The following is a video presentation of Lifeway Press.
Welcome to session 3, part 1 of the Mind of Christ conference videos with T.W. Hunt.
In this session Dr. Hunt focuses on the servanthood of Jesus, how the servant mind of Christ frees God to do mighty works in our lives.
Before we join T.W. and the others in the conference, let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, I thank you that you gave us a new form of leadership, that you taught us that the greatest in your kingdom would be the one who would be willing to be the servant of all.
Teach us this fact and this understanding. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant.
You know, Ernie, that verse is at the very center of our hymn, and having the servant mind is the center of having the mind of Christ.
Does that surprise you? Because we don't talk much about servants today, and yet it was very important to Jesus.
Out of all of his parables, 13 of the parables touch on servanthood, and Jesus goes into considerable detail with things like the servant should be obedient, he should be watchful,
and one thing that was very important to Jesus was the servant should function.
In the last sermon he said in Matthew 25, well done thou good and faithful servant, and who was good, the one who functioned.
So it was very important to Jesus, and in Isaiah 52 and 53, Jesus is called the righteous servant.
Now if servanthood is important to Jesus, it's got to be important to us.
We're going to look now at 14 adjectives that describe the word servant in the New Testament,
and we'll find that these 14 adjectives free the hand of God to go to work in our lives if we become these things.
We're also going to see how the normal sinful mind works, which is the opposite of servanthood,
and how servanthood fits in with coming back to the integrated mind that we've talked about earlier.
What we're looking at is a little hymn. This, at the point in Philippians 2, Paul wanted to make a point about humility,
so he interrupted the course of his letter to quote to them a hymn. This was a hymn that they sang in church.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
We saw that we cannot have the mind of Christ unless we are free.
We do have the mind of Christ, but we're not free to express it.
Then we looked at the second line, that He was God.
If God came to earth, what would He act like? What would His lifestyle be?
We saw that some of us tend to pervert the lifestyle of Christ.
The third line tells us that He made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant.
You are Bible scholars, and I want you to tell me who in the Bible was called a servant? Bill?
I would think Peter would fit in that category.
Yeah, he did. He called himself a servant in his epistles. Ernie?
I like Paul, the missionary.
You're kidding, the obvious ones. But that was probably Paul's favorite name for himself. Debbie?
Moses.
Thank you for using an Old Testament example. That's right.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were called servants. Caleb and Joshua were called servants.
James starts his letter by saying he was a servant.
Our idea of greatness is somebody who rules over people, but in the Bible the idea of greatness was one at the disposal of somebody else.
It's a completely different view of servanthood from what we used to have.
I don't think I even understand that concept. I've grown up in a day of microwaves and televisions and instant things, not needing a servant, so to speak.
What does that all mean?
Debbie, your key word there was need. You don't need servants because you have microwaves and computers and so forth.
We don't need today, but in an earlier day, in fact every century up until this 20th century, in order to get all the work of a house done, for example, there were needs.
The servant fulfilled needs that do not exist today, so therefore we don't understand what it means because we don't understand working together to fulfill needs like that.
It also seems that it's not only that we don't have the need for it, but we don't really like the idea itself. We're kind of resistant to the whole idea of servanthood.
But as I said, Jesus was called the righteous servant. He is the ultimate example. Look who they were in the Bible. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Peter, Paul, James. Look who they were in the Bible.
Can you succeed and be a servant?
In Christianity, you can't succeed without being a servant because it's completely different from the world's idea of success.
Our idea is that you rule over, but the biblical idea is that you serve under, and that's a completely different concept. Success is what Jesus was.
I heard you say one time, T.W., that heaven would be kind of like a community of servants. I think that is such a neat point, but is there a limit to servanthood?
In the Bible, there was no limit. A servant was somebody who was absolutely at the disposal of somebody else.
As far as heaven is concerned, Ernie, our idea of happiness today is completely different from what the Bible idea was because our idea is to be able to give orders and to have.
But in the Bible, Jesus' equation of happiness came with giving, and you give as a servant. So it's the giving that brings the happiness, and that's what heaven is going to be.
Heaven is going to be a place of perfect giving, and I'm excited about it.
I think I'm hearing one of the paradoxes that are so often found in Scripture. We've heard a lot recently about the inheritance that we have in Christ.
It's been a big part of a lot of sermons that I've heard recently. How does that fit together? Our inheritance, our call to be heirs with Christ, and then there's this call to servanthood. How do you see those?
Isaac was an heir. David was an heir, and he was called a servant. It's only in the 20th century that they seemed to conflict.
I think in an earlier century, it would not have conflicted. But in the 20th century, our idea of heir is completely different from what it would have been in David's day or in Jesus' day or in Isaac's day.
The heir is one who is able to give. The idea of the joy of giving is just not in our day today.
I guess then joy is a key part of servanthood?
You know, we don't really know the meaning of that word joy anymore, Ernie, because we don't connect it with giving. We connect it with getting.
But Jesus always connected joy with giving. It's a completely different idea.
And you know, another thing about servanthood is that to whom much is given, much will be required.
When Jesus entrusts us with talent or responsibility or with a specific task, then there's something in the parable of the talents that Jesus said.
He said to the servants who invested well, He said, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few things. I'm going to put you in charge of many things.
In other words, believe it or not, the reward for service is more service.
And that's the idea, the biblical idea of happiness. You get more of what you're doing.
In the New Testament, there are 14 adjectives that describe the word servant, 14 times where the Bible describes what a servant is like.
The first of these is Acts 20, 19, serving the Lord with all humility of mind.
Now, years ago when I was struggling with these concepts by myself, never thinking I would ever teach it publicly,
I wanted very much to be a servant when I came to this point and I discovered these 14 adjectives.
But in trying to pray them through and into my life, I made a wonderful discovery.
I discovered that they actually free God. If we are humble, for example, we free the hand of God to manifest Himself.
Isaiah 57, 15 tells us, I dwell in the high and holy place and also with Him who is a humble and contrite spirit.
The second adjective is obedient. This frees God to do mighty acts. In Judges 7,
Gideon was told to reduce his army of 32,000 down to a tiny little handful of 300 men, a very strange command, but he did obey.
And when he did, God defeated the enormous Midianite army with a very tiny little remnant.
Look 16, 13, loyal. Loyalty frees God to promote us.
The outstanding example of loyalty in the Bible next to the Lord Jesus Himself is Joseph.
You remember he was betrayed by his brothers, betrayed by Potiphar's wife.
He was betrayed in prison and yet he remained loyal to the Pharaoh, loyal to Potiphar, loyal to his brothers.
And where did he end up? As the prime minister of Egypt. Faithful.
This frees God to expand our ministry.
Matthew 25 is the parable of the talents. And what did the Master say to the two men who invested well?
He said, Well done, that good and faithful servant. Remember, you've been faithful over a few things.
I'm going to put you in charge of many things. In other words, the reward for service is more service or greater service.
Watchful. This quality is realized mainly in prayer.
This should be Habakkuk 2.1. I'll change that. It frees God to speak. If we will remain watchful in prayer.
Habakkuk 2.1. I will stand me upon the watch and I will see what the Lord will say to me.
Willing. Now the will is really the only thing you can give God.
God does not need our talent. He does not need our IQ. He does not need our money.
In fact, He doesn't really need anything. He's God.
So the only thing I've ever been able to find that I can give God is the will.
God will do with that wonderful things.
Ephesians 6.7 says that the servant must be willing.
Do you know the will is the only thing that we can really give to God?
He does not need our talent. He does not need our looks. He does not need our money.
He doesn't need anything. I'd like to share with you the time that I learned about the will.
In 1956, I made my career my God. I don't like to tell this by the way, but it will illustrate the point.
It's the only thing you can give to God.
For three years of my life, I served the God of career.
And by the way, I was in church every time the doors were open.
And that tells us that you can be very carnal and yet be very active in church because I know I was.
But what I want to tell you about is the time that the Lord confronted me.
I happened to be stupid under the hood of a car. I cannot fix things.
But I do learn languages rather quickly, so I happened to know a number of languages.
In 1959, one of my students brought me a German Bible.
Now my reaction was, oh goody, a chance to practice my German.
But you notice, not, oh goody, a Bible.
And I set that German Bible on the shelves.
A few days later, I had a major technical lecture that I was going to give.
It would be a chance for professional advancement.
I'd get my name in the papers, and I was excited about it.
So the night before the lecture, I set my alarm clock for five o'clock thinking I would do the last minute polishing in the early morning.
And I got up the next morning and I had my coffee.
And at five thirty, I realized the lecture was completely finished.
I could do no more to it.
Here I was wide awake with all this caffeine flowing through my system, and I didn't want to wake anybody up.
So I said, what do I do now?
I caught that German Bible.
Sitting on that couch that morning was the best mistake I ever made.
I opened the Bible to the book of John, and I began reading casually, but it didn't remain casual very long.
Because the words said in the beginning was the Word.
And the Word was with God.
And the Word was God.
And I didn't understand the electric shiver of excitement that grabbed me when I read those words.
I went on, I got down to verse four.
It says, in him was life.
And when I read that, I almost lost my breath because I knew I couldn't say that.
And you can't say that, by the way.
We need oxygen. We need air. We need food. We need water. We need.
We do not have an independent life. Our life is dependent upon our environment.
John 5 26 tells us that as the Father hath life in himself, even so he is given to the Son to have life in himself.
And I finally got to verse 14, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
And we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
And you know, when I went through that day, it was for the first time something completely different.
I would hear these brilliant lectures, but my mind would go back to, in the beginning was the Word.
And the Word was God.
In him was life. And the Word was made flesh.
All day long, the brilliance and the scintillation of what I thought was my professional life lost its glitter that day for me.
So I got up the next morning to read John 2, and the next morning to read John 3.
And I found myself being overwhelmed by the cosmic grandeur of the person of Christ.
But there's a problem with that.
You really can't look at Jesus without knowing what you are.
And now I began to, down deep in my heart, even though I was very active in church and very busy doing spiritual things, you know, quote, spiritual,
still I knew that my God had been career.
I finished the Gospel of John and decided I would read the whole Bible through.
And the morning finally came when I read Exodus 3.
Now you remember that in Exodus 3, Moses is out on the side of Mount Horeb,
and he sees a burning bush that's not being consumed, and he comes close to see why it's not being consumed.
And when he does, a voice spoke to God out of that bush.
Now I don't know how God operates on our consciousness, but some way that morning, reading that, I just knew God was speaking to me.
And the words were, take off your shoes. You're on holy ground.
And I knew some way, somehow, something of the dread, terrible holiness of God in those moments.
And I did take off my shoes, and you would have too.
By the way, someday every knee is going to bow.
And I knelt.
You know, I've tried now for 35 years to tell people what happened to me that morning,
and I've never felt like I could really put it into words.
The nearest I can come to it is to tell you that it was something like judgment.
On my knees, before my burning bush, I knew I had chosen self.
I had chosen to serve my career and to be successful.
But in the knowing of that, I knew that God was now there in the room with me confronting me with a decision.
Now my will had said, I will serve self. That was will.
Now God was giving me a chance to turn my will over to God.
And suddenly I knew what I had to do.
And with all of my heart, I cried out to the Lord Jesus.
I said, from now on, you are Lord.
And I meant that. I really meant that with all of my heart.
The first thing God required me to do was to give up that career.
I had to give it up. Yeah, I did. I had to give it up.
Because I was too good at it, and I was too successful at it,
and it stood in the way of some things that God wanted to do in my life.
For that reason, I think I can understand the older son, you know, asked the father,
how come you do all this for the younger son?
And the father said something. He said, this my son was dead, and he's alive again.
Would you like to be resurrected? I can tell you have to do it.
To be resurrected, you have to die.
And in my case, there came a death.
It was the death of something that was very precious to me,
but out of it came resurrection.
And I praise the Lord for what I know about resurrection life,
because I gave my world to Jesus.
The following is a video presentation of Lifeway Press.
Welcome back to session three, part two of the Mind of Christ conference videos with T.W. Hunt.
In this session, Dr. Hunt continues to discuss the model of the lifestyle of Christ.
Before we join the conference, let's pray together.
Father, we thank you that Jesus came to this earth to give us a model as the way you wanted us to live.
Sometimes that model is distorted as we see him through the world.
Open our eyes that we may see him through scripture.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
I don't know much about the rewards of the world like I thought I was going to know,
but I do know that when we give our will to the Lord,
it frees the Lord to reward divinely.
Colossians 3, 22 and 24 tells us,
Servants, be obedient to your masters, not with eye service as men pleasers,
but in singleness of heart as to the Lord,
knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance.
Courage frees God to protect us.
In Daniel 6, Darius put Daniel in the lion's den.
The next morning he came down to see what had happened.
Verse 23 tells us that no harm was found on him because he trusted in the Lord his God.
That may not seem fair.
You might say it seems like the cowardly ought to get protected.
The Bible evidence says that courage frees God to protect us.
2 Timothy 2, 24 gives us five adjectives in one verse.
The servant of the Lord must be not quarrelsome, gentle, able to teach, and patient and make.
Not quarrelsome frees God to focus on the main thing.
In Luke 10, 41 and 42, Martha was focusing on housework.
Mary sat at Jesus' feet and she heard his word.
Jesus said what she chose would not be taken from her.
Gentle frees God to strengthen us.
That may seem strange that it would be the gentle who would be strengthened.
But in Luke 22, 32, Jesus made a startling announcement.
He told the disciples that Satan had secured permission to sift all of them like wheat.
It's a plural pronoun. They were all going to be sifted.
Sure enough, one betrayed, one denied, the other ten ran away.
So they were all sifted.
But then he changed from the plural to the singular and said,
But Simon, I have prayed for thee, that singular, and with thou art converted, strengthened the brethren.
I believe that this gentle treatment of the Lord and his prayer is responsible for the courageous stand of Simon before the Sanhedrin.
Able to teach frees God to establish divine authority.
Folks, the world is hungering for real divine authority.
At the end of the sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, the Lord said,
If you will build your house on what I've said, it will be like building on a rock.
Now, Patience frees the Lord to answer prayer.
In John 14, Jesus made a startling announcement.
He told the disciples, rather, Philip said, Lord, show us the Father.
Now, five or no, eleven times prior to that, Jesus had said or had taught on his unity with the Father,
the fact that he came to reveal the Father.
He had done it over and over again, and yet Philip said, show us the Father.
The disciples were not chosen for their brilliance.
Again and again, they would miss the point of what Jesus was saying,
but Jesus was very patient with Philip.
He said, Have I been with you so long, Philip, and yet you have not known me?
If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.
Believe me that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.
If you will believe this, a time will come when you will do greater works than I am going to do.
Make, freeze, guide, to guide us.
Psalm 25, 9.
He guides them making what is right and teaches them his way.
Now, good. By the way, the word good, as used by Jesus, always meant functioning or working.
If I were to say this watch just isn't any good anymore, how am I using the word watch?
What do I mean the watch does or does not do?
It doesn't work.
That's how Jesus used the word.
He said, Well done, thou good and faithful servant to the fellow that invested well.
In regard to trees, He said, You will know a good tree by its fruit.
This quality produces fruit.
It frees God to produce fruit in us.
Wise, frees God to invest us with authority.
Who then is the wise and sensible slave whom the Master will put in charge of all his possessions and his coming?
The idea of servanthood was so much more common in the first century than it is in ours that Jesus or Paul or anybody could make a reference to servanthood,
and they would know what they were talking about.
So in Paul's letters, again and again, he returns to the idea and he says something about being a servant.
Or Luke does, even Acts 20, 19 or Ephesians 6, 7.
So from their discussion of servanthood, we find that there are 14 times where the word servant is described.
And from that, we derive these 14 adjectives.
So that's what we want to become if we're going to be a servant.
Just let me ask you, when was the last time you heard a good sermon on obedience?
Have you heard a good sermon on obedience lately?
We don't think in these terms. They're not current in our world today.
And yet, if we want the mind of Christ, we've got to be obedient and willing and humble and all of these other things, wise and so forth.
Now, what I found when I was exploring this many years ago, I finally found these 14 adjectives.
I wrote them out and I found as I worked on them and prayed about them, and that's what you have to do,
that God was working in my life and he was working very powerfully.
That is the obligation of the Master to work in the servant's life.
So if you will become these things, you will free the hand of God to go to work in your life.
He gets God excited about working in your life.
For example, humility frees God to manifest himself because God hides himself from the high and the mighty.
God really didn't have much use for the proud, but he says in Isaiah 57, 15,
I dwell in the high and holy place and also with him who is of a humble and contrite spirit.
God will manifest himself if he can find us fulfilling these qualities in our lives.
T.W., I have a question on this one.
With a lot of these, it seems like I find myself struggling, once again,
with the question of how much am I involved in this process, how much of it is God?
There are some of these that I might be able to fake, I guess is what I'm thinking.
There are some of these that I could do without really being, without actually having the virtue.
I might be able to fake the virtue.
In fact, I'm looking at some of these and thinking of maybe some of the attitudes that people have about Christians
that we try and act humble, but maybe in fact we're not.
You know, Bill, in the many years that I've been teaching the mind of Christ,
the one thing that God brings me back to most frequently is my relationship to Jesus Christ.
That's where it started, that's where it comes back to, that's where it continues.
It always comes back to that.
You remember that our third servant adjective was loyal,
and in the Bible sometimes the relationship of master to servant was very intimate.
They entrusted them with huge amounts of money.
Or Abraham sent Eliezer into the far country to get a bride for Isaac.
And here he was going far, far away.
He was not a slave, he could have run away, but his relationship to Abraham was so intimate,
his loyalty was so intense that he performed his duty and brought Rebekah back.
And that's the way it is.
No matter whether I'm working on the holiness angle or the beatitudes or the sermon on the mount
or the love or the servant mind or whatever,
I always come back to my relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's number one.
Fourteen adjectives, and these describe what the servant is really like.
And we want to become that, so I'm going to give you a homework assignment.
It's going to kind of be a little hard for you to take.
Here we have a test.
In fact, this is a true-false test.
And I'd like you to go down the line and say true, but true or false behind each statement.
If you're really humble, you can say true, I learn from others.
True, I don't need credit for the work I do.
True, I see my work as part of a larger pattern.
The larger pattern is more important to me than my piece of it.
I was doing this in Durant, Oklahoma, and at break time a lady came up and she said,
T.W., I really thought I was a servant. In fact, I kept saying that to people,
that I was a servant of the Lord until tonight.
When I saw that qualification, I would rather look good to God than to others.
She said, I had to say, I'd rather look good to the church.
She said, now the Holy Spirit knew that all the time,
and He convicted me that I would have to put false beside that.
What am I going to do?
And I told her, you don't do anything.
All of this is the work of God from beginning to end.
The mind of Christ is the work of God.
But you can tell God, Lord, you know I would rather look good to my family
or to my church or to whoever than to others.
Then ask God to correct that in you.
And if you give Him the freedom, He will correct it.
Now I've got a chart here.
I'd like you just, if you will, to look at your television screen.
This center circle here represents the mind.
But notice that each of these arrows is labeled with a sin.
And each of them has one arrowhead pointing outward,
and on the other hand, an arrowhead pointing inward.
Now notice that the adultery arrow points outward because all sin is against others.
That's why they point outward.
But the other end of the arrow is pointing inward because all sin is to satisfy self.
But notice that the adultery arrow collides with the lying arrow
because adultery will always produce lies.
And then the lying arrow collides with the gossip arrow.
And the gossip arrow collides with the grudges arrow.
As James 3.16 says, every evil work comes from envy and strife.
Once we get started, we compound sin.
This is Satan's way.
T.W., I have a question about a graphic in the conference.
It looked kind of like a brain, and there were lots of lines intersecting,
and words, and sins, and help me understand that.
Debbie, that grew out of a meditation that I did on James 3.16,
which says, where there is envy and strife, there is confusion and every evil work.
And what that verse really says is that sin will compound itself.
Now, God's way, everything works together.
We might call it intersection in God's way, and they blend and they harmonize.
But in Satan's way, adultery leads to gossip, and gossip leads on to blasphemy and every evil work.
And Satan's way is to, the sins won't work together, but they will compound.
And Satan's life is really a very complicated life when you come right down to it.
The Christian life is the simpler life.
If we understand the mind of Christ.
Satan's way is to compound the sin, and to make us go further and further from God.
But now suppose that we were humble, obedient, loyal, faithful in all of these qualities.
Now the arrowheads point outward, but for different reasons.
Because each of these is always on behalf of somebody else.
You are humble on behalf of others.
You are obedient to others.
You are loyal to others.
You are faithful to others.
Now I want us to look at the Lord Jesus, because Isaiah 53 tells us He was the righteous servant.
Was Jesus humble?
In John 13 He washed the disciples' feet.
And then in verses 14 and 15 He said, If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet,
you also ought to wash one another's feet.
Obedient, in John 14 and 31 He said, As the Father gave me commandment, even so do I.
Loyal, in John 17 and 12 He was praying about the disciples.
He said, These men were yours, Father, and you gave them to me, and I have kept them in your word.
Now notice these came from John, one of the Gospels.
We're looking at the Apostle life there.
Let's look briefly at the high priestly life.
In Matthew 28, 20 He said, I am with you always.
That's 100% faithful.
Watchful.
Luke 6, 12, He came to pass in those days that He went out into a mountain alone,
and He passed the entire night in prayer to God.
Willing, John 6, 38, I came down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of Him who sent me.
Courageous.
Mark often describes a walk.
He is unique among the Gospels in the fact that we will find very frequently a description of a walk.
In Matthew 10, we're on the final, faithful walk to the cross.
Jesus knows where He's going.
He's going to the cross.
But His face is set.
Listen to how Mark describes it.
His face was set to go to Jerusalem, for His disciples followed behind, for they were afraid.
Isn't that a graphic picture?
You see the enormous determination on the face of Jesus, and then the frightened little chickens following along behind Him.
Not quarrelsome, a fellow came to Him.
He said, Make my brother share the inheritance with me.
Jesus said, Man, who made me an arbitrator over you?
Jesus never arbitrated. He reconciled, but He never arbitrated.
And then He said, A man's life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses.
Gentle, one of the tenderest pictures we have of the Lord Jesus is in John 10, 7 through 9.
I'm the door of the sheep.
Able to teach, Luke 4, 32.
And the multitudes were beyond measure, astonished at the authority with which He spoke.
Patient, in Luke 22, 24 through 27, we have another of those three times that the disciples got into a fuss
about which one of them was going to be the greatest.
But this time is unique, because you know that Luke 22 is the night before He died.
Isn't that something?
Here He's had three and a half years of teaching on humility,
and yet the very night before He died, the disciples got into a fuss about which one of them would be the greatest.
And Jesus had to say to them, It will not be that way among you.
Among you, whoever would be first must be last, and the least must be the greatest.
By the way, that secret has been very well kept for 2,000 years.
Meek, Matthew 11, 29.
If you're tired, if your burden's heavy, come to me, because I am meek.
Good, John 10, 11.
I am the good shepherd.
Wise, now I could give you a very large number of unusually wise movements,
or wise statements, or wise decisions on the part of the Lord.
I'd like to give you one that you're likely to miss.
This is John 11, 53 through 54.
Now in John 11, Jesus did something very unusual for Him.
Usually He performed His miracles way up in the north in Galilee.
And He didn't work much in Judea, but this one time He's way down in the south in Judea,
and He raised Lazarus from the dead.
Now in that environment, that would create quite a stir, and it did.
So the Sanhedrin, the court, voted to put Him to death at this time.
Now Jesus did not fear death, but He is wise.
And He knows that His death must occur on the Passover because He is the Passover Lamb.
So therefore, to avoid a premature death, He slipped back up north into Ephraim,
and He stayed up there for three weeks, waiting for the appropriate time.
When the appropriate time came, He came back to Jerusalem and marched in
in the great triumphal procession in front of everybody.
I mean, He certainly had courage.
He did it in front of everybody, and then went on to His death.
He was wise.
So Jesus was the righteous servant, and this is what we're to be like.
With all of my heart, I hope that every one of you will want to develop these qualities
in your life in relationship to your work to the Lord.
Christ's servant mind in me facilitates the mental quality of willingness.
Now God's goal is the kingdom business.
He will carry it on through His servants.
My growth in servanthood can only be measured by Christ's obedience.
He was perfect in His obedience.
He enables my servanthood in His office as Master.
He leads me.
Are you looking for fruit in your life?
Would you like to know what it means to be guided by God?
Then if you will become what the sermon is, you will know,
because these servant adjectives that I've been talking about free the hand of God to go to work.
Let me tell you something that happened to me.
While I was writing the book, The Disciples' Prayer Life, I came to a chapter that meant a lot to me.
It was the chapter on worship.
I had some rather deep ideas, which I wrote down, and then I had the habit of sharing this with some people.
The first lady that read it brought it back, and she said,
I'm sorry, I don't understand the words you said.
I was so disappointed because it meant a lot to me, but it didn't communicate to her.
So I tried again, and I failed again.
I don't know how many files I trashed on the computer trying to find the one thing that would communicate.
Suddenly it dawned on me, I need to pray to the Master as a servant.
I had been praying as Father, which I think you should most of the time,
but this time I got on my knees and I said, Master, I don't know what to do,
but I am the servant, I need the fruit of this chapter, and I don't know how to do it.
So Master, I ask you to show me what to do.
And you know what? He answered the prayer.
And I think the reason he answered the prayer was because I specifically came to him as a servant to his Master.
Do you understand that?
Let's have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we have so many ideals, and all of them center in the one person, the Lord Jesus.
With all of my heart I pray that my brothers and my sisters listening to this will become servants,
and that they will carry out the kingdom business so that your kingdom can come.
Lord, let us do our part that you created us to do.
Thank you for it, we believe you, and we thank you in Jesus' name, Amen.
The following is a video presentation of Lifeway Press.
Welcome to session four, part one of the Mind of Christ conference videos with T.W. Hunt.
This session is titled His Manhood.
It focuses on how the mind of Christ expresses the authority and morality of man as God originally planned for him.
As we begin this session, let's pause together for prayer.
Our Father, we pray that as we study the model of Jesus, that we might see in Jesus what you had planned for us in the beginning.
And help us to bring our life to that kind of conformity.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
It was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man.
Ernie, do you realize what you just read? I want you to hold it and think about the significance of what you said.
God did not choose to become an angel. God did not choose to become any other creature except man.
Now that's something, there had to be something in man as God made him originally,
that God would enable God down through the course of history to take part of the very nature of the creature he had made.
God became man. God's intention is that we be the highest of all creations.
1 Corinthians 6.3 tells us that we're going to judge angels.
Now right now we're lower than the angels because they're already perfectly holy.
We're not holy yet, I mean not perfectly holy like we're going to be.
Revelation 5.10 tells us that we're going to reign with Christ.
That tells us that we are destined for very high authority.
God intended to share divine authority with human beings, and so therefore God is teaching us how to be human.
You know, we excuse our sins by saying I'm only human.
The word only should never be applied to the word human because humanity is the highest creation God made.
Now God's instructions for us, God's way of making us fully human beings is found in the Sermon on the Mount.
And that's what this section four is about, is becoming fully human,
learning to understand what Jesus really meant when he gave us those beatitudes
and all that instruction on righteousness that we have in the Sermon on the Mount.
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into the mountain and when he was set,
his disciples came unto him and he opened his mouth and taught them saying,
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall seek God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which were persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you,
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven,
for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Do you realize that we have just heard a description of what God says a kingdom person is.
The Beatitudes and the whole Sermon on the Mount gives us a description of kingdom people, what they're like.
Now what God is talking about is happiness. The word blessed means happy.
It seems as we've said our contradiction in terms, but happy are the poor in spirit.
And you know there really isn't any substitute for that word. It's poor in spirit.
Oh God, be merciful to me a sinner.
So this is a description of what it takes to become a really kingdom person.
And kingdom people are the ones who have the authority,
and only kingdom people will use authority judiciously.
So therefore we've got to master the Sermon on the Mount early in our stage of becoming like Jesus,
or we will not use our authority judiciously.
The highest of all God's creation is the human race.
God did not create the angels in the image of God.
Only human beings are actually created in the image of God.
Now right now we're a little lower than the angels, because they're already perfectly holy,
and we're on our way. We're not there yet.
But a time will come when we will outrank the angels,
and we will be the highest of all God's creation, the royalty, the nobility of the universe.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6-3 that we will judge the angels.
So that tells us that ultimately we will outrank them.
The Bible tells us that we will reign with Christ.
God's heirs with Christ, Romans 8-17, Revelation 5-10.
Now God's got to get us ready for an eternity of ruling as the top creation of all of His creation.
God's training ground to prepare us for that tremendous reign that we're going to have is in the Sermon on the Mount.
In the Sermon on the Mount, He gives us the rules for humanity.
The Sermon on the Mount describes a kingdom person.
Now if we're going to be kings and queens, we better learn what a kingdom person really is.
But it's full of some very strange things.
It tells us that the way up is down, the way to greatness is through humility and lowliness.
And it says some paradoxes that are almost incomprehensible.
Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit.
Now that doesn't seem to make any sense at all, blessed are the poor in spirit.
Then He said, blessed are they that mourn.
Now what does the word mourn mean?
What do you do when you're mourning?
You're grieving, you're sad.
Now what does the word blessed mean?
Happy.
Happy are the sad.
Now whatever such a contradiction in terms means, it must be true.
Now if you remember the Beatitudes each have an opposite and a principle.
Good for you, that's right, you got that.
They have an opposite because God has an opposite.
Satan is the father of lies and those opposites come from Satan.
And they have principles because we can observe principles, we can understand them, and we can live by them.
And God takes the circumstances of our life and the Holy Spirit is with us all the time trying to work into us
somewhere in the cycle of the Beatitudes, the qualities that they represent because they will represent happiness.
Sometimes to understand a biblical concept, if you can get hold of the opposite of that, you'll get your first handle on what it means.
Now the opposite of being poor in spirit is to be proud in spirit.
And the Lord told about a fellow who was in proud in spirit in Matthew 18.
The guy stood up inside the temple.
He prayed, Oh God, I thank thee that I am not like other men.
I'm not like these tax collectors or extortioners or adulterers.
Did Jesus approve of that man?
No, he did not.
He was proud in spirit.
And then he told about another fellow who was so embarrassed he wouldn't even come inside.
And he prayed, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.
And he was poor in spirit.
You see, you have a principle here and it is the principle of need.
You don't get into the kingdom without needing God.
Repentance itself indicates need.
This is the very first step is to need God.
Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It's the key to God's wealth.
Now the opposite of mourning is to be flippant.
Proverbs 14, 12, and 13 tell us, There is a way that seems right to a man,
but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Even in laughter there is mourning, and the end of birth is heaviness.
Now, our principle here is a principle of brokenness, a very strange principle.
Now let me share with you one of the brokenness that I...
In fact, this was the very first time that I ever understood brokenness.
One of my minor problems, Ernie, you've been a missionary, you'll appreciate this,
but one of the minor problems that I used to deal with back in the earlier days
of my Christian walk was a deep desire to be a missionary.
But I do get to be a missionary from time to time on a short term.
So Laverne and I spent the summer of 1974 in Mexico.
And so many people accepted Christ.
It was such an exciting time that at the end of it I didn't want to go home.
I told my wife I didn't want to go home.
She said, I'm praying for you.
Back in Fort Worth it was time once again for our daughter to enroll in TCU.
But her tuition at that time, even with the half scholarship, was $900 a semester.
We never could get the faith to pray for $900,
but we could get the faith to pray for $300 three times.
So they would let us pay out her tuition in monthly installments.
So she enrolled and we began praying for the first installment, but it didn't come.
And we prayed and prayed and I just couldn't understand, but it didn't come.
TCU's school color is purple, so they send their bills in a purple envelope.
And at the end of September the purple envelope came and we didn't have the $300.
So I said, Lord, you've got to make something big happen now.
God made something big happen.
I don't know that it was the Lord.
It wasn't really the Lord.
It was the enemy of the Lord.
But our daughter was in a minor accident and she ended up in the hospital.
It turned out that our insurance did not cover the hospital.
It didn't cover the doctors, so we ended up owed money.
And I told the Lord, I said, that wasn't what I meant.
We prayed.
The end of October came and the purple envelope had a second notice in it.
And I was really brokenhearted.
Laverne and I went to a revival meeting one night in the Will Rogers Coliseum downtown
and the preacher said, now the thing that's wrong with the church today is that we don't have faith.
If we had faith, God would move.
He said, well, my wife and I needed a new car.
So we just got down on our knees one night and told God we had to have a new car.
The next day we got a check in the mail that was enough to get a car.
I turned around and I looked at Laverne.
Laverne looked at me and we went home.
We said, Lord, we don't need a new car.
We do need a new car because we ruined our car on those back Mexican roads.
But that wasn't what we were praying about.
But we told the Lord that we had some very desperate needs and God didn't answer it.
And that was bewildering to me.
Our daughter, in fact, even developed an abscessed tooth.
She went three weeks and she had to get swollen on the outside before we could detect
that there was something wrong with her.
And you know what that meant.
It meant a root canal.
And the bill was $300 and we did not have any dental insurance.
So my concern now was not that we couldn't pay our bills,
but I couldn't understand what was happening to God in me.
For 15 years it was at that time I had walked with the Lord.
And now it just seemed like the Bible didn't speak and God didn't speak.
And I just couldn't understand that.
It all came to a head one Friday morning that I will never forget when I said,
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
And I cried out to the Lord.
And of course He didn't say anything.
So I told the Lord, I said, Lord, it may be that other fellows can teach in this seminary
that go to a blackboard and just draw a chart on the wall, you know, but I can't do that.
I told God, I'm not like that.
My heart is so much a part of what I am and what I try to teach that I have to know that I'm really your man.
And if I cannot know that I'm really your man doing this, then I ask you to take me out of the seminary.
That was a pretty serious prayer.
So I felt like that night I ought to tell my wife Laverne what I prayed.
When I shared it with her, Laverne said, she started crying.
She said, The time has come and I'm going to have to tell you this is your fault.
It's my fault.
And I said, I don't understand.
How could it be your fault?
She said, I just can't get hold of God as Father.
I don't have faith.
You know, that struck a deeper hurt in my heart than anything that had happened up to that point because we grew up together.
I knew that her home had been broken by divorce.
And that was a very tragic thing for Laverne.
She was the youngest of three children, the only girl, therefore the pet.
You know, she was kind of the pet of her dad.
But then this divorce broke that up.
And so I told her, I said, honey, if you can't get hold of God as Father, then concentrate on the Lord Jesus
and His love for us and for the church because you're my bride and I love you.
And you think about that.
And Jesus loves the church.
She kind of brightened up.
She said, you know, I can get hold of that.
But I wasn't sure I could get hold of that.
I went back to my prayer room.
I got on my knees and I said, Lord, I think you're really trying to say something very important.
I'd memorized the book of Ephesians and I'd been really concentrating on Chapter five.
Husbands love your wives in the same way that Christ loved the church.
And suddenly on my knees before God, I began to realize as a husband, I was responsible for my wife's image of Christ.
You know, the father gives the children their image of the father.
But the husband has that privilege of giving the wife her image of Christ.
And I had learned a very, very important lesson.
God spoke very powerfully to me in a new kind of way.
Now, what does a mourner need if you're really hurting?
What do you really need?
Do you need money?
Do you need power?
What do you need?
Comfort.
In the name of the third person of the Holy Trinity, what is it?
This is the key to the work of God's blessed Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit can do His deepest work when we come to Him in brokenness.
A few days after that, we were having lunch together.
Kind of casually over lunch, I said, you know, as bad as God needs missionaries, I wonder why He won't let us be missionaries.
Laverne said, have you talked to Him lately about it?
And I said, no, of course not.
I said, I did that, don't you remember, years ago, and He made it very clear.
He wanted me in the seminary.
So I told her, I said, I'm not going to talk to the Lord about rebellion.
Laverne said, it seems to me like if you can't talk to the Lord about something that's so close to your heart,
you ought to quit telling people He's a friend, because that's what friends are for.
You know, I all of a sudden remembered that the Lord wrote the church at Laodicea.
He said, look, I stand at the door and I knock.
If any man hear my voice, let him open the door and I will come into him and I will sup with him.
What do you do with a friend?
Do you have a coke or you have a cup of coffee?
Isn't that what a friend is for?
I could hardly believe that I had underestimated the very best friend I had on earth so terribly.
I got up from there, I walked over to the stove, I made two cups of bouillon,
I took both of them back to the prayer room, and I didn't kneel.
I put one cup over here at this table and chair, and I got over to another table and chair and I sat, I didn't kneel.
And I said, dear friend, I'd like you to sup with me. For about an hour I poured my heart out
in telling the Lord why mission work is so exciting.
You know, He didn't strike me dead. He acted like a friend.
I got through and you know what He said? He said, you called me friend. Would you like to be my friend?
And I told Him, I said, Lord, more than anything in the world, I would like to be your friend.
And the Lord Jesus said, yes, I need missionaries and many are not responding,
but you are my workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto a work which I ordained before all creation that you should walk in it.
If you are my friend, you will do the unique calling that I've called you to.
You know, I've never questioned my calling since that day. I've never questioned Jesus' friendship either.
Now, I wish I could tell you that I had learned so much that it just didn't matter about that last purple envelope.
But if I tell the truth, I'll have to tell you I was dreading that last purple envelope with a purple passion.
And on November the 30th, I opened the mailbox and there it was, horrid, livid, purple.
My heart dropped down into my stomach. I stood there and just looked at it a few minutes and finally I just couldn't open it.
So finally I just took it and went inside and tossed it on the coffee table and walked off.
Laverne came in. She saw it and she didn't open it either.
Our daughter came home that weekend to spend the weekend with us and she didn't open it, so we just walked around it all weekend.
Suddenly on Saturday night, I heard a scream and I went running into the living room.
My daughter was in there. I said, what's the matter? She said, read this letter.
She handed me the letter. Throughout eternity, I'll never forget the exact words of that letter because the letter said,
Dear Mr. Hunt, this is to inform you that a friend who wishes to remain anonymous
has paid your daughter's tuition for this semester.
And very quickly after that, the Lord paid the doctor and the hospital and the dentist and we had a blessed Christmas.
But one night Laverne and I sat down and I said, you know, I have been struggling this whole year with blessed are they that mourn.
And suddenly I see something. Here I have learned about the role of the husband in the marriage in a way that I never understood before.
And I've learned about my role as a teacher in a way that I never understood before.
God is speaking and we begin to see the principle of brokenness.
I have never known a great Christian who was not broken. All of them are.
You can just go down the list.
T.W., I think I heard you say that we need a brokenness in order to have a clean and pure relationship with Christ.
Do we have to go through brokenness each time in order to have that kind of relationship with Christ?
You know, Ernie, Laverne and I have been through so many breakings and we keep track of them
that I would have to say brokenness accomplishes as many things as God is creative.
No two of the breakings that we've gone through really accomplish the same thing in our life.
There are some things that nearly all breakings accomplish. One of them is purity.
Yes, it does purify, but it's just not the only thing that brokenness accomplishes.
One thing it accomplishes is new insights.
For example, my learning, the responsibility of the husband to represent Christ to his wife.
That was an insight and it came specifically through brokenness.
And that has happened several times with me through brokenness and new insight.
At other times we've gone through brokenness in order to learn more dependence upon God and that will come out of it.
But to say that all of them are going to always lead to the same thing would not be quite following God's pattern
because God is so creative.
By the way, there's a point that I think I really ought to bring in about breaking that fits in here.
And that is that God is gentle.
If you don't mind if I make that point.
Laverne and I have been through many breakings and we've tried to keep track with what God is teaching.
The important thing is you go into it seeking the purposes of God.
And what we've tried to see is that God is accomplishing things that we're going to end up happier,
better than we started with if we will try to bring God into the breaking.
And what we've found is that in every one of our breakings that God takes us just far enough,
but not so far that we're not able to bear it.
We're able to take the things that we go through.
So God is gentle and He will be gentle as He teaches us.
The following is a video presentation of Lifeway Press.
Welcome back to session four, part two of the Mind of Christ conference videos with T.W. Hunt.
The title of this session is His Manhood.
Before we join the conference, let's pause for prayer.
Our Father, I pray that as we study the Sermon on the Mount,
that we might be able to take these teachings and bring them into our life in a modern world.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
Bill and Ernie and Debbie, there's one thing that I think I'd like to say about this.
Since God intends us for greatness and since the roadmap to greatness is found in the Sermon on the Mount,
I believe that these things that I've been saying about the Beatitudes are the most important thing
in the entire conference on the Mind of Christ.
They show us the way God can work in order to make us royal.
Let me just tell you one thing that happened to me in 1974.
I memorized the Sermon on the Mount in 1972 and lived with it and made these charts
and was watching God work and I was seeing these things work out in my life.
What a lot of people don't realize is that the Sermon on the Mount applies to life.
It applies to life in the first century. It applies to life in the 15th century.
It applies to life in the 20th century and it applies to life in the 21st century.
It is very important to get these principles and respond to God when God brings these circumstances into our life
or else to take initiative and use circumstances in these life.
One of the things that God said to me in 1974 when I was so aware of the importance of applying them
directly to where I related to my wife and my children and my students and my friends.
God said to me, now that you know, never again can you ever be common.
We cannot be common. God said that to me.
Now, time and time again I will be with a group and somebody will say some kind of offensive emotion
and just like that in my heart there's the phrase, noblesse oblige, nobility is obligated.
We are the royalty of the universe. We are the nobility.
We are the only picture of the Lord Jesus Christ that the world has.
So therefore God wants us to be noble and high.
Not just some of the time, but as the 8B attitude show, all of the time we are noble.
Now the opposite of meek, I gave you formerly arrogant.
Tonight I'm going to give you self-assertive.
Our principle here is the principle of submission.
Submission first to God and then to other Christians.
This is the key to God's giving nature.
Jesus said, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
The opposite of hungry, self-satisfied, fatal for the spiritual Christian.
Our principle is the principle of yearning.
I cannot tell you how strongly I believe this to be absolutely vital in God's plan
to make us into the kind of humans we want to be.
Notice it is the climax of these first four.
Jesus said, blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled.
This is the key to God's nourishing.
Now I'd like you to notice that among the first four Beatitudes we have a principle of need.
Every one of these are very needy people.
The poor in spirit need God.
That is why they will accept Christ.
That's why they will repent.
They are poor in spirit.
The mourners need God's wonderful Holy Spirit.
The meek need the bread of life and the milk of the word and the meat of doing God's will.
They need spiritual food.
The hungry, I'm sorry, the meek need others.
I got ahead of myself there.
The meek need others.
It is the hungry who need spiritual food that the Bible talks about.
The meat of the word, the milk of the word, the meat of doing God's will, John 4.34.
Now when we come to the second four Beatitudes, we're in a very different kind of atmosphere.
Things have changed.
The opposite of mercy is vindictive.
Our principle is the principle of reciprocity.
It's a very important verse.
2 Samuel 22, 26, and 27 tell us, with the merciful, God will show himself merciful.
With the pure, God will show himself pure.
With the upright, God will show himself upright.
But then with the perverse, God will show himself crooked or perverse.
I never read the plagues of Pharaoh without the chilling notice that it starts out that his heart was hardened.
And then it gets specific.
It says Pharaoh hardened his heart.
And for plague after plague, Pharaoh hardened his heart until you come to the sixth plague.
And in plague number six, the wording changes.
It says God hardened Pharaoh's heart.
He did it so much that God began reciprocating.
Now what Jesus said was blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
God will reciprocate.
It is the key to God's favor.
They shall obtain mercy.
The opposite of pure, there's so many opposites.
I'm going to put worldly.
I'm going to put carnal.
There are many opposites.
Our principle is the principle of the perfect heart.
Now there's only one person in the Bible who had a perfect heart, and that is David.
But that really plagued me.
I said, Lord, I don't understand.
David committed adultery.
David murdered.
He stole another man's wife.
How can you say he had a perfect heart?
So I began studying the life of David.
Now tell me, where do songs come from?
If you've got a song, really got a song, where does it come from?
Your heart.
You know, when David was a poor little shepherd boy, you know what he was doing?
He was singing to God.
And when David was rich and a king, what was he doing?
Singing to God.
When David was running from his enemies, what was he doing?
Singing to God.
When David was victorious over his enemies, you tell me, what was he doing?
Singing to God.
David did sin, and when he did sin, he wrote the most heartbroken prayer of repentance in the entire Bible, Psalm 51.
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness.
He put the measure of God's mercy as His loving kindness.
And that whole Psalm is a heartbroken song.
Suddenly I saw it.
It wasn't David's performance.
None of us are ever going to present to God a perfect performance.
Nobody ever has.
Nobody ever will.
But, my son, give me thy heart.
This is what God wants.
He wants us to give him our heart.
Do you understand that?
See what I'm trying to get you to see?
This is the key to God's revelation, because Jesus said,
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
The opposite of peacemaker is troublemaker.
Our principle here is the principle of reconciliation.
That's the key to God's likeness.
Jesus said, They shall be called the children of God.
The opposite of persecuted is to be honored.
Jesus said, Woe unto you when all men speak well of you.
Our principle is the highest life principle in the Bible.
The principle of identification with Christ.
Once again, we have a climax.
This is the key to God's glory.
Way back, there in the poor in spirit, the Lord had said,
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
That's the way you get in by being poor in spirit.
Now, at the end, in persecution, He says,
Blessed are they who are persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
But these people are deep within the borders.
1 Peter 4, beginning down there about verse 10, Peter says,
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you,
as though some strange thing happened to you.
But rejoice, and as much as you are partakers of Christ's suffering,
if you be reproached for the name of Christ, you are happy.
But the spirit of glory, glory, and of God rests upon you.
Now, just as we saw in the first four Beatitudes, a principle of need,
now in the second four, we see a principle of giving.
The mercy people are giving the world the grace of God.
The pure in heart are giving holiness.
The peacemakers are giving wholeness.
The Hebrew word for peace, shalom, originally meant entire.
This is what peace is.
When all the pieces are put together, that's what it is.
Persecuted, they give all.
They give self.
Now we begin to see that there really is a difference in the first four and the last four.
The first four are needy people.
God loves the needy.
He loves the widows.
He loves the orphans.
He loves the sojourners.
He loves the prisoners.
The first four Beatitudes are the keys to God's heart.
He responds to us and gives himself abundantly when circumstances in our lives lead us to these particular needs.
The need is itself a blessing because of the gift that God gives with it.
These are the keys to God's heart.
Now the second four, we have received God, so now we're able to give out.
These are the keys to Christ's character.
Can you see how much like Jesus this is?
Merciful, pure, peace, and certainly persecuted.
This is like him.
This is perfect giving.
T.W., I really enjoyed the pie chart of the Beatitudes.
I thought that that was very important and I just really appreciated it.
I just wanted to chat with you a little bit about it.
As I recall, there were five different ways you divided up the Beatitudes to help us understand their intention and the way the Lord has designed this.
The first one, as I recall, was that the first four demonstrate need and the second four demonstrate giving.
That's right, Bill.
Circumstances come into it because God will allow circumstances to bring to our attention our own need.
So God is working in our circumstances.
He may not cause the circumstances.
In fact, I've now come to believe that God may even allow Satan to manipulate certain circumstances.
God can take that same thing that Satan did and make us aware of our need.
The second four do demonstrate giving very, very clearly.
The second breaking down was that the first four are keys to God's heart and the second four are keys to Jesus' character.
Sure.
You know, God loves the needy.
He feels a very special identity with them.
Throughout the Bible, if you remember, he loved orphans, Mephibosheth.
Esther was an orphan.
He loved the sojourners.
He loved the prisoners.
Paul was a prisoner.
Jeremiah was a prisoner.
God loves the needy.
So when we can come to God and say, Lord, you are important to me right now because of this need in my life, that's fitting in exactly to use the circumstance.
God is important to me because of this need and it touches the heart of God.
And then, of course, in the second four, you have just a picture of what Jesus is.
Mercy, purity, peacemaking, persecuted.
That's what he is.
The third way you broke it down, you had the first four turning our minds to God and the second four turning our minds to our fellow man.
I thought that was neat.
You see, God does not need my mercy.
My fellow man needs my mercy.
God does not need, he does not need my purity.
It means a lot to him.
He will not fellowship apart from my purity, but it is not a need.
Whereas my fellow man need my purity.
And God needs my, I mean, God needs for me to make peace with my fellow man.
And in the same way, the first four turn our attention to God.
Poor in spirit, the fellow there in Luke 18, oh God be merciful to me a sinner.
He was poor in spirit.
And, Bill, I think they are cyclical.
I think that sometimes we go around the cycle.
This is how I have been able to trace it in my life.
And I am just always saying, what is God doing right now in relation to my fellow man or in relation to God?
As I recall, the fourth way you divided it, you had the first four representing doors to greatness.
And the second four were the practice of that greatness.
Okay.
Think of who the needy people in the Bible were.
Jeremiah, for example, was one of the great needers.
And think who the great practitioners were.
Daniel, Joseph, Jesus.
Of course, Jesus was a great man.
Jesus.
Of course, Jesus fits on both the top and the bottom half of the pie chart.
But we are practicing greatness when we practice generosity and when we practice showing mercy.
And when we practice demonstrating to the world that we can remain God's man even though we go through brokenness.
Then the last division, you had the first four were circumstances that God would use and then the second four were representative of God allowing us to make use of circumstances.
Yeah, you have said it.
That says it right there.
Right now I happen to be going through a period where God is showing me my poverty of spirit.
He wants me to see that at this particular point in my own life.
The circumstances in my life are demonstrating that right now.
And I believe that God brought them into my life.
I believe that God intended for me to see that, you know, there's one thing you will never be if you try to live by the sermon on the mat.
You will never be pride.
There's no room for pride in any of this.
In the first four, God is constantly demonstrating to us there is no room for pride.
And second way, God is allowing us to use circumstances when we go to that person who needs our mercy or our peace.
We go to them.
We take initiative.
In the first four, God is taking the initiative.
But then God wants us to take the initiative.
And in the second four, we are taking the initiative.
Now I'd like you to look at another way of looking at these.
We said that the poor in spirit would really need God.
The poor in spirit learned the fear of the Lord.
That is not only the starting place of wisdom.
It is the starting place of worship.
Now mourners, the broken.
Before we are broken, we want all the credit.
But after we are broken, we want to give God the credit.
So there's a very important word that means to give God credit.
And that is the word ascribe.
The mourners give God credit.
Now we have an example of maintenance in Mary the mother of the Lord Jesus in Luke 1, 46.
Why did she pray?
My soul doth, that's right, magnify the Lord.
What does the word magnify mean?
What do you do when you magnify something?
Enlarge it.
You make it bigger.
Can you make God any bigger than he is?
No, you can't make God any bigger.
So it must have a deeper meaning.
Now look how Mary used the word.
She said, for he has regarded the lowly as state of his handmaiden.
John the Baptist understood the same secret.
John 3, 30.
He must increase.
I must decrease.
The word magnify is a perspective word.
It does not mean to make God bigger.
But the reason God is not seen is because we're all so important.
There's another perspective word.
That is the word exalt.
Now what do you do when you exalt something?
Lift up, you make it higher.
Can you make God any higher than he is?
No.
But John the, I mean David who understood so much understood the secret.
David said, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
Psalm 61, 2.
I'm going to number these.
Number one, morning number two,
mate number three, hunger number four.
Circumstances will bring these needs into our lives.
And we progress along them.
And then we come to the climax.
The climax of all need is hunger.
Jesus said that if we did hunger that we would be nourished.
And when somebody feeds you a good meal, what do you say to them?
You say thank you.
So true thanksgiving comes to those who have learned the proper climax of need.
Now I'm going to number the second four.
If you'll watch this, this will be a little strange.
But I'm going to call mercy number one.
And pure number two.
And peacemaker number three.
And persecuted number four.
Because you see there is a very close relationship between being poor in spirit
and showing mercy.
And you tell me, you can see this, who is going to show mercy?
The poor in spirit or the proud in spirit?
The poor in spirit will show mercy.
They've learned how.
They have received mercy.
And only people who have received mercy know how to give it.
Now morning has a purpose.
Its purpose is to break us.
That purifies.
Morning breaks away from you those things that are superfluous or unnecessary.
So there's a very close relationship between being broken and being pure.
And then meekness.
You tell me, who's going to show, who's going to make peace?
The proud, the arrogant, the self-assertive, or the meek?
The meek will show mercy.
So there's a very close relationship.
And then these second four also have a climax.
The climax comes in the perfect and total giving of self.
Jesus said, blessed are you when you are persecuted, rejoice and be exceeding glad,
for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you.
Now are you beginning to see the difference in the first four and the second four?
The first four is receiving.
The second four is giving.
All of them are blessings.
Blessing God intends in the very need.
And blessing that God intends in the very giving.
The first four beatitudes turn the mind to God.
We're looking upward.
This triangle represents God.
And the second four beatitudes turn the mind to others.
And you can see that very quickly.
Tell me, who needs mercy?
Does God need for me to show him mercy?
Or does my fellow man need for me to show him mercy?
Fellow man, does God need for me to help him be pure?
Or is it the world that needs the holiness of God?
The world.
Does God need for me to help him have peace?
Or do my fellow man need for me to help him have peace?
See, it's the fellow man.
And who's going to persecute you?
God going to persecute you or your fellow man going to persecute you?
Can you see that?
Now you can begin to see that in the Sermon on the Mount there's a cemetery.
As a matter of fact, in the Bible itself there's a cemetery.
Mark 12, 29 through 31, tells us whom we are to love first.
Now, whom do we love first?
God.
That's why the first four beatitudes are concerned with God.
But then he says the second commandment is likened to it.
We are to love our fellow man.
So the command that Jesus gave to love God first is seen in the Sermon on the Mount.
And the command to love our neighbors is seen in our behavior toward them.
Now our worship progression started out here and led us to a climax of thanksgiving.
The merciful carry fear to a higher level.
That is reverence.
Reverence is really fear with love added.
Then the pure in heart learn to glorify the Lord.
Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.
They have seen him.
They know what he is like.
They have knowledge.
Glorifying is ascribing with knowledge added.
And the peacemakers learn to extol.
Now the word extol means to lift up.
But it's in a much higher sense.
Extoling is exalting with authority added because now we have become like Christ in mercy and purity.
So now we can extol him.
And the persecuted as we've already seen learn to rejoice.
Now you may say, but was Jesus like this?
We have circumstances that would make him pure in spirit.
The thing is he chose the circumstances.
He could have come as the Caesar.
But he came as a carpenter.
He could have come as a high priest.
But he came as a teacher.
He could have chosen for his friends the high and the mighty.
He never did that.
He chose the little ones, the weak ones.
In Matthew 19, 14 he even chose children.
His was not a matter of circumstance happening to him.
But he chose the children.
And he chose Mary Magdalene.
And he chose the woman who washed his feet in Luke 7.
He made these choices.
Morning, Isaiah 53, verse 3.
He was a man of sorrows and a queen with grief.
Meek, Matthew 11, 29.
I am meek and lowly in heart.
Hunger, John 4, 34.
My meat is to do the will of him who sent me.
Merciful, Matthew 9 is the case where the four friends
lured a paralytic down through a roof.
Now before Jesus healed the man, first he said,
Son, be of good cheer.
Thy sins be forgiven thee.
First he dealt with the sin condition.
Pure, John 8, 23.
I am not of this world.
I'd like to ask you, if Jesus were to appear to you tonight
and were to ask you tonight, I am not of this world, are you?
What would you say to him?
Peacemakers, Mark 9, 50.
Have salt in yourselves and be at peace one with another.
Persecuted, Luke 9, 62.
No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back
is fit for the kingdom of God.
Okay, I love the pie chart and it worked for me.
I understand that.
The part that I'm having a little bit of trouble with
is you used it to describe worship.
I think you might have even called it a worship chart.
I was wondering if you could explain that a little bit better.
Yes, all relationship with God has to begin with fear.
Now, I know there are many unhealthy fears in the world
that we're in today and there are some ungodly fears,
but there is one fear that is godly because fear,
the right kind of godly fear, is the only thing that will make us
understand the difference in us and God.
Wisdom begins with fear, therefore worship begins with fear,
and the man who is poor in spirit will say,
God, be merciful to me a sinner.
What do you see there? You see the fear of the Lord.
And then the second thing is giving God credit.
And one of Satan's great lies to us is that we ought to always get credit.
And so therefore we're constantly taking,
the unbroken man will always take credit,
but a broken man wants God to get the credit.
And the third step then is still a step of humility.
Notice that the first three steps are steps of humility.
The third step we learn to magnify the Lord,
which is getting things in perspective.
God's greatness as opposed to our lowliness.
And then the fourth step just fits right in with the beatitude.
What you have there in, blessed are they that hunger and thirst after yearning,
you have the climax of need.
God builds need into our life until the need comes to a climax in yearning.
And when I began to realize that the greatest hunger in my life was for God,
that was a big step forward for me to take the step of greatest yearning.
And what does God say?
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled.
And what do you do when somebody fills you up? You thank them.
And the same way the second four relate to the first four in the very same way.
The merciful people know the fear of the Lord,
but they're already in the character of Christ,
so they just add love to the fear of the Lord.
And the pure in heart shall see God,
so therefore they glorify God because they have seen Him.
Jesus said they would see Him,
and the persecuted are going to extol the Lord,
which is really one of the highest forms of praise we can do,
because now we're so deep into the character of Christ
that we take on the character of Christ.
We are like Him.
Now, it's one thing for one person to say God is powerful.
It is another thing for another person to say God is powerful.
Two people can say the very same thing, and you know something?
You know who is speaking with authority.
The people who are in the character of Christ have the authority of Christ in them,
and they are realizing that character,
so they can lift up the attributes of God with authority
in such a way that we understand it.
And then finally, that last one there,
Jesus Himself came to the climax.
He said, rejoice and be exceeding glad,
which we read in the Bible just a few minutes ago.
Rejoice and be exceeding glad.
I don't know many people who are doing that,
but I think that if we really identified with Christ,
we would know a joy beyond all joys that human beings can know.
Now we come to a very difficult homework assignment.
I've been saying that God speaks through circumstances.
Some of them make us poor in spirit.
Some of them break us.
Some of them lead us to submission,
submission to authority.
Your next homework assignment is to watch carefully your circumstances
to find when a breaking is coming.
When you see a breaking coming in your life,
ask God to reveal to you the purpose of that breaking.
So many people tell me over and over and over,
why did God take my husband?
Why did God make us go bankrupt?
Why did God do this?
Why did God bring out our bitterness?
Bitterness is not the mind of Christ.
Let me tell you, brokenness is going to come to all people.
All human beings are going to be broken.
It is a universal.
But the Christian has the advantage of doing what I'm assigning you to do,
and that is use the breaking to bring you closer to God
and find purpose in it.
Christ's humanity in me facilitates the mental quality of authority.
The more like Jesus you become, the more authority you're going to have.
Now, God's goal for me is royal princeliness.
I am a future king, and you are a future king or future queen.
You are a prince of the realm.
Do you mind if I share something with you?
In 1974, when the Lord first helped me to understand what brokenness could achieve,
and I wrote all of this down,
God said to me, now that you know, you can never again be common.
I will not let you be common.
What if God said that to you?
We're at the reign with Christ.
My growth in manhood can only be measured by Christ's
nobility of spirit.
He enables my perfect humanity in His role as brother.
He transforms me.
Let's have a prayer.
Heavenly Father,
we know that You do not cause circumstances.
We know that from Job.
We know also that You can use circumstances to bring us to true nobility.
And I pray that every brother and every sister in this room will become noble in this life.
I pray that those watching this video will move on to nobility, royalty, glory.
And I pray it in Jesus' name, Amen.
Amen.