The following is a video presentation of Lifeway Press.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation,
and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men,
and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him,
and hath given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth,
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. These challenging words come
from Paul's letter to the Philippians. They call every Christian to think the thoughts
of our Lord, to have the mind of Christ. Hello, I'm Roy Edgeman, and on behalf of
Lifeway Press I welcome you to the Mind of Christ Conference Videos. It is with great
pleasure that we bring to you T.W. Hunt's critically acclaimed seminar, The Mind of Christ.
Dr. Hunt has devoted his life to learning and sharing what it means to have the mind of Christ.
As he shares his scholarly work and personal pilgrimages, you'll learn invaluable spiritual
principles which will challenge, inspire, and motivate you to a deeper and richer walk with
the Lord Jesus Christ. For 20 years Dr. Hunt has crisscrossed the nation delivering these
presentations in hundreds of churches, and Lifeway Press has captured this timeless event
in this 12-part video series. Each session features T.W. in both a conference setting
and a small group interview. For the small group meetings, we invited some people from
the conference to join Dr. Hunt at this historical home. This home was built in 1790s, a time
in which our forefathers were seeking to build a new nation based on eternal truths. In just
a moment we'll join Dr. Hunt and his friends, but first you'll want together your listener's
guide, a pen or pencil, your Bible, and above everything else a teachable spirit. Session
one is titled, His Freedom. Before we join Dr. Hunt and the others in the kitchen of
this beautiful old home, would you join me in prayer? Our Father, we thank you today
for the opportunity of this study, and we pray that you may open up our hearts and open
up our minds as we understand through the power and the presence of your Holy Spirit
and the blessedness of your word, the mind of Christ, because we ask this in the name
of Jesus, our Lord and Savior, amen. You know, one of the most amazing aspects of the biblical
revelation is that the Bible opens with the idea that we are created in the image of God,
but then after that the Old Testament drops the idea and it never does occur again anywhere
in the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, in the Old Testament the emphasis is on the
difference in us and God. God says, your ways are not my ways and my ways are not your ways,
and God is on the outside. He is the potter, and we're the clay, and He is working on us,
but once you get into the New Testament the whole emphasis, orientation completely changes
so that in the New Testament, as Paul says, we are created to be like God in true righteousness
and holiness, and again and again we are commanded to be like God. We are to let this mind be
in us which was in Christ Jesus, Romans 8, 28 and 29. We are predestined to be conformed
to the image of Christ, 1 Peter 2, 21. We are to follow the steps of Christ, and it's
a completely different orientation that came after redemption was accomplished.
You know T.W., when I first saw this I remember I thought being, what does it mean to have
the mind of Christ? Is it possible?
Not only is it possible Ernie, but it is fact. If you are a believer you have the mind of
Christ according to 1 Corinthians 2, 16. Now the problem is that many of us don't really
realize it because we bind the infant Christ within us in the tatters and rags of sin and
we never grow and we do not realize the meaning of what God has given us in redemption because
we are in sin.
T.W. that sounds presumptuous. Who does this? Is it up to us? Is it up to God? How does
this happen?
Debbie, if it were up to you it would be presumptuous. That's really right. But the fact is it's
not up to you. It is up to God. It is God who accomplished the redemptive fact that brings
in all of this in the one fact of redemption. You already have the mind of Christ and our
job is to realize what is ours by birthright. We have that. Now you do have responsibility.
I really should say that there is a responsibility because we are commanded. It is a command
to have this mind to follow in His steps. But the basic work is all bound up in redemption
which is God's responsibility.
T.W. I really enjoyed the seminar. I learned a lot. I noticed that you used a lot of personal
examples to back up your points. I was just wondering if there is a reason behind the
fact that you were using a lot of personal examples.
Bill first of all in the Bible Paul always wrote out of his own experience. Those three
years in the desert. Peter wrote out of his experience. For that matter Matthew wrote
out of his own experience. Many years ago when I was first beginning to teach this trying
to stumble upon a teaching technique I realized that it would have no meaning if it didn't
come from my experience. But other people who teach this if they will put the principles
in practice they will have the experiences.
Tell me T.W. how did you come to this point in your life? How did God teach you all of
these things?
I'd like to take you to a morning in my life in August of 1972. I was at home alone one
morning. It was a Saturday morning and I was by myself. My wife had gone to the beauty
shop and I had gone. My daughter had gone to an orchestra practice so I was there by
myself and I happened to be meditating that morning on James 3.13 through chapter 4 verse
3. James asks, Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him show out
of a good conversation his works with make this of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy
and strife do not boast and do not lie against the truth. This wisdom or this way of thinking
does not come from above but is earthly, sensual, devilish for where there is envy and strife
there is confusion and therefore evil work.
But I've just reached verse 17, James 3.17. In 17 James says the wisdom that is from above
is first pure. Now notice that God's wisdom has a starting place. And then he says it
is peaceable and gentle, easy to be entreated. That's kind of a big word. When you entreat
somebody you just ask them to do a favor. So somebody who is entreatable is willing
to be approached or to be asked to favor. Then he says it is full of mercy and it is
full of good fruit. It is without wavering, we would say steadfast. And finally, the last
quality, it is without hypocrisy. It is honest. Now this is what the Bible says wisdom is.
Then he says the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Where
do wars come from among you? Do they not come from this? Even from your lusts, which war
in your members. You lust and have not. You kill and desire to have and cannot obtain.
You fight and war yet you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because
you ask amiss that you might burn it up on your own lusts. Now have you ever been reading
the Bible when all of a sudden you see a light? The Holy Spirit opens up a new meaning to
you that you never saw even though you may have known the verse before. Has it ever happened
to you? Raise your hand. All right. You know that happened to me that morning. I suddenly
saw that James was saying that my lusts would create conflict in myself. Now I was by myself.
I told you that. My wife and daughter were both gone. So I thought now before anybody
gets back, I'm going to write down all of my lusts, good and bad, and then I'll see
how they work on my mind when I'm thinking about those things. And then I'll burn it
up before anybody gets home. So I got me a legal size sheet of paper and I said, now
Lord help me to be honest about what my lusts are. First thing I thought of was I wish I
had a new suit. And then I thought, and I wish we had a washer and a dryer because we
had been without a washer and a dryer at that time for four years. So I had to take the
clothes to the washateria sometimes. And I found out something you men don't know. Wet
clothes weigh heavy. That's Hunt's first law. Now the third thing, and I'm sorry to
tell you that it was not the first thing, was that I really did want the name of the
Lord Jesus to be honored on the seminary campus where I was teaching at that time. Now the
fourth thing, I'm not going to tell you what it was, but I'll tell you what it was like.
It was like an itch. Did you ever try not to scratch an itch? Did you ever try to eat
one peanut? Now God, I mean Satan knows that if he can get our heart or our mind onto some
unholy itch for just five seconds, he's got our mind for five minutes. Now am I right
or wrong about that? You know what I'm talking about, don't you? Now the next thing I wrote
down was a thing. And I would have told you that I had settled the issue of materialism
in my heart. I thought I had. But that morning, intending to burn this list up, being honest
with God, I found out there were a lot of things that still mattered to me. Then I thought
of a fellow. This guy I've known to go through a number of tests. And I've watched him as
he goes through his tests. He always remains absolutely steady. And I wasn't like that.
When bad times came, my feelings went down. When good times came, my feelings went up
and I'd be on the mountain and in the valley and up and down. And so I told the Lord, I
said, Lord, I wish I could be steady in my faith like Bill is. I kept on. I thought of
more itches and more things and more qualities that I wished I had. I filled up the whole
page. I got through it and I said, now, the Bible says that this is what's going to create
war inside of me. Now let me see if it does. Now the first thing I noticed, you remember
that itch? When the itch comes to the surface of my mind, it really gets my attention. And
yet if I paid attention to it, I would be dishonoring the Lord Jesus. And yet the third
desire had been a desire that the Lord Jesus be honored. So between the unholy itch that
dishonored the Lord and the desire to honor the Lord, there was a conflict. And then I
saw that the reason I was not steady in my faith was that I really hadn't settled the
issue of materialism. And I began to see that there were conflicts all through my wants.
I might be thinking about the Lord one minute. In the very next minute, I'd be thinking about
something absolutely hellish. Now how many of you know what I'm talking about? I mean,
do you know? And I told the Lord, I said, Lord, what I need is to get my wanter fixed.
T.W., you talked about wanting a new suit. I want a new suit. What is the difference
then between a want and a lust?
My wife says that if I want an $800 suit, that's a lust. But if I want a $200 suit,
that's a want or rather a need, really. Do you know, really, the same word is used in
verse 1 as used in verse 5. Verse 1 talks about lusts. It says in the NIV, desire. And
a desire can be good or bad, either one. Jesus had desires. Adam had desires before the fall.
But after the fall, lust came in in the sense that we use it in modern English. English
has a precision of meaning that we don't find in those words. If you get down to verse 5,
it says, the Spirit lusteth over us to envy. And that's the Holy Spirit. So even the Holy
Spirit can have intense desire. So an intense desire can be good or it can be bad. And I
told the Lord, I said, Lord, what I need is to get my wanter fixed. And the minute I said
that, I suddenly remembered that back over here in James 3.17, I had seen a picture of
the Lord Jesus because He was pure and peaceable and incredible in all of these qualities.
So I got to thinking, did He ever express a want? Did Jesus ever want anything? Yes,
He did. Is there anybody here that can remember the very earliest recorded words we have from
the lips of Jesus? I give you a hint. He was 12 years old. I must be about my Father's
business. Now, He was 12 when He said that. Eighteen years later, beginning of the Galilean
ministry, He said, my meat is to do the will of Him who sent me, John 4.34. And then about
two years after that, toward the end of the Galilean ministry, in John 6.38, He said,
I came down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of Him who sent me. All of that
is being about His Father's business. That's all He wanted. In fact, you come to the end
of His life, the night before He died, John 17.4. He said, Father, I have finished the
work You gave me to do. I have glorified Your name on the earth. Still about the Father's
business. He had one desire, only one desire that He ever expressed, and that was that
the Father's business be accomplished on the earth. He had a very simple want list,
so I got to thinking. Now, what if I were pure and peaceable, gentle and treatable,
merciful, fruitful, steadfast and honest? Would these qualities ever have any conflict
among them? Now, let's see what you think. I want you to participate. Would purity ever
conflict with peace? No, it wouldn't, would it? Now, would peace keep you from being gentle,
or would it help you to be gentle? It would help you, wouldn't it? Can you see they work
together? Now, would gentleness make you more approachable or entreatable, or would gentleness
clash with entreatability? Which would it do, clash or harmonize? Which would it do?
Can you see that? And all of a sudden I begin to see that this kind of mind right here is
integrated. It is one, but this kind of mind over here is just full of conflict. That's
all it is, just conflicts all the way through it. You might, like I say, have one wish that
would conflict with another. So I said, Lord, I really do want to get my want or effects.
That's what I want. And the minute I said that, I remembered that way back in 1959,
the Lord changed my life, and at that time it meant a lot to me that my life would demonstrate
the fruit of God's Holy Spirit. Now, Jesus is God, but the Holy Spirit is God too. So
I decided I'm going to write down the nine qualities that are the fruit of the Spirit
and see if they would ever have any conflict among themselves, because the Holy Spirit
should demonstrate the same kind of mind that the Lord Jesus would demonstrate. Now all
of you know what these are, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
and meekness, and temperance, a remarkable list. So I wrote them down, and I said, now,
and love blend with joy. Would they go together? What do you think? And this may be a thought
question for you. Do you think that joy would blend with peace, or would it conflict with
peace? If you think it would conflict, you need to go back and look at the Lord's last
discourse. In the last discourse, John 14 through 17, he spoke of his personal love,
I mean, joy, seven times, and of his peace, four times. They're right side beside in the
very same speech. He's talking about the same thing, and there they harmonize. Would peace
help you to be long-suffering, or would it work against long-suffering? That's right.
It would work with it. And once again, if you look at all nine of these qualities, you
begin to see they harmonize. They work together. They are integrated. The mind of God is integrated.
Our minds are scattered like this thing over here.
T.W., you make the point in the material that the mind of Christ is integrated. That's confusing
to me because I know my mind is not integrated, yet it's fascinating. Elaborate on that, please.
Sometimes to understand the Bible concept, if you think of the opposite, you begin to
get your first handle on what it really means. Now, the opposite of integrated would be fragmented.
And this is how many Christians live. We'd like to live in the Spirit, so we're part
of the time we serve the Spirit, but unfortunately, sometimes we want to think, we think we want
to serve the flesh. And those two conflict. Now, the mind of God is one. Everything in
the mind of God goes in one direction. Always. It is unidirectional. Everything in the mind
of God works with everything else in the mind of God so that nothing conflicts in the mind
of God. The mind of Christ is one. You know, even the Trinity is one. I think a lot of
us do not understand the unity of the Trinity. We think in the Old Testament, God is one,
and in the New Testament, He's three. That's not right at all, but in the Old Testament,
God is three, and in the New Testament, God is one. And God wants to give us a mind which
is at peace. An integrated mind is at peace. Everything in the mind works with everything
else in the mind in perfect harmony. Harmony would be the best description of integration.
Then suddenly I saw something. I had two lists of virtues. Now, this list in James, I noticed,
are all adjectives, but the list over here in Galatians are all nouns. Now, an adjective
is a word that describes something, and a noun is a name of something. So I decided,
I'm going to see if these adjectives would go with these nouns, or if they would make
sense with the nouns, or if they wouldn't make sense. Okay, tell me what you think.
Would it make sense to talk about pure love? Can you talk like that? That's what it is.
If it's not pure, it's not love. Could you talk about pure joy, or pure peace, or peaceable
love, or gentle goodness? Can you talk like that? You sure can. Fruitful faith. Every
combination on there works perfectly. The two lists integrate. Now, once again, you
could change the nouns into adjectives, and the adjectives into the nouns. You could talk
about loving purity, lovingly purifying, joyful purity, faithful honesty. Can you talk like
that? You really can. The mind of God is a mind absolutely at one with itself. There's
never any conflict in the mind of God. It always works together. That's why it's peace.
I didn't know what to do. I could see what I was like over here on the left, so I just
got out on my knees, and I took that list of wants, and I held it up to the Lord. I
said, Lord, I don't know what to do, but I know that I want my wanter fixed, so you're
God and you know what to do, so in Jesus' name, I ask you to fix my wanter. I meant
to burn the list up, but then I got to looking at it, and I realized that everything on the
list my wife Laverne knew. She knew all of it, so I decided I'd try something. She is
the best prayer partner I've got, so I decided when she came in, I wanted to show her. I
said, honey, you know that verse in Romans 6, 14 that says, sin shall have no dominion
over you? She said, yeah. I said, I want you to see what the dominion of sin does in our
life, and I took my list of wants, and I said, now here are a list of my lusts, and I showed
her what my lusts did inside of me. They created conflict. I found myself at war with myself.
But Romans 6, 14 says, sin shall have no dominion over you, and then I showed her how these
lusts had no conflict. I said, would you pray with me that sin would have no dominion over
me? And she did. She always does. So the Lord began to answer that in kind of a strange
way. He began to haunt me with Matthew 6, 33. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness. It became my life first. He haunted me day and night.
You talked in the conference about this decision to challenge the dominion of sin in your life,
and I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what that was like when you
made that decision. What brought you to that decision?
Of course, what brought me to that decision was making a list of my wants, good and bad,
to see how they worked. But when I saw them, I saw that the negative wants or the fleshly
wants literally created damage to my mind, Bill. And Romans 6, 14 tells us sin shall
have zero, absolutely no dominion over your life. And what I saw for the first time in
my life on that August morning many years ago was what sin does to the mind. Sin fragments
the mind. So I wanted out of that. I wanted very much to be integrated like I was telling
Debbie, be the oneness that God wants us to be.
The following is a video presentation of Lifeway Press.
Welcome back to Part 2 of Session 1 of the Mind of Christ Conference Videos. The title
of this session is His Freedom. And before we rejoin Dr. T.W. Hunt and his guests, let's
pause for a moment of prayer. Our Father, we thank you that you give us freedom in Jesus
Christ. Help us to understand the unlimited freedom that we have in becoming what you
had in mind for us when you saved us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
Debbie, that is the very point of the whole first session. The first step that we have
to take in having the mind of Christ is to be free from the dominion of sin. We are created
in true righteousness and holiness. That is our creation. And Romans 6.14 says, Sin shall
have no dominion over you. That means zero dominion. So we have to talk about getting
rid of the various areas that bind us in sin before we can move on to the more advanced
steps.
He began to haunt me with Matthew 6.33, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
It became my life first. He had haunted me day and night. I'd get into a fuss with somebody
and there it'd be, seek first the kingdom. I'd, some unholy lust would pop into my mind
and there it would be, seek first the kingdom. All I could think of was seek the kingdom.
It became the passion of my life. God began to change me. You know, there's a wonderful
verse in Romans 12.2. It says, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. As I was trying
to seek the kingdom of God, I found a real transformation taking place in my wants. They
had been self-seeking and I didn't realize they were, but now they were changed to seeking
the kingdom. That was the passion of my life and it still is.
Then one day I was supposed to pick up Laverne and I forgot. I do that a lot. So about an
hour later, I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to have picked her up and I jumped
in my car and I drove across town and I said, honey, I am so sorry. Will you please forgive
me? She said, yes, I'll forgive you, but if you were really serious about sin, having
no dominion in your life, don't you think you ought to pray about your absent-mindedness?
And then she said something that really struck me. She said, after all, does a bad habit
really honor the indwelling spirit? And right after that, one morning I was reading in Matthew
10 and suddenly the words leaped off the page at me. They said, and as was Jesus' habit,
he taught them again. And I stopped and I said, Jesus had habits. I never thought of
that and I got to exploring it and I found in Mark 1.35, he was in the habit of getting
up in the early morning to pray. I looked for, he was in the habit of going to the synagogue
or the Sabbath. He had a lot of habits as it turned out, but they were all good. And
of course I knew that mine weren't, so God began to speak to me. Sin shall have no dominion
over you. Now how much is no dominion? Does that mean sin shall only have one-tenth of
one percent? No, it doesn't mean that. Sin shall only have what? Zero. Zero dominion.
And I knew that God was telling me that he wanted to work on my habits. So early one
morning I got my sheet of paper and I wrote them all out. I won't tell you what they
all were. You know one of them already, absent-mindedness, but as I prayed, as I tried to let the Lord
speak to me, what I began to realize was that really the Spirit wanted absolute control
of my life, and he was not in absolute control like I thought he was until I wrote my habits
down. And God changed my habits from careless to Spirit-ruled. And then one day I got into
a fuss about something, and I was doubtfully defending my point of view, and all of a sudden
the Holy Spirit just convicted me, and I think I heard him say defensiveness is a telltale
sign of carnality. And I thought, me, carnal? And suddenly I knew, yeah, I was carnal, and
carnal in a way I didn't know. So I began to pray about it, and the Lord led me to see
then that some of my loyalties that I was so defensive about were not really from God.
I prayed about it. I made a list of my loyalties. They were scattered, but God wanted to change
them. And through prayer and time, the Lord changed them from scattered to prayerful.
I discovered I could be loyal to anything I could pray for. The relationships came next.
By now I had made at least enough progress to know that God wanted to work on my life.
He wanted me free from the dominion of sin. Sin shall have zero dominion. So the first
person I gave to the Lord was my wife. But when I did that, I said, Lord, I want her
to love you more than she loves me. And then I prayed that about my daughter. When I did
that, I had to say, Lord, if you want to take her to Africa or anywhere you want to go,
I'd rather she be loyal to you and love you above me. By the way, he didn't take her
to Africa. He took me to Tennessee. But very gradually, my relationships were changed from
serving self to serving God.
Now I just waited because I knew that God had gone to work. And day after day, he was
saying sin shall have no dominion over you. Do you really believe that is possible? Folks,
that's what God wants. Sin shall have zero dominion. So God said, now I want to work
on your prejudices. And I said, Lord, I don't have any prejudices. I mean, that's one thing
I've never had. I'm not prejudiced. And the Lord said, what is your gift? And I said,
my gift is teaching. Just like that. I'm prejudiced against people who don't get the details right.
So I had to make my list. You know, our prejudices are kind of an accident of what we are. But
I found as I studied the life of the Lord Jesus that he had prejudices, and mine were
changed from accidental to scriptural.
And the next area the Lord wanted to work on was my ambitions. That was no surprise.
And they did honor me. And God completely changed me from honoring self to honoring
God. Now then, the Lord came at me with my duties. And I told him, I said, Lord, our
duties are good. The Lord said, make your list. So I made my list. And then I made a
list of the times in the New Testament when Jesus said, I must. I must be about my Father's
business. I must preach in the other cities also for there too is my scent. I must journey
on to Jerusalem. A prophet cannot perish outside Jerusalem. And when I compared my list with
his list, the light came. And I began to see that my list was compulsive. I didn't realize
that. And studying the life of the Lord, I began to see that I was doing some things
for which I was not gifted, and even some things to which I was not called.
So the Lord wanted to change him from compulsion to kingdom duties. Debts, of course, that
was pretty obvious. These were changed from temporal to eternal. I am a debtor to the
GF first and also to the great. I am a debtor to all men to tell them about Jesus. At long
last, I made a list of my possessions.
T.W., can you share a little bit about maybe a personal story in some of these areas of
bondage, overcoming some of those areas, the neutral areas like possessions?
One of them was the first thing that I wanted to give to the Lord was my house because it
was the biggest thing I owned and the most valuable thing I owned. But I wanted to share
it with my wife. She liked the idea of giving the house to the Lord. So one Saturday morning,
we got out on our knees. We told the Lord, we are giving you this house. It belongs to
you. You can send whomever you want to. You can take it away from us. That was Saturday.
Tuesday afternoon, we heard a knock on the door. My wife went to the door. There stood
one of the street people. My church had a street ministry and we had baptized quite
a few of these people. This fellow's hair was long, down to his waist. She could smell
him. He said, Miss Hunt, I've been watching your husband in church. God told me that I
ought to learn from him. But the only way you can really know somebody is to live with
him. And I think God has told me that I'm supposed to come live with you. Laverne came
back in the house and she said, you know the other day when we gave the house to the Lord?
I said, yeah. She said, you're not going to believe the test he said. But we did. We had
to invite him in and he stayed a long time and I discipled him. And that man became a
real man of God that is serving the Lord wonderfully now in another state from what we were in
then. We had two cars. God said, give my car to Nathan. Nathan was a little friend of ours.
He didn't have a job. So I had to go to the filing cabinet and get the title out of the
filing cabinet. We took it over to him. We said, Nathan, we tried to give this car to
God and he said he wants you to have it. So here's the title. And just little by little
we finally came to realize we didn't know the thing. And we thought we did. We had been
living in ownership. But God changed our ownership into stewardship. And you know, since that
day, Laverne and I have never felt like we've ever really had anything. God gives us things
to take care of, but we don't own anything.
Now I want you to notice something about those lists that are there on the left. Look at
them. Wants, habits, loyalties. These are neutral. See, we've got a mistake on here.
The ones on the left are neutral. They can be good. Jesus had wants. He had habits. He
had loyalties. He had all of these. He had ambitions, duties, debts, possessions. He
had all of these. But his were all good. And God wanted mine to be good because He wanted
me to be free from the dominion of sin. But the ones over here on the right are positively
damaging.
Jesus did not have any fears or weaknesses or hurts, but I did. And by the way, I'm
grateful to tell you that he worked on these that are neutral, first of all, because beginning
to achieve freedom from sin in my life showed me that if I would go with God and let God
have His way in these other areas as well, it would be wonderful to be free. I made a
list of my fears. God wanted to change them from self-protectiveness
to security. Security, the only security that I have at all is in God. He wanted to change
my weaknesses from a tool of Satan to a tool of God. One of my weaknesses was that I could
not speak in public, but God wanted to change that. I might mention this process took me
about a year. In fact, a year and two months to be exact. But at long last, God said, now
let's deal with your hurts, your grudges. So I made my list and I had to. And you know,
they had created a lot of resentment in my life. God wanted to change them.
T.W., do you have a story about, I like story, do you have a story that would fit in the
damaging area, the fears, the weaknesses and hurts? Something that would help us understand
how you came to this chart and dividing it like you did.
I can certainly tell you a long story about the hurts. The morning that I finally realized
I had to list my hurts, there was one in particular, one hurt in particular that had lived with
me for a long time. While I was working on my Ph.D., I had a very life-changing renewal
experience and suddenly my life was going in such a different direction that my fellow
Ph.D. candidates became very aware of the difference in me and they didn't like it.
And some of them even made fun of the fact that I had become a witness for Christ. One
of these fellows was a Christian and yet he, even after we finished our Ph.D., I would
see him at professional meetings and he would always work it into the conversation that
Hott was a religious fanatic, that's the way he put it, so that had bothered me for
some time. But I wrote his name down and said, Lord, now in Jesus' name I forget him, I
mean I forgive him. Later that morning I was walking to school and as I was walking I got
to wondering, do I really understand what it means to forgive? And I remembered Matthew
5, 44. You have heard it said that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. You
shall bless your enemy. And I thought, what could I pray that would bless him? I told
the Lord, I said, Lord, his God is money, it's the only thing he understands. Of course
the Lord didn't say anything so I got to thinking. Now the Lord has really made a big difference
in my life. In every one of these eight areas, the wants and the habits and the possessions
and all of those, God had made a difference. But I didn't have any outward proof to show
that God had made a difference. Now I have got some outward proof of some things. I've
got some certificates and some degrees that I could put up on the wall if I wanted to.
But for the one thing that had changed my life more significantly than anything else
in my life, I had no kind of outer proof. Suddenly I had an idea and I prayed. I said,
Lord, I will pray for Joe, this guy that was always making fun of my relationship to Christ.
I said, I'll pray for him and I'll even pray for money. But what I want you to do, I want
you to perform a miracle in his life. I pray, I don't believe Joe has ever seen a miracle.
So I will pray that Joe will see a miracle of money. I want you to make a sudden windfall
just drop into his lap so miraculously that he'll have to say, God did that. And then
Lord, make him call me. And if he calls me, then I won't need the certificate. I'll know
that all this stuff is real. And believe it or not, he called me. He told me on the phone,
he said, T.W., you're not going to believe what's happened to me. He said, he began then
to tell me about this miracle that had happened in his life of a sudden windfall that for
money that he didn't make, God just gave it to him. And he said, I got to thinking that's
the kind of thing that ought to happen to T.W. I think I just called T.W. and tell him
that God works in my life too. You know, I was able to tell him, Joe, there's no way
that I can tell you how much this means to me, not because I had my certificate, but
because resentment had been changed to love. I had never been more serious because what
had been resentment was suddenly transformed. And I realized God had given me love for somebody
who hurt me. And it took me about 15 months to make these lists. I'm going to be giving
you a series of homework assignments. Your first homework assignment is to make these
same lists. You've got them there. But whatever you do, make the ones on the left first. Do
the neutral ones first. Give God a chance to show you what it means to be free from
the dominion of sin. If you will do that, then when you get to the positively damaging
ones, it is much, much easier to go through them.
T.W., I want to ask you about the chart in this book, the areas of bondage. I see that
there are two areas, the neutral and the damaging. I noticed that you mentioned that in your
life, God worked through the neutral areas and then through the damaging areas, the fears
and the hurts. Was that just an occurrence in your life? Do you think that's a pattern?
Is that something that I should expect that the neutral areas would be worked through
and then the damaging areas?
One way of looking at it, Debbie, is to say that prior to the fall, Adam had everything
on the left. These were areas of his mind, the neutral areas, because they can be good,
and Adam had them. Even Jesus had them. Adam had wants and loyalties. He even had an obligation
to love the Lord his God above all else. Yes, they do come first. The thing is, they are
so much easier. God always is very gentle with us in the way he works. I would definitely
work on the left-hand side, the neutral areas first. Then let God take you into the more
difficult areas. The reason being that first of all, you can see what God can do in these
neutral areas that can be good or bad. Then having had success in them, when you see success
coming in the fears and weaknesses and hurts, it's a lot easier to work. You see, it's all
a matter of attention. God wants our mind. But most of our attention is on our wants
and our fears and our loyalties and our duties and our grudges. God wants us to be putting
our attention on Him. Christ's freedom within me facilitates the mental quality of attention.
Since that happened to me in the early 70s, my attention has been somewhere else, and
it's so much easier to be free from the dominion of sin. God's goal is my freedom, but my
growth and freedom from sin can only be measured by Christ's sinlessness. He gives freedom
in His office as deliverer. And my dear brothers and sisters, I'm so grateful that I can tell
you, He set me free. And guess what? He can set you free.
I want to make one point with all of you that will be very important as you try to carry
out these processes that I'm describing, and that is that sometimes God works very slowly.
Jesus told a parable at Mark 4, 26-29 that really says God works in process. And He was
saying the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man who casts seed upon the ground. And
he goes to sleep at night and gets up by day and the seed sprouts up and grows. How? He
himself does not know. The earth produces crops of itself, first the blade and then
the ear and then the full corn and the ear. But when the harvest is come, he immediately
puts in the sickle. Now what Jesus is saying is that the harvester knows when the process
is finished. And God is the harvester. And God has started a process in your lives. The
very fact that you're here for this conference says that God chose you to go through this
process. But don't rush Him. It took me more than 15 months to complete these 12 lists
that I've been telling you about. David, let me ask you, do you understand at least cognitively
the things that I've been saying about being free? Jesus said the truth would make us free.
And you know the truth is really a person. Jesus is the person. And it is Jesus who frees
us in each of these areas. Do you understand what I'm talking about?
I do cognitively.
Cognitively.
However, I just know that that's a big hurdle for me to jump over right now. Even knowing
that it takes that long, that's a big step to make that first step. But I think I'm almost
willing to be willing.
Amen. Ernie, are you with me?
I'm with you. I intend to begin my list. One thing you brought out was taking time. That's
something God will teach me. But I intend to start on my list as soon as I can.
Bell, how about you?
Well, I'm glad to know that it does take a long time to do it by course. Because it's
so much. I mean, it can be overwhelming when you first look at it. And I think that's the
one thing that sticks in my mind after going through the conference is that there's so
much that needs to happen in my life. But you start with the first step and that's what
I'm wanting to do.
God never lets us take but one step at a time. And the one thing that I don't want you to
forget is truth is Christ. It is Christ in you who is doing and realizing his own mind
in you.
Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name I pray that you will create
freedom in all your people. Freedom from ourselves, freedom from our own wants and our own ambitions.
Help us to move on to the higher steps of knowing you through being free in Christ.
And I pray that Lord in Jesus' name, Amen.
and ask God to give us his virtues in our life. Father we thank you for the
teaching that we can be like Jesus. Bless now as we study this time together and
we study the scripture that we might become like Jesus. In his name we pray.
Amen.
Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God?
You realize, Bill, that what you just said is that Jesus was God. God came to earth.
Now if God came to earth what would he act like? What would he be like? What would
his lifestyle be like? And we're going to be seeing in this second session that
man can try to be like God in the very process of trying to be like God. Satan
can help him pervert the godlikeness that is within him. We're also going to
be seeing that the mind is very important to God. Even in the Old
Testament we learn that a man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at
the heart. And in the New Testament the word heart gets connected with mind
because the New Testament tells us as the man thinketh in his heart so is he.
That's why we're going to look at all the places in the New Testament
where the word mind is actually used. And it's interesting that there are three
times that the word mind is used with a verb. Set your mind on, renew your mind,
and gird up your mind. So we'll be looking at that. And then also we have
six times where the mind is described. Now the adjective that I've used does not
actually occur in the Bible every time or sometimes a cognate forms but there's
six times that the mind is described. We're going to be looking at the word
mind, the adjectives and the verbs that are used with the mind because we have a
responsibility in connection with them. I'd like you to use your imagination just
for a moment. Would you imagine that the Lord has put a big screen up here in
front of this and tonight you go home and the Lord's there. He says to you, now
you may not have been serious about having the mind of Christ but I intend
for you to have my mind. So I want everybody to know what I'm doing. So next
Sunday I'm going to have that screen up there in front of the church and I want
to project all of the thoughts that you think during this next week so that
everybody will know what your mind is like now. Do I have any volunteers? The
mind is very important to God. We think that it's only the outer that matters.
You say, for example, I would never commit adultery and yet God, Jesus said
that lust was just as serious in God's heart as adultery was. You say I
certainly wouldn't murder but the Lord pointed out that hatred was just as
serious in God's sight as murder is. Now lust and hatred are mental sins. Nobody
knows about them but God but that's the point. God does know. Everybody knows
about these others. You say I wouldn't steal but it was Ahab's greed that led
to the stealing of Naboth's vineyard. Cain was jealous and by the way the Bible
records his jealousy before the killing of Abel. Martha was anxious and her
anxiety led to the outer sin of quarreling. God looks at the mind. T.W. you
mentioned that we have a responsibility in this process and that kind of
puzzles me. How much of this process do I have to do? How much effort do I have to
put forth and how much is really the act of God? Is it kind of like Paul when he
said he has to die each day? I think you really have got the key when you use the
word responsibility, Ernie, because God is the one who does the work. It is God who
worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Therefore God gets the
work but we have responsibility. You know there's an important scripture of 1 Corinthians
3, 9. We are workers together with God. We are workers together with God. Now
what we've got to remember is that the initiative lies with God. The
response lies with us but there is a responsibility and our responsibility is
response to the work of God. In the way we live today we live with policies. I'm
wondering at what point does our responsibility turn from a divine
intervention to legalism? That's a good question. We'll be seeing in this section
a lot about perversion and Satan's work is perversion and legalistic is
legalism is a work of Satan but that means that we're bound, we're not free.
In the last hour we saw that we're free and if we try to make what we're doing a
matter of duty rather than response it's already legalistic and that's Satan.
It's not God. So we have to be very careful. We sure do. God looks at the
mind. It is very important to God. Now there are three times in the New
Testament where the word mind is connected with a verb. First of these
Colossians 3-2, set your mind on things above and we have a principle here. It's
the will principle. Our will has got to be given to God. Then renew, in Romans 12-2,
renew the mind. This is the, I call it the river principle because Jesus said
that we would be like a river with the river flowing through us. The problem is
most of us don't work on the river principle. We work on the pond principle.
Now there's a difference. You tell me what happens to ponds? That's right. Ponds
stagnate. They become puddles, but rivers become oceans. And then in 1 Peter 1-13,
gird up the loins of your mind. This is the readiness principle. 1 Peter 1-13
says, gird up the loins of your mind, and that's really a reference to those long
flowing robes that they wore back in the first century. You couldn't run or do
anything athletic in them. If you wanted to be athletic, you'd have to take a belt
and gird the loins of the robe up so that you could run and turn them into
kind of pantaloons. Now Jesus' mind was set. Some Greeks came to him in John 12. He
said, now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this
hour. But for this purpose came I to this hour. And surely it must have been a
temptation to go to the dispersion rather than those who had turned him down,
but he went through with the cross. Luke 2-52, and notice what we've got here. You
really have, in the beginning, it is the well that is set. And then you have a
period of growth because the river is flowing through us, the Holy Spirit. Look
2-52, even Jesus had to grow. And then you have a time when you become qualified.
And you're ready. Five, or rather six times in the New Testament, the Bible
describes the mind. The first of these is Romans 8-6. The mind set on the Spirit is
life. It is alive. And then 2 Corinthians 11-3, but I fear, lest by any means, as
Satan beguiled, or as the serpent beguiled even the wilderness, even so
your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. It is
single-minded. And then in Philippians 2-3, let nothing be done through strife or
vainglory, but in lowliness of mind. This mind that is godly is lowly. And in
Titus 1-15, unto the pure, all things are pure. But to them that are defiled and
unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled. And
then in Luke 24-45, the Lord Jesus opened the minds of the disciples. We have the
opposite of that in 2 Corinthians 3-14, where the Jews' minds were hardened. Now
I could put open, but the Bible is really talking about responsive. The godly mind
will respond when God speaks. Romans 8-6 once again, the mind that is set on the
Spirit is life and peace. Earlier I gave you a homework assignment of making those
twelve lists, and I hope you'll carry out these homework assignments. Over here on
the right in your syllabus, we have a true-false test. Now if you're really
alive, you will say, today I have a stronger desire not to sin. You can say
true, I am more conscious of God throughout the day. True, I am learning
new things and on down the line. I'd like you to, after you've made your twelve
lists, take this true-false test. Now what do you do if you get a false answer?
Don't do anything. The business of having the mind of Christ, and we'll see this
more later this week, is a matter of letting God do what God wants to do.
Technically, you already have the mind of Christ, but many of us bind the mind of
Christ in the rags and tatters of sin, and therefore we're not really free. That's
why freedom has to come first. Now I'm going to have to, so you don't do
anything, pray. Say, Lord, I cannot say I have a stronger desire not to sin. Say, I
have to say false to that, but I ask your help. God is the operative agent in
having the mind of Christ, not we ourselves. I'd like to explain to you how
I got led into these perversions because I made the mistake, and if I can make the
mistake, anybody can make it, I hope. My background is very extensive in the field
of public education, and it included a great deal of humanism, and I don't
really mean that I had a specifically humanist teacher who taught me humanism
as such. It's rather that that is the general philosophy that undergirds most
public education today, and I was like that. Humanism stresses what man can do
as apart from what God can do. We're always concerned with the
accomplishments of man, and that's really where I was. So even when I began
seeking the mind of Christ, my initial response before I learned that God
does the work, Ernie, as we were saying, my initial response was, what can I do? I
got to do something, but actually it is God who does it. But in the process, I
wanted to clear my mind of humanism, and I prayed, and God showed me that the Word
of God is the most purifying thing that we have at our disposal. So I made a
commitment to the Lord in August of 1972 that I would not read anything but the
Bible to give God a chance to clean my mind out, and that period lasted for four
years. For four years, I didn't read a textbook, and then that's a pretty neat
trip for a seminary professor, and I didn't read a newspaper, I
didn't read a book, I didn't even read a commentary. I did not read anything but
the Bible, and I memorized rather large sections of the Bible, hoping that God
would purify the mind. Now the purifying did begin to take place, but my
problem was I got so excited about what God was doing that I took my excitement
a little too far and perverted purity into being puritanical. By the way, I
might ought to mention, I've got a friend that has asked me if I would not use
the word puritanical because of the tremendous and wonderful contributions
that the Puritans have made to Christian history. And by the way, they have made a
tremendous contribution to the history of Christian thought and spirituality,
but people don't understand that, and the common man does not really know how
much they've done. He wanted me to use the word phariseical, so I was afraid that
if I used the word phariseical, it might not have meaning for the man in the pew
or the average man, but I did use that. Now I had a friend that heard me teach
us one time, and he said, when I got through, he said, I found out I'm the
perfectly balanced Christian. I'm exactly half on the left and half on the right,
and you know, that is our problem. It is so easy to be on the left, and it is so
easy to be on the right, and it is so hard to be in the middle. The Lord Jesus
said that his way would be a very narrow road, and you know, the truth is it is
narrow. The way out of lust or being puritanical, the way out is to look at
the person of the Lord Jesus, and Jesus was pure. He was absolutely pure, but he
was not puritanical. You're puritanical when you are measuring yourself by other
people rather than Jesus. See, that's what I was doing. I was measuring myself by
other people, and I wasn't measuring myself by Jesus, so we have this verse,
Hebrews 3.1, consider the Apostle or the earthly life of the Lord and consider
the High Priest or the heavenly life of the Lord, and through the whole rest of
the conference we're going to be doing that. We will be looking at Jesus over
and over again trying to find the narrow middle road.
T.W., I wonder how easy it is for the church today to fall into the trap of
trying to be balanced, and what would be the way out for the church?
Ernie, Satan is the enemy of the church. He's the enemy of Christ, and he wants
the world to look at the church as though we were on this right-hand side,
the perverted side, but he also wants us to act like the left-hand side, and
probably we'll be shifting back and forth between those two all the time if
we respond to Satan instead of responding to God, and so the answer is to
be very alert to the danger. First you've got to know that the dangers are there,
and then you've got to be alert to them and respond to the dangers that are there.
Let me just say about the mind that the Old Testament says that man looks at the
outward appearance and God looks at the heart, and in the New Testament they're
brought together. As the man thinketh in his heart, so is he. The New Testament
talks about it at the heart as though it's a thinking mechanism, and so the
mind is very important to God, and that's why I use some verbs and adjectives that
we find connected with the word mind in the New Testament. You know, the New
Testament is very contemporary when it talks about the mind. I really believe
that a lot of people who have mind problems could solve their problems if
they would go to the New Testament and discover there are three verbs that are
used with the word mind. Set your mind on things above, and renew the mind, and gird
up the mind. All three of those verbs go constantly. I expect every day to be a day
of renewal in my own life, and it is, and on the other hand six times the
Bible describes the mind, and I don't mean that the Bible necessarily uses the
specific adjective that I derived from the Bible description, although sometimes
they use a cognate word like life instead of alive, but if we will pay
attention to those and then try to observe life, renewal the will in our own
life, then God will see us responding and will reward that by putting into us the
things we're trying to open up to Him. Now what God wants us to be is
pure, James 3.17, that first quality. The opposite of that is lust. We don't want
to be that way, so we Christians try to aim toward becoming like the center, like
Jesus was, but then Satan has a real special technique. He will make us
overshoot, and instead of being pure, we end up merely being puritanical. Now you
are puritanical when you're judging your purity by other people rather than by
Jesus. The only measure for purity is the mind of the Lord. His mind was pure, and
that's what we want to be like, His mind, but I said, Lord, how could I go so wrong
when I haven't even read anything now for more than a year except the Bible? I
don't know how I could get so far off. Just like that, the Lord made me realize
the Pharisees knew more about the Bible than I did, but they were puritanical, so
you can know the Bible inside out and backwards and forwards, and yet you can
still pervert the qualities that God wants us to have. And I said, then what is
the secret? And you know, the Lord showed me very quickly. Hebrews 3, 1,
Wherefore, holy brethren, protectors of the heavenly calling, consider the
apostle and the high priest. You know, those are two different things. The word
apostle is not really an English word, it's really a Greek word that we borrowed
directly out of Greek, and it means sent one. Was Jesus ever a sent one? Was He
ever sent from anywhere? Where was He sent from? Heaven. Where was He sent to?
Earth. So when the Bible says consider the apostle, it is telling us to know the
earthly life of the Lord. But then it says also consider the high priest. That
is the heavenly life of the Lord. The apostle life is revealed in the Gospels,
and we are to know that. The high priestly life is revealed mainly in the
epistles, and we are to know them. We need both of them. We need what He's doing
now in heaven. The opposite of peaceable is fussy. But when we try to become
peaceable, we have to be careful that we don't become compromising because Jesus
said, don't think I came to bring peace on the earth. I didn't come to bring peace,
but a sword to set father against son and daughter against mother. Now these on
the right take the quality that is in the Bible, and they twist it in some kind of
way. They make a perversion out of it. The opposite of...by the way, let me say
there are five different Greek words that are now being translated by the one
word gentle. Now this word here at James is really referring to gentleness in
action. I'll tell you how you can understand it. Think of a really good
dentist. Now that's the Christlike quality of gentle. This is how I choose my
dentist. He's on the basis of this Christlike quality, and I'm grateful to
tell you I've got a wonderful dentist, and he's a Christian man, and we're good
friends. But suppose I went to Dr. Wilson, and he said...he looked in my mouth, and he
found a cavity. He said, uh-oh, if I give him a shot of novocaine, I'll hurt my
friend. I don't want to do that. I don't think I'll even tell him he's got a
cavity. Now he might be a good friend, but would he be a good dentist if he did
that? No, he wouldn't. You see, the opposite is to be harsh, but there is a
perversion of unkind restraint. This quality, Jesus had exactly. If you want to
watch him in action, watch him dealing with Peter, he was always gentle, and yet
he never restrained. Now the opposite of intratable is to be unapproachable, but
you could become so intratable that you're merely a yes man or a yes woman.
The opposite of mercyful is merciless, but you could become so mercyful that
you're merely indulgent, and if there's anything our Father is not, it's not
indulgent, and Jesus was not indulgent. The opposite of fruitful is to be
fruitless. Now conceivably, you could become fruit-obsessed. However, I
probably better tell you that if you're like most evangelicals, don't worry about
the perversion here, you're not in any danger. The opposite of steadfast is
wavering, but you could become so steadfast that you're inflexible. You
know the Lord went out to pray in the desert, he was alone with his father,
Peter came, and Jesus could be interrupted. He was on his way to heal Jairus'
daughter. A woman with an issue of blood interrupted him. He was not inflexible,
but he was steadfast. The opposite of honesty is lied, but you could become so
honest that you're merely brutal. Now these are perversions over here on the
right-hand side. The world thinks of Christians as being like this right-hand
side, so we need to be very careful about these perversions. If we were to move
right on to Galatians 5, the opposite of love is hate. But you know it's not the
only opposite. Fear is an opposite of love. There are many opposites of each of
these things. There are many perversions. I could put protective, I could put
permissive. There are a lot of things that I could put that we pervert love
with. I'm going to put possessive. It's the middle column that is so narrow. These
perversions and the satanic opposites are, there are many of them. The opposite
of joy, or at least one opposite, is distress. The perversion would be frenzy.
The opposite of peace is war. The perversion would be neutrality. Jesus
told the church at Laodicea, oh I would that you were hot or cold, and I
understand that. Do you understand that? How many of you like a good warm Coke?
Jesus said because you're lukewarm, I'm going to vomit you out of my mouth.
What's wrong with being lukewarm? When you're lukewarm, you're trying to be cold.
You're also trying to be hot. You're trying to be opposite things at the same
time. The opposite of long-suffering is impatience. The perversion would be
lenience. The perversions are just as serious with God as the satanic
opposite. The mind of Christ is the center column. The mind of Satan is the
perversion. Now this word gentle down here in Galatians is a different word.
This refers rather to disposition. The opposite of it would be to be hard. And
you know there are hard people. We've gone far enough. I'm going to ask you. Now
if the opposite is hard, what would the perversion be? Soft. That's right. Was
Jesus soft? Think of Jesus there in Matthew 23. You brood of snakes. You
whitewashed tombs. You crossed heaven and earth to make one proselyte. And then you
make him twice as son of hell as you are. Is that soft? No. But he was gentle.
That's the mind of Christ. The opposite of goodness is badness. Now the perversion
is to be finicky nice. And I'm delighted to tell you that Jesus was not finicky
nice. Jesus was the most wholesome man who ever lived. He blessed the wedding in
Cana. He had friends. He was a wonderful friend himself. I made a study one time
of the eight recorded times he went to a meal because I wanted to find out why
they called him a glutton. And you know what I found out? Jesus liked to eat. Isn't
that great? But I'll tell you something else. He knew when the next bite would be
said. He loved to eat. He loved his friends. He was good. He was wholesome. Now
the opposite of faithfulness is of course unfaithfulness. I'll just put
unfaithfulness. The perversion would be legalism. The opposite of
make-ness is arrogance. The perversion is weakness. This word in Greek, temperance,
is enkratai. It's a compound of two words, en and strength. It is an inner
strength. Sometimes it's translated self-control. Sometimes it's translated
discipline. The opposite would be to be undisciplined. Now the perversion is
fleshly effort. You see temperance or self-control or discipline is really a
fruit of the Spirit. It's not something you achieve by saying, I will get up and
have a quiet time. I will witness. I will read my Bible. I will...it's never I will.
It's never I anything. It is always God, the Spirit, bearing fruit in our lives.
It's not fleshly effort. Let me ask you, do you mind if I ask you, this chart
right now that describes the kind of mind that we can have, does it grab any
of you at any point where you are right now? Does it speak to you where you are?
I have one question, honesty. Now we're taught to be honest and then if we're
not honest we're lying and yet sometimes honesty hurts. How do we avoid the hurt
turning into brutality or the perversion of honesty? Yeah Ernie, I'm real familiar
with your background there since I know Spanish and Latin America like you do
and know that in Latin America you're more ginger than you are honest. You know
it may be the matter of whom does the honesty hurt. Now if I'm going to be
honest with you it may hurt me. If it hurts me it's more likely not to hurt you
and there's a big difference there. So we need such sensitivity to Christ that we
will have coming from within us the love of Christ for the other person as we're
trying to reach them. I might mention that Americans tend to be a little more
on the brutal side rather than just being what we call honest. I have a
question about the fruitful. I know that in John 15 Jesus commands us to bear
fruit and produce much fruit and he's the vine and we are the branch. However I
can see very obviously the perversion to be fruit obsessed that we want to be
fruitful, we want to bear fruit, that is just our goal. How can we be fruitful and
not be fruit obsessed? The whole secret lies with the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit is never perverted and the Holy Spirit always produces fruit. Fruit is
something that you don't labor to achieve. It just comes out because of what
you are. So the secret is to stay with the Holy Spirit in your prayer time and
in your own personal prayer life so much that you will be expressing the
Spirit's mind rather than effort, human effort or fleshly effort. I really
enjoyed this chart and I see myself all over the place. I'll say you know it's
funny because I also see things politically also I see some of the
maybe some of the struggles that we're experiencing here in America with our
judicial system for instance trying to decide between whether we're being
merciful or whether we're being indulgent and some of the problems that
that's created. But you know I in my personal life I see it in the difference
between the way I raise my kids and maybe the way other people raise their
children and to see the result of an indulgent parenting system and it
sometimes gets frustrating when I'm trying to raise my children properly but
yet they're having to interact with children who maybe don't have the same
kind of structure. It just makes for a fascinating study and I had this is the
kind of chart that I'd almost like to keep in my pocket you know and be able
to whip out remind myself every once in a while of where you know I make a little check.
I like that. So I just really enjoyed it. You're really right it could be
parents are a special danger of perverting this particular quality of
gentleness this is James verse grandparents too.
The following is a video presentation of Lifeway Press.
Welcome to session two part two of the Mind of Christ conference videos with
T.W. Hunt. As we continue to focus on the lifestyle of Jesus let's begin our time
together with prayer. Our Father we pray that as we continue to study Jesus that
we might focus our attention upon things that are above above this earth and in
heaven as we study Jesus and his lifestyle in his name we pray amen.
Each little pie wedge here contains a cluster of virtues. I've got all the ones
in the New Testament. Now for example look at the very center hope faith and
love. Can you see it there in your syllabus? What's right above hope? Truth.
Alright now what's right above truth? Justice. Truth and justice are very
closely related and going up knowledge and discernment and prudence. All of
those virtues in that one circle create a cluster of virtues. I tell you what I
call them virtue families and I'd like us to look at the life of the Lord Jesus.
Now for example Mark 737. Was Jesus excellent? Mark 737 tells us that he was
that the multitude was astound beyond measure astonished saying he has done
all things well. How much is all? 95% 99% what is all? 100% or blamelessness.
Matthew 1727 tells us he even paid his taxes. Now you're gonna say now wait a
minute T.W. that's not fair. He used a miracle to pay for his taxes. If I could
get my taxes out of fish I'd be glad to pay my taxes. Yes it is a miracle but it
may be a different kind of miracle from what you thought. Scientists have
recently discovered that in the Sea of Galilee there's one species of fish that
when it wants to maintain its ballast or its balance in the water it gets a rock
or a coan or some kind of heavy object and holds it in its mouth. Now Jesus knew
that and so he sent Peter after one particular fish the fish that had the
coan in his mouth. Yes it is a miracle but it's a miracle of knowledge. John
1427, peace my peace I give to you. Now I want you to notice where I've been
referring to. Matthew and Mark down here Luke in this inner circle we are looking
at the earthly life of the Lord. Now did you get that? What do we call the earthly
life of the Lord? That's right. Apostle these have to do with what he did when
he was on earth. Macanus, Matthew 21 5, behold your King comes to you, meek and
riding upon a donkey. Forgiveness, Luke 23 34, father forgive them they don't know
what they're doing. Compassion, Matthew 9 36, seeing the multitudes he had
compassion on him. By the way that's repeated many times in the Gospels.
Fervent, fervency, John 2 17, he cast the money changers out of the temple. Hope,
by the way the we use the word hope today in a sense which is precisely
opposite from the New Testament. We say oh what a mess we're in now guess we
don't have anything left but hope. In the New Testament hope is the present
enjoyment of a future blessing. It's not faith. Faith is the vision to see what
God is going to give but after you know it's coming then you start enjoying the
blessing and I tell you how you can understand it. Think of when you were
little kids the night before Christmas now what did you do the night
before Christmas did you sit there and say oh no Christmas again you never know
about Christmas you never know I hate Christmas is that what you did no you
didn't know what color the bike was going to be or maybe you didn't know what
the dollar was going to be but you knew it was going to be there you didn't have
it yet but you were a tingle you were a joy you were rejoicing even though you
didn't have it yet that's what hope is it's like heaven we don't have it yet
but folks we do have it. Now in the Lord's Supper in Luke 22 15 the Lord
Jesus said with desire I've desired to eat this Passover with you before I
suffer. A lot of people think that the sufferings of redemption began in the
Lord's Supper no they did not they began in Gethsemane the Supper for
Jesus was a happy time he never borrowed even from just an hour or two away he
never borrowed future trouble. Jesus enjoyed that supper and he had hoped for
that time when it would come. Tested Matthew 27 34 it was the custom to give
victims about to die on a cross a drug to dead in pain. The two thieves accepted
their drug but Jesus did not take his he wanted his mind clear he knew what he
was doing he was tested. Okay sound speech at the end of the sermon on the
mat in Matthew 7 beginning at verse 24 Jesus told the disciples now if you will
base your life on what I've been telling you you will never fall your house will
never fall. Justice or rather let me say self-control. What is the hardest part of
the body to control? The tongue. Matthew 27 13 through 14 tells us that Pilate was
amazed at Jesus control of his tongue he had self-control. Here this inner circle
all came from Matthew Mark Luke and John why because we're talking about the
Apostle life but the Lord told us also to know something else what else did he
say consider the Apostle and the High Priest. So I want us to look now for the
priestly role of the Lord Jesus I'd like to use cases of his names he is our
intercessor he's praying for us we can pray to him now Jude 4 he is the master
John 129 he is the lamb Isaiah 9 6 he is the prince of peace by the way he's the
prince of life King of Kings and the Lord of Lords but he is the prince of
peace Acts 4 30 he is the servant first Timothy 2 5 forgiveness he is the
mediator Hebrews 2 11 compassion brotherliness he is our brother use these
titles in your prayers now I can't say just a bald brother not to the Lord Jesus
I have to say hi and holy brother but I do say that because we have this
scriptural warrant to tell us Revelation 5 5's Jesus is the lion of the tribe of
Judah okay that hope thing again and the Lord has many light names he is the
light of the world John 8 12 he is the star out of Jacob numbers 24 17 he is
the light to lighten the Gentiles but my favorite name for him is Revelation 22
16 bright and morning star this was the last name that Jesus revealed about
himself have you ever been in that tunnel you can't see the light at the
end of it I'll never graduate I'll never pass this test I'll never get married
I'll never have a baby I'll never get out of debt I'll never whatever you
ever been there raise your hand next time get on your knees and say bright
and morning star I need hope because this name bright and morning star means
hope tested his name is rock sound speech his name is teacher justice his
name is judge now there again you may wonder now T.W. you don't call Jesus
judge when you pray do you yes I do because you see we never come into his
court as the defendant as a matter of fact he is not only judge he's our
defense lawyer so I come in Jesus court is the plaintiff the one bringing the
suit one time I had a very important matter and I could discern that there
were some spiritually legal matters about it I said great judge when you
going to get my case before the court and I prayed to him and called him judge
and he answered the prayer use all of these high priestly titles he has given
them to us in order for us to relate to him I'd really like to be sure that
you're with me in this pie chart that you understand what I've done at the
very center we have hope faith and love because those are the virtues that Paul
said would abide and then the other virtues that are in that inner circle are
all of the virtues in the New Testament but they're grouped in clusters or
families each little pie which contains a group of virtues that are related to
one another then I tried to take the life of Christ or the mind of Christ and
show how his life specifically exhibited them but we've already seen
anytime we want to look at the Lord Jesus we will either be looking at his
earthly life or we call that the Apostle life since Apostle means sent one or
else we'll be looking at the heavenly life or the high priestly life now the
second circle out are you with me are you with so far okay the second circle
out if you'll notice every scripture comes from Matthew Mark Luke or John
around the reason for that being we wanted to see is Jesus himself excellent
or meek or forgiving we wanted to apply these directly to the earthly life that
is recorded in the Gospels the outer church circle has to do with the
heavenly life and what I chose to do there were to use names of Christ which
we could use in prayer he is our high priest he is interceding for us right
now he is our mediator he is our intercessor so therefore these are names
of Christ and where they're located in the Bible so that you can pray to Christ
and use these names when you want this virtue Christ's lifestyle in me springs
from the mental quality of discernment
now Satan is a deceiver he will trap us very quickly into the perversions and
the world will see us from the standpoint of the perversion he is a
deceiver but folks no Christian ever need be deceived because we have the
blessed Holy Spirit to clarify for us and now that you've seen the perversions
the satanic opposites God the mind of Christ is to have discernment God's goal
is my virtue he wants me to be pure peaceable gentle and treatable merciful
fruitful steadfast honest love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith
make misinterpret now my growth in Christ character can only be measured by
Christ's perfection he enables my virtue in his office as model Romans 8 29 says
for whom God foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son
TWA have a burning question some time ago you mentioned your want list and on
the top of the list was a new suit and a washer and dryer and other things did
you ever get your washer and dryer Debbie I'm so glad you asked that question
that's really quite a story I did get the suit the washer came when I judged
some music auditions and was paid an honorarium that was the exact price
years had a washer on sale for but the dryer was no ordinary miracle I had gone
out to missionary orientation and I was having lunch with Norman code and I had
taught him in seminary so I said Norman did you get your visa for Nigeria he
said no Nigeria is not giving any visas right now so I said where you going he
said we're going to upper Volta and that threw me a curve I said where in the
world is a upper Volta never heard of it he said oh it's in the Sahara Desert it's
sub-Sahara in fact we just got a letter telling us that our dryer connections
are that you don't need a dryer not bring the dryer over there to the Sahara
Desert because you don't need it there he said you couldn't use a dryer could
you and of course I nearly jumped out of my chair and I told him that we needed
one desperately he said what kind of connections you got I said they're
electric he said I'm sorry it's a gas dryer but the next morning we were about
to start the worship service when a missionary came running in going to
Brazil he said wait we're backing our crates and we just got a letter out of
our post office box telling us that our dryer connections are gas and we don't
have a gas dryer we've got an electric dryer so we want to know is there anybody
here with an electric dryer that would be willing to trade with us or with a
gas dryer they'd be willing to trade with us and we'll give you our electric
so we got the electric dryer and both of them were seers so we had seers install
it right after they left Laverne and I were just standing there in the utility
room looking at them and I said I really don't understand this we used to pray and
pray for these things and we wouldn't get them but now we're not praying and
we're getting everything that we've wanted the burn city what is that verse
this meant so much to you all fall is it all the verse that haunts me night and
day is Matthew 6 33 seek you first the kingdom of God and his righteousness but
she said yeah but what does the rest of it say do you know what it says that's
right all these things will be added to you you know I told her I said you know
what I just realized all of my life I thought my things were my business and I
attended to my things since they were my business but I've just found out
something my things aren't my business my business is the kingdom and when I got
my mind off of my things and on to my business which was the kingdom I freed
the hand of God to take care of his business which is my things is that
exciting let's have a word of prayer the heavenly father we want to have the
mind of Christ I pray that every person hearing this will have a craving a deep
desire to have an integrated whole mind that they will give their mind to you
and freedom and they will seek your kingdom they will always depend only
upon you to interpret your own word and show us how to live for you and I pray
that in Jesus name amen
you