The Mind of Christ [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. What God did for us was He came in the person of Jesus so that He could reveal Himself to us.

What we learn from this is that God is not a God who wants to remain in the distance in hiding, but that He is a God of revelation. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, You'll See, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? In this time of, in many ways, unprecedented uncertainty, we are aware of how little our minds understand. But I have good news today that Paul says we who are in Christ have, as part of our inheritance, as part of who we are as the people of God, we have the mind of Christ. When we are trying to understand what we don't yet understand, it's frightening to us, but there's also something powerfully reassuring for the Christian that Paul speaks of that we have the very mind of Christ.

What does he mean? And what does it mean for us? We're in a series, it's called You'll See, and it's all about the power and life transformation that takes place when you see with the eyes of Jesus. We're practicing a simple prayer. Jesus, how do you see this?

And what an important time to ask that very question. How do you see it? It'll bring peace to your heart. We are in an intriguing passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, starting at verse 7, the words of the Apostle Paul. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things. It really means more discerns, not judge like judging people, but discerning all things, but is himself to be judged or discerned by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?

But we have the mind of Christ. I can't read this text without thinking about a precious, precious saint who was a woman of faith and power and intercessory leader, not only in our church, but in our community for many years at the forefront of the great renewal movement starting back in the 70s and working with women. Her name was Dee Dennison. I wish everybody could have known Dee Dennison. And every time I read this text, I remember a moment as a young pastor when Dee Dennison interrupted my prayer.

Here's what happened. We had a precious lady in the church who for a number of years had miraculously overcome a life-threatening cancer all before I arrived here at Rinaldo Church in 1996. And shortly after I arrived, the dear lady became sick again, and the cancer had returned after God had extended her life more than any doctors had imagined. And I went over and prayed with her, and she and her husband went down to be with some family in South Carolina. And while they were there, the dear lady, she grew more ill, and we received a phone call that she would cherish if we could come and pray for her.

And I was maybe a year or so into the pastorate here. I was delighted to go, and thankfully we had an elder with a private plane who said he'd be happy to fly us down there so that we could pray. So pilot elder Bob Roach and I were going to go, and I invited Dee Dennison to go with us because she is a woman of prayer.

She was also someone who knew this dear lady very well. And so we got into the little praying. We went down and had a rental car that we were taking over to the house to go pray. And as we were riding in the car over to go pray, I said, well, let me lead us in some prayer as we prepare our hearts to go and minister to this lady.

And it was a situation where the woman was very sick. And you wonder sometimes, is this the time the Lord's going to just give her the ultimate healing and bring her home? How do you pray in a situation like this? And so my prayer was going something like this. Oh, Lord, we do love You, and we thank You for this opportunity to come and minister and pray in the name of Jesus. And, oh, Lord, You know all of our frailties. And I went on and on about our frailties. Lord, You know we just know so little. I mean, by the time that I had prayed for another five minutes, I had reduced us all down to grasshoppers. Oh, Lord, we just really don't know how to pray.

We don't know how to minister. And I just was going on, and I was telling the Lord over and over how little we know and really in a sense how incompetent we were. And it went on, this prayer of mine as a young pastor, for some time until finally Sister D could not take it any longer. And she interrupted my prayer, and she said, but I do thank you, Lord, that we have the mind of Christ. She just interrupted. She could no longer amen my pitiful little prayer. And I realized I needed to stop my line of prayer and just let D pray. And she said, thank you, we have the mind of Christ, and you're going to lead us in how to do this ministry.

So who was right? Me, the young pastor who said, Lord, we know so little, our minds are so frail, or this woman of faith and power who said we have the mind of Christ. Well, in a sense, we were both right, but she was in the higher truth.

I want to talk about the mind of Christ. We've been talking about the power of seeing. When you see something, then you have a new level of understanding. And that's in many ways what our text is about today. It makes me think of the farmer's commercial.

We've all been seeing the familiar sight of, we are farmers. You know, and then he comes on and he says, well, we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. And then they start showing us all these different commercials, you know, like a gopher that steals a wedding ring and said, yeah, it really happened. And we covered it. Or a bear that destroys somebody's backyard freestanding swimming pool. Yep, we've seen that and we covered that too. And a lightning bolt that hits a lawn mower so that some dude doesn't have to mow the lawn. We've seen that and we've covered that.

And a bull moose that tears up a swing set in somebody's backyard. And yeah, we've seen that and we'll cover that too. We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. Well, it is to say that there is a relationship between what you see and what you understand.

So much of life is like that. The imagery of our text is about seeing, like at verse 9, what no eye has seen. Verse 10, here's the phrase, these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. What does it mean for something to be revealed? Well, it means it was covered up and then it was uncovered so then it's revealed. Whatever you can't see, if there's something that has been covering it once the cover is removed, then you can see it. It's like playing peek-a-boo. You can't see me. You can't see me. Now you do.

That's in a sense what revelation means. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Want to give someone a present this Christmas that they'll never forget? Let us help you give a gift that money can't buy. This Christmas, give someone your blessing, a positive, biblically-based, faith-filled vision for their life.

In the beginning, God blessed Adam and Eve and then told them to be fruitful and multiply because in God's design, blessing isn't the reward for productivity, it's the fuel for it. Now, more than ever, someone you love needs your blessing and we're here to help you craft it. This month's special offer from Alan Wright is a beautiful booklet that will teach you how to craft a meaningful blessing. The easy step-by-step instructions are biblically-based and even include a worksheet that helps you write your blessing. So this Christmas, give someone you love a present not found in stores, a gift from your own heart that will encourage and empower. Write down the blessing and put it in a package under the tree or put it in your Christmas card.

They'll never forget it. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll send you this booklet as our thank you so you can discover the power to bless. Call us at 877-544-4860 or visit PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. The word in Greek is one that you'll recognize revealed is the word apocalypto. It's a verb that means to uncover so that it can be seen. And everything that makes the gospel good news is built on revelation of God in Jesus Christ. What God did for us was He came in the person of Jesus so that He could reveal Himself to us. And what we learn from this is that God is not a God who wants to remain in the distance in hiding, but that He is a God of revelation who in the first place was revealing Himself to all humanity through the glory and wonder of creation, but specifically revealed Himself through the person of Jesus Christ. Revelation means to be able to see what you did not previously see. That really is what an apocalypse is.

Apocalypse now as it's meaning both the end of the terrible end of the world, it really just means a revelation. And so to be a Christian is to be a person who walks in revelation. So if we look closer at our text, you realize that there is an ongoing relationship between revelation and wisdom, or between seeing something and having knowledge about what you see. Here, look at the text again, verse 7, he speaks of imparting a secret and hidden wisdom.

At verse 8, he speaks of none of the rulers of this age understood. He's saying, he's speaking of demonic principalities, they didn't see who Christ really was or what was happening at the cross, they didn't understand therefore. Verse 11, he speaks of the spirit of a person that knows a person's thoughts. Everything in this text about seeing and knowing, seeing and knowing, apocalypse, revelation, accompanied by the wisdom that comes from it. Verse 12, we have received the spirit of God that we might what?

Understand. There's something that is happening through the revelation of God that lets us understand what we would not understand otherwise. Verse 13, Paul says we impart words that aren't taught by human wisdom. It's a text about knowing, about wisdom.

And verse 14, the natural person is not able to understand spiritual things because they are spiritually discerned. This is about what you see or don't see and how much of your understanding or wisdom is related to how much you can see. So what is so frightening about this new virus is that it's new to us. And because we understand so little, we have much more fear.

We haven't seen it and we haven't seen how it plays out. Now, the more that we get to see it, the more we'll understand. And the more we'll understand, the less we'll be afraid. So there's a relationship between seeing and knowing and peace.

What you see determines what you understand. The world throughout history has been changed by people who have seen what other people had not previously seen. We talk about the great inventors and there have been many wonderful inventions and our lives have been changed. We have seen the great inventors and there have been changed by technological inventions.

Absolutely. But what underlies all of those inventions is something greater and that is discovery. To discover takes exploration. It takes someone who is willing to go to the edge where people haven't been before in order to see what hasn't been seen before. A good movie, recommended movie, Aeronauts from Amazon Studios tells, retells a story of a scientist and a balloon aeronaut who endeavored to ascend higher than any human had ever ascended before.

The movie retells it in a dramatic fashion. The real life story of scientist James Glacier and aeronaut Henry Coxwell tells the real history is of them ascending in the year 1862 to 37,000 feet up in the air in a balloon. It was by far the highest that any human being had ever reached. And before balloons were traveling up into the atmosphere, people had all kinds of crazy beliefs about the atmosphere. They thought it was a factory of death and that there were all kinds of noxious, poisonous fumes and vapors that would kill people there. But these scientists that ascended higher learned all kinds of things, not just about the atmosphere, but it was the beginnings of understanding that we could actually predict the weather. No one had ever imagined we could. Well, this is the nature of discovery. And it's exciting when you see someone who's an adventurer, who's an explorer, who goes somewhere that other people haven't gone.

Because when they do that, then they can see things that others have not seen. Discoveries have changed the world like Nicholas Copernicus, who in 1543 on his deathbed, this Polish astronomer published his theory that the sun is actually a motionless body at the center of the solar system and that the planets revolve around it. Whoa. Talk about a paradigm shift when someone saw the earth's not the center, the sun's not going around the earth, the earth's going around the sun. It wasn't known until he theorized this, he saw it, and it changed not just astronomy, it changed the world as we know it. Or the discovery of gravity. Isaac Newton, who famously it is said, was sitting under an apple tree and saw an apple fall and began to think until he thought up the idea of gravity. Well, that's not exactly what happened, but the English mathematician and physicist, probably considered the greatest scientist of all time, discovered gravity. And gravity is exceedingly important because I learned from my son, who I asked the question today, and he studied physics. It's important to all the physics principles.

I can't go any further than that. But it's important that we know there's gravity. Electricity. We like to think that Ben Franklin discovered electricity when he was flying a kite and sent a key up.

Remember that story? Now he did discover that something about lightning is electricity, but electricity had actually been discovered earlier than that. And if you really want to thank someone for what electricity does for your life, it's Michael Faraday in 1821 who discovered that when a wire carrying an electrical current is placed next to a single magnetic pole, the wire will rotate. And this eventually led to the development of the electric motor.

That's all I can say about that. Of course, then the whole world was rocked and all of physics was changed by Albert Einstein who discovered the theory of relativity, the time, the speed of light remains constant, 186,000 miles per second. And the theory of relativity is so important. And I know it's important because we would not be talking about it right now if it were not important.

I don't know. It's really, really important though. I know that changed all the physics. Let me give you one more. The discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming, who went on vacation in 1928. He didn't do a very good job of cleaning his laboratory before heading out on that vacation. And when he came back, he began cleaning the Petri dishes on which he'd been experimenting with bacteria. And on one dish, he found a mold that was growing and the area around the mold, the bacteria was gone.

And that's how we discovered antibiotics. My whole point of this is to say our lives as we know them have been shaped by discovery. Another way to phrase that have been shaped by people who saw what others had not seen. A revelation, a Eureka, a light that turns on, something that illuminates what had been in the darkness. However you want to term it, it's about seeing that leads to understanding. And when we can't see, we can't understand.

And it leads to uncertainty and fear. Alan Wright. That's today's good news message. The mind of Christ from the series, You'll See. We have Pastor Alan back in the studio joining us here in just a moment with a parting good news thought for the day.

Stick with us. Want to give someone a present this Christmas that they'll never forget? Let us help you give a gift that money can't buy. This Christmas, give someone your blessing, a positive, biblically-based, faith-filled vision for their life.

In the beginning, God blessed Adam and Eve and then told them to be fruitful and multiply because in God's design, blessing isn't the reward for productivity, it's the fuel for it. Now, more than ever, someone you love needs your blessing and we're here to help you craft it. This month's special offer from Alan Wright is a beautiful booklet that will teach you how to craft a meaningful blessing. The easy step-by-step instructions are biblically-based and even include a worksheet that helps you write your blessing. So this Christmas, give someone you love a present not found in stores, a gift from your own heart that will encourage and empower. Write down the blessing and put it in a package under the tree or put it in your Christmas card.

They'll never forget it. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll send you this booklet as our thank you so you can discover the power to bless. Call us at 877-544-4860 or visit PastorAlan.org. Back now with Pastor Alan in the studio as we share our good news thought for the day and the mind of Christ, it's in the series you'll see. Alan, what's our takeaway today? Well, you know, Daniel, this is an extraordinary thing to be able to listen in on Paul, who's talking about how we have the mind of Christ.

It almost feels like it's too bold of an assertion, almost too good to be true to think of it. But in today's teaching and tomorrow, we're going to learn exactly what does this mean, the mind of Christ, and what we're going to discover is that without the mind of Christ, we just aren't very good at seeing things properly. But when we have the mind of Christ, we can see things in the spirit. So it's a deep teaching to consider what we mean by the soul, what we mean by the spirit and what we mean by the mind of Christ. Dig in with us because it's revelatory and it'll change your perspective on everything. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.