Give us a mind O God!
Give us a mind!
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus
who did not count equality with God
a thing to be grasped
but emptied Himself taking the form of a servant.
Being found in human form
became obedient unto death even death on a cross.
Let this mind be in us O God!
Create this mind in this room right now I pray!
In Jesus name
Amen!
So the USA has the headlines "They're Alive"
They are not alive!
DEAD!
All of them except one and he is in critical condition,
52 dead in Iraq yesterday,
32 of them at a funeral.
Floods in California,
fires burning houses down across the southwest
and what phone call did you get yesterday?
If anyone
would come after me
let him deny himself
and take up his cross.
Thank you for the cross His and ours.
Matthew 10:21
"brother will deliver up brother to death
and father his child
children will rise against parents
and have them put to death
and they will be hated by all
for my names sake
The one who endures to the end will be saved"
John 16:1
"The hour is coming
when whoever kills you
will think he is offering service to God"
Every radical Muslim believes that
when he kills a Christian.
Romans 8:16
"the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God
and if children then heirs
heirs with God and fellow heirs with Christ
provided we suffer with Him
so that we may be glorified with Him.
I count the suffering of this present time
unworthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed."
It's coming!
If you haven't had it yet, its coming.
If you walk with Him.
Philippians 1:29
"For it has been granted to you
that for your sake
you should not only believe but suffer."
It's granted to you, it's given to you, it's a gift to you
with a big bow - that you will suffer.
2 Timothy 1:8
"Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony
about our Lord
or me His prisoner
but share in suffering for the gospel for the power of God."
One more!
Acts 5:41
"They left the presence of the council"
Peter and John
"They left the presence of the council
rejoicing
that they had been counted worthy
to be shamed for the name."
The purpose of God in creating the universe
is to display the greatness of the glory of His grace
supremely in the suffering of His Son
and that's yesterday.
Today, the summons.
Will you join the Son
in displaying the supreme satisfaction
of the glory of grace
in joining Him on the Calvary road of suffering,
because there is no other way the world is going to see
the supreme glory of Christ today
except that we break free
from the disney land of America
and begin to live lifestyles of missionary sacrifice
that looks to the world like our treasure is in Heaven
and not on the earth.
It's the only way!
The prosperity gospel will not make anybody praise Jesus
it will make people praise prosperity.
Of course I'll have a Jesus who will give me a car,
who wouldn't want a Jesus who gives me health
a car
a fine marriage?
I'll take your Jesus if the pay off is right!
That's not the way you're going to win your campuses.
Dressing the coolest,
driving the coolest,
typing on the coolest.
It's not going to get any praise for the suffering Christ.
He calls you in this service,
in this conference,
in this life,
in this world, in that newspaper world,
He calls you to another way.
Isn't it the good life?
Isn't Christianity the good life
and if it is a delusion does it realy matter? We're gone!
So who cares if it's a delusion?
Its the good life!
WRONG!
It's not the good life
Paul could not possibly have said
"If we have hope in Christ only for this life
we are most to be pitied," if this is the good life.
Oh how wrong we've got it in America.
It's really hard to be a Christian in America.
Really hard! It's about the hardest place in the world.
So he says two things, I'm in peril every hour and I die every day.
I choose!
I make so many choices to magnify Jesus in hard places it hurts me every day.
I would not choose this if it weren't true.
If I couldn't expect a resurrection from the dead
where everything would be paid back to me a thousand fold that I have laid down in the service of Jesus, I wouldn't go this way.
Christ died for millions of people all over the world.
People on your campus, people in the unreached peoples of the world their debt has been paid
and they don't know it.
They can't taste it they can't feel it they can't sing that song, "I thank you for the cross my friend, I thank you for the cross."
There is something missing in this suffering.
It's not showing up.
It's not showing up in 639 unreached people groups over 100,000 population that have zero testimony from the people in this room
or me.
It's not connecting, there is something lacking in the sufferings, namely the presentation of the sufferings.
It's an amazing statement and just think about the history of missions for a moment.
If you have any inkling of how we got to where we are today with one point three or four billion people professing faith in Jesus Christ,
when it started with twelve,
how did it get there?
You know what the answer is, suffering.
There never has been a breakthrough into an unreached place or people without suffering.
If your going to be a missionary mark it down pain loss of a child, malaria, marital strife,
tensions on the team, demonic opposition, martyrdom,
it's going to come, don't think it strange when it comes it is the price.
He paid His life for our salvation.
We join Him in that suffering to display the nature of it.
How are they going to see how satisfying He is in us if we look like it is the computer toy that is really satisfying?
It is wonderful, I think, that Paul in this verse says now I rejoice in the sufferings for your sake.
I'm not summoning you to a miserable life I am summoning you to a painful life,
but in this pain all over the Bible you find Christians rejoicing in tribulation.
Rejoice in tribulation!
For tribulation works patience
and patience works approvedness
and approvedness works hope
and hope will not put us to shame.
Because the love of God is poured out in our heart.
You want to experience the deep joy of knowing yourself loved by God?
Lay out your life for another person!
Take a risk with your body, take a risk with you mind, take a risk with your money, your schooling.
What an amazing thing God calls us to do and to be.