Glorifying God By Having Unity of Mind

Okay, so today we're gonna kinda carry on here. So actually my goal is to get through verse 12 by next week. So we're gonna go basically five through eight today. We've done some of this before last week. And then we're gonna go through 12. I'm gonna give Mike a chance to speak for one week only. I'm gonna come back. I have this all planned out.

My son's coming from Florida with his girlfriend. So he asked me, I might as well just tell you. He says, Dad, would you speak on the day my girlfriend's here? Don't tell her I told you this. I'm joking. You can tell her if you want. I said, sure, I'll be happy to. So anyway, she's checking out the family. So we have to make a good impression. So hopefully I'll make a good impression. I don't know. We'll see.

Anyway, OK, so this section we're going to talk about glorifying God. by being of having unity of mind or one mind or the same mind. And we kind of peeked into that last week a little bit. Just an incredible topic. And actually Jim was kind of right There are parts in Philippians there that talk about this unity of mind, the same mind, and that's God's desire for the body of Christ, to be of the same mind. He's not stamping out cookie cutter Christians, He's stamping out a people that know His mind, and they know His mind not by some mysterious method, but by His Word and the Holy Spirit revealing the person of Christ to them. That's the way God works. So Paul's gonna talk about that. How do we have this unity of mind?

And we've been going through this long, long expose, starting back in 14, about the weak and the strong believer. And like I said before, everybody is a, you know, raise your hand if you're a weak believer. Nobody's gonna raise their hand, right? But there, I kind of thought, well, you know, in reality, We all are weak and strong in areas because the difference between the weak and the strong from what Paul's been teaching is that it's the one who knows the scriptures. So he said, well, sure, you and Mike have it all cornered, right? You know it all, right? We don't, as you find out. We don't know it all. And we're all learners. We're learning about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Anyway, so this outline is from Constable. So he has this first section, 1 through 12, we talked about the folly of judging one another, the weak and the strong believer. The evil, so offending one another. And then last week we kind of peaked in this idea of pleasing, pleasing one another. And it's not so much I'm going to go out and I'm going to buy all my brothers and sisters lunch every week, I'm going to mow their lawn, I'm going to wash their clothes. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about building them up in the faith. encourage them in the faith, maturing them in the faith. That's what pleasing one another is about.

But now we're going to get in the idea of, he's gone from pleasing to accepting one another. We're going to talk about that in verse 7. And then we're going to, 8 through 12 is kind of a unique section, talks about Israel, and then we'll talk about the Gentiles, and kind of carrying on that theme. But we've gone from pleasing, we're going to review that a little bit today, and then accepting the ones in the faith.

And then lastly, when we get past 14, 514 all the way through to the end plus 16 is what's called a conclusion. And actually, there's some cool things in there. We're going to spend a couple months in that last section. There's some cool things along the way there. So that's where we're going. So let's go back and look at two key words from last week.

So the first key word is this, hupomone, perseverance, steadfastness, endurance. And I kind of come to the conclusion this is almost like a mindset that you acquire as you read God's word, as you believe and trust in what God has said, and he proves himself to you, that he is able to do what he's promised to do. So the idea is that the verb form of this is hupomeno, And it comes from the word abide, like in Romans 6, a lot of cool words about abiding in Christ. This is hupos, intensified form, is to remain under It's literally to remain under where you're at in your life, in a God-honoring way, and to learn the lessons He has for you.

This is from Wiest. Rather than attempting to get out from them, in an effort to get away, to relieve the pressure. And I can't say I'm an expert at this. I'm like you. I don't like to be under pressure. I don't like to have things going awry. I like things to be very smooth.

But that doesn't happen in life, right? myriads of things that happen to us and so what he's telling us here perseverance is a character is a characteristic of God we're going to see but it's to be a characteristic of every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and it comes about by knowing him and his word the second word is encouragement and this word I think I heard Jim talking this morning about it's it reminds you of the word for the paraclete for the Holy Spirit it's a form of that word it's a calling to one's aid calling, to call beside literally.

And it's the idea that the Scriptures are an exhortation and encouragement and a comfort. So all of Scripture is to kind of come along our side. All of Scripture is actually exhortation and admonishment for the purpose of strengthening us and establishing us in the faith. And then last week we found this little cool word, I'm not sure I can pronounce it, but anyway, it's It's a translation of our, O-U-R, and it's this word, it's the idea of, we can look at the scriptures, even though we have God's word, and it's the same, we each have the same Bible, may have a different translation, but it's the same word.

Scripture talks, and Paul talks about, it's personally written to you individually. So God's word, even though read by everyone, the same words, is for you individually. It's really, it's an incredible idea. that is individually and personally to you. God is writing personally to you in his word. So when you read the Bible, don't think so much, well this is for, you know, so and so must understand this better than me. God's talking to you individually.

Okay, those are two, perseverance and encouragement. So let's go on. So today's verses, from last week, we just peeked into these verses last week. Now may the God who gives perseverance, that's abiding under, encouragement grant to you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus so that or with a purpose that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and then seven and eight say therefore a conclusion therefore accept one another here's the except we were we were to please one another to accept one another just as Christ also accepted you to the glory of God Then 8 kind of starts into this dialogue about Israel and the Gentiles. For I say to you, for I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcised on the behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers. Okay, so first of all, let's look from last week.

Here's one of my, let's see, Bob W. told me this morning that he likes outlines, and Roger, you like diagrams. And I agree with that, amen. I like diagrams. And these diagrams are based on what nobody likes, sentence diagrams. This is Roger's form of a sentence diagram that I can understand. Okay, here we go. And it's as much for me as for you. So 5 and 6 is one sentence. So it starts off now.

So this is Paul's desire. The God of perseverance and encouragement. So what's interesting is here, before we talked about perseverance and encouragement, being something we obtain from the Scriptures, we obtain from God's Word. Now Paul turns around in verse 5 and says, oh by the way, those characteristics are God's characteristics. That's who God is. He's the God of perseverance. He's the God of encouragement. That's the characteristic of God. And reinforcing that, it also describes God's character. It came to us through the scriptures. It also describes God's character.

So that's the subject. Rather along what's called the complete subject. So the verb here is give or grant, and it's modified by to you. So the God of perseverance and encouragement gives or grants to you, the believer, to think, to be minded. God wants, He wants a thinking, He wants thinkers who are minded. The core word is this word phreno in the Greek, and it's continuous action, to continually think, continually mind it.

He wants our mind to be continually going. I think somebody pointed out that your mind never really stops, right? It's always going, right? Until you go to sleep, and then you're dreaming, right? So your mind's always going. Either you're dreaming or you're awake. It's just churning away.

Well, he wants that mind to be focused on him, right? And even more than that, He wants your mind to be focused on the same thing, and we're going to see how that works out. So, the God of perseverance and encouragement gives to you, the believer, to think or to be minded the same thing. He wants to be, we say, on the same page, right?

Okay? And it's among one another, among the body of believers, or among the weak and the strong. And it's just not, okay, I convince Bob W. that I'm right and he's wrong and he agrees with me. No. I convince him that Jesus Christ is right and he says, Amen, brother. I'll agree to that. So that's what it's about. It's according to Jesus Christ.

I'm picking on Bob. If he picks on Wayne, I'm going to pick on Bob. So Wayne's giving me the thumbs up there. Okay. All right. And it has a purpose. So all this has a purpose and the purpose modifies the verb. The purpose of all this is And here's a neat case where I missed it last week. It's, and Margaret can identify with this, it's not just you, it's y'all. It's you all, it's plural. Y'all, y'all hear that? Y'all, y'all? Y'all may glorify, all believers may glorify.

And here's another thing I just, boy, just neat. I keep studying, and this is a Merriman thing. Unanimously, in or with one mouth, And the reason we want to do that, that the unanimity in one mouth, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So let's just back up and say this again. We'll just go through the whole thing. The God of perseverance and encouragement give to you to think or to be minded the same thing among one another, not what we think, according to Christ Jesus, that you all, unanimously, I like in, in one mouth, may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I think I may have left out a may, anyway. So that's the goal, that's five and six together in a nutshell. So now we're gonna go down and look at a little more detail here, but that's the big picture of five and six. Okay, so let's look at the first part. So this is the subject.

Now that God and Father are perseverance, and actually there's definite articles there, The Perseverance and The Encouragement. So actually, this is from Constable. He kind of took a little bit different tack and said, hey, you know, by the way, you could look at those perseverance and encouragements as spiritual gifts. It sounded, you know, I think that's certainly reasonable. Perseverance and encouragement come to us through the scriptures, but they are spiritual gifts from God. Paul wishes or desires that all his readers, the strong and the weak, would appropriate these gifts. And that forms the complete subject of 5 and 6. So Paul's prayer is, and this is kind of maybe a knit, Merriman calls this indirect discourse. You think, wow, that sounds like a really kooky little thing.

There's something called direct discourse or indirect discourse. If I say, if I pray to God directly, that's called direct If I say, Dear Heavenly Father, please bless Holly Hills. That's direct discourse. But if I say to Mike, Mike, I've been praying to God about Holly Hills. That's indirect discourse. So that's what Paul's doing here. He's telling the believers he's praying to God about them. So that's called indirect discourse. So maybe you think, well, that's, you know. Anyway, it's interesting. All right. So this little phrase here is indirect discourse. All right, so let's go on.

So now we get to the verb, and this is a verb plus down to according to Christ Jesus. Give to you, so I used interlinear just because it was a little bit easier to work with. To give to you, to thank the same thing among one another according to Christ Jesus. We saw the big overview of that. Give to you, or grant to you, and so the modifier is to you.

Give us a verb. And to think, here we go a little bit. To think gives us more information about this verb. He wants give to you, to think, to be minded, to fix your mind upon. And actually, if you know something about English or grammar, that's called an infinitive because it has a to. So that gives us more information about the main verb, to think.

It completes the verse. So Paul is telling us, his hearers, that he's praying to God about them. And then this infinitive has an object. And the object is, we just talked about it, the object of to think is the same thing. He wants to think the same thing. So that's kind of the nitty gritty of what we just covered. So Paul is praying that they, the strong and the weak, will fix their minds on the same thing.

Like I mentioned, that doesn't happen, it only can happen, and we're gonna see, According to the Lord among one another and among the body of believers He wants us all as collected body of believers to be thinking the same thing and Merriman says this is a priority of building up one another and that's what the that's why we study God's Word That's why we get together.

That's why we have multiple Bible studies Not just to be in a socializing all the time, which is great but to understand God's Word and they'll be all will be in the same page and we as we interact with the Lord so let's go on here according to like I mentioned according to so this is this kind of a little interesting thing about this and this is something we've covered before according to is this little little preposition called katah it's a preposition that expects a norm or a standard Sounds a little bit heavy there. So, this preposition, according to, expects the norm or the standard. So what follows the preposition will be the norm or the standard.

So that's pretty cool. The norm or the standard is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It's according to Christ Jesus. It's according to His norm and standard. Okay? And that's from Merriman. So we see that this norm or standard is Christ Jesus. So Merriman shared a couple of examples.

I'm sure you can fill a lot more. A couple of examples of Christ Jesus, Norman Standard. He says many times in the Gospels, Christ always did the will of the Father. He says, I always do what I see the Father doing. That was his Norman Standard. That's what Christ did. That's who he was. He was God's son. He also said he always glorified the Father. He never put him to shame. He always glorified the Father. And then you could make, this list could keep going.

I stopped there. But anyway, you could add more to that list. A couple of related verses. In Romans 12, 6a, it says, same admonition from Paul, be of the same mind toward one another. Then in Philippians, Philippians has a lot here, Philippians 2, 2a, make my joy complete by being of the same mind. So we're going to see this idea of having the same mind as the body of Christ brings great glory to God because he is demonstrating not only to the body of believers but to the world. Here are a group of people saved by grace and they come to know me and they walk with me because they realize who I am and what I've done and their minds change, they've been changed. by the power of the Holy Spirit. Okay. So then the 6, verse 6 is the last half of this sentence. I forgot the period. Sorry, Bonnie. I put the period there. My fault. Okay.

That, with the purpose that, with one accord, this is another one of these, we have multiple same mind words. Another kind of same mind word, homo, homos, homothamos, same mind, and this is where Merriman, I hadn't heard this before, he kind of shared, he thought the best rendering of the same mind in this case is unanimously, so he used that in his translation, so I kind of went along with him, so that with one accord, unanimously in one mouth, collectively the body of Christ, unanimously in one mouth, But if we look back to the first verse 5, the first part is, you must be minded in the same way according to Jesus Christ, then you can move to this glorifying God in one mouth. Well we'll say the same thing, not because I've memorized what all you guys have said or you've memorized what I've said, it's because we are related to Christ Jesus and have His Spirit and we say the same thing unanimously. Pretty cool stuff.

The Christian life has to do with your mind, what you think. And this is critical. We actually had a class several years ago, we called it, Knowing Who You Are in Jesus Christ. Knowing who you are is critical. If you don't know who you are, then you won't act properly. You won't know, you know, not because you act badly, because you won't know what you have. That's much of the problem. So what you do flows about who you are. It's critical to know who you are in Jesus Christ.

And then here's Merriman's complete translation of verse six. That you all, y'all, may glorify unanimously in one mouth the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'll just read it again. That you all may glorify unanimously in one mouth the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Pretty, pretty amazing verse. Okay, so that was review. Well, the first part wasn't. The first part was, the last part was more detail. That's pretty cool stuff, so let's go on. So actually, some other verses just haven't quite finished here. Other verses that have the one-minded or same-mind Acts 14a. And it says in the context, the disciples plus some others said, the disciples all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer.

In Acts 15.25, it seemed good to us, the apostles, having become of one mind to select men to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul so you get the flavor is that scripture talks about as a body were to be of this one mind and that shapes how we make decisions what we do and the early church you know is shown there then other verses and we kind of had this already I think be of the same mind to one and one another do not be haughty in mind but associated with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. And then Corinthians has a cool one. Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there's no divisions among you, but that you are to be made complete in the same mind and same judgment. So that's God's desire, the same-mindedness, and it comes from knowing him and knowing his word.

Okay, so now, new verse for today, 15.7, starts off with, therefore, so this is the conclusion, therefore, you, the strong and the weak, that's the subject, accept, and we're to continually accept, not just occasionally, maybe that made it a little bit easier, right? I'll just accept my brother or sister occasionally, right? Some days I won't, some days I will. We're to accept them continually, you, the stronger we accept one another continually, just as, so now he's gonna make a comparison, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God. Pretty straightforward sentence, right? Subject, verb, object, and a couple modifiers. So the logic here is Christ accepted us, So we should accept our brothers and sisters in the Lord, and it's to God's glory. So a couple of points.

If you look back, you know, Paul's doing a summary, a conclusion. You look way back to 14.1, and in this case, he had the stronger believer now accept the one who is weak, implying the one who's speaking is the stronger, in the faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment. on his opinion. So now, we've had all this teaching, right? 14.1, all those verses, now we're to 15.7 and he says, oh, now I'm going to change it and maybe make it more, hope you've grown in this process, in this reading.

Now, Paul says, accept one another. So both the strong and the weak are to accept one another, not just the strong accepting the weak, the weak are to accept the strong. So it reflects his teaching on the weak and the strong believer. Okay, so let's look at a couple points about this. Accept one another, looking back to 14.1 as I mentioned. Same verb, so it says pros lumbano, a very tender word, to take to oneself, present tense, imperative God's will, middle voice for our benefit, So what Vine says is signifying a special interest on the part of the receiver, suggesting a welcome, a welcome. Then Malloy says a warm and tender welcome. We're warmly accepting our brothers and sisters in the Lord. One another, the weak and the strong. Merriman shares a mutual receiving and fellowship. So we're accepting one another.

Now he's going to justify that. And he does that by saying, just as, and this just as can be translated as, or even as, or inasmuch as. I like Merriman's translation, in like manner. So we're to accept one another in like manner as Christ also accepted us, the believers. We're to do it in like manner. Accept, and this is the word accept here, as I mentioned before, take to oneself. So in this case, before in the previous case, same word, but in this case it looks to the event.

How did Christ accept us? Or how was he able to accept us, right? Well, he had to go to the cross. He had to go to the cross. That was an event. So Eris is an event. So it looks to an event, Christ's death on the cross. So I found this through Wiest.

There it says, God and Christ are said to have received those who formerly were estranged. You know, we were dead in our trespasses and sins, remember? So he accepted us in that place based upon Christ's death on the cross. They, the estranged, have been reunited to God and Christ by the blessing of the gospel. When they believe the gospel, they could become part of God's family, and that was to God's glory. Okay, so there's the details on that verse. So now, 15.8. 15.8, same kind of, I'm gonna do a diagram.

No outlines, just diagrams, Bob. Okay. Starts off, for this reason, I, Paul, say Christ has become a servant. Pretty straightforward. I say Christ In this case, everything's kind of packed into the last part of this subject and verb, or I say. And then the last part is like the object. Christ has become a servant.

And become here is a cool word in the Greek. It's to come into a new state of being. You know, Christ, we look in eternity past, with God the Father, they decided that Christ would die on the cross for us. So He came into a new state of being. He came to be a servant, right? And it's going to talk about how he did that.

On behalf of the truth of God, based upon what God the Father and God the Son decided in the eternity past, to the circumcision, to Israel. So God's first encounter, not God's first encounter, God the Son's encounter was with the circumcised, the nation of Israel. So as to confirm the promises given to the Father. So that's why some translations use Messiah. Speaking of Israel, right? That was the promise of the Messiah. Messiah was going to come and make things right. They misunderstood that, a large part.

So we see that We'll see it in Matthew a couple times. It says, in Matthew 15, 24 it says, but he, Christ, answered and said, I was sent only, underline only, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So this verse is telling us about that, that Christ, and this is, and what Macaulay says, I had not thought about. This is, verse eight is a summary of Christ's earthly ministry. You say, wow, that's pretty brief, Roger. It is pretty interesting. Macaulay considers this a summary of Christ's earthly ministry.

I, Paul, say Christ has become, come into a new state of being as a servant on behalf of the truth of God to the circumcision, Israel, so as to confirm the promises given to the Father. Pretty cool verse, right? So what's going to happen now, after this verse, we're going to start into verses about the Gentiles. We're going to see how the Gentiles come into play. We know the story if we read our Bibles. But how did the Gentiles get involved? This is God's plan. He came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But that's not the end of the story, right? We'll see more next week. Okay, so one final thought. Let's go back to our mindedness. I couldn't get away from that topic.

So let's look at Philippians 2.5 in the King James.

Philippians 2.5, you have a King James Bible. It says, let this mind, Phreno, be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus. And you know, in New American Standard, it says have this rather than let this.

So the first word, this injunction, this is from Who's it from, Roger? I'll tell you in a second who it's from. We'll just keep going. The first word of this injunction, let or have this, is especially illuminating. This let or have this suggests the outworking of the mind of Christ will be produced in the believer by another, by the Holy Spirit. and that the believer's responsibility is that of letting or allowing the mind of Christ via God's word. Such An exalted mind can never be produced by the believer, nor can it be maintained by him." This is from Schaeffer. So his point here is that this mind of Christ is not something you decide, well, I think it's pretty cool. I think I'll have the mind of Christ today.

No. No way. you're the only way you get that is by in God's Word understanding what he said and then the Holy Spirit shows you these truths and then as those truths become you who you are Christ in me the hope of glory he lives his life through you his life is your life his mind becomes your mind so pretty amazing stuff so let's just close in prayer do you have any father we thank you so much Lord for your plan and your purposes father thank you that we get to to understand the things that men never on this planet only few understand this Lord so much about our Savior so much about so much about Israel Lord we understand so much more about Israel than most people do and understand that you're going to preserve it no matter how you do it through whatever way until the end times come, Lord, and it says all Israel will be saved at that point, Lord. Just amazing. Your plans and purposes cannot be thwarted. We thank you for your word. In Christ's name, amen.