THE MIND OF CHRIST
PHIL. 2:1-11
Chilmark Community Church
Rev. Armen Hanjian
July 24, 2016
Some once asked John Wesley, “Do you think God will save this world with your intelligence?” Wesley sad, “ He won’t save it with your ignorance!” Some put little effort toward it, but I believe it is imperative that we should have sharp minds.
We know United Methodists stress this aspect of Christianity for we have over 100 Church related colleges and universities in the U.S.A as well as 13 theological schools. We believe our faith is a reasonable one, that is, that it rings true in our ears when it is brought to bear with the facts of life. We do not fear truth in any area life; we only fear ignorance.
Think of the gospel writers telling us how Jesus, at age 12, sat in the Temple and astonished the teachers with his wisdom and understanding, how they described Jesus’ life between 12 and 30 with this one sentence: “And Jesus increased in wisdom, and in stature and in favor with God and man.” We cannot escape the fact that Jesus commanded his disciple, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
It is important that the followers of Jesus have sharp minds – minds with a growing edge. Most adults have little willingness to learn something new. Oh, we like to learn this little fact or that side light, trivia, but deep down we have hardened opinions. The waves of new knowledge and even old truths lap at our minds, but we allow them little or no inner hearing or testing.
Two Chinese coolies on a street in Shanghai were shouting at each other, their noses but two inches apart. They were surrounded by excited spectators. “What is the matter?” asked an American bystander of a Chinese next to him. “There is a Chinese fight going on,” answered the Oriental, smiling. “But I’ve been here five minutes and nobody has hit anybody yet.” “You don’t understand, in a Chinese fight, the man who strikes first shows he has run out of ideas.” How often people strike when we should be contributing ideas gleaned from a searching mind. We strike or go off in a huff.
The beloved Yale Prof. William Lyon Phelps once said, “ I thoroughly believe in a university education for both men and women, but I believe a knowledge of the Bible without a college course is more valuable than a college course without the Bible.” I think this teacher was telling us that the Bible offers us a point where a person can set his or her life course, just as a navigator might set his course by some fixed point such as the North Star. The essence of this sermon can now be seen as we read today’s text: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,…”
All of us set our minds on some fixed goals we work toward. What I am suggesting is that we consciously, intentionally set our course, our mind by the same thinking of our Lord. These days we feel we are in style by claiming to be open minded. We have a distaste for setting our minds on just one course. Our mental steering gear is all loose. We are like ships that have no connections with the rudder. And what happens? We chart no course for our lives and find we go off in all directions. We are blown about by the prevailing winds of opinion, but as Halford E. Luccock reminds us, “The purpose of an open mind is to close it on something.” He goes on to say, “If we are to be saved from the big squeeze to mold us in the world’s image, the mind and the heart must be renewed – a fresh coming of the life God in the soul. Specifically this demands nothing more mysterious than prayer, which is, of course, the most mysterious thing in the world.” It means such things as Bible study, discussion groups and any other methods we can devise to saturate our thinking with the mind and thinking of Christ Jesus.
St. Paul tried to hammer this point home in several places.
In Rom. 8 he writes, “To set the mind on the flesh (i.e. to be oriented by the world) is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”
In Rom. 12 he writes, “”Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your minds, so that you may prove (that you may surely know) what is the will of God, what is good, and acceptable and perfect.”
In Phil. 2 he writes, Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,…” In other words, reach for the point in our lives where we are so much a part of his way of thinking we need not turn to the Bible for most of our decisions and ask ourselves what would Jesus do in this situation. We can’t follow his steps exactly, for our situation is different than his. But we can, by having the mind of Christ, make intelligent and Christ-like decisions in our daily living.
This is especially pertinent when we must make quick decisions.
When I was serving rural church in NJ, similar to this one, a friend of mine flew me over it. We came so low the pigeons flew out of the belfry. And the thought came to me as I looked down on the setting, “We must get into the habit of seeing everything from God’s point of view.” That is seen and known best in the person of Jesus Christ.
Thus far, I have said it is important that we have sharp mind, growing minds. And, I have tried to show that all of us are directed by some guiding principles and as Christians our North Star is the mind of Christ. Let me now suggest some inevitable responses of those who have the mind of Christ.
One attitude which is clearly dominant in Jesus’ mind is that each person is of tremendous worth. Jesus called himself the Son of man as if it were infinitely significant to be a human being. He saw in the sick, the sinner, the criminal, the hypocrite the capability of worthiness. Jesus made his appeal to the best that was in them confident that the good in any person can be evoked by love. Jesus would have us love each person as a child of God. I know he knew that some will not immediately respond positively. Yet, ultimately persons would be affected by it. (ideas from Social Institutions of the Bible by Soares)
A teacher named Dr. Arnold governed a difficult school of boys by trusting them. It was commonly said by the boys, “It’s a shame to lie to Arnold because he believes you. That is the attitude we must develop if we are to have the mind of Christ -to trust people we interact with and to love them. In the short run, it may seem impractical, but from God’s point of view , it is the essence of life.
We all have things which mean much to us – we cherish them dearly. Jesus is modeling for us that we treat every person as one that is tremendously precious to God.
Another thing about the mind of Christ is described in Pierre van Passen’s book The Days of our Years. He tells of a Protestant who, during the early days of the Reformation, was burned at the stake in his home town. That night when the crowds had gone home, his wife brought their little son to the place where the husband and father had died that day for the right to worship God as his conscious dictated. As she knelt beside the charred body of her husband, the wife gathered a few ashes from his breast, placed them in a little bag, and hung them around her little son’s neck. As she did so, she said, “Son, whenever you see injustice, intolerance, ignorance prevailing, these ashes will burn your heart unless you speak out.”
Just as Jesus spoke out courageously when the money changers profited by the devotion of the poor peasants, so we should speak out whenever we see exploitation, prejudice or any of the host of evils which surround us. From the practical point of view it’s best to keep your mouth shut; but what about from God’s point of view?
One other attitude I would suggest to you: knowing we are children of god we should be different from the world about us. Bertrand Russell offers us a good example of immaturity of the mind in speaking of George Santayana. “A few days before the battle of the Marne when the capture of Paris seemed imminent, he remarked to me ‘I think I must go to Paris because my winter underclothes are all there, and I should not like the Germans to get them. I have also left there the manuscript of a book on which I have been working for the last ten years, but I don’t mind so much about that’”(Luccock, Vol.2:196)
The world about him was crashing to disaster and one sweet thought came crowding out all the others – winter underclothes!
It is tremendously important that we learn to weigh our values.
There is a Church in London called The King’s Weigh House. The ones who devised the name saw that the church was a place where persons can weigh the things of life on the King’s scales and find their proper weight. And when we weigh our values by the standard of the mind of Christ we will find we must be different from the world about us. Jesus attracted people not because he conformed to the world, but because he was different. Paul wrote to the Corinthians and asked a question which could well be asked of us: “Are you not behaving like ordinary men?”
There you have it; Three ways we can reflect the mind of Christ in our lives:
to see each individual as of tremendous value to God, as a precious child of God
to speak out when right and truth are at stake
3. to be different from the world about us
A RECOLLECTION OF JESUS
Let us remember Jesus:
Who, although he was rich, became poor and dwelt among us;
Who was content to be subject to his parents, the child of a poor family’s home;
Who lived the common life for nearly thirty years doing humble work with his hands;
Whom the common people heard gladly, for he understood their ways.
MAY THE SAME MIND BE IN US THAT WAS IN JESUS.
Let us remember Jesus:
Who healed the sick and the disordered, using for others the power he would not invoke for himself;
Who refused to force a person’s faithfulness;
Who was Master to his disciples, yet was among them as their companion and as one who served;
Whose meat was to do the will of God.
MAY THE SAME MIND BE IN US THAT WAS IN JESUS.
Let us remember Jesus:
Who loved people, yet retired from them to pray. Who prayed for the forgiveness of those who rejected him, and for the perfecting of those who received him;
Who observed Jewish law, but defied conventions which did not serve the purposes of God;
Who hated sin because he knew the cost of pride and selfishness, of violence and cruelty, to both humanity and to God.
MAY THE SAME MIND BE IN US THAT WAS IN JESUS.
Let us remember Jesus:
Who believed in human beings and never despaired of them;
Who through all disappointment never lost heart;
Who disregarded his own comfort, and thought of others first, who was always kind, even in the midst of suffering;
Who, when he was reviled, did not revile others;
Who emptied himself on the cross, and showed the way to life eternal.
MAY THE SAME MIND BE IN US THAT WAS IN JESUS.
JESUS, SOURCE, GUIDE, AND GOAL OF OUR LIVES, COME TO DWELL IN US THAT WE MAY GO FORWARD AS YOU DID, WITH HOPE AND FAITH AND LOVE IN OUR MINDS AND HEARTS. AMEN