======================================================================== RECLAIMING THE MIND OF CHRIST by Carter Conlon ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of reclaiming the mind of Christ in a generation that is spiraling into confusion and immorality. It calls for a spiritual awakening as the only hope for societal collapse, highlighting that ordinary individuals, like the listeners, are the key to this awakening. The speaker urges the audience to fully surrender to God, trust in His plan, and step through the open doors He sets before them, believing that they are the end-time army of God. Scripture References: 1 Corinthians 1:26, 1 Corinthians 2:16, Isaiah 6:8, Ephesians 2:10, Revelation 3:8, Romans 8:26, Psalm 139:23, Exodus 3:10, Esther 4:14 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the importance of reclaiming the mind of Christ in a generation that is spiraling into confusion and immorality. It calls for a spiritual awakening as the only hope for societal collapse, highlighting that ordinary individuals, like the listeners, are the key to this awakening. The speaker urges the audience to fully surrender to God, trust in His plan, and step through the open doors He sets before them, believing that they are the end-time army of God. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Praise God. Praise God. We finally got a picture of the real me up there. Yesterday they had a picture of a young guy about 20 years ago. It saddened my heart when I looked at it. How many were here this morning in the first service? Anybody? Oh, look at that. Okay, praise God. You obviously didn't understand what I said, so you're coming back for the second service. I spoke a message this morning called Reclaiming the Mind of Christ. Reclaiming. What is the mind of Christ? Why is it necessary that we reclaim it in this generation? You know, you and I are living in a generation that's unraveling before our very eyes. Our society is spiraling down very, very quickly. Shocking, isn't it, what happened in America just in the last two, three years? Things are happening we never thought we'd ever be saying with our lips. On every conceivable level we seem to be spinning into confusion and immorality. I don't want to scare you this morning, but I need to tell you this. There are two very prominent social scientists in Canada. They've spent a lifetime studying the rise and the fall of societies. They're not lightweights either. These two social scientists have recently written a book. And they're encouraging the Prime Minister of Canada and the government of Canada to prepare for the collapse of America's society. In their estimation, all the variables are in place for a complete implosion of the American society by the year 2025. And they're telling the Canadian government that they need to prepare for the exodus of refugees coming from America into Canada looking for safe haven. Now, I don't know the full—I haven't read the book yet. I don't know the full details of what they're saying. I just know that these men are not lightweights. They've dedicated their life to this study. And they see the variables at play in this society today that are leading, in their opinion, to the collapse of America as a country as we've known it. So I tell you this for one reason. The only hope for this nation now is a spiritual awakening. And the only hope for a spiritual awakening comes through you and comes through me. It's not going to be a superstar preacher that God's going to raise up. Feathers are not going to fall out of heaven. It's going to be men and women of God, like you and like me, that the Spirit of the Lord gets a hold of and we reclaim the mind of Christ. That's what I want to talk about today. I spent yesterday in prayer. I spent the time with God just saying, Lord, what would you have me to speak to the church today? This is not an old message that I preached somewhere else. This is the thoughts, in my opinion, from the heart of God for you and for me today. So, Father, I want to thank you, Lord, for the touch of heaven that's been here all morning in this sanctuary, Lord. I thank you, God, for the numbers that responded earlier today, God, to the word that you brought. Lord, I'm asking you for the grace and the strength, Lord, to unlock this word. And we're asking you for the anointing of the Spirit to hear it. For if you don't illuminate it, we can't hear it. It's just black and white letters on a page. It doesn't transform us. It doesn't renew our minds, God. So we're asking now, Holy Spirit, would you come? Would you literally renew our understanding? Would you quicken the word of God? And would you give us the ability to understand the words that we are about to hear? And we give you praise, and we give you glory for it. Give me the ability, Lord, to walk with you today. Oh, Jesus Christ, the day of games is over. The day of lighthearted Christianity has come to an end. God, we are a city to be set upon a hill. We are supposed to be a testimony that cannot be denied. So, Lord, take us out of everywhere we need to be out of and bring us into what we need to be into. Give us the mind of Christ. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, by reclaiming the mind of Christ, I'm referring to returning to something which we've never fully understood. It's possible to be in the church of Jesus Christ for years and years and years, and we're reading the Scriptures, and God's trying to speak something, but we're not hearing it fully. We're hearing the edges of it, but we're not fully hearing what it is that God's trying to speak to us, not collectively necessarily, but individually. What is he speaking into my life? What is it, perhaps, about me that he's thinking that I am not understanding? What is it about my mind that it's not been transformed in a sense and I'm still living by my own reasoning? I'm still living by my own thinking. My estimation of myself is based on what I have on my wall or what I look at in the mirror, and I'm not thinking the way God is thinking about me. Or maybe the mind of Christ is something that we've resisted because of unbelief, like the children of Israel who got to the shores of this incredible promise. They were taken out of captivity, and they were taken out miraculously. And there's a lot of people here today that you could say, that's my story. I was an addict. I was hopeless. I was depressed. I was suicidal. I was despairing. My marriage was broken. My family were destroyed. And you were brought out sovereignly by the presence of God, by the power of God, and going through, in a sense, a wilderness experience, now coming to the shores of something that God had for you, the place of promise that the cross actually leads us collectively and individually into. And yet you stood back, and as the children of Israel once did, resisted it because of unbelief. You came to the wrong conclusion. Not about yourself. Your conclusion about yourself was correct. The wrong conclusion you came to was about God. You concluded that you were too weak. You concluded that you didn't have the knowledge, the strength, the ability to go in to do whatever it was that lay before you. And so you came to a correct conclusion about yourself, but your wrong conclusion was about God because you didn't have the mind of Christ for your life. Or maybe you did know, and you let it slip away because of neglect or apathy or complacency. It was there at one time, and you did have this realization, but you just let it slip. So I want to start in 1 Corinthians 1, beginning at verse 17. And I'm going to keep on reading and just commenting on verses of Scripture. So, Lord, again, I just say illuminate this word, my God, and shine it in our minds and our hearts, my God, and help us to embrace it. So Paul says in verse 17, So Paul is, in effect, saying there's something about the cross and the victory of the cross. There's a power in this. There's something in it for every person. And so I wanted to be careful that in my speaking, I didn't draw to myself. That you start looking at me, Paul could be saying, as the standard. You start looking at my wisdom. Because Paul obviously had a brilliant mind. He was probably the most brilliant theologian in the entire writings of the New Testament. Yet, he himself, he said, I didn't come, and I didn't use, perhaps, the wisdom he had, lest the cross, in a sense, and the power that was made available to every person should kind of disappear from your sight. And you start listening to me, and you start listening to my wisdom, and that becomes your focus. Paul said, I didn't want that to be your focus. For the message of the cross, verse 18, is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For the Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified to the Jews' stumbling block and to the Greeks' foolishness. Paul said, there's a power in the preaching of the cross. When Christ was raised from the dead, the cords of sin that bound us to the past were completely severed. We were given the same spirit that raised him from the dead, and we were promised that by the spirit of God we too would be raised from the dead, and we would be made into new creations. That means everything of the past, everything that we were, everything that we think or thought we are, all of those things are gone. And the slate is clean. We're now born again. That's the reality of it. We're starting life all over again. And God is willing to take us out of our weakness and out of our nothingness and begin to do something in us that only he can do for the purpose of bringing his own name to glory. That is the beauty of the preaching of the cross. The cross is level ground. There's no smart people, no stupid people there. Everybody's level. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We've all fallen short of what we should be, and so it's not by wisdom, it's not by might, it's not by human effort that Christ is glorified in us. It's by the Spirit of Almighty God. Freely given, when you and I come to Jesus Christ at the cross, we receive the same Holy Spirit. Not a little, here's a thimble for you, here's a bucket for you, here's a little bit for you, here's an eyedropper for you. Same Spirit, same calling, same abilities given to, or differings of abilities, but same power of God given to every person that comes to God through Jesus Christ. Paul says the Jews request a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. So there's these two types of people, in a sense, that did hear the message of the cross. There's a certain group of people who feel that by sheer force of human effort and will, that was what the Jewish religion was all about, making promises to God that they couldn't fulfill. Trying to do more, trying to be better, trying to be godly. They were called to be the people of God and the earth, but it was all human effort. And so basically the Jews were saying, well give us a sign that our efforts are not good enough. I mean, we have the robes, we've got the temple, we've got the scriptures, we've got all this stuff. Give us a sign that it's not, so they require a sign. In other words, we're not going to believe that what we do is falling short of the glory of God. And of course the Greeks are saying, well we're going to learn our way out of this dilemma called the human condition. We're just going to learn about all of the ways, and it's through knowledge that we're going to increase. And of course that's where the world is at today. Through knowledge we're going to break out of the boxes of our confinement and such like, and we're going to be a better people and a better society. It's so ironic. It's like an instruction class on wisdom on the deck of the Titanic after it's hit the iceberg. Paul said, but we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. Foolishness. A stumbling block. A stumbling block, the fact that you can't gain favor with God through human effort. A stumbling block. That I can't will myself to be a better person. I am on level ground with others all around me. That somehow that we are on level ground and the same power, the same redemption is available to all people. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Now, first time I read that I stopped at that verse and said, how could you ever describe God as foolish or weak and consider this part of the inspired text of Scripture. God who is all knowing, how can he be described in the Bible as, how can foolishness be ascribed to God? God who has all power. I mean, he could just do this and fold the whole universe up and recreate it today if he wanted to. He has all power. So how can he be described as weak? So what is the foolishness of God and what is the weakness of God? It's an easy answer. You are. I am. We are the foolishness of God. The fact that God in all of his power, all of his strength and all of his knowledge chooses is to reveal his glory through you and me. That's the foolishness of God. That's the weakness of God. That's the mystery. The Bible says that the angels look over the balcony of heaven and desire to look into this. That God, because they live in the presence of God, they're aware of the glory of God. When the words holy, holy, holy are spoken in the courts of heaven, the place is filled with a kind of glory of God. The posts of the door move. They understand his holiness. And certainly in a greater measure than we do. And then they look down at us. We look like a leper colony compared to them. Yet the affection of God is upon us. And he has made a choice to reveal his glory in the world through you and through me. Praise be to God. That's amazing when we consider that. Me with all my struggles. Me with my inglorious history. Me with all the things that I've done wrong. Me with all my frailties and weaknesses. Yet almighty, all knowing, God chooses to make himself known through me in the world. Amazing, amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Now he goes on and he says in verse 26, he said of first Corinthians, for you see your calling brethren. Now we're talking about the foolishness and the weakness of God. So keep that in your mind. We're talking about the power of the cross. We're talking about the availability of the power of God to all people. You see your calling brethren. Not many wise according to the flesh. Not many mighty. Not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. And the base things of the world. In other words the things that are at the bottom. Not the top. People who are in a place that nobody aspires to be. You know a lot of people could say that today. Where I am, nobody in their right mind would want to be there. Nobody would ever want to be where I am and be doing what I'm doing. But God has chosen you. Even in that place of baseness. And the things which are despised, God has chosen. Even worse than that. Places that nobody wants to be. The world despises it. They would not want to be where many of us have been. Some of us may even be today. And the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are. So here's the good news. If you are somewhere on the scale between foolish and nothing you qualify to be used by God. Isn't that wonderful? I can just feel it now. Somebody finally a message for me. Finally somebody is speaking into my life. I'm on the scale between I'm a third of the way down up from nothing. But I'm a little closer to nothing than foolish. But there I am. I qualify to be used by God. Why? Does He choose us that no flesh verse 29 should glory in His presence? But of Him you are in Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. That means His wisdom is all that we need. His thoughts are the thoughts that we need to reclaim in our generation. Not what we think about ourselves but what God is thinking about us. Not what we say our future is going to be but what God says our future is going to be. He's our wisdom. He's our righteousness. He has declared us clean no matter our struggles. No matter our inglorious history and past. When we came to the cross of Jesus Christ just like the prodigal son, the finest robe in the house was placed upon us. We were cleansed from our filth. We were cleansed from our iniquity. We became sons and daughters of God. Hallelujah. Come on now. The Bible says that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. If that were not in the Bible it would seem to be blasphemy. I am as clean as God is because of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Christ is my righteousness. He is my sanctification. He is the indwelling spirit of God that gives me the power to become what He's called me to be. To leave what I need to leave and to go into what He's got for my life. He is the sanctifier. He is the one who changes my heart. Changes my mind. Changes my character. Changes my destiny. It is God in me that changes my destiny. And He is my redemption. He is the one who has cut the cords to my past. It doesn't matter who did what in my family. I am a new creation in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah. I'm not going where they went. I'm not living the way they lived. The cords of the past were broken when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. My Bible says He took captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Not only did He break the cords that held us to our past and held us to a life of sin but He gave us giftings of the spirit to become new creations and to do things that we can't do in our own strength. If we have the mind of Christ. Paul says, it goes on in chapter 2. He says, And I, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul said, I didn't want you looking at me. That's what he's saying. I didn't want your focus shifted to men. I didn't want you sitting there saying, oh, if I could only be like brother or sister so and so, then somehow God could use my life. Paul's saying, it's not about me. And I didn't want the focus brought to me. Even though he had the capability of baffling people with his intellect and his understanding, he didn't use it. And he goes on and says, I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and power that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Paul had this inner trembling in his life and said, God, please please don't let the people look at me as if I'm the standard. Let me be weak so that you might be portrayed as strong. God, let me be nothing so that you might be everything. And when people look at me let them see the spirit of God and the glory of God on a human vessel. That their faith should not shift to the wisdom of men but be in the power of God. However, he says in verse 6, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age nor of the rulers of this age are coming to nothing. We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory. In other words, there are thoughts in the heart of God towards you that God had before you were even born. Before the world was created. He saw you. He saw you. Just like he said to Philip, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Before, I saw you before we physically saw each other with human eyes. I saw you where you were and I had thoughts in my heart about you. And then he goes on. This is an incredible verse. Verse 8, he said, which none of the rulers of this age knew, for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Now, here's what Paul's saying. The spiritual rulers of wickedness and those that they had gripped in this world, if they had known what was going to be released through the cross, they would not have crucified Jesus Christ. If they would have seen the power. If they would have had a long-term view and seen people everywhere being raised out of dust and ashes and the glory of God being upon them and the strength of God being given them, they would not have crucified Christ. In crucifying him, they were releasing the glory of God in the earth. Through who? Through who? The weak. The marginalized. The foolish. The nobodies. The nothings of society. You and me. The glory of God was being released in the earth. But as it is written, I have not seen, verse 9, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed them to us through his Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. You know, the Bible speaks in another place of this inner groaning of the Holy Spirit. I've always believed that groaning of God's Spirit, like interceding, it says for us, with groanings that cannot be uttered. The Spirit of God knows the will of God for each life and I believe the Holy Spirit is groaning inside that we come into agreement with God. That our minds come into agreement with the thoughts of God. But God has revealed them to us through his Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. In other words, Paul is just saying it's really simple. Nobody knows what you're thinking right now except you and God. Nobody else knows the thoughts of your mind. In the same way, he says, nobody knows what God is thinking about you except the Spirit of God in you knows. The Holy Spirit knows. And Jesus said, when he, the Spirit of truth has come, he will take what is mine, that means the victory that Christ won, and he will show it to you and he will show you things to come. Amazing. He will reveal to you in a sense, the plan that God has for each of our lives. Now we have received verse 12, chapter 2, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. That's the mind of Christ. Oh God, would you help me to come into agreement with your plan for my life? Would you help me to look away from my past and my resume and my weakness and what others have said about me? God almighty, you're God. They're not. You are. Would you help me to look away from the people that told me I'd always be an alcoholic because my father was an alcoholic, or be depressed because my mother was depressed, or whatever it is. Would you help me, God, to look away from those things? Would you help me to look away from my inglorious history or whatever it is, or whatever I can do or haven't done or tried and failed? Would you help me to look away? And God, help me to understand that you have thought, you're thinking thoughts about me, and you have freely given to me the things I need to accomplish what I'm called to do. Don't let me stand at the border of this incredible promise, looking in at the giants and saying it can't be. I'm too weak, they're too strong. I'm too small, they're too big. I'm too little, they're too many. God almighty. The people of this world, we're told by, it's a secular statistic now, it's not even a Christian one, but a secular statistic that 100 million people go to bed depressed every night in America. 100 million people, almost a third of the entire population of the country, are groaning at night when they go to bed because they don't see hope for tomorrow. Many are opiate addicted, many their families are being destroyed. They can see the crumbling of society all around them. They don't see hope for the future. Suicide is becoming a huge problem among teenagers today in our society. The people of this world are groaning for the testimony of God in His church. Through you and through me. My strength does not come from education or lack thereof or success or failure. None of it matters. The reality is it's level ground at the cross. It's a whosoever will kingdom can come. As a matter of fact, through Isaiah, the Lord said, it's the lame who take the prey. Don't you love it? The Pharisees are just doing this, is it possible that a prophet could come out of Jerusalem? And while they're just playing with their scritchy little beards and fixing all their robes, the prostitutes are touching his feet, the lame are crawling through, the blind are crying out on the side of the road. Wisdom is justified of His children, right? The Pharisees don't have a single testimony with all their robes and all they have is a negative testimony. But the blind man's got quite a story, doesn't he? Hallelujah. Verse 13 says, These things we speak not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man, verse 14, does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him. Nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. That means that the person who is trying to serve God in their own strength and they're trying to reason God with their own minds. I'm not suggesting we don't study or learn the Scriptures. That would be contrary to what the Word of God tells us. But this is their whole sense of being, is living by natural wisdom and natural strength. And so what I'm talking to you about to a natural man is foolishness. It's foolishness. It's out of reach. It's pie in the sky theology that's not attainable by anyone in this generation. But he who is spiritual judges all things yet he himself is rightly judged by no one for who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him but we have the mind of Christ. So what then is this mind of Christ and how does it apply to me? Let's bring it home now. It's when we agree that in spite of our present condition we are the ones chosen by God to display his power and grace in the spiritual crisis of our present day. That's the mind of Christ. When we agree. In spite of our condition. In spite of who I am you've chosen me. In spite of my weakness you've chosen me. In spite of my nothingness you've chosen me. In spite of my powerlessness you've chosen me. In spite of my lousy self view you've chosen me. In spite of whatever other people have said you've chosen me. You've chosen me. You've chosen me. You've given me your promise. You've given me your spirit. You have a plan for my life. You're going to take me through a door and do things through my life that I could never do in my own strength but you will do it. And when I get to the other side I'll say glory to God. Glory to God. Only God could have done this. And my message will be when I get there what God has done for me God will do for you. It will be that simple. It won't be complicated. I'll not be wasting a lot of time on Greek and Hebrew word meetings. It will be I walk with God. God has done this in my life. The breath of God entered my life. He took me out of weakness and into strength. He has made me more than I could ever be. Taken me where I could never go. Given me what I could never possess. And oh glory to God for what he has done through my life. Aren't you glad that we're the foolish plan of God? And the weakness of God. He wanted to take his people out of captivity. They've been there for 400 years. The strongest empire on the earth of that time is holding them in captivity. They have no possible way out. So God looks down and says how am I going to display my power? And bring them out. So there's an 80 year old man out in the back side of the desert. He can't speak. He stutters. Matter of fact he can't even deliver a one line sermon. He needs his brother to deliver it for him. And he just has a stick. He no longer has a sword. So he's my perfect candidate to show my power. So he sends an 80 year old man and his 83 year old brother and they come walking into the court of the strongest leader in the known world of that time. And Moses stands there and goes let my people go. That is the plan of God folks. That's the plan of God. That's the foolishness of God. That's the weakness of God. You see the only reason Pharaoh didn't kill them on the spot I believe is because it was such a joke that these two men would be standing there saying we are here in the name of God telling you to let these 3 million people go from captivity that they may serve God in the wilderness. And Pharaoh laughed in the beginning but when it became a contest of power now he's caught in a trap. He can't kill them because it makes them look weak now. Amazing the plans of God. Amazing how God does things. 135,000 Midianites are coming into the nation on a regular basis and they're eating up everything the people of God are trying to produce. They're destroying that society of that time and there's a hopelessness abounding everywhere and it's so hopeless that people have even turned from the worship of the living God and they're now worshiping idols. God finds a young man, just a teenager probably in the backyard of his father's house, scraping out a living trying to scrape up some semblance of hope and he calls him suddenly a mighty man of resources. Gideon says, are you kidding? Me? I'm of the least tribe of the tribes of Israel and my father's house is the least house of all the houses in the least tribe and I'm the least person in the least house of the least tribe in all of Israel and you're looking at me and you're calling me a mighty man of resources. Who does God choose to do exploits when everything seems hopeless? Folks, we have to get this because this is a do or die moment in America now. We have got to get a hold of this. This can't just become knowledge that we write down in a little book somewhere and say, oh wasn't that nice? We have to get a hold of this. We have to move into this. We've got to go beyond just learning about it. And gives him a battle plan. Split into three companies. Go to the top of the hill, raise the torch and shout the sword of the Lord and the sword of Gideon and God says, you leave the rest to me. That's your part. You do that, I'll do the rest. He wants to, there's a law, a Medo-Persian king has been deceived by the people around him and he's going to invoke a law that's going to cause the Jewish people the entire race of Jewish people in that nation to be put to death and all their goods are to be taken and spoiled and divided. What's the plan of God? Takes an orphan Jewish girl, puts her in to the court of the king. She must have been thinking in her heart, what could I do? What kind of a difference could I make? How could I rewrite the law of death into a law of life? What could God possibly do through me? And at the time that she's called of God, she says to her cousin Mordecai, she says well look, the king and I are not tied anymore. It was a passionate relationship in the beginning but he's not even called me for 30 days. And it's the type of a young girl here today, the Lord's calling you now. And you say, well I wish he would have called me 5 years ago. I used to pray I haven't even talked to him in 30 days I don't even pray anymore. I don't feel close to him. And Mordecai could say to her Esther, it doesn't matter. You still have access to the throne of the king. You're still his bride. And Esther ends up rewriting the law of death into a law of life. And she becomes a co- regent with her husband. Unheard of in the Medo-Persian Empire. Women were almost like chattel but the king saw the worth of his bride and she ends up, in a sense, ruling and reigning with him. May I put it that way? In that time, each of these were foolish battle plans. They're foolish. And the natural man would look and say, this is idiocy. It's idiocy. Send 2 old men to deliver 3 million people? A boy with a stone to bring down a giant? God needs to raise a voice to guide the nation back to himself again? So who does he look for? A barren womb? How many times did he bring the deliverance in the sense that was needed at that moment out of a womb that couldn't bear a child? Look at it. It's all there. The testimony of it's replete. The whole testimony of Scripture is about who God uses and when He uses them. And especially in a crisis time. You know, Hannah had gotten to the point where her prayer had no more words. She could just move her lips. She couldn't even speak. She was just so used to being disappointed in the presence of God. And from a wordless prayer came a voice that governed the nation for 40 years in Samuel the prophet. I love the foolish plans of God. It gives me hope. It gives me hope for my future. It gives me hope for what God can do. It helps me to kind of look away from everything and to say, Lord God, just show me what you have for me. Give me the mind to be able to believe it. If we fully realize the power that's in this room. The great good that could be done for the kingdom of God. The evangelists that are here who don't even know what you are yet. Those with prophetic gifts. Those with giftings of the Spirit. Because it does say that Christ took captivity captive and gave gifts unto His people. So, there is a gifting of God in your life whether you've acknowledged it or not. It's there. And it's there for His glory and for His purposes. And so now, let's bring it really home now. Where you say, so how does this apply to me? Everything you've just spoken, Pastor, how does it apply to me? Well, the truth is it doesn't. Unless you see your calling. It doesn't. It's just more knowledge. It's just more stuff in a book. In a binder. It's just more notes. It doesn't really apply unless, as chapter 1 verse 26 says, for you see your calling brethren. And so the point is, do you see it? Do you see it? Can you break the bungee cord that holds you to the past? Or to a lousy self-view? Or to like a rather dismal view of your future, spiritually speaking? Can you break that cord? Can you trust God to go across that boundary line? And say, Lord, I'm going to believe you. I'm going to believe that my life is going to make a difference. I'm going to believe that you're thinking thoughts about me. You're giving gifts to me. That you're going to send me to somewhere to do something that can only be done by your spirit. And when I get to the end of the journey, I'm going to shout grace. Oh God, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace. It's been all grace. It's been goodness. You know what my message will be? What God has done for me, God will do for you. No deeper than that. I've heard it said that Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. All I can tell you today is that I'm in for the full journey. I don't know where it's going to lead. Quite frankly, I don't care. As long as he's in it. That's all I care about. Nothing else matters now. I am absolutely unwilling to let this generation die in their sin. Absolutely unwilling to let the devil dictate the future of our children, destroy our families and our homes, confuse genders in our grade schools. I'm absolutely unwilling to let this go on. As long as God gives me life, as long as God gives me breath, my prayer is Lord Jesus Christ, send me where you want me to go. And you know where he's sending me? To you. You have become the calling on my life because he's been telling me I have an end time army that doesn't know what they are yet. They're weak and they're foolish, they're despised, they're based, they're nobody, they're nothing, but they are my choice to reveal my glory in this last generation. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. Glory to the name of Jesus. Glory. The Gideons, the Esthers, the David, the Moses, the Hannas, it's you. You are the end time army. It's not some fancy ministry, it's not some new preacher that's going to rise up, it's you. You are the end time army of God. There's people all over the country, they've filled churches all on the blocks everywhere and don't know what they are. God give us the mind of Christ. God give us the ability to get out of our box and get out of our prison cells and get out of our abject thinking about ourselves and get in to where the Spirit of God is leading us. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You are my calling now. And I'm going to shout at you until the day I die. Until you get it. Until every person gets it. At least I've tried. When I get to the throne of God, I'm going to be able to say I gave it my best God. I gave it, I did it to the last ounce of strength that you gave me God. I encouraged every young person, I encouraged every old person, I encouraged every man, every woman, I encouraged every teenager. My God, in the strength that you gave me, I encouraged them to recognize that you are God. And that you are willing to use us. We are your weakness. Hallelujah. I love that thought. We are your foolishness God. And so for the rest of my days, all I can say is I'm in. I'm in for the full journey. And don't look at me because I'm nothing. I'm in because God's put it in my heart to be in. If I was governed by my own heart, I would just retire and go fishing. I've been at this a long time. I'm tired. But I feel like the Lord just reached down one day out of heaven and says, give me the last tithe of your life. All your children are home. He says, but mine aren't. So let's go get mine. And you can enjoy your children and grandchildren in eternity. You have an eternity with them. Go get my children because they're not all in yet. You are the end time army of God. There is no plan B. Do you understand? There's no plan C, no plan D. You are plan A in the kingdom of God. You are the end time army of God. So the point is, Lord, I'm in. Give me your mind for my life. Whatever it is you call me to do, just give me your mind and give me the faith and courage to get up and just go through the open door. The church of Philadelphia says you have a little strength. You've kept my word and you've not denied my name. Behold, I set before you an open door that no one can close. I said it before. You don't have to find it. I put it there. All we have to do is walk through it. God almighty, there's evangelists here. I'm serious. There's civic leaders here. There's teachers that can make a difference in the classroom. There's people that are going to run for office and make a difference. There's people that are going to, I don't know, in whatever profession you're in, you're going to be that person that brings the glory of God in the room with them whenever you walk in. You're trusting God to make a difference. It'll be the point where you don't have to preach. It's just the words you speak will bring conviction to those who live in darkness. God almighty, help us to have your mind. Help us to reclaim the mind of Christ. This was the trembling in the heart of Paul, and I can feel that trembling in my own heart. It's the trembling that Paul says somehow I fear that the people won't understand this and fall short of the glory. So I want to give an altar call this morning. It's real simple. I'm in. How many are in? I see your hands. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in for the full journey. I'm in. I'm in for whatever God has for my life. Wherever God wants to take me, whatever God wants to do, I'm in. Whatever it entails. And listen to me. You don't have to figure it out. The Holy Spirit will whisper it to you. You don't have to go home today and just start like praying for the will of God like it's a needle in a haystack. Like God says, hey, watch this, Gabriel. I'm going to drop Brother So-and-so's will as a needle in a haystack. It's going to be so much fun watching him try to find it. You don't have to find it. He sets the open door right before you. It just comes down. It's just there. That's the only way I can explain it. You seek him. Say, Lord, I want to live for you. I want to serve you. I want to make a difference. He will set the open door before you. He will show you. He will show you. He will put those strong desires in your heart, whether it's to preach the gospel or run for political office. I don't know what it is, but he'll put that strong desire there. So, Father, I want to thank you, God. I have honestly poured out everything you've put in my heart. And this was your word for today. For these precious brothers and sisters in Christ that are gathered in this auditorium. Lord Jesus Christ, we don't have a long time to rise up and become your church. God, would you give us the strength, everyone who's here, to just say, Lord, I'm in. And wherever it leads me, I will follow. Father, I thank you for it and praise you for it. In Jesus' name. Let's stand together, please. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/-YbNg4ec60I.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/carter-conlon/reclaiming-the-mind-of-christ/ ========================================================================