The Coming of Christ (3)

Our World Needs A Rebirth

Philippians 2:1-9

Jim Davis

When Jesus came to this earth to help us solve our problems he emptied his pockets of all the treasures of heaven. He knew we didn’t need another $100 billion; we need 50 million Americans who are willing to do something as a human being. We live in a world, which fails to understand that personal strength is more important than money in solving our problems.  Jesus came in the flesh to reveal to us our human potential. He chose to reveal to us the potential of loving one person at a time. He showed the potential of salvaging the world by saving one soul at a time.

Jesus came to turn our thinking on its head. Our world loves unrestrained freedom even if it means infringing upon someone else’s freedom. We believe that greed is good because having is better than sharing. Too many think as long as they have theirs they should forget everyone else. We are strong on defending our own rights, taking care of ourselves first, winning by intimidation, pushing for first place and all kinds of other self-serving agendas.

In our society winning isn’t everything it is the only thing. I saw a tee shirt the other day that said, "Losing is not an option." Today we hear of classes called "assertiveness training." Success is measured by achievement and position. The question is, "Can I get what I want out of life, and how soon?"

This is really not new to our age. The bug to win had bitten James and John. They even ask Jesus for the privilege of sitting on his right hand and on his left hand. The other disciples became indignant. They were always asking the question "Who will be the greatest in the kingdom."

A New Way of Thinking

Learning how to think is the most liberating aspect of Christianity. Your mind is the most important arena of your existence. Whoever or whatever controls our minds controls our personal world and the world at large. Once you set a person's mind free to think God's thoughts, you have empowered the person to reach the highest possible human potential through accomplishing God's purpose. Much of our efforts are put into teaching others how to act. It is definitely important for us to want to act like Jesus acted and to do what Jesus did. However the "want to" has to do with how we think.

A few years ago my brother Cliff was going through a difficult circumstance and I was trying to empathize with him. He said, "James, it is all mind over matter." I ask him what he meant, he said in the vernacular, "If you don't mind, it don't matter!" I realize his statement was probably said at an apathetic moment. However, there is a kernel of truth in this statement, which continually haunts me.

Too often this applies to the whole of our lives. What happens when we apply this to doing right and wrong? Many dread to do the right thing when doing the wrong is much more destructive. The dread of having to do right is born of a fear based upon incorrect thinking. Life is an issue of mind over matter.

The purpose of the truth of God is to teach us how to think. We can't find the freedom to think like God thinks until we have allowed his liberating truth to permeate our minds. (John 8:31-32) Until our minds are programmed with God's truth, we will never reach God's potential for our lives. It is not easy, it is painful, but the transformation of our lives will be unbelievable.

The Burden of Religion

When actions mask a depraved heart religion becomes a burden. The Psalmist said, "His speech is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords." (Psalms 55:21 NIV) There are those times we force ourselves to behave properly even though we weren't thinking properly. We have all had those times where we have forced ourselves to do what we didn't want to do. How do those times compare with doing things you are just dying to do? Well, Jesus came dying to teach us a new way of thinking.

By the time Jesus entered into our world religion had become a burden of doing. There were plenty of rules and principles to direct their lives; but there was little help. Jesus said of the Pharisees, "They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them." (Matthew 23:4 NIV)

On one occasion the Pharisees took issue with Jesus' disciples because his disciples did not wash their hands before they ate. Jesus said, "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.'" (Matthew 15:17-20 NIV)

The purpose of Jesus' coming into this world was to synchronize the way we think with the way we live. Jesus taught discipleship begins with repentance. Repentance simply means to change our minds. Repentance has to do with renewing our minds with a new way of thinking. Jesus knew the potential for a new and better life begins in our minds. Our lives are not going to change until we change the way we think.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus sought to correct our actions by first teaching us how to think. The Pharisees considered adultery a physical act, but Jesus taught them to look upon someone to mentally lust was adultery. Jesus taught murder doesn't begin with driving a knife through someone's heart; it begins with being angry with our brother without a cause.

The whole process of becoming a Christian is being renewed in the spirit of our minds. Paul wrote to the Ephesians saying, "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24 NIV)

We must allow Christ to captivate our minds. The mind is the battlefield on which our personal wars are lost or won. There is no way we can begin to live courageously until we allow Christ to captivate our minds. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NIV)

Paul said, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus . . ." (Philippians 2:5 NIV) Peter said, "Since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do-- living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry." (1 Pet 4:1-3 NIV)

A Life of Abandonment

Jesus lived a life of abandonment to reveal a new way of thinking. When Jesus entered into this world as a baby he gave up his life with God to reveal to us a new way of thinking.

Philippians 2:5-11
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 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. (NIV)

Too many of us want to change without relinquishing our hold on who we are at the present. Jesus did not consider his equality with God something to be grasp. That simply means he was willing to relinquish his hold on his equality with God. Jesus gave up his equality with his God to become God's Son. Father's and sons are not equal. A friend of mine impressed upon me the fact that Jesus Christ gave up his equality with God forever. Christ will ever remain God's Son. Of course Jesus was in subjection to God before he descended to this earth. It is no problem for people who are in subjection to one another to give up positions. For people in subjection to one another the only viable position is the one where we can serve the other.

Paul said Christ "made himself nothing." Too many people think they are nothing already. That is the trouble. They are fighting to be recognized as somebody. They don't see service as a viable option to being somebody. Christ abandoned himself as he proclaimed, "not my will, but yours be done." Jesus descended from heaven to give up his role as God to be human. Have you ever noticed how difficult it is for us to give up a position we hold? Ask the president of the company to become a vice president and see what happens. Ask someone making $25 an hour to step down to $20 an hour to save the company and everybody's job to see what happens. Ask the boss to become the employee and see what happens. We don't like stepping down!

Christ had a purpose for stepping down from his eternal throne. He came to put your interest before his own. Paul urges us to consider others better than ourselves because this is what Christ did for each of us. (Philippians 2:4) Christ humbled himself to the position of a servant. Jesus not only stepped down from being God. He stepped down to become a servant of his own creation. He came to serve you. Jesus Christ was obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. He abandoned his life for your life. He chose to be forsaken by God on the cross for your sins because he had your interest in mind.

Jesus considered you better than himself. Paul urges us to consider others better than ourselves because Christ considers you better than himself. (Philippians 2:3) It is hard for us to envision God on his knees in the upper washing the feet of humanity while they thought themselves to good to wash his feet. He entered the room for his last meal with his disciples to leave an indelible impression upon their minds. (John 13) The lesson was about serving others. This is really the lesson we see in Christ birth.

Christ's thoughts about us and his actions toward us are completely synchronized. In Christ's own mind there was no other way out. There was no other way to teach us about the Father. It was absolutely necessary for Christ to descend to the earth to do the will of the Father who sent him. (John 6:38 NIV) In doing so, Christ revealed a new way of thinking about life.

Discovering the Joy of Living

Jesus said, "Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it." (Luke 17:33 NIV) Abraham Maslow brought a shift in thinking to fields of psychology and psychiatry. Previously the Freudian approach was oriented toward studying pathological behaviors. They studied those persons with dysfunctional behaviors in an effort to understand their inability to function normally. Maslow took the opposite approach. He studied people who were vitally alive and fully functional radiant happy people. He studied people who were mentally whole. Maslow developed a theory he called self-actualization.

In his conclusions Maslow wrote, "Without exception, I found that every person who was sincerely happy and radiantly alive, was living for a purpose or a cause beyond himself." Maslow's discovery has been a blessing to the field of psychology and psychiatry. It should be no surprise that he named Jesus Christ as a fully actualized person.

It should be an encouragement when Paul calls us to do nothing "through selfish ambition or conceit," and not to "look out only for [our] own interests, but also the interests of others." (Philippians 2:4) Paul is calling us to discover the joy of living.

When Jesus finished emptying himself on the cross, it was then he was exalted to the right hand of God. Jesus offers us the same chance for a new life in him.

How Can I Change?

Being properly motivated always helps in any endeavor. We all at sometime in our lives ask the question, "How can I change? Many of us are as puzzled as Nicodemus about experiencing a rebirth in our thinking. We begin asking ourselves, "How can I change?"

"When Nicodemus came to Jesus, Jesus declared, "'I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.' 'How can a man be born when he is old?' Nicodemus asked. 'Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!' Jesus answered, 'I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.'" (John 3:3-5 NIV)

Jesus told Nicodemus his life depended on it. "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." Then Nicodemus ask the proverbial question "How can I?" At this point Jesus emphatically repeats what he has already told Nicodemus. Jesus says, "I am telling you the truth Nicodemus, no one can get into heaven unless he is born of the water and the Spirit." Jesus put Nicodemus' in a corner by telling him his life with God depended on it. Our lives and our eternal salvation depend upon a rebirth of the way we think.

If you corner an animal by giving it no way of escape a survival instinct kicks in giving the animal unbelievable strength. It has been proven again and again what a person can do when their back is against the wall. We know the danger of physically challenging a person whose back is against the wall. There is something about that position in life that gives a person incredible strengths. Renewing our minds is a matter of survival.

Conclusion:

Christ is asking us to die to ourselves and our lives depend on it.

Matthew 16:21-26
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life . . . Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? (NIV)

Paul wrote, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21) Paul said he died every day for the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:30)

Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (NIV)

Romans 6:3-4
Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (NIV)