What is the Mind of Christ?

Happy Sabbath, everybody! Good to see all of you. It seems like the weeks just go by so rapidly. It seemed like we just started summer just yesterday, and here we are in August already. I guess people, though, are trying to get in there. Cool days up in the mountains with camping and so forth. I know that is a very special opportunity that you have in Arizona, of being able to get up in the mountains and get away and do that. I did want to mention to you that next week my wife and I will be up in Northern California, doing a church visit up there. So we'll be traveling about this coming week to get up that way because we're driving up. I tried to do the fly-up, but it was so expensive. So we decided we're going to just go ahead and drive up. So anyway, your prayers would be appreciated for the trip. One thing that is happening out in Maricopa—I know it's a long way for you folks out in Maricopa, 100 or 200 miles out there— but they are going through basically a decision-making process about making Maricopa a darker place by curtailing some of the lighting that is out there. And I know that they have those kinds of projects going on around Phoenix because, you know, the sky at night in Arizona is just like a tremendous panorama of beauty. The Milky Way galaxy with the lights. You know, one of the things that I like to do is I go out to the backyard at night—not these days, though. Last night, when I went to bed, it was 100 degrees, so I wasn't sitting outside last night. But sometimes I go out and I will look at this—just sit in a lawn chair and just look at the sky and be amazed by God's creation. Anybody that frankly can do that and think there is no God maybe needs to go back to school, right? And gain a little bit more intelligence. But rather than imagine the kind of a being who created all these things. He created not only the heavens that we look at during the months that we lived upon this planet and the years that we are here, but he created the unseen world, too. The angels and so forth. In fact, some rather powerful angels like archangels and seraphim and caribim that the Bible talks about. He created, of course, the physical universe that we see out here. He created all creatures, every living creature.

You look down on the ground, you see an ant walking on the ground. That tiny creature God designed. He designed them all. And when I was going to college—this is back in the Stone Age—but in zoology, I remember we used to talk about how there are six million varieties of insects alone.

Among those varieties are many different subsets. Insects that are just like that had the same qualities of them, but they're different. God has created that, and he's placed that on the earth. God created human life as well.

Anybody, again, witnesses a baby's birth as I had the opportunity to be there with the birth of each of our sons. And I know many of you have had the same experiences of seeing your children born. It's kind of hard to see that and not believe that there's a God who created all of that. But think about, too, the human body with all of its complexities. One thing I am learning as I'm getting older is that this body is a very complex thing. When you're young, you don't realize how complex your body is. But you find that you need every part of your body that you have.

If one little thing goes out of kilter, it throws everything off. It's like you get your little toe starts aching and painting. That affects your whole body. It can impact your entire body. But think about the complexities of the human body. When I went to college at Northeastern University and I was doing premedicine, I looked extensively into the digestive system, the endocrine system, the circulation system, the vascular system, and the human brain.

I was looking at, again, the complexities of the human brain. It has two lobes. It would have, again, a function. Scientists, though they sometimes try to impress us that they know so much, don't know a lot about the body, really. It's like they know the body has a muffler. They know the body has a transmission.

They know they've got all of these things, like if you were looking at a car. But they don't know why it works. They know these things, but they don't know why it works. Quite frankly, man doesn't even understand about electricity. Why electricity works. We use it, of course, but we don't know why. We're beginning, of course, to crack the surface of understanding of some of these things. We're beginning to say man is totally ignorant, but he sees a little bit into these things.

It is a long way to go. The human brain is a mystery to scientists. Neural scientists don't understand a lot of things about the human brain. They don't know for inches what consciousness is. We all, of course, wake up in the morning. We're conscious. We are able to think.

We're able to reason. The one thing they know is that we are not zombie-like. We're not just automatons down here up on this earth. We think. We reason. We have self-awareness. Why? They don't know. They don't know why we've got this self-awareness about us. I think we have a little bit more understanding of that because we understand what? The spirit in man. That's why we understand that.

And, of course, beyond that, we don't have a lot of understanding as God's people. How about personality? Neural scientists don't know where personality comes from. But if it comes from the brain, is it nurtured? Is your personality nurtured? Or is it from the DNA? Does it come from the DNA? If you study twins, by the way, it turns out that that doesn't give you the answer. And people have studied twins for a long, long time. For instance, why do we sleep?

You know that scientists don't know why we sleep. Why do we dream? Why do we dream? We don't know why. Those things are done. And yet a third of our life is spent sleeping. And scientists don't know why. You know, when we sleep, conscious awareness shuts down. Now, experts think that is a time when the brain is recharged and the body energy stores are replenished. I know that helps me. When I take a nap, you get recharged, don't you?

But perhaps it's a time to encode and store important memories. But you know, I read a study of how the Russians did a study on people deprived of sleep. And if you don't get any sleep, you die. You simply die. That's one of the things they discovered. Of course, another thing in this study I was reading is, after a while, people just go mad. They go crazy. They start imagining things. And they go crazy. They lose their minds. How do we store and access memories? Neuroscientists don't know how we do that. I know we toss out with a gray matter. But what is that? That doesn't really tell us why we store these things.

And of course, like I say, they're researching into these things. But they don't have the answers. At least they didn't when I studied this subject. This is a mystery. Why do some memories fade? Why do you have short-term memory and long-term memory? And you know, all of it's associated with the human brain. Now, what kind of being, brethren, could do these things which remain a dark mystery to all of us? And again, this is just a human body.

Add up all of the other six million insects, the billions upon billions of stars that Carl Sagan talked about. You know, and you do all of those things. What kind of a God being has done all these things? Consider God also is infinitely mercy and has been doing His creation forever. His creation process has been going on forever. Now, I know none of us can really fathom that, can we?

That He's been creating forever and doing things, you know, for eternity. So what kind of mind must God have? It says in Isaiah 55, in verse 8 and 9, He says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.

And it says, For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. This is what God says about us. At best, brethren, our puny minds see only a tiny, tiny part of God's mind. Now, why in the world am I talking about this, brethren?

You know, if we can only see a tiny, tiny part of God's mind, let's go over to Philippians 2. Philippians 2, we get a glimpse into God's mind. That's about it. It's like a crack opens, and we can... Have you ever looked through a crack? You know, and tried to see things, you can't see it all, but you look through that crack and you can see some things on the other side. Well, that's the way it is with God's mind. We can see a little bit about the way God's mind is. But let's notice here, in fact, about Christ, where Paul says, Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded.

So here Paul introduced the subject of the mind, the human mind. Having the same love being of one accord of one mind, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind. It says, Let each esteem others better than himself. Well, that's a tall order, isn't it? Esteeming others better than ourselves. But it says, Let each of you look not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

And then verse 5 here is the great challenge, the greatest challenge ever given to a human being. Let this mind, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. So, brethren, I talked about the complexities of the human brain and all of God's creation and how we can only see a tiny, tiny glimpse of what God's mind is. Then, brethren, what is the mind of Jesus Christ? If we can't see very much of what God's mind is, what is the mind of Christ? And do you have it?

Here you're sitting here in this congregation with the Bible in your hand, and many of us have been studying this book for, you know, 50 years or plus, probably. Some of you probably many more years than that. What is the mind of Jesus Christ? I'm going to read to you from Barnes' notes of the Bible, what it says about this particular passage, let this mind be in you, that we just read.

It says, the object of this reference to the example of the Savior is particularly to enforce the duty of humility. Again, underline that in your mind, humility, the duty of humility. And it says, this was the highest example which could be furnished, in other words, Christ's example, and would illustrate and confirm all the apostle had said of this virtue.

The principle in the case is that we are to make the Lord Jesus our model. He's our model, our example. And in all respects, to frame our lives as far as possible in accordance with this great example of Jesus Christ. So if we're going to crack the code, as it were, to find out what the mind of Christ is, we have to use Christ as the model. And by doing that, we can get a small glimpse of what God's mind is.

He goes on to say, the point here is that He left a state of inexpressible glory and took upon Him the most humble form of humanity and performed the most lowly offices that He might benefit us. That He would benefit us by His example. Now, this is a very important area, the mind of Christ. And the title of this sermon is, Do You Have the Mind of Christ?

And we are commanded by Peter, the Apostle Peter, to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. And the most important thing that we can grow in is to learn how Christ thought. What His mind was? What His mentality was? What His attitude was in certain circumstances? Let's go to Romans chapter. I'll hold your place there, but we'll come back right afterwards.

But in Romans chapter 12 over here, this is what Paul says elsewhere with regard to Christ and what He did for us. And it really, again, brings up once again what Philippians 2 pointed up. But it says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, verse 1 here of Romans 12, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. It's reasonable that we should present ourselves as a sacrifice. Why?

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, though the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think sober as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

And here we are to subjugate, in other words, ourselves, our thoughts about ourselves. And brethren, we ought to, as God's people, try to be void of selfish ambition, to have that mentality of selfish ambition. Let's go back over to Philippians. Philippians 2, verse 6. Because it tells us what Jesus did for us. In Philippians 2, verse 6, and again, this is a fact of what Christ did for us, brethren, who, being in the form of God, being in the form of God, I had to think about what John wrote in John 1, verse 1.

You know, John's epistle, the first thing that is mentioned is the Word. The Word is the subject of that entire chapter. In the beginning, he said, was a Word, and the Word was God, it was with God, and the Word became flesh, we're told, in verse 14 of John 1, and dwelt among us. And so God became flesh. And of course, he was a manual, or God with us.

He was fully human, and he was fully God as well. But he divested himself of the power with the majesty he had. And so Jesus did that for us. He was in the form of God, but did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. If someone really think about, brethren, Jesus was equal with God, he shared the same glory with a father. But you know what this means if you look in the Greek?

He didn't think it was robbery. That word, robbery, there, or the phrase that is used there, he didn't think it was a thing he ought to grasp at or cling to, being God, as the father was God. He didn't hang on to that for dear life. You think about it in the world today, if people have a high station in life, they don't tend to throw it aside, do they? It's very important to them. Kings don't tend to abdicate and say, I don't want this. I want to just be a commoner. I want to go out here and live like everybody else. It has happened, but Jesus was God, and he divested himself, rather, of all of those things, and he came in the form of a man.

I don't think we really fully grasp what he did for us for these things, brother. What he surrendered for us. Now, I know that he's at the right hand of the Father now, but he was in the situation where he said to God, who's the Father, he said, I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to empty myself. I'm willing to go if it means that I can save God's people, your people. If it means that. He willingly did it. He willingly surrendered himself for us. And, you know, when he prayed that last prayer there in John 17 that we read at Passover, remember when Jesus said, and now, O Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

Jesus laid everything on the line. Now, if we're going to have, if we're going to understand the mind of Christ, understand that. Understand that. Is that you? Is that me? Is that the way we think? I don't think so. I think we've got to work on that, don't we?

To be willing to give up all. To be willing to surrender all for someone else. To think about somebody else. To give for somebody else. You know, a parent will do that, maybe for a child. But would they do it for a stranger? Somebody they did not know. You see, we've got a long way to go as God's people.

We've got to change. Do you have this mind, brethren? Jesus left the glory he had in heaven to come to fulfill the mission. And the mission was to save the world, basically, from utter destruction, being obliterated. That he was willing to do that. And he didn't cling to being God. Oh, I know I can't step down, Father, to go save those puny human beings. No, he willingly did that. Most, again, in this world, cling to the station they have in life, their job, their high position. Most cling to friends in the world.

And they won't embrace God's way if it means losing their friends. Remember, Mr. Armstrong, when God began to call his wife, he was more concerned of what his colleagues would think of him than he was what God would think of him. Of course, he would change on that. But, rather, in the mind of Christ, the mind of Christ does not hold on to selfish ambition. But it subjugates it to fulfill God's will.

We don't do what we want to do. We do what God wants us to do. We don't get offended when we don't get recognition we feel we deserve. But we rejoice in others giving new responsibilities.

And the mind of Christ doesn't get jealous about it. It's happy. The mind of Christ, you see, subjugates the self. The mind or the attitude of Christ is to lay aside all of these things, brethren, and work to please God in our lives. Look at it this way, brethren. Maybe if there's a position that's being held up, maybe you don't need it. You ever thought about that? God is the Master Potter. He's molding us and shaping us. And I was talking this past week to Mr. McKee about the subject of how God's the Master Potter.

Now, we can conceive of how God is this Master Creator. We are awed by what we see in the creation. But you know what? One of the greatest creations that God is doing right now is sitting right here in this room. You and I, brethren, are like this little piece of clay that God keeps molding and shaping.

And you know what? He does masterpieces. He doesn't do stuff you throw away. He does things you keep forever that gets more and more valuable. Like an artist who is a genius, God is, of course, much more than that. So if we let God, brethren, begin to work with us, we develop the mind of Jesus Christ. We begin to change.

We begin to change, and dramatically so, in our lives. When we get out of the way, what Jesus did is He basically said, I'm willing to do whatever the mission is. I don't care about myself, basically.

I don't care about myself. I care about them. Usually, human beings think the other opposite way. I don't care about you. I just care about me. Isn't that the way you usually people think? I mean, sometimes even during the Christmas season, people fight each other to get gifts to give to somebody else. It's not necessarily wrong to give a gift to someone else, but believe me, if you start fighting people to get something, you're going to give the gift to somebody.

Isn't that a dichotomy in some ways? You're trying to be giving, and yet you're getting to give. Isn't your giving negated by the getting? But this is the way human beings think, again, and it's the way they are. But in Philippians 2, verse 7, I'm going to read from the American Standard Version, it says, In other words, he divested himself of the tremendous glory he had with the Father.

He took upon himself the form of a servant. I made the analogy in a letter I wrote to you this week, that we're lowly servants. That's all we are, lowly servants in the field. Jesus is the Master. We're just servants in the field. And it doesn't matter who you are, you know? I don't care if you're an apostle.

You're still a lowly servant in the field. Now, God's not called us to be just lowly servants. He has a great plan for us for the future. But the word, rather, became human himself. He was born into the world as an actual man, a real man of a particular height, of a particular hair color, who spoke language, who weighed a certain amount like everybody else.

But this being who knew everything and created the universe, became not only a man, but a baby. He was born as a baby. And he grew up. This man who became Jesus grew up from infancy. And before that, he was a fetus. Again, begin to stretch your mind to what Jesus Christ went through. He was a fetus inside of a woman's womb. He came as a man. He was tempted like we are. He had to eat. He felt pain.

He needed a sleep. He wasn't a superman. He didn't come as a superman. Now, we might have thought he was a superman. But, you know, it seems to indicate that Jesus was well acquainted with grief.

He may have had issues, health issues. We don't know that. He may have had things he had to deal with that we don't even know about. But he emptied himself, and he came this way. For us. Don't you think that, brethren, you meditate on that a little bit? Isn't that tremendously magnanimous of a being who would be willing to do that?

And how about us, brethren? What are we willing to do to mimic Jesus Christ? You know, Paul said in Galatians 2.20, he said, I'm crucified with Christ. He said, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And what he meant, brethren, is not that Jesus, his whole body dwells within Paul, but the mind of Christ was in Paul. Christ's mind was in him. And maybe that's why Paul was the kind of guy that he was. He was a kind of fellow that never died, basically. You keep going, he's like the energizing buzzy, but it doesn't matter how many times you beat me, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do what God has called me to do. And maybe Paul was motivated by what he did to Christians. Maybe that was a part of his thinking. Let's read verse 8 here, though in Philippians 2. And being found in the appearance of a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. So we are, brethren, in the presence, brethren, of truly a great being, and why there is such a fanfare in heaven. We read about in the book of Revelation about Jesus Christ, how great he was. Such a tremendous being, sitting now at the right hand of the Father. And, brethren, we ought to be like Christ. We ought to have this mind to learn to be selfless, to learn to get rid of our selfish ambitions. And to have one goal, and one goal alone in mind, is pleasing God and serving God's people, serving others. Now, we're not to ignore our needs, but we must make room in our lives for the needs of other people as well. Since Jesus willingly gave up his glory in heaven for our sake, we have an obligation, brethren, to sacrifice our own lives to have his mind. That's how you get it. That's how we get God's mind, brethren. If the word get is an appropriate thing, I think it's more how God gives it to us. That God gives us the mind. If you can get out of the way, when you stop talking about you, when you stop talking about me and I, you get out of the way and you begin to think about God's people and what God has called you for in this life, then God's mind, Christ's mind, will be in you. It begins to be built in you, in each of us.

God wants us to see we have that obligation, because Christ had that mind that if we, of course, see what he did for us, we want to have that mind, that mentality, that kind of specialness. Let's go over to Hebrews 2. Hebrews 2. Paul had some insight into the mind, believe me, of Jesus Christ, the mind of Christ. He's quite a remarkable individual. Here was a man that was persecuting the church. And Paul, as we've said many, many times, he was a brilliant man, just an absolutely brilliant man.

And that he, of course, was needed. And God has a way, he has a way of calling people, of getting to them, of explaining it to them. Sometimes people don't know what God's going to expect of them. The idea that sometimes we have is we make choices. But really, we choose to agree with what God wants to do. If it's a matter of choice, you could put it that way if you want to, but I think it's a matter of, okay, God, I'll do what you want me to do. You can see what I'm saying here, that we're doing what God wants us to do. And it's always going to be that way, brethren.

And he's got a higher seat to look at our lives than we will ever have. He knows what's best for us. I know he was talking to my wife, you know, this week, and we were, I was mentioning about how when I was growing up, my aspirations, what I wanted to do, what I wanted to accomplish. And, you know, being a pastor was never on the radar. It was not even, I mean, if it was a list of 2,000 things to do in the world, being a pastor would have been right on the bottom of it. You know, I read widely, I read about Schweitzer and others that, you know, went to Africa and helped people in the medical arena. And that was my thinking, you know, science, medicine. And, you know, we oftentimes muse about what our lives would have been. But I told her, I said, I am so thankful that I did not go that way. And, of course, we would never have met each other. And what a horrible thing that would have been. Hebrews 2 and verse 9. Let's notice this. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels. For the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God might taste death for everyone. He came to die for you and me. For it is fitting for him for whom all things are made and by whom all things are made. Now get underlined that, brethren. Maybe we could say that Jesus was the beginning of the family of God when he became the Son and God became the Father. It was something that was incredible, what he did, again, entirely magnanimous. But it says, it is fitting for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons in glory to make the captive of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one. For which reason he's not ashamed to call them brethren. You know, sometimes I wonder, I'm sure you do too, but sometimes I wonder why he would ever want me as a little brother, you know. But I sure appreciate it. I sure deeply appreciate it. I'm sure that you feel exactly the same about yourself. Why would he consider you? But he does. He's not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. Not ashamed of that at all. Very proud of that. And we're the weak of the world. We're not the giants of this world and society. You know, I was praying last night about, you know, how Christ tells us to pray about your kingdom come. And, you know, where he talked about where we at the end of our prayer do yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory. And I was mentioning, God, I am so thankful that your kingdom is not of men. I'm so very thankful for that. You know why? If God's kingdom was of men, you'd have to pay to get in it. And you know where you and I would be? We'd be out of luck. But it's not that. It's God's kingdom. And God calls people. And He puts them in His kingdom and His family. And He's not ashamed, again, to call us brothers. Saying, I will declare your name to my brethren. In the midst of the assembly, I will sing praise you. And again, I will put my trust in Him. And again, here am I and the children whom God has given me. I'm so proud of God's people.

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of the flesh, He Himself likewise shared in the same. And through death He might destroy Him who is the power of death. That is the devil. He came to destroy that. And it says, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to the angels, but He does give aid. It says to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He has had to be made like His brethren, that He might be merciful and a faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. So, brethren, when we go to God, the Father, we say, Father, my Advocate understands this flesh, what I'm going through. And you just, brethren, have to believe and have faith in that, that Jesus explains it to the Father and the Father understands. He's our Advocate. He's going to bat for us all the time in Heaven. The only thing that can keep that from happening is you stop asking God to forgive you. That's the only thing, brethren. So you keep going back again and again and again, like that importuning widow. You don't give up. You keep fighting. You keep overcoming and changing to develop the mind of Christ. It's a long process. It takes a long time to do it. And we'll be working on it until Christ returns. Over in chapter 5 here, Hebrews 5 and verse 7, let's notice this. It says, So Jesus Christ set that splendid example, brethren, for us. And He's there, and He's an understanding Advocate at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. He wasn't some superman, though, when He was here upon this earth. It wasn't easy for Him either, brethren, to go through the things He had to go through, that He had to experience. Let's go to Romans chapter 15. Romans chapter 15 over there. We'll come back to Philippians toward the end here. But in Romans 15, Paul again has this insight about the mind of Jesus Christ. And he instructed the brethren, as we do in the church, about that mind, what is important about having that mind, that we're being formed in fashion in the image of our model who is Jesus Christ, like it talks about in Ephesians 4. But it says in Romans 15, in verse 1, We then, who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. God didn't call us to please ourselves, brethren, but to bear with one another, basically, as we wrestle with the foibles of this human flesh. Let each of us please His neighbor for His good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please Himself. He didn't please Himself, brethren. But as is written, the reproaches of those who reproached, you fell on Me. So in other words, what this is saying, brethren, is that Jesus Christ bore our reproach. He bore our sense, and He took away the penalties we deserved. When He was beaten, we deserved the stripes. He didn't. Never sinned one time. When He was strapped to that post and beaten with that cat of nine tails, and His flesh was ripped, brethren profusely so did He bled. We deserved that for our sins, brethren. He did it for us. It says over in Isaiah 53, I won't go over there to that, but we read that during Passover often. So I ask you, brethren, do you have the mind of Christ? All of us have a ways to go, don't we?

We do have the mind of Christ if more and more in our lives we're looking out for others. We're thinking about other people. We do if we're humble. If we can subjugate ourselves to this human flesh and not vaunt ourselves, we have the mind of Christ if we're humble. We do if we sacrifice for one another. If we think about somebody else and it's a sacrifice for us to think about them, you know, it's like some involved in helping others move in the congregation or helping somebody that's going through a horrible trial to counsel, to talk to them, to encourage them. And, you know, the goal is just to pick up and keep going.

That's what we try to convince people to do. There is another day, there is another time, if you just move forward in your life, don't give up. You know, be like the Winston Churchill. Never, never, ever give in. You just keep going. You keep moving forward. And you will survive and you will get better.

Now, do we have that mind? You know, it says, I'm not going to go to it, but in 1 John 3, verse 16, Hereby perceive we the love of God because He laid His life down for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren.

It's fitting that just since Christ did it for us, that we do it for other people, that we care about other people. I mean, the work of God has been going forward, you know, for since Christ, of course, ascended to heaven, at least the New Testament church. And it's going forward now, in our time. How does it go forward? It's because people like you, people like those in God's church who think about somebody you don't even know out there, is going to hear the truth.

That you're willing to sacrifice. You do so, of course. We all tithe. We give offerings to God. But it's more than that, isn't it? It's taking the time, if you see a new person, to talk with them, to get to know them, to spend time with them.

And God wants us again to do that, to have that willingness to do that, to reach out to other people. Let's notice verse 9 here of Philippians 2, chapter 2 and verse 9 of the book of Philippians. Therefore, God also has highly exalted him. And the angels rejoice at Jesus Christ with that exaltation that he has received. He's highly exalted him. It doesn't just say he's exalted. We know he's over all things in heaven and earth, the Bible talks about.

That's how high Jesus was promoted. And it says, And it goes on to say, You know here, Everybody confesses that Jesus is Lord, that he is the Master. And Jesus said he was the Master to his disciples. You call me Rabbi or Master? And what did he say to his disciples? That's what I am. You get the point. He was telling his disciples, I'm the Master. And the Lamb of God we're shown over in Revelation 5. I'm not going to go over to this, but the Lamb of God is glorified.

He is worshipped, brethren, in heaven before the angels and the twenty-four elders. Just like, again, Paul mentions that every creature that God has created on earth, every creature in heaven, kneels before Jesus Christ. He is the Master of all the Lord of all. And brethren, this mind, when Paul says, let this mind be in you in talking about Jesus Christ, the mind that Jesus Christ had led to him being highly exalted. He didn't start out with the idea, oh good, I'm going to be over everything.

He was already over everything. He surrendered that. He came in basically almost nothing here upon the earth. Of course, he wasn't nothing. He was Emmanuel. He was God and the flesh.

Let's go to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. So his mind, brethren, is needed in us so that we can be exalted. So we can be glorified. Maybe that word is not as clear to us what it means to be glorified. Glorified means just to be exalted, to be given a high position of responsibility. We are seeking in the church to fulfill God's will to be kings and priests in the future. And yet, we should not get so caught up in the idea of, I'm going to be a king.

And maybe begin to have an entitlement attitude in this life. If we have a wrong attitude toward being a king and a priest, we probably won't be there. But if we have a right attitude, a humble attitude, we empty ourselves. And we look to God to give whatever He's willing to give to us at the return of Jesus Christ. But here in Romans chapter 8, let's notice in verse 16, it says, The Spirit Himself or itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. We know through the Spirit that we're different.

We're different than when we were called. Yes, we know more. And we are changing. Human beings don't change that much, but we are changing a great deal. You know, not only on the outside, but on the inside. And that's more important. For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry of the Father.

Or Daddy-Father, as we've mentioned before. Which means that our relationship with God, He's not this ethereal being up here. We have a close relationship with Him. We talk Him, you know, every day.

Maybe several times in a day, we have a relationship with the Father in Heaven.

In verse 16, the Spirit itself bears witness to our spirits that we are the children of God. And if children, Paul says here, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with Him.

So the mind of Christ, you know, the way Christ thought, it allowed Him to be willing to suffer in the flesh. And if we, Paul says, if we suffer, we're going to be glorified with Him. That's amazing to think about right there. That when Christ is given the crown, whatever that's going to be, you know, this crown must be incredible. If you look at the New Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven, and I assume there will be a crown, and that's only assumption, but it must be a tremendous crown, and the crown that is going to be put on our head, rather. But if we suffer, you know, with Christ, then we're really going to be glorified. Right there when Christ is glorified, when He receives the role of the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and the Father hands it over to Him, and He says, go do it, and this world, of course, is going to be transformed, we'll at the same time receive our orders to assist Him. And He will be very proud of us. He won't be ashamed of us, but very proud of us, His brothers and sisters in the family of God. But it says, Paul says, I consider the suffering of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Nothing compares to it. It says, for the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. So this universe is waiting for the arrival of you and me, brethren, the future sons and the family of God. It's hard for us to understand how we're going to fit into it all. But we can't have a glimpse into the mind of God, that unfathomable mind of God that man can't even understand the human brain. But we can have a glimpse into the mind of God, which is so much higher beyond all. If we could sacrifice ourselves, brethren, through our own suffering in our lives, whatever it might be, we will be glorified with Christ. Everything in God's creation is waiting for the arrival of the sons of God, of those who have followed in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and have developed His mind, His way of thinking. So if we're willing to just do the suffering for a short period of time, to turn our eyes away from ourselves and look to others, we're going to be glorified with Christ. So we've seen, brethren, in this message that the mind of God involves this. Let me sum it up, brethren. The mind of God involves this, humility. That is the mind of God, the mind of Christ. Obedience to God. He did what God told Him to do. He said, I did not come to do my will, but the Father's will. Obedience. That's the mind of Jesus Christ. Sacrifice and suffering is the mind of Christ. He's willing to do that. He's willing to go the gamut, as it were, to help other people.

And He came to do that for all of us, brethren, to make it possible for us to have salvation. And, brethren, if we can do these things, if we can have the humility, if we can have the obedience to God, if we can have the attitude of sacrificing and suffering for each other, then it follows that what happened to Christ is He received great reward in Heaven.

So that He will be glorified above all. And He's already, of course, that has happened to Christ. So, brethren, do we possess, do we have the mind of Christ? This is what we should be developing. This is the kind of mind, brethren, we should be developing. For it is the key to sharing glory together with Christ when He returns.