3:19, 4:2 Topic #1 Christian attitude/mindedness #2

So this is part two to what Bob began last week, the theme on Christian attitude and mindedness. As Roger's mentioned a number of times, he's slated me with this just because I've had a lot of interest in it, and the truth is I have had a lot of interest, mostly because it's the area that that I feel like I've needed the most clarity in my own mind. I've needed the most teaching in my own spiritual growth. And so it's been an area that has come up throughout the Book of Philippians, and I'm really excited to be able to maybe add some thoughts to it, give a little bit of background perspective from what's been going on in the main service with Byrne. But what's really exciting I think about this is that we're not nailing it down yet.

There's so much more to the mindset, so much more to the attitude of the Christian. And what's exciting is that while it is very clear in scripture what that is all about, It's unique in that it's a relationship-based thing. And the mindset that we each have is going to be in different places in our own individual maturities, where we are with our own intimacy with Christ. And so it's encouraging to know that this mindset is being sharpened as we spend time together like this, this morning, and as we fellowship with meals. cleaning up for spring cleanup and things of that nature. All of these times that we spend together with believers both in the church and outside of the walls of the church sharpens this attitude, this mindedness, because we're all in different places with regards to the maturity of that.

And so that's what's exciting. But with Philippians, we've talked quite a bit about the theme here. And just to review, every single chapter covers this concept. And I think Bob did a great job of covering some of the bigger picture perspectives throughout Paul's writings, and so we'll do some of that, but I'm going to try to get a little bit more laser-sharp with two specific verses today, so that maybe it will draw some clarity into this theme a little bit more for us that we pulled out through the Book of Philippians.

So freneo is the term, that attitude, that mindedness, and I just am hoping that that concept begins to expand a little bit in our own thinking as we look at these. And so we've got this reoccurring theme that we've seen in Philippians, and I think that one thing that we should take away from this is that when we think of this subject, when we think about Having the right mindset or attitude, which I'm going to hopefully at the end of the class today really nail down a lot of common terminologies that we use to cover this in our own modern day approach to the subject.

What I would like to at least do is remind us that when we are going through life and we're dealing with situations where we're tempted and challenged with how our mind is focused or where our mind is beholding, what it's beholding. Is it beholding the sin nature and the flesh and the consequences of doing that? Or is it beholding Christ and the Spirit, an abled perspective on who we are in Christ and how that affects our condition? As we start to think about that, and we'll face it today, we'll face it right now, we'll face it the moment we walk out of here, mindedness as a subject never seems to leave in terms of a priority as a walking believer.

You're constantly thinking about where's your mind? Where's my head? How do I wrap up what this person just said to me? How do I wrap up what just happened to me? How do I wrap up the fact that, you know, I'm about to get a speeding ticket or I'm about... I mean, there's all different kinds of things that you go through each day or are concerned about that are constantly battling in this area.

And I think the Book of Philippians needs to be that area for us so far where we go back to and we reevaluate how Paul challenges us in his letter to the Philippians about mindedness and how that's a corporate thing and an individual thing and how it's all wrapped up in the person of Christ.

So when you start to build your doctrinal library as you continue to learn by yourself and as you continue to learn in classes that we teach the Book of James next season and continuing on in the Law of Grace, Philippians is a go-to resource for mindedness. And there's some other themes as well, but one of the things that Les and I learned early on is that beholding Christ requires that you know the Word of God. It requires that you're familiar with it, you know where to go. And I'm not saying that you know the verse, that you know that you can repeat it from memory, this type of thing. I'm suggesting that you at least know where to go to get clarity on the subject. Philippians is a great place to go when it comes to this area, and so doctrinally file that away in your mind. When we talk about doctrine, we're talking about the teaching, the way that you're beholding Christ. When you behold Christ in this way, Philippians is a go-to resource for this, and it should be encouraging to us.

So we've got some different words that we've looked at, sukos, dokio, and noma. Those three words are words that we've looked at or could expand the knowledge that you could gain over this particular subject. But in this case, we're just looking at phrenaeo and how it impacts us through Paul's writings and the Book of Philippians. So, I was also looking at how even the word phrenaeo is used in the Greek Septuagint.

And guess where it starts to show up? If you wanted to go back and develop even a better framework, a larger framework to this subject, Where do you think some of the thinking, wisdom type of mindset terminologies show up? Wisdom literature maybe? In the Old Testament? Proverbs?

In fact, yeah. Yeah, you're right. Solomon had a lot to say about this particular subject, so if you want to go back and even develop an Old Testament perspective of these things, it was present. The cool thing, and the thing that I'm going to do is, I enjoy going back to the Old Testament to get a broader perspective. I chose not to do that because there's so much richness in a New Testament perspective of having Christ and having that personal relationship, that I decided not to go back that far, but you could.

And as you look at this theme in a broader context, the mind is something that starts in Genesis 1, with the creation of man and being created in the image of God. And so, with that mindset, No pun intended. I wanted to just spend a few minutes building a background that I think is a New Testament perspective on the flesh versus the spirit.

And this comes out of some of the things that Vern has been teaching. And so I personally have been trying to connect what's going on here And also in the main service, and guess what, it's really pretty easy since it's the same author and it's the same Bible and we have a similar perspective on these things. So, going back to the passage in Romans 8-5, this is one that we've covered with Vern recently. It was also one that Roger suggested that we take a look at where the word phrenaeo comes up again, and same author, so it's very applicable. That's the best place to start is the same letters and the same author, and how do they use it in different places and at different times, different settings and contexts.

And in this case, in Romans 8 follows, read this to you, we see it as a set their minds, but it says for those who are according to the flesh, They set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

So, one of the things that is important, I think, is we start to challenge ourselves through how to behold Christ in this way. And when I say challenge, I mean think through and bring to bear the things that you've packed away in your doctrinal filing cabinet and make sure that they line up with Scripture. That's what I mean by challenge. When we do that, I think one of the interesting things here from Paul in Romans is that there's a stark contrast about where the mind goes.

And there's a stark contrast about where the mind goes based on the makeup of the mind. the physical and spiritual side of man. And that's something that Vern's been focusing on. But when you look at this particular passage, you start to realize that this flesh concept in the scripture refers to the sin nature, and he's covered that quite well as he's looked at law and grace there. It refers to the very sin nature, and we'll see how that plays in the man in a minute, but it's how that sin nature carries itself out in sinful acts through the human body. And Paul elaborates on those fleshly deeds in Galatians 5, 16-21.

And so, if you want to see what the result of a mindedness towards the flesh results in, I think Galatians 5.16-21 is a really good way to draw contrast to what the mindedness does to a person. And by saying what it does, a mindedness produces sinful acts if it's focused and if it's founded in the flesh or the sin nature.

That's what it does. So it shouldn't surprise us when we say, hey, Mr. Unbeliever, Why are you doing these things? Well, if you think back through the book of Philippians and Phryneo and Paul's larger perspective in Romans, that is what they do because that is where their mind is set, that's where their attitude is. They're grounded in the flesh, the sin nature, and they produce sinful acts because of it. But there's a flip side to that, and it's seen. in a moment as we look at the spirit side and that we'll find out that that's where we are and there's another passage just a few verses down in Romans that we'll look at before we do that though just to bring back some of the the graphics that that Burns introduced in Law and Grace here and I've been working very working very hard.

By that I mean wanting to change the way I perceive the way man is made up to be a more biblical perspective. It's a changing of mind. I'm literally working through freneo in these areas as well. But you've got this physical realm and you've got this spiritual realm and you've got the body on the physical side You've got this fleshly thing, and you've got this brain thing, this gooey, gummy spaghetti-looking thing up inside. And it's cranking away, there's synapses firing, and there's all kinds of things happening in that physical side of it. But the Bible tells us, and honestly, without the Scripture, we would not know how to explain the other side.

I mean, have you attempted to try to understand psychology's perspective on these things? Or maybe Buddhism's perspective on these sides of things? There is no explanation for this side of things from an evolutionary atheist perspective. They leave it blank. They don't know how to explain it. And if they do explain it, they tend to try to explain it away completely.

So, how can you change the way that the spirit and the soul, as we see it as an atheist or as an evolutionist, well, you change the context, you change the environment, you change the physical faculties of the brain and it produces other behaviors. And so it's all behavioral.

But on a scriptural or a biblical perspective, we have an insight into how God created man and his image that we would have no other way. We can't research this out, we can't peek into the spirit, we can't peek into the soul. This is what the Bible tells us is true and we trust in it in the same way that we trust that Christ died on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again. We trust that the way God says we are made up in the same way that we trust that he died on the cross for our sins. So it's interesting that that belief in how man is made up and how mindedness works and the results of that is the same kind of trust that made salvation possible for you in the first place. It's belief, right?

So here we are, we're dealing with this physical and spiritual realm. And the brain here is kind of what we're talking about, right? I mean, if we're going purely physical, stuff that we can look at and observe and produce scientific method types of exercises on, then we're talking about the brain.

But when we get into the Book of Philippians, we see it leaves not only the physical realm, but it goes into the soul side of things. It goes into the spiritual side of things. And if we break that down a little bit further, we're going to see that, yes, there is this physical side, but inside this soul, inside this spiritual side, is a mind and emotions and a will. And we see that there's a physical and a spiritual side to that.

And it's interesting where that sin nature, remember, the sin nature has a mindset and it produces certain sinful acts. Where is that sin nature located? Well, it's located in the physical realm, It's only active and capable of doing what it does so long as we are in this body of flesh. And there's so many verses that talk about how that works, and we're not talking about that in today's class, but just kind of maybe reel back in your mind through different scriptures that you've seen there. But this sin nature, it's a spiritual entity, but it's attached to this body. In other words, when the body's gone, the sin nature has been separated. The death factor, right? So, in addition to that, Rembrandt brings out the idea here that the believer's soul and spirit are God's dwelling place.

So, what's going on with this freneia? What's going on with this mindset, this attitude? Well, what's happening... is we're dealing with situations and decisions in this space. And what's really neat about it is that, unlike an unbeliever who is only left to the sin nature producing a mindset on a certain subject, we have literally the full Trinity dwelling in the place where our minds are being shaped and conformed and transformed and so forth. So what's interesting I think to draw even from some of the things that Vern's been saying is that mindedness is a tri-unity focus. The entire Godhead is focused in the dwelling place of the Spirit in you as you are in Christ in the Spirit and He is working to grow you and transform you and perform you all the things that we say what God's doing in the life of the believer in that space.

Any thoughts about that? Is there any questions about what we're saying here? It's interesting to start putting some perspective on where things are taking place and where, as we use these charts in other classes, where this mindedness takes place and what's going on. So, mind, emotions, will, Are your emotions tied to franeo? Is your will tied to franeo? Is your mind obviously tied to franeo?

That's the large context there. It's the spiritual side of the thinking and processing capacity where Christ dwells, where the Spirit dwells, where God dwells. The whole triune nature of God is active in your mindset. It's pretty neat. Does that make sense? I think this is such an important point to understand in our interactions on this earth.

When we interact with unbelievers, when we have a boat coming up this week, when we think about anything going on in the earth, to understand unbelievers have no potential to exhibit that Christ-like life. And we are going to be extremely frustrated and ineffective as Christians if we doing good things and that's okay. We're not going to be able to change how people act because they're not going to have that spiritual perspective. And with pretty much every earthly interaction we have, with our own life and especially interacting with others, to understand this point that they don't have that spirit, they have no potential of having that spiritual perspective until they trust in Christ.

That's the only thing that's going to change. For me, it drastically changes the way I look at my life on this earth, my interactions on this earth, and in a way it makes things so much easier, because it just goes back to, I just have to trust in God.

I'm going to interact with others, and yes, there can be a discussion, but I need to understand, we're dealing with two totally different things, and I'm talking about something they had no potential to understand. I think that's a very good point, and I've been dealing with that as well. I shouldn't be surprised when an unbeliever's opinions or perspectives are in vast contrast to what the scripture says. It doesn't surprise me.

Or if it does, it's because I haven't settled in on this perspective biblically yet, on who I am. Not because of anything, I haven't taken my mind to the gym and worked it out and got it real pumped up with spiritual thinking capabilities. It's not a matter of me exercising my brain and getting it spiritually up to par. It is literally, I have graciously been granted the mind of Christ as a gift and it's something that I possess and I possess it in reality. but I don't possess it in reality because of anything that I did.

So not only is there the situation where I'm not surprised that I differ in mindset and attitude from the unbeliever, but only by the grace of God do I have a proper perspective on this at all. And so that same grace, that same love, that same perspective of Christ that reached down and made clear the gospel message to me so that I had an opportunity to believe is the same grace and love and perspective that God has for that person as well. And so because our interactions with people probably challenge this issue of mindedness and attitude more than any other thing, I would say relationships and circumstances, those are the two big factors there.

But even the circumstances, whether it's a storm, or a fire, or just a financial difficulty, whatever it is, we look at it and say, this isn't right. And right is bound up in the holiness of God, and we judge it from a biblical perspective, hopefully, and we say, it's not right that these things happen. It's not right that people lose their entire their entire life in a storm or a hurricane or a fire or in a car wreck, it's not right. And it's not right. It's the product of sin. We should have every right to believe that things are headed in a different direction.

So whether it's circumstances or it's people, Only by the grace of God do we have the mind of Christ available to us. Only do we have, by the grace of God, the position of being in Christ. And so, it's not only a not-surprised thing, it's a, only by the grace of God do I even have the ability to perceive these things.

And that perception, interestingly enough, leads to actions. It leads to the things that we call, you know, works, and the things that we do. I'm reminded of the verse over here in Ephesians that we've already looked at, you know, several times, that what we learned about Christ is that we have put off concerning this former, the old man, that we are being renewed in the spirit of our holiness. by the blood of Christ too. And in place of those things is a consciousness of who we are in Christ and that relationship we have with him. So our minds are thinking on these things and we're being transformed.

It isn't that we set ourselves from his perspective. Oh, I've got to set my mind on Christ. You know, I mean, it's not like, oh, I've got to pull out my reminder card and my wallet. I used to do that. I had several verses that I was like, okay, I'm dealing with this. I've pulled out my reading, and there's nothing wrong with that, but what it did is it produced this kind of, I've got to, you know, like, somehow, like it was an incantation or something. I've got to say these verses, and this situation will come under, you know, my control. You know, it's the person of Christ doing the thinking.

We regularly talk about, don't just, don't do it. Don't do the Christian life. Or, it says, I highly recommend you not do it. Well, in the same way, I highly recommend you not think and have an attitude and a mindedness that is Christ's. Why? Because it is Christ who does the thinking. It is Christ who does the attitude. It is not you who does it. And you say, well, how does that work? It works the same way in any other subject that we've been learning. Christ does the living. He does the thinking. He does all of the sizing up of situations in the mind to help you recognize there's a different perspective here.

Your mind might be, well, this person is just arrogant, rude. They have no right to treat me like this. They have no right. And it's all about you. And all of a sudden, the mind of Christ because you trust him to do the living, says, you know what? This person needs you in a way that you can never imagine.

Because I've designed this conflict to exist so that he can see me. He has no right, but here you are. graciously dealing with his unbelief, and that's what we're talking about right here, is that the unbeliever is locked, literally, into being constantly, and by nature, in flesh. That expression of the sin nature in and through the human body.

And the only way they can see Christ is by us recognizing who we are, and in specific, this mind of Christ allowing Him to do the thinking through us. You know, He wants to do your thinking. Could I say that apart from him, we can't do anything? And in that light, in that think, we are part of his body. It is natural for us to think his thoughts. It's unnatural for us to say, I'm doing the thinking. That's the sin nature, doing that. But when we relax and let ourselves really believe that we are part of him, that he's united us to him, that nothing happens except he does it.

I think you brought up an interesting word. You said relax. I want to take that and just kind of maybe try to clarify it because I think it's a very good point. It's a rested faith, right? So it's, you know, just to kind of clarify there, when we're resting in faith for Him to do the thinking, there's, well, goodness, all the other themes of Philippians start to make sense. How about joy? Joy in the midst of frustrations with this kind of thing, the flesh. You know, recognizing even the sin nature's attempt to run things in our mind. There's a rest.

So if that's what's going on in your mind, then you should recognize that you're trying to mimic what Christ has said he'll do on your behalf in a rested faith. You're resting in the object of Christ to do the thinking. And that's what's really neat, and that's where you get to relax.

It's totally different, and it's rare. for Christians because they don't have a proper biblical teaching on these things. I haven't had a proper biblical teaching on these things. I'm so thankful for Paul and Philippians and this body and for those of you that are growing in these ways to challenge me to realize, hey, it's not working through your mind and trying to get it all right so that you can say and do the right things. It's a rested faith for him to do the thinking, for him to adjust the mindset, for him to adjust the attitude. Somebody have something? I just had a question.

I mean, would that be the same as abiding in Him? Yep. Yeah, abiding, it assumes a rested faith. Abiding has kind of gotten a little marketed and we use it. It's a good word. And I've tried to use some different maybe words to nail it down in my own mind because abide above, and looking down, and rested faith. And for me, that's just one of the things that I'm trying to get some different descriptors on so that I can maybe break out of what seems to be a common terminology, maybe. Yes? I think when I think of abide, somebody said in her fellowship has that idea of let Christ be at home in us.

It's a fellowship relationship. That's good. He also said how, we quote Hal a lot, but anyway, just kind of hanging out with Christ. It's another Hal translation of the Bible, which I think is excellent. It portrays, as it should be, that we're at home, we're at rest with him and And he's the one that's doing it, and we're saying, that's okay, Lord. My mind had this timescale, but your timescale is different, and it's okay. Good. I like that.

So the believer, on the other hand, has multiple ministries and fruit of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit indwells the believer always. And this is one of the things that I maybe, I don't know if we've drawn it, maybe remind me if we have, I don't know if we talked about the process of freneo, this mindset attitude, is literally a ministry of the Holy Spirit. It's a specific ministry, okay, and it's listed in that supplement that Vern refers to regularly. We're talking about a ministry that is designed by the person of the Spirit, to work in and through you to produce this thing. So it's not just a, hey, here's a thing that we should recognize from Scripture. It's a specific ministry of the Spirit in you.

And we're in the Spirit. Romans 8 and 9 tells us, however, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. And Burns introduced this idea that we're not only in Christ, we are in Spirit. Those two positions in those two persons of the Godhead are different, but we're equally in both of them. And we say in Christ a lot, but we don't say in spirit.

But here is an instance where being in spirit produces a realization that there's a ministry in spirit that the Lord is working through specifically in our emotions, in our mind, and in our will to produce His thinking. He's at work in us. And that's what's really neat is we're feeding the Word of God and He's at work with that. You want to feed this ministry? You feed it with the Word, and He just starts to place it in perspectives of your mind, and He starts to do this in a way that you could never do it.

Less constantly, I say constantly, more in the past several years, I've started to realize that if there's an issue with the children, if there's an issue with the job, if there's an issue with the relationship, that the number one resolution to these things is getting in the Word of God so that the Spirit can start to mold and give perspective and mindedness and attitude towards whatever it is. You know, we want to sit down and hash things out. Well, over time we've recognized hashing them out and getting it all out and just blah blah blah.

You know, Christ in us doesn't argue and have combat between one another. There's no such thing as combat with me in Christ and her in Christ, or you in Christ and me in Christ. That combat doesn't exist. And I'm not saying that you should agree, but you know what I'm talking about. And it's literally this feeding your mind with the Word of God produces, the Spirit is at work to produce this mindedness and this attitude. It's really encouraging to know, I know how to deal with this.

I go back to the Word of God and I start to think, where am I not resting in faith? Where am I not abiding in Christ? Where am I not at home with Christ in these things? And the Spirit will draw your mind directly to that in the moment you recognize or reckon on what's going on. So here we are. Freneo is an issue of spirit-enabled perspective. You're not doing it. Spirit-enabled. So we have this mindedness, this positional truth and this conditional truth.

We've looked at the makeup of man. We've looked at how, from an unbelieving perspective, there is no potential to have the mind of Christ. There's no potential to even mimic it. It doesn't work because only Christ can do the thinking and everything else is flesh, right? From a positional perspective, we have the mind of Christ.

From a conditional perspective, Paul encourages us in Philippians 2.5, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.

It's interesting that in this verse, Philippians 2.5, I'm going to try to bring it back home to the book since this is where we've been.

He says, have this attitude. Well, how in the world do you have it? And I think we've covered that really well this morning in a way that I've been really encouraged by. It's a restful having. It's a faith-based having. It's not a pulling out your verses and saying, OK, what's my attitude supposed to be on this thing?

And then say, OK, I've got to try to be patient and kind You know, okay, patience, patience, patience, patience, patience, patience. If you're thinking that way, if that's what's going in your mind, and children will cause you to recognize that you don't have real patience. Trying to produce patience, be patient.

If that's where you're going, that's not what Paul's talking about here. Because you're doing the patience. You're doing the thinking. Yeah, you know what I mean. I was going to say, if you want patience, think critically. I just bring this back up because the word have this attitude to have a mindset about something or someone involving the will, emotions, and conscience resulting in a proper course of action. That last part is something that I wanted to just draw back to our attention, that this mindset produces a course of action.

And it's not us doing the thinking so that God can do the living. That's an incorrect connection there. Reneo has the perspective that Christ is doing the thinking and then Christ is doing the living. And here in this verse, and I just kind of use this as my hero verse for this class, we're talking about an instance of Freneo where it's a plural present active imperative. So Paul's saying they must be, or we must be, continuing to be minded in this way. This isn't a, I'll try it out here, here during the day, or when I'm tired, it's not the way it is.

And there's no way to constantly be active and imperative in this mindset than by purely focusing on fellowship with the Lord. It's through fellowship that this remains constant. So you think, how do I remain active and how do I recognize the imperative of freneo? Well, it's not, it's embedded in fellowship, okay?

It's not a separate thing. It's not something that you have to try or think about or be, it has to be disconnected from that just resting in Him, that intimacy with Him, that fellowship with Him. So how do you know when you are not having this attitude as Paul talks about? Well, when you're not in fellowship. That's how you know.

Because it's not possible if you're not in fellowship with the Lord. If there's sin that is separating you from fellowship, notice I didn't say relationship, but separating you from fellowship with God, then you can't have this mind, this attitude. Not because it's not available, but because it's not based on flesh, it's not based on the sin nature. Because you can have fellowship with the same nature, not in the same way, but you can sure listen to its yelling and screaming. And how does one refer to it? Where you've got a ruler and a reigning... A deposed dictator. A deposed dictator. Yeah, that's what I was looking for.

So, Philippians 2.5. Some things to think about this, and I just pulled a slide from a past lesson here. But the Greek text does not actually have a past tense verb.

So, when you read Philippians 2.5, what it actually says, and you can mark it out in your Bible, and I highly recommend it. Slash it out. Was is not in there.

Have this attitude in yourselves which also in Christ Jesus. It's the same thing. So, one of the challenges, I think, as we, being spatial, geometric, Greek-minded people, and we want to kind of have graphs and charts for everything, this being-minded that is in Christ, this being-minded that is in you, and also in the body, because Paul talks about the mindedness that is the body, it's interesting that your individual thinking, Infernao, Christ's mind and the mind of believers is actually all in the same place. It's all the same. It's not like, oh, I'm over here having the mind of Christ in my little corner and you're over there having the mind of Christ in your little corner.

It's that that mind is the same. And so if we've got disputes amongst one another, as believers, then it's an issue of one or both of us not having the mind of Christ on the matter. But as long as there's a dispute, it means that this having this attitude which is in Christ Jesus, someone, both or one of us, are not in the same place mentally as Christ is. Because Christ intends us to have the same mind as He has. I mean, they're not spatially separated. It's not like you get to have a special kind of crisis mindset and you get to have another one.

There is a maturity in that, but it's the same source. Paul talks a great deal in the book of Philippians about the unity that mindedness produces. I think that's interesting. You're going to think about our marriages and our relationships with our children. If there's a different way and different attitude and a different mind about it, How do I start to resolve this? Go back, reconnect to the scripture. Unity of mindedness in Christ? There's not unity here.

It's either me or them or both of us are lacking some perspective on the Word of God that would cause us to have the same mindset. At least we can recognize where the problem potentially might exist. I think it's helpful. It just kind of occurs to me, that's why we focus so much on having every believer understand the Word of God. Because if they don't understand the Word of God, you've got people on different pages, so to speak. Brother so-and-so understands this, and brother so-and-so understands that. And they have contention because they are not on the same page. But when we strive to do that as a body, to every person understand it, the understanding is the same as Verne's.

Actually, ultimately, it's the same as the Lord. And does this presuppose that there is not a... I don't mean a fleshly conflict. I'm saying a conflict of truth. When it comes down to it, we believe that the Word of God is without error. It's an error. It is the literal Word of God, without error, incomplete, in totality.

So, having that presupposition in place, Is there room for conflict? Is there room for a difference of opinion about things as a settling place? Can you settle on it? Or can you have a difference of opinion realizing that we can't settle here, it is a matter of continually taking the Word of God until we do arrive at the same line?

And I think that's the difference, is that you will have, and every believing body has this, a difference of perspective on a passage or on a truth. Now we know, because the Word of God is inerrant, that there is no multiple truths. There's only one, and that one or both of us are not seeing Scripture as it was intended to be seen. Now that might remain for years, but the point is that you don't settle, as a believer and as a body, we don't settle for ongoing disagreement. we strive for the same mind. And by strive, meaning we rest in the Word of God and tell the truth that He intended is made clear to both of us.

And that is fellowship with the body. But it doesn't mean that you're going to be on the same page all the time. It just means that that is where you're headed. And I think that's pretty cool. You know, when Roger and Berne and the other, you know, when they're working through doctrinally these issues, they may not be of the same mind at the beginning, but they have that goal in mind, because biblically they know that as they grow and are transformed and conformed in their own fellowship and intimacy with Christ, they will land on the same page. If you start there, it's a different world. Rather than saying, Brother Axwell, he's a so-and-so and I'm a so-and-so, and we're never going to reconcile, and we shake hands and walk away. Why do I see that differently? You may not solve it today, tomorrow, or maybe never, conceivably, but at least your goal is to have the mind of Christ, to see it the same way. That's the goal. Marriages. Right, that's another real challenge.

Is it okay to just say, fine, we disagree on this subject? And I'm not talking about whether you plant this flower or that flower. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about truth. You just say, fine. We'll agree to disagree. You may agree to disagree temporarily, but if in fellowship you're not saying, we must have the mind of Christ about this, and Christ's mind's not divided. So let us continue to soak up the Word of God, behold Him in His Word, until we have that mind. And as you, and I say strive, and I'm not implying effort there, I'm implying focus on the Word, and content, and dealt with by the Spirit and the mind. You're moving towards a mindedness, and I think that It's interesting that having this attitude and having this mind is not about just an individual thing. It is a fellowship thing amongst believers. And it goes between ourselves and Christ and between ourselves and other Christ-ones, Christians. Question back here somewhere? Yeah.

This also goes back to understanding the Holy Spirit's role in that I mean, we're all on our individual tracks to being conformed to the image of God. We know that's the goal, and we're all going to get there, but we also have to understand that we're all at different levels of spiritual maturity, and God's working in our lives, and that's a big part of it, too.

It's not just, well, I understand this, you should understand it, too. And it goes back to, again, you're not relying on yourself. There's not arrogance. attain this great knowledge. This is something the Spirit has taught me. And maybe there's more, certainly there's more He needs to teach me. And not to never settle, to just constantly be seeking Christ and knowing that the Spirit's going to be teaching you more. He's going to be teaching somebody else probably something totally different. Even in a marriage, you're not going to be at the same path. You're going to be at, God's going to be working in each of your lives I think understanding the Spirit's role in this is key to encountering these difficulties as far as understanding what God is teaching us.

Well Grace is, and Vernon said this recently too, Grace may require things of you that the law never dreamed of. What does that mean? Maybe grace requires long suffering in a relationship so that you do end up in the same mind at some point, or you have that as a goal.

By goal, I'm talking about a biblical goal. This is a biblical active imperative. So it's not that we set that aside and say, yeah, but grace... No, that's where we're headed. But grace requires that I realize time and need as a tool is different in this person's life than time and need in my life and God is uniquely working it as a master creator that he is and a designer so that we end up in the image of Christ and eventually we will have the mind of Christ as we take on that image when we're fully separated from this And to kind of add to that here, I mean I said you're at different stages, and in my mind I immediately pictured I'm up here, but that's not it, it's not a metaphor. You should have said something a little different. It's not like you're all climbing up this ladder and some of us know it. God is working in our lives to teach us what He wants us to have right now. And it's not a measuring stick. It's not, you know, we're in this big sphere and we're all moving towards the center. It's just the focus is on your individual growth and understanding that God is growing you closer to Him each day.

I mean, I say that, but isn't that sometimes how I think, that, oh, this person is not close to where I am? Well, I don't know. I think biblically there might be a case for realizing that you can recognize people's progress, Christ's progress in a person, through the journey of being conformed. I mean, Paul addresses weaker believers, and in different ways, more mature believers. So I do think there There is a metric, there is a journey, but it's not our journey and it's not our metric to be measured. So Christ does this progress thing to get us to point B, which is from A to B, A being salvation and B being the image of Christ.

But it's His work. And it's his job, and it's his perspective, and he knows the heart, unlike any other man. So it's not our job to know where that person stands, but we are told within certain cases, doctrinally, to bring a person along and to help them move forward in this journey. But it's all done in grace and in fellowship. So it's done with Christ's attention to a person's spiritual being.

So, just to add some thoughts there. What I did want to do is, this is kind of fun for me, occasionally I'll take a subject and I'll start trying to wrap all the different ways that maybe I've heard So we use common phrases with fellow believers. We use them with our kids. We use them with non-believers. What I just wanted to do is reel all these terminologies into a single doctrine where we can go back to the Word of God and the Book of Philippians.

We've used some passages from Romans and Colossians, and you can definitely refer to the handouts as you think about this particular subject. But here's a bunch of things that that I believe apply to this doctrine and maybe come out of our mouths as we walk separately throughout the week.

Where's your head at? Maybe you're saying that to a co-worker, maybe you're saying it to a kid, your kids or yourself. Where's your head? Fresnel has in mind, where's your head? You see where I'm going with this? What were you thinking? Well, it's really clear. It's one or the other. Were you trusting the sin nature to produce separation from the mind of Christ and actually try to attempt to think this through on your own? Or were you resting in Christ and He was doing the thinking? What were you thinking? And the really spiritually mature answer would be, well, Dad, I wasn't thinking. Christ was doing the thinking. Wait for that one. So wrap your brain around that one. Wrap your mind around it. Somebody say, wrap your brain around this thing. Get your mind on this. What are we doing? How are we attempting to do those things? You need an attitude adjustment. You mean like the beatings will stop and your attitude improves? What's that? The beatings will stop and your attitude improves?

I'll tell you, one of the most difficult things that I've had to go through is recognizing how grace and law and child training all go together. Think about that one. It's interesting, when you attempt to try to think about something, are you thinking restful faith first, so that Christ does the thinking through you? No, it's probably a very natural, and I'll use the term spiritually organic, I don't know if that's a good way to go, but it's based on your relationship, so it'll happen naturally, it's not like you go through these steps every time, but in the beginning of changing your mind about something, You tend to be very step-oriented, and you think, okay, where am I? Am I resting in Christ on this matter, in faith, or am I not? But as you grow and mature, it becomes a natural, more relationship, intimate type of environment where you're not thinking through all these individual steps, but up front, it's sometimes helpful to start asking yourself questions so that you can get to the source of where things are coming. You think about trying to train children, and you ask them questions. You know, Addie had some issues this morning.

I said, what did you just do? She said, you know what I just did. You saw it. And I said, well, what did God say to Adam and Eve when they sinned? And they hid. Where are you? Did God not know where they were? Yes, he knew. I said, well, I'm not God, but I'm asking these questions to help you think through things. It's helpful to you. She's like, aw, can't you just get on with it? I'm sure Adam and Eve felt that way, and as believers, we sometimes feel that way, too, as the Word starts to ask us, what were you thinking? You know, of course the Lord knows what we were thinking, but we need to go through that process. And it's a step-based process in many instances until it becomes a real natural intimacy with the Lord.

Do you see what I'm saying? I'm not suggesting that it's a law or something to be carried out in a sequence. The sequence might be slightly different for each of us, but changing the mind requires time. I'll just move through some of these other ones. Think about that as I thought to myself. Mind your own business. That was funny. Put your mind to it. Set your mind in motion. Now, I'm not saying that...

Well, let me just say this. Is the Lord, is Fresneo a part of you setting your mind towards your job? Let's say you're an engineer, you're a photographer, designer, programmer, whatever you are. Does freneo have anything to do with those things? To say no means that it's a neutral area of thinking and assumes that Christ is not interested in the full mind.

Well, you know, there are challenges as you conduct your life as whatever, you know. So, you know, I find sometimes at work that it'll seem like it's an unresolvable situation. I say, Lord, I'm just going to have to let you in. I can't see how this could be, you know. And so I find that I do, you know, that it does enter into that. But there are time periods when it doesn't. It doesn't appear to enter in.

But certainly in normal interaction with people, it's going to happen all the time. Because you see people with actions and reactions. And you're constantly, you know, in communication with the Lord, and, well, Lord, you know, this is, this is, you know, that's, that's sin, and this is, you know, whatever it might be. And you, you know, so it's an ongoing thing, and I see. It really is.

I'll let you read some of those on your own if you're interested. But final thoughts here. Paul is saying in Philippians that we must, in our present condition as a logical outcome of our eternal position in Christ, continue to be minded as Christ is minded. I like that as a summary statement because it talks about the position of who we are. It talks about the new person that we are in Christ. And it talks about our oneness of mind with Christ as He does the thinking through us.

So I just wanted to introduce that, I think, consistent way of referring to it here. Phryneo is the interest of the entire triunity of God in doing the thinking through you. And Philippians is a great resource for fine-tuning your teaching and doctrine on that.

So, cool. Thanks for letting me be a part of that one. I really enjoyed it. I needed it. And I look forward to the next theme, which is what? What's the next theme? Joy, rejoicing. Joy. Joy, rejoicing, and grace. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you so much that you are interested at the very thinking capacity of each of us and that you want to do that. Lord, as we reckon on the truths of Philippians that we find about how our attitude and our mind is so key to the actions that come of our life and how you do the living, I just pray that we would have a restful faith in these things. And Lord, as we each mature in different ways and in different stages, Lord, I pray for grace as we each seek to have a unity of mind together in the body. Thank you so much, Lord, for who you are and what you've done, and who we are in you. In your name we pray. Amen.