Now, as you're being seated, I would invite you, please, to turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 2, in a sermon that will focus on verse 16, in a sermon that I'm entitling The Mind of Christ. Before we read this text in its context, a little bit of background, I believe, will be helpful. Well, Paul had been to Corinth, and he had preached the gospel there. And in his absence, apparently, there were a group of individuals that Paul sarcastically calls super apostles who were invited in and taught a form of higher spiritualities. And in Paul's absence, the Corinthians had written Paul letters with various questions that they had. And thus, Corinthians is Paul's apostolic and pastoral instruction as a response to these various questions that they had. Well, apparently the Corinthians had fallen prey to a form of status anxiety. Status means standing. And they were concerned about their status or their standing both corporately and individually. Corporately, as a church, there in this thriving empire with Athens there, Corinth was concerned about their status before the empire. And apparently these super apostles had come in and said, you know, well, you know, that apostle Paul with his not very eloquent speech and with that message that's just merely about, you know, a dead Jewish rabbi and that sort of thing, That's really not going to be cutting edge if you really want to have a great status or standing in the empire. Not only corporate status anxiety is apparent in this letter, but also an individual status anxiety. In other words, there were men and women, boys and girls, who were concerned about their standing in the church itself. And this mentality created apparently a very deep-seated we-versus-them mentality. So, for instance, after Paul gives his initial greetings, the context in which he writes in this hypocrisy and division and arrogance and worldly-minded wisdom that Paul calls natural wisdom, his first words after his greeting are, I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ. So apparently this status anxiety that bred a deep-seated we-versus-them mentality He apparently caused certain groups to say, well, you know, we just follow Paul. Though he doesn't speak very well, at least he's got the right doctrine. And then there was others that say, well, yeah, but we follow Apollos. I mean, he's such an eloquent speaker after all. They loved Apollos. And then there was another group that said, no, no, no, no, we just follow, you know, Peter, the Pope. And then there was even another group that said, well, we don't even listen to men at all. We just listen to Jesus. and perhaps those, sadly, are many times the most difficult persons to get through at all. With that background, then, we will focus once again on 1 Corinthians 2.16, on a sermon that I'm entitling, The Mind of Christ, but I'll ask for your patience as we read the entire chapter 2 to be able to get these words in their context. 1 Corinthians 2, then. And may God add his blessing to the preaching and reading of his word. When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom, as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling, My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power. We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in a spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgments. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? And here's our statement, but we have the mind of Christ. This morning we want to focus on two points. What the mind of Christ is not, And then secondly, what the mind of Christ is, and of course this will not be exhaustive, but we will seek with God's help to bring out some of the essence of what Paul means by this rather peculiar phrase, we have the mind of Christ. We'll notice first of all here in this text that when Paul says we have the mind of Christ, this arrives in the indicative mood. That is to say that Paul, by this phrase, we have the mind of Christ, is indicating something that is definitively true of all Christians. That is to say, he's not saying, you shall have the mind of Christ. He's not telling them to do something more. Rather, generally, the Apostle Paul is reminding the Corinthians, and thus all Christians, of who they are. So at the outset, we see Paul's pastoral wisdom and fatherly gentleness in dealing with the immaturity and carnality of these Corinthians. In that, he does not simply say, well, you have all these problems and confusion and arrogance there, and therefore, here are some more laws and some more principles to fix your problem. Well, first of all, for the Apostle Paul, let's look at three things that at least the mind of Christ for him is not. The mind of Christ is not reducing the gospel to any one sentence formula, sort of abstract universal principles or timeless truths, and apparently this is something that these super apostles were bringing into the church at Corinth. For as you read throughout this book, you'll notice that the Apostle Paul constantly quotes these little one-sentence phrases with the implications that the whole law and the gospel can kind of just be reduced to these little simple one-sentence formulas. And the church at Corinth there was very much inundated with this kind of thinking. they're taking spiritual abstract truths and kind of reducing them to little one-sentence formulas. For instance, Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 says, quote, all things are lawful, yes, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful, quoting them, but all things do not build up. And again, in the very environment in which the Corinthians lived, This kind of thinking, looking for one sentence, timeless truths, was very much the vogue. For instance, you've heard of the old adage, Do not count your chickens before they're hatched. Or the gods help those who help themselves. Well, these sentences, these one-line phrases, these spiritual one-liners, if you will, come from Aesop, who was born just over 500 years before Christ. And it's the same kind of method that the Corinthians were following. You see, because we don't naturally understand things that are utterly freely given to us by God, we have this tendency in our natural thinking to reduce the gospel to something that's a little more tame and simple, a one-line spiritual phrase that we can handle. And the Church throughout the ages, not just the Corinthians, I think, has fallen prey to this. In fact, if we look at the time just before the Protestant Reformation, one of the most famous theologies was known as the Pactum, the Franciscan Pactum Theology. And one of the most famous phrases at that time in Latin went, faciendibus quaden se est, deus non denigat non gratium, which translated into English would be, to those doing what is in themselves to do, God does not deny grace. And that's just another way of saying God helps those who help themselves, a phrase originated by Aesop in Aesop's fables. Well, of course, the Corinthians and the medieval church are not the only culprits here. We look around in our day and we look at popular religion in America today and you can find the same thing. I can remember as a young person when I went to Hawaii and I first became part of a broad, non-denominational, fundamentalist group. We used to go down on the streets of Waikikin on the beaches and sort of accost people and say, have you accepted Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior? And it took me a while to realize that what I was doing was I was taking the whole law and the gospel and sort of reducing it to this one phrase. But as we look more closely into the apostolic teaching about Christ, we notice that these kind of reductionistic formulas, these one-line sayings, in no way measure up to Paul's pregnant term, the mind of Christ. In fact, this very saying, for instance, accepting Jesus into my heart as my personal Lord and Savior, the idea of this comes out of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians where he says this, To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. And then further down he says, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And what is Paul doing here? Is he instructing the church to go out and knock on people's doors and ask them if they've accepted Jesus into their heart as their personal Lord and Savior? Not that there's anything essentially wrong with that, but what Paul is doing here cannot be reduced to that sort of rather moralistic instruction. Rather, what Paul is doing here, first of all, he sees praying. And who's he praying for? He's praying for the church. He wants Christ to dwell in the hearts of the church. He goes on, That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth. And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. So he's not simply giving a sentence where he's trying to get them to do something. He is rather, he is here praying for the church. And he wants the church themselves to come to the idea of who Christ is. So in another example is, for instance, not doing what Jesus wants us to do simply. Taking the whole gospel message and reducing it to what would Jesus do? This is very much the vogue in our time. You know, what 15 principles can summarize the whole gospel? But with Paul, what Jesus has done has precedent over our imitation of Christ. And so, if we are not careful, we can slip aside and reduce the gospel to these one-sentence sayings. And secondly, the gospel that Paul preaches is not simply believing the right doctrines about Christ. As important as that is. We are not justified because we believe the doctrine of justification, but because we are justified by the work of Christ. So the gospel is not simply something that's reduced to a run-sentence formula. It's not simply believing the right doctrines about Christ. And then thirdly, it cannot simply be reduced to achieving any sort of Christ consciousness. Even in an educated congregation like this, we need to be reminded that especially in our culture, there's a tendency to reduce the whole gospel to achieving some sort of Christ consciousness. In a book written, for instance, by Deepak Chopra, he says this, In this book, I argue that Christ's vision isn't impossible to realize. Yes, it's radical and mystical. The underlying dilemma, how to live as Jesus wanted us to, can be resolved. It must be resolved if Christ is to have any meaningful future. Christ did not physically descend from God's dwelling place above the clouds, nor did he return to sit at the right hand of a literal throne. What made Jesus the Son of God was the fact that he achieved God-consciousness. This comes from Deepak Chopra's The Third Jesus. And the basic premise of this book is that we also can achieve this God-consciousness by, quote, living as Jesus wanted us to. And Deepak Chopra, I would remind us, is not a heretic. In order to be a heretic, you have to start in the church and then be convicted of heresy and then removed from the church. Rather, this is just pure classic Greek mysticism and paganism that the Corinthian church was tempted with and against which Paul argued. And it's this kind of thinking that these so-called super apostles were bringing in. Not too long ago, I was watching a TV preacher. And he said that, you know, if at the end of my life I die and I find out that Christianity wasn't true, At least I lived my best life. And a runaway bestseller, Joel Osteen, writes a book called Your Best Life Now, Seven Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, and then the sequel, Becoming a Better You. Joel Osteen leads America's largest congregation. And in spite of preaching a gospel with sin and Christ and a cross and suffering, He says this, he, that is God, has programmed you with everything you need for victory. Implying that achieving that victory is up to you and it requires daily self-talk, Osteen says, I have what it takes. I am more than a conqueror. I am intelligent. I am talented. I am successful. I am attractive. I am an overcomer. And even as one of our theologians, Dr. Mike Hortness, point out about Osteen, is that he does not interpret Scripture, but he uses it as a book of quotations to serve his prosperity message. Well, people of God, this message of achieving some sort of Christ consciousness and reducing the whole gospel to things that we do, though there is a place for that, is not the gospel of Christ. And I would remind you young kids and you young ones, as you grow up and you find a mate and you go off and get a job and it's time for you to leave here, I would remind you to be very wary of this kind of teaching and is the greatest, most widely taught kind of thinking in America. But this kind of thinking is exactly the opposite of the Apostle Paul's message. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul tells us, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preached to you. For I delivered to you, he says, as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scripture, That he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scripture. And later further down he says, And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. The exact opposite of what these super apostles were bringing in to Corinth. An exact opposite of what various philosophers and false teachers have taught throughout the ages. in fact paul says in verse 17 and if christ has not been raised your faith is futile and you're still in your sins if in this life only we have hoped in christ we are of all people most pitied if the dead are not raised he says let us eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die so far from saying that christianity is uh you know having your best life now Paul gives us no such option instead he gives us two options either Christ is not raised and in which case go out and give all your pleasure that you can or the true option that Christ is risen and therefore we are called to suffer with him now there is no third position there is no bland moralistic universal spirituality that we are supposed to just tap into Rather, for the Apostle Paul, either Christ is not raised or in the true case he has been raised and therefore we are called to forsake our own interests and so forth and follow Christ and the gospel. Well, so far I've been talking about what the mind of Christ is not and now we turn to three points of what Paul means by what the mind of Christ is. And as we begin to shift gears, I will point out that thus far we've been looking at what the mind of Christ is not, but now as we turn to a fuller, more positive explanation, there's really no way to really unlock all of the depth of what Paul's meaning is here on what we have by the mind of Christ. Even as Peter says, that much of Paul's writings are hard to understand. of Paul's words here, but rather we'll seek to just try to highlight some of the essence of what he's getting at. Well, first of all, what Paul means by we have the mind of Christ, this idea begins with, as I have already hinted, it begins with seeing Christ in all of Scripture. As Paul says, that I would remind you that Christ has died for our sins according to the Scriptures. and therefore as he says to the Colossians in whom that is in Christ we have redemption the forgiveness of sins he is the image of the invisible God for by him all things were created all things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together and he is the head of the body of the church and then he says that in everything he might have the preeminence. So the mind of Christ, according to the Apostle Paul, starts with understanding Christ at the center of all the scriptures and thus the center of all reality. That is to say that the real matter and energy on which the world turns is not simply water, ammonia, and carbonic acid or any other abstract principle, the real matter and energy on which the world turns is God the Father speaking. And what He says is Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Even as John, when he opens his Gospel and refutes the Greek philosophers, and when he says, An archaea angelogos. In the beginning was the Word. The Word is not some abstract philosophy. The Word from God is an embodied Word. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. And the Word has been manifested to us. And that Word is a person. It is Christ. It is not some abstract principle that we sort of climb up to and achieve by our own right thinking. Even as the writer to the Hebrews brings it out in his very first text when he says, God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers has in these last days spoken to us by his Son. That is, in the person of his Son. So we see that the mind of Christ starts with seeing Christ and God in all reality, but it doesn't end there. We see that the mind of Christ in what Paul means here is much more than simply making us information processors about this understanding. But secondly, the mind of Christ in a fuller way is understanding our own identity in light of the person and work of Christ as narrated in Scripture. That is to say that what Paul means here by we have the mind of Christ is not simply we have the right information about Christ. Or we go to the one church who has the right information about Christ. No, it's much more than that. For the Apostle Paul, the mind of Christ means believing, by which he means seeing, feeling, trusting, imagining ourselves to be in Christ. As Calvin put it, when he was asked, where does the Christian's purity consist? His answer was, the Christian's purity consists in Christ's incarnational virgin conception. So that the events that happen to Christ become part and parcel of my own identity. So that I can say with the Apostle Paul, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So first of all, for the Apostle Paul, this statement, we have the mind of Christ, begins with seeing Christ in all of Scripture, and then secondly understands our own identity as humans, as men and women, boys and girls, in light of the person and work of Christ. But it doesn't end there, as we will focus then on the fact that the mind of Christ is revealed in the fact that in all Christians, it means that we reflect the same humble mindset displayed by Christ. And for that, I would ask you to turn to Philippians chapter 2. And I'm going to be reading out of the ESV. We'll read chapter 2, verse 1 through 11. And as we moved, as we've been talking about the mind of Christ in terms of the Apostle Paul instructing us what the mind of Christ is about, Now we turn to it as an imperative, that is, as a command to Christians for a fuller understanding of this. Philippians chapter 2, verse 1 through 11, we read, So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Here it is. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. As we shift the emphasis here to Paul's idea of commanding us here in a pastoral way to have the mind of Christ. For Paul, what does it mean to have the mind of Christ? Does he want the church to be a collection of Stepford wives and husbands? PC rather than Mac users, who all have to wear gray and eat gruel at every meal? No, Paul's not asking the Philippians and us this morning to march like robots in lockstep. Rather, he's asking us to adopt the same perspective, a gospel-centered perspective, so that we would all understand our own identity together in Christ and act accordingly. And the verb Paul uses for have this same mind is fronine. Interestingly, the same term Aristotle used in his ethics for practical reasoning. Reasoning about what to do in particular situations. Paul is asking the Philippians and us this morning to adopt a pattern of thinking that befits the kingdom of God. You see, it takes practical reason to be a faithful disciple. Thus, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Fronine, here, is used as an imperative, a command. Have this mind. Adopt this attitude. Note how important for Paul is the mind in the Christian life. He's not asking us to add one more belief to faith's inventory. He's after much bigger gain. He wants to change the program, the software that governs our thinking and acting. He wants to convert our imaginations. Have this mind among yourselves. Let this be the pattern of your thinking, acting, feeling, imagining. What pattern? The one displayed in Jesus Christ. It's all laid out in verses 6 through 8. Jesus was in the form of God, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, a human being. Then as a human, he humbled himself further unto death, the lowest form of death, death on a cross. This is an amazing passage that rehearses in short compass the entire action of the drama of salvation from Christmas to the cross in three verses. Let's look more closely at what Paul says here. In verse 6, Paul says that Christ was originally in the form of God, equal with God. Yet though he was clothed with the majesty of God, he didn't think of using this equality to further his own agenda. He didn't consider his own glorious form as something to exploit. He didn't feel like he had to cling to the advantages of his status, no matter what. So in verse 6, we see what he didn't do. In verse 7, we see what he did do. He emptied himself, not as we would empty a bucket, but in a sense of making null or void. He gave up his divine prerogatives in order to become human. He took the form of a slave, a person with neither glory nor even civil rights. He emptied himself of all status privileges. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8, for your sakes he became poor. Instead of getting what Jesus deserved, Jesus relinquishes what most people most want to hold on to. The good opinion of the world. That's what you're supposed to get if you're God, isn't it? But in counterintuitive fashion, the Son humbles himself. And in the course of humbling himself, he has to stand before the representatives of imperial Rome. Talk about status anxiety. In the eyes of the empire, Jesus was regarded as no better than a criminal and sentenced to die as only those of the lowest status were on a cross. But strictly speaking, Rome did not take his life. As Jesus says in John 10, No one takes my life from me. His dying was his own doing, part and parcel of his willingness to humble himself. on the cross, the Roman Empire met the kingdom of God and did not prevail against it. And far from negating His divinity, Jesus' incarnate life as a servant and His death on a cross defines His divinity. And refusing to hold on to His elevated status by making Himself nothing, Christ doesn't stop being God. Rather, he displays God's true form. He doesn't replace the form of God with a servant. He displays the form of God in the form of a slave. So this self-emptying is not a quirky, out-of-character, isolated act on Jesus' part. It's rather a demonstration of God's true character. Our sovereign God is a servant God. So now we've discovered the pattern of thinking and acting that Paul wants us to adopt. But that's not the end of the story. In verses 9 through 11, God, rather than Jesus, does two things. First of all, he exalts Christ and gives him an exalted name, Kyrios, Lord. God vindicates this pattern of thinking and acting. He vindicates Christ's willingness to make himself nothing by giving him everything back, including the good opinion of the world. Indeed, the whole climax of the drama of history and the drama of salvation is the real, ultimate, universal recognition of who Jesus really is. Every tongue will confess that he is Lord. And he is Lord because he does what only the Lord can do. He becomes a servant so that we, human servants, might become God's sons. So Jesus' death enacts a wonderful status exchange. And through the word of the cross, God makes foolish the status wisdom of this world. In our worldly thinking, in our worldly identities based on a false status, we ask such questions. What is your occupation? How big is your house? What kind of car do you drive? Do you have an iPod Nano? How much bling do you have? Our real identities are found between the shadow of Good Friday and the sunrise of Easter morning. Our real identities are God-given under that strange new status symbol of the cross. So we have our answer then. Humility. Humility is the manner of life worthy of the gospel. Humility is the key feature in Christian citizenship. But what does humility look like in practice? It's not some universal mind that we climb up to. It's rather that humble mindset that was actualized in Jesus of Nazareth. A man exactly like you and me, except for sin. See, we don't literally have to die on a cross as criminals, but we are to display this pattern of a life that looks not to its own interest, but the interest of others. And therefore, people of God, because of what God has done for us, is doing for us, and will do for us in Christ, there is therefore now no status anxiety for those who are in Christ. Let us allow the Apostle Paul to close us in the very next words in Philippians. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you once again that though you preach to us through frail men, that nonetheless this message of Christ and what He has done and who He is is the very message of salvation for us. And we pray then, Father, that you would give us ears to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Exalt Christ in our thinking. Exalt Him in this church, in all of our churches and in the world. As we look forward to that day when He will come and put an end to all demonic and earthly power and authority. We look forward, Father, to that day and ask, Father, that it may come quickly. For it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.