S. Seeking the Mind of Christ

SEEKING THE MIND OF CHRIST TEXT: Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Php 2:5. But very recently this church in its official capacity had occasion to cite, and to commend as worthy of imitation, an illustrious example of our Lord touching the question of taking vengeance in our own hands. And now tonight it is my purpose to present for your most thoughtful and prayerful consideration another illustrious example of our Lord Jesus Christ, commended with equal sanction as the other, to our imitation. By imitation of this example we are to become, in a crooked and perverse generation, as the lights of the world. holding forth the word of life. By so much as the imitation conforms to the example set before us as our model, by that much light shines in the darkness around us. By so much as our imitation falls short of or deflects from exact conformity to the model, by that much is the light dimmed and the world left to perish in the dimness. The example of Christ to which I wish to call your attention tonight is expressed in the fifth verse of the second chapter of the letter to the Philippians: “Having this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Before discussing this text I wish very briefly to refer to the letter itself, of which the text is only a part. On the southeastern shore of Europe, with only a narrow sea dividing it from Asia, is a famous spot. Its first fame and its first name was derived from a gift of nature. A number of fountains of unusual fulness and force burst up out of the ground, as God unsealed, and flow off in living streams, and from this fact the place was called Crenides, or fountains. Later, it obtained another name, Philippi, in honor of Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great; and still later it obtained another glory because in the extensive plain hard by was fought the decisive battle between Octavius and Antony on one hand, and Brutus and Cassius on the other, by consequence of which victory it obtained the privilege of being a Roman colony. But its crowning glory was when God’s inspired Apostle landed there and preached to its people the glorious gospel of eternal life. There was a time, according to the song of Homer, when Greece sent her navies and her panoplied hosts to demolish the walls of Troy, but there came a later time when a stranger amid the ruins of Troy, by night saw a Macedonian at his bedside, whispering in his ear, “Come over and help us.” And thus the gospel was introduced into Europe. You remember the first convert was a woman, in that little prayer chapel by one of those flowing streams which first gave a name to the place. You remember the miracle wrought, which cast out the demon of divination, and the consequent chastisement by stripes and the imprisonment of the Apostles, and the appeal made to the Father, and how at midnight, the earthquake responded as God’s answer to the prayer of His preachers down in the cell and bound; and how the jailer was saved, and the little church planted. Of all the churches to whom Paul writes letters this church is never rebuked. So far as history testifies, it was a church that was to him a joy forever. And now the preacher who planted the gospel in that place has been led by duty far away from the scene of the great meeting, having received time and again, as remembrances of the affection of the people, contributions to his support, while at Thessalonica and at other places, and has now carried the gospel to Rome, and in Rome is in prison, with the expectation of death hanging over him. Unterrified he confronts it and welcomes it, regarding it as the portal to heaven and desiring to die, but leaving it to God whether he shall remain. Under these circumstances this church, hearing of his critical state and hard and bitter necessities, sends to him through the hands of Epaphroditus another contribution of money and supplies. The messenger that brings it contracts an illness, and is nigh unto death, and as Paul says: “That I might not have sorrow on sorrow, God had mercy on me and spared his life.” Now he sends him back with this letter, in which he addresses himself to the condition of that church. While there are no rebukes in it, he recognizes dangers. There were two women in the church, both of whom he held in very high remembrance, Euodias and Syntyche. They had helped him very much in that place when he preached the gospel there. They had helped his successor there, but now, sad to say, these two women were at strife with each other, and there was likely to be a division in the church, growing out of the contention between two noble women that had so signally illustrated their faith in Jesus, and their spirit of sacrifice in the days that were gone. Women can form parties in a church even more easily than men. He sends a special message to them. You can see all through the letter how he exhorts all the brethren, and especially Euodias and Syntyche, “Who helped me in the gospel that they be of the same mind”; that is, if the Christian religion has no power to bring God’s dear children together in Christian work, then how can it claim to regenerate and reform the world? He had heard too of the persecution of that people. He says they were called upon not only to believe in Jesus Christ, but also to suffer for Him. The fires which commenced to burn there in his own time were burning still, and some of them were becoming afraid, and hence he writes this letter to stir up their spirit of courage “In nothing be ye terrified by your adversaries.” Then there was developing in the little congregation, just rising up as yet, but susceptible of enormous development, the spirit of pride, the spirit of selfishness, and in some the spirit of despondency, and in others the spirit of corroding anxieties. The object of this letter then was to induce this congregation, first, to have courage, not fear; second, unity; third, humility to lay aside pride, by which the Devil fell. And then cultivate a spirit of unselfishness, regarding not their own things, but regarding the things of others. And then, instead of being despondent, rejoice “I say unto you again, rejoice always and be anxious about nothing, but in everything, with prayer and supplication make known your requests unto God.” While these are the general objects, he enforces what he has to say by citing the illustrious example of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and particularly when He wanted to enforce humanity and unselfishness. And now before yet commencing to discuss the text which cites the great example of our Lord, I want to speak to you a few words about the standpoint from which the Apostle writes this letter. There is something exceedingly touching in it, something which renders the words very impressive. What was his attitude? It was the attitude of one held back from heaven, “Having a desire to depart,” facing death just ahead of him, expecting to hear the sentence pronounced at the lips of fallible men, expecting to hear the invitation to come Home from the lips of the Lord. Held back from Heaven! What a tremendous thought! Socrates is represented as saying just before he drank the fatal hemlock, “It is now time to depart, I to die and you to live, but which of us shall go to the better destiny is known only to the Deity.” Poor Socrates! “I to die, but whether that is to go to a better destiny, I don’t know.” Hear the Apostle on the other hand: “To die is gain,” or in the expressive language of the Greek, with its double comparative, “which is by far the more better.” Think of that, Christian people, that a man can in the light of Christianity look at death and say, “It is gain.” That he can look at death and say, “It is far, far better.” I desire to depart, not that death in itself be coveted, but because of that other sentence coupled with it, “To be with Christ.” It shows his clear conception of what lies beyond death. It shows that from the delectable mountain of revelation on which God placed him he could see across the intervening river with its cold flood and chilling streams, the far uplifted heights of the -heavenly city, the sheen of its splendor end its glorious estate, that place where black night cannot spread her mantle or flap her wings, that place where sickness and sorrow and pain and death can never come, that place of reunion with Christ and with the loved ones who have gone before, that place so attractively dear, that he can say, “It is gain. I desire to depart. O, Master! Speak the word and call thy homesick servant to thyself!” Look at the standpoint. See the mariner who for a long. time has been out on a toilsome voyage on strange seas, exposed to strange fortunes by storm and other perils. At last in his storm-battered ship he gets in sight of the port at home. He can see the shining in the window where the loved one is waiting and watching. And just at that place he is held back. A voice says, “Turn the prow of the ship and make another voyage.” It must be a mighty motive, it must be a mighty incentive, with home in sight, to make him turn back and take up again the toils of another voyage. So might Paul say, “I don’t know which I will choose. I know it is better, far better, to go, and if I am not allowed to go it is because God means to use me for the good of others, and if I am held back when nearly home, then I cannot trifle. If I turn back at all it is to speak words as if in view of the judgment. It is to speak to do good. It is to speak for salvation.” How can you conceive of one writing from his standpoint, when God holds him back, saying, “It shall be for the fruit of your work,” bringing some idle message, some trifling theme, some transitory subject before the people? Men may trifle, but not under such circumstances. There are times when the heart is tuned to folly, but I venture to say that when after a long voyage, the port of home is in sight, and one is turned back, cannot land then, as he turns back he utters a strange sentence. He says, “I don’t know which I will choose, even after I know that it is expedient for me to remain. I don’t know which I shall choose, but I do know that I am going to abide somebody else’s choice for me.” He did not know which he would choose, but there was an election in heaven. A choice was made from the other shore, and he says, “I know that I will abide, and that it will be for your good.” Now that being the standpoint from which he writes, let us see what he says. Did you ever hear such words? Let me read them to you again, lest a while ago you failed to catch their deep significance: “If there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation through love, if any communion of the spirit, if any tender affection and compassion toward me, then make my joy complete by being of the same mind, regarding not your own things, but regarding the things of others. Also let this mind be in you, which was also in Jesus Christ.” How could any one who is a true Christian deny the force of such a predicate as that? Do you notice that every sentence appeals to a Christian’s experience? Not what you have read, not what you have thought, not some argument you are able to make, but if, as you have found it in your own heart, there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation from love, if there is any communion with the Holy Spirit, I press those thoughts upon you and appeal to your experience. I would go back and say, “In your past did you ever find any encouragement in Christ? What! None at all? Has there been no period of your life when you took courage as you thought of Christ? Have you ever found any consolation arising from God’s love for you and your love for God? Has your heart ever been comforted in any sorrow? Surely you have been stricken many times and woes have come to you. Did they entirely overwhelm you? Did they sweep you entirely off your feet? Didn’t you find any comfort for your soul, nor any promise of God fulfilled to you in that time? Did not some power, silent, invisible, touch your soul and make you feel as you never felt before in your life, that brought the tears to your eyes, and pierced your heart through with sorrow when you thought of your sins, that led you to look upon your Redeemer and to stretch out your hands, and cry, “My Lord and my God?” If there be anything like this in your experiences, let it be a predicate for receiving the exhortation of the text. From the history of this case at Philippi, and from the standpoint of the writer and from the predicate upon which he makes his appeal, we may better approach his exhortation: “Be not terrified by your adversaries.” Be faithful. Fresh courage take. When was the Almighty put down before a host? If God be for us, who can be against us? If timid women, undergirded by the arms of the Almighty, have bravely confronted the greatest perils, and have patiently endured most poignant suffering, and have shouted in the very embrace of death, and have glorified the Lord by their martyrdom, then why should you be afraid? Is your adversary so formidable that with God’s help you cannot cope with him? Is the array of opposition against Christianity so vast, so irresistible, that even with God back of you, you are afraid to confront the issues If then there be encouragement in Christ, if there be consolation in love, if there be communion with the Spirit, lay aside your cowardice. Be brave. Peter was a bold man when he had communion with the Spirit. He testified boldly. He feared no evil. The persecution by the Jewish council, the persecution by the king, imprisonment with the view of death on the morrow, did not daunt the heart that was stayed upon God’s omnipotence. Behold on what unsinking and unsinkable foundations God has planted your feet. See how the thick bosses of Jehovah’s buckler interpose between you and the fiery darts of your adversaries. See how the feeblest, thus encouraged and supported, have been able to be as brave as a lion. Then let fear take its flight. Let it spread its wings and fly away like a fancy of the night. Rouse up in your firmness and boldness and testify in this city that God has power on earth to forgive sins. And, not only be brave, but unite. Be of one mind. “They were all of one accord in one place,” at Pentecost. Oh, the harmony that comes from God! Though a thousand harps be brought together, of different strings, if the Spirit attunes them and touches the chord of one, the chord of every other responds in unison, and there is harmony. Be of one mind as you work together for the salvation of men. “Ye are lights of the world in a crooked generation.” It is crooked. It is perverse. It is opposed to the religion which you profess, and which you teach, and which, blessed be God, you have. But there is power in the light reflected from the Sun of Righteousness in heaven to compel attention, compel conviction, compel faith, compel confession and compel a surrender, unconditional, eternal and absolute, to the government of your God. But here is the hard part to put on humility and unselfishness. Did you know that the classic Greek had no word to express humility? The nearest word that it has signifies “mean spirit,” “contemptible spirit.” So Christianity had to coin a word to express humility. You remember, some of you students, what Aristotle teaches on this subject. He says that high-mindedness is the greatest virtue, and that means that one shall deem himself worthy of all greatness. And you remember that he said if man professed humility, or the nearest thing to humility their language could express, it was never justifiable unless he was indeed some pitiable and contemptible fellow. You remember that Heine declared that humility was the dog virtue “the dog virtue of humility.” But the gospel came and coined a word a word that does not signify a mean or contemptible spirit. Our Lord announced the true thought when He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” which means what? “Blessed are those who are conscious of need and poverty in their spirit.” Blessed are those who do not deplore the lack of riches that touch this world only, the external things only, but when they look inside, into the soul, into the spirit, feel that they are poor. “In my soul I am naked; in my soul I am bankrupt; in my soul I am lost.” “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Now you will have to teach the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount, I believe, next Sunday; it is your Sunday school lesson. It becomes you, therefore, to give the children the right idea of it. Oh, pride! Why is it we get mad? Pride! Why is it we are quick to resent? Pride! Why is it that we will not meet and stand together as brethren? Pride! That vaunting devil! For by pride the vaunting devil fell, and, therefore, God’s Word says, “Lay not the hands of ordination upon a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.” Surely the hardest thing to do is to avoid pride-social pride. Ah, me! the social pride of this town! Pride in money; pride in purse; pride that will not kneel to God; pride that will not admit its beggary and its want; pride that lies when it says, “I am rich and increased in goods and have need of nothing,” for it is miserable and poor and blind and naked. How are you to induce these people to be humble? Now, we come to our great example. Look at it. Look at the example of the Lord Jesus Christ: “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Now, what mind! Let me read it to you and see the mind that was in Jesus: “Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, or retained, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of man, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient,” becoming obedient “unto death,” becoming obedient unto the death “of the Cross.” “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.” I do put before you the example of Jesus. Let us look at it. What is it? Subsisting as God, the express image of His person, and brightness of His glory that He had before the world was. How did He regard His own fame? “Who, being in the form of God, counted it not as a thing to be retained;” “equality with God … but emptied himself,” and stooped to what? To the place of a servant; took upon Himself our nature. Do you mean when He became a man he became a Solomon, a David, or like Aaron, full-grown? No. Oh, ye listening shepherds! This shall be a sign unto you, that you shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. This shall be a sign unto you. A babe! He that was wrapped in swaddling clothes, brought to the world eternal life. You mean that He shall be found in some gilt cradle in a palace? No; in a manger, an ox-trough. But did He not come mighty in reputation? He made Himself of no reputation. But did He not come decked with the gold and silver and jewels of the world? No. He who was rich became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich. But did He not come to a palace? No. “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but he had nowhere to lay his head.” But did He not come to have men gather round Him and minister unto Him? No. “I come not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” “I, your Lord and Master, wash your feet.” Oh, that condescension of Jesus Christ! We are too proud to obey, but He became obedient. He was subject to parents, subject to the law of the land, subject to all of its requirements; without guilt, without spot, without blemish. No man was able to convict Him of disobedience in anything. And we are too proud to obey God. We treat obedience as a mark of contempt, and when God speaks and the majesty of His law, “Thus saith the Lord,” is put right before us, we are too proud to simply obey Him. He stooped to obedience, though it led to death. Says one, “I would obey. I would confine myself to a business which Jesus Christ approves, but I must make a living, and then I will enter into this. My conscience tells me it is not right. I feel that it is not right, but I must make a living.” He was obedient unto death! “Well,” says another, “I am willing to be obedient unto death if you will make it a glorious death. Let me hear the trumpet sound. Let me hear the beat of the drum. Let me snuff up the dust of a glorious battle; amid the plaudits and huzzahs of admiring comrades let me storm some deadly breach and die on the pinnacles of fame.” But He became obedient unto the death of the Cross, crucified between two thieves. So, “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Oh, that height from which He stooped, that marvelous condescension! No wonder the Greeks had no word to express humility. And now the unselfishness of it! What was it? What motive prompted Him? He loved sinners. It was the motive in the shepherd’s heart when he counted the flock and only ninety and nine were found; one was gone, one was lost, one was wandering on mountains bleak and bare: “I will leave the fold and the protecting shelter and go out and face the darkness and the storm to find that one.” It was the motive, the benevolent rescuing of the perishing at personal hazard, of becoming poor that we might be made rich, of dying that we might live, of baring His heart to the piercing sword of divine justice that we might be acquitted, of being condemned and drinking to the last bitter dregs the cup of loneliness and woe in order that we might drink forever from the well-spring of salvation; in order that under the overflowing fountain might be written for you, “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come and drink, without money and without price, since Jesus on the Cross, said, ‘I thirst.’” Let this mind be in you. I take the example of the Lord and lay it right down before you. Can we sincerely sing, His track I see, and I’ll pursue, The narrow way till Him I view? Who would be ashamed to follow Jesus, ashamed before an evil and perverse generation? Ashamed to admit that you have the Spirit of Christ, ashamed to look the proud ones of this world in the face and say, “I am a Christian?” Oh, the light that there is following Jesus! “Ye are lights shining in a crooked and perverse generation,” but “if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness!” Oh, how great! Are you despondent? He tells you to “rejoice.” Are you anxious? “Be anxious about nothing.” What have you a right to summon? Summon courage. Summon unity. Summon humility. Summon unselfishness. Summon joy. Summon contentment and peace, under the promises of God, and go out and do the work that the Master has given you to do. Now I close what I have to say by making this application: When Jesus had that mind not to regard His own greatness, but lay aside His crown and stoop stoop unto obedience, stoop unto death, unto the death of the Cross, it was with a view of saving other people. What, then, I want to say is this: That is the only way that you can save other people. I do not know of any other way. I have never known a case of any man being saved by human instrumentality in any other way. You may, through the paths of pride, get people to join the church, but that does not save them. I say that if you look to the salvation of men, if you look to the forgiveness of their sins, if you look to the regeneration of their souls, if you look to the consciousness of the divine presence and blessedness, if you want to give them not vain conjecture, but sight of heaven and its glorious shores, this is the way you must do it. If we can be of one mind! Oh, that heaven would make us harmonious in this-that in unselfishness and humbleness we would address ourselves to the work of saving men! My own heart aches for the salvation of some soul through the ministry of this church. And I charge you to put away pride, put it away. Be humble. Have this mind in you that was in our Lord Jesus Christ. Stoop! Stoop low, lower, Brother, Sister. Come together. -Hunger and thirst after righteousness. Feel the poverty that is in your spirits and find God’s blessing, for “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” That is our way of access to their hearts. I do not know any other way. And as for me, pardon me, if I say that I occupy the standpoint of Paul. I say that, as between me and the fifth of last November there rolls a shoreless ocean, and it hurts inexpressibly to go back to the affairs of a bygone world. But if I go back I would speak no trifling words. I would speak to save men. I do not say that I would be willing to die that you might have a revival of religion, but do say a harder thing I would be willing to live. Shall we have it then! If so, we must get down low, down like our dear Lord. There must be in our souls a thirsting for the salvation of men that will not be appeased till they are saved. I summon you to it as more important than the autonomy or independence of Cuba, than the annexation of all the islands of the Pacific, than the election of a thousand United States senators or presidents, than the acquisition of uncounted millions that we gather souls to God, for if we get just one it outweighs the world. “For what will it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” I speak then for a jewel brighter in its luster than the beams of the sun or the sparkle of the stars or the sheen of the moon the jewel of a soul dimmed by sin, and in the deep darkness of mountain quarries it lies embedded; and we must search for it as for a hidden treasure, and bring it out and let heaven’s light touch it with luster, and let it sparkle with the glory of God. Now who will help us in this work? We are a long way from being in a condition to do this work, a long way. Oh, the pride! Oh, the lack of unity! Oh, the despondency! Oh, the anxiety! Oh, the selfishness! Put them down. Put down the weights that sink you, and buoyantly stand up erect as God’s people and let us go out to carry the tidings of freedom of the world. Others are bound in shackles of spiritual slavery, hand and foot, at the mercy of the Devil. Let us rescue them. Will you seek this mind that is in our Lord Jesus Christ? Promise me that you will do this, that you will make an honest effort. You will if you so promise, and I do not want you to promise unless you are determined to make the effort. Feeling as I do now, looking as I do now at death and heaven and the peril of souls, I would not be willing as a Christian man to leave this house tonight without praying that God would put within me the mind that was in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you also covet that mind? I would not commit you unwarily to a long promise, nor engage your future to obligations you may not have sufficiently considered. Saying nothing, therefore, of tomorrow or next week, or next year, I do call for an expression touching the immediate present. You Christian people then, all of you who are willing, now and here, to seek by prayer the mind that was in our Lord Jesus Christ, stand up for a moment. It is a multitude standing! Let us then pray devoutly for the mind of Christ.