Christian walk and grow into the stature and fullness of Jesus Christ.
• So this is the subject we will be looking at this morning – Changing the way we think.
The section of scripture chosen by the RCL we will be focusing on this morning is 1 Peter 1:17-23.
Reading - Susan
• You will notice in v.18 our starting point of our mindset before coming to Christ.
• 1 Peter 1:18 you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors.
• Romans 8:7-8 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
• We were slaves to sin trapped in our fallen mindset, without any hope or means of saving ourselves.
• It is into this hopeless situation that Jesus Christ steps and sets us free by purchasing us with His own precious blood (v.19).
• As a result of accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior, a couple of dramatic changes occur in our lives.
• Notice what it says here in 1 Peter 1:17 we are to “live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.”
• Then in v.23 it mentions we 1 Peter 1:23 “you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable.”
• What are the implications of those two verses to our standing as Christians?
• 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
• With Jesus’ resurrection to glory, for the first time a new spiritual life has broken forth out of the corrupt and decaying age of the past into a brand new creation event.
• A human being had passed across that vast gulf from mortality to immortality.
• Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of the New Creation, which corresponds with the New Covenant instituted by Jesus sacrificing His body and blood on the cross.
• From this point forward the old corrupt physical creation is decaying and falling away while the new spiritual creation will flourish and advance.
• Our new status as part of the new creation changes our entire mindset on how we are to approach life.
• Romans 8:5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
• What both Peter and Paul are saying is that now that we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have a totally new mindset.
• And as a consequence we are to live our lives as though we are already living this heavenly kingdom reality and we are to project that new life of the kingdom back onto the earth.
And what does this new life of the kingdom we are to project back to the earth look like?
• 1 Peter 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.
• The type of love Peter is speaking about here is not the Old Covenant, “love your neighbour as yourself” but rather the new love commandment of the New Covenant Jesus gave His disciples to “love one another as I have loved you”, a much higher standard.
• One love is the product of the human heart, a somewhat dubious proposition, while the other is the product of the divine heart.
• This love is the type that motivated Jesus to lay aside His glory in heaven, and swap it for a manger, a donkey and a cross in order to save the world.
• He was projecting the love of the heavenly kingdom and living it out right here on the earth.
But God is about more than just offering salvation to the world. We have been justified through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, but now He wants to sanctify us so that we become His holy people.
• He is in the process of creating a community of people, a holy people who reflect his divine nature and character within whom He can come and dwell.
• This has been God original intention right from the beginning when He said, “Let us make man in our image.”
• This is God’s purpose statement. This is what gets Him out of bed each day.
• This whole physical experience with both its joys and sorrows, including events like the Corona Virus, are designed to bring about this goal.
• But we need to make a comment on this word “holy”.
• Holiness is not just about obedience to what God has commanded as it is sometimes portrayed.
• Rather it’s a reflection of the whole being of God, all of the things that make God, God.
• So when God says to Moses in Leviticus 19:2, He is literally asking the Israelites to adopt the nature and characteristics of their God
• Leviticus 19:2 “Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
• But this goal wasn’t just for the Israelites of the Mosaic Covenant, as this same command is repeated in just two verses before our reading in 1 Peter today.
• 1 Peter 1:15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
• When we look at John’s description of the New Jerusalem in Revelation, surprisingly one important building is missing? You know what it is? A temple.
• Why is that?
• Peter goes on to tell us why.
• 1 Peter 2:5 you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
• The temple in the New Jerusalem is not a building made of inanimate objects of gold, silver or precious stones like the rest of the infrastructure of the city, but rather its the living stones of His holy people.
• You and I as believers are the building blocks of the heavenly temple of God.
• So right at the beginning of the Bible we saw God’s purpose, and now at the end we see it fulfilled.
• Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.
• His purpose from the beginning has been to share and extend the loving community of the Godhead with His creation, inviting them to be living stones in which He plans to live and share His divine life.
But there is a caution here. And that is just because we are now part of the New Creation and no longer under the law but under grace, God has not suddenly gone soft on the holiness business!
• He wants us to become in reality what Christ has made us.
• Christ has justified us and made us righteous; He has adopted us as His beloved children as building blocks of the heavenly temple.
• Therefore He wants us to learn to be a holy people who reflect the nature and character of our loving Father.
Now God never asks us to do anything without providing the resources we need to bring about His goal.
• So if we are to learn to change our thinking from one governed by the flesh to one of becoming His holy people, what resources does He provide for us?
• There are many in the Christian community who would be quick to answer this question by saying, He has given us the law and they will trot out the Ten Commandments.
• And their argument is, “if you do away with the law, then there’s going to be anarchy with nothing to guide God’s people”.
• Well that system was tried by the Israelites for a thousand years and we all know how that turned out.
• Besides Paul in numerous places clearly tells us righteousness (holiness) is an impossibility via the law (Romans 3:20).
• Not sure if any of us were guilty of this in the pass, but hopefully we too have moved on from that type of thinking.
• Well, I know you are all ahead of me with the correct answer to this question as to what resources God has given us to become what Christ has made us?
• We get a big clue to this answer in the last three words of 1 Peter 2:22, love one another deeply, from the heart.
• Remember we are a new creation, born of the Spirit, so what kind of new heart do we have?
• 2 Corinthians 3:3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
• The failing of the Old Covenant was Israel’s inability to live up to the holiness the law demanded because of the weakness of the flesh.
• They just didn’t have a heart that wanted to submit to God (Deuteronomy 5:29)
• Now as part of the New Covenant the gift of the Spirit living in us addresses this deficiency by giving us a new heart that is responsive to the leading of the Spirit as He moulds and shapes us into God’s holy people.
• Notice the dramatic change of orientation in the nature that takes place in a new creation believer who has crucified the flesh.
• 2 Corinthians 5:15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
• No longer are we to live individualistic, self-centred lives according to the “flesh.” Instead we are being transformed so we no longer live for ourselves, but for the One who died and rose for us.
• We are no longer slaves of the flesh but slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:15-19).
But it isn’t just the Holy Spirit that addresses this deficiency, as He has a fellow worker.
• 1 Corinthians 2:15-16 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, …we have the mind of Christ.
• We have all heard about the Old Testament promise of the law being written on our minds and hearts (Jeremiah 31:33)
• Unfortunately, some have misinterpreted this promise to mean, because the old law is now written on our hearts, it will give us the ability to live up to the requirements of the Ten Commandments.
• But as this verse tells us, it is not the old code or some new code but rather the living mind of Jesus Christ Himself, which is going to address this question of holiness.
• And the question naturally follows, what is a better reflection of the nature and character of God, the Law or the mind of Christ?
• Jesus has not gone into self-isolation in heaven to recover from the ordeal of the cross.
• Remember what He told His disciples in John 14:18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
• The great game-changer in this whole process of holiness is not the law but the risen Jesus Christ living in us through the Spirit and this is what gives us a new heart.
• Galatians 4:6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”
• The living Jesus Christ through the Spirit sets up home in our lives, and in the process gives us a new heart, which is no longer hostile to God (Romans 8:7) but is now responsive to the very “mind of Christ”.
• This is what imparts to us “divine infection.” This by the way, is a good virus to have as it develops in us the nature and character of our holy God.
• And as believers we are to go forth and infect the earth with God’s love. But it is up to us to make room in our hearts for the heart of God to setup shop and operate in us.
• So the first resource we have available to us to help us develop kingdom thinking is the literal mind of Christ brought to us by the Holy Spirit.
The second resource we have available to us in developing the mind of Christ is the living example of Jesus recorded for us in Scripture.
• If we want to know what a Spirit-filled Christian looks and thinks like, we have the living example of Jesus Christ.
• Philippians 2:5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.
• By studying the life and teachings of Jesus we are given a window into the very mind of God.
• His teachings like the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and the Sermon on the Mount reveal the true nature and character of God and the ideals of the kingdom of God.
• Notice I said “ideals”. These ideals are something Christians are to strive for, not necessarily master this side of the resurrection.
• And of course the other New Testament writers supplement the teachings of Jesus especially as they expound on the dramatic change that has come about now that the New Covenant of grace has replaced the Old Covenant of law.
• Having said that, it doesn’t mean we can’t learn very important spiritual lessons from the Mosaic Law and the rest of the Old Testament, after all it is one Book and God inspired all of it.
• But we are to view the whole book as a reflection of the nature and character of our holy God and to learn from it.
• It is also why believers need to meet on a regular basis so they hear the word of God expounded correctly by His ordained ministry.
• But this also changes our approach to our spiritual devotions.
• We no longer do it out of duty, but rather as a response to the great love God has shown in redeeming us, but also because we want to become His holy people and reflect the heart of God.
• The key difference to Christ’s thinking which made His ministry such a success was the simple fact, in all circumstances, He submitted His own will to that of the Father’s, “not my will but your will be done”, and that my friends is a huge challenge for us as believers.
• If we rely on these divine resources made available to us we will be well on our way to changing the way we think and to develop the holiness of God in our lives.
So WWJD?
• I think it is amazing that looking back at me through their camera is a group of people who have been given this wonderful blessing of the mind of Christ, which as it says, helps us make judgments about all things.
• As to the question WWJD?
• Well, we’re not going to get this right every time, but if we are willing to submit to the leading of the mind of Christ that resides in each one of us, our thinking will begin to reflect the mind and character of our loving God.
• And that is an amazing blessing God has given His people.
• Let’s pray.
Benediction
"Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen."
