2:2, 2:5 Topic #1 Christian attitude/mindedness #1

what Roger challenges with a series of verses here. We've got all kind of emails related to this and we'll let the spirit lead because I had fun with this and I generally like to teach in an expository manner out of the text but here we're putting a lesson together that's bits and pieces but I think the theme came out okay and hopefully you'll enjoy this and learn from it too. So what comes to mind when we have a lesson entitled Christian Attitude and Mindedness? Don't look at your handouts please. Let's just deal with the questions. That's the problem with handouts. We should get handouts out at the end of the class. I think would be the better way to do this. What do you think about it?

Attitude of Christian mindedness. Well, it depends on where you're coming from. If you're coming from law, you have one view. Coming from grace, you have another view. Okay. Other thoughts? I'm coming from the mall. I'm not sure I'm going to take that seriously. I don't see materialism up there. No other thoughts. Christian attitude and mindedness is meaningless to most of you?

Or do you just feel like speaking out here this morning? All right. Well, let's go ahead. I'll ask a second question. Answer a question with a question. This is always good. All right. This is something we need to work on. doing? That's a trick question.

All right, well, if Holly Hills, we know well, it's not something we work on. Although if we were kind of somewhere else, some denominational mainline church, we might be thinking this is something we should be working on. Working on Ultimately, Christian attitudes and mindedness is nothing more than going to school and memorizing a bunch of facts and failing, ultimately. The second question is, if not, how does this ensue?

I think that's what we're all about. Christian attitude or mindedness is really based on the foundational Greek term, phrenia, which means to think or to be minded in a certain way. It's interesting, it's translated, I think, a minority of the time, it's often translated as being of one mind or, if you will, having a mind of faith. So that's the foundation of the topic, the Greek term phrygia.

Now, this is used 34 times, and by the way, What she sent me, right, she said 31 times, but I... Yeah, go ahead, you'll explain. Well, that's in Paul's writings. That's right. 34 times. It is used three times, as Paul said. So I just said it's used 34 times, but it's seven times in each of the four epistles. It's used in each of the four, okay? Not seven times in each, but seven times in Philippians, but represented at least once in all four chapters of the book of Philippians. So Paul put a particular emphasis on this Greek term in the Epistle to the Philippians.

So mindedness for the believer is very simply all about Christ. Now we can work on that, being like Christ, or ultimately we can in fact be in Christ. And that's really what we're going to talk about today. First, we're told that we have the mind of Christ.

Has that ever perplexed you a bit? It's odd. I'm in awe of that fact. Well, do we know everything he knows? No. Intellectually? No. So, how do you put that on the mind of Christ? Well, positionally that's true and we'll certainly conditionally have that mind of Christ when we're with him. We don't have the intellect of Christ, we don't have the creative ability, we don't have the miraculous capabilities, we don't have a lot of the mind of Christ. But in terms of the attitude and mind of believers, we do have the mind of Christ because we've been positioned in him. And that mind, which is about our being, is really his mind in terms of the life of a believer. So don't overly interpret having the mind of Christ.

I mean, people to criticize scripture in terms of these kinds of things could take you to task on this. But we're talking now about an attitude or a mindedness that is of Christ. Boy, if that's not positional truth, is it not? So let's begin. We're going to look at a series of verses today because there's no better way to exemplify the topic of the day than to use the Bible to do so.

So 1 Corinthians 2, 14-16, Now the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are a foolishness unto him. Like, you know, again, your time with Peggy. And he cannot know them because they are spiritually judged. We'll come back to this. But he that is spiritual judges all things, and he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?

But we have the mind of Christ, and as Margaret said, positional truth. Positionally, in Him, we have His mind. The Lord hasn't written the Bible, mostly the epistles, to just instruct us in things that have no relevance to our current existence. So, having the mind of Christ may be positional, but also has application, does it not?

It's interesting, as an imperative for the believer is another truth about attitude and mindedness, and that's Philippians 2.5. Have this mind in you, which also was in Christ Jesus, which is a conditional truth. I mean, we're positioned having the mind of Christ, but in our condition, in our day-to-day walk, ultimately we're told to have the mind of Christ. So, we can't simply rely on positionally we have the mind of Christ. We're told that this attitude and mindedness is part of our day-to-day existence.

Isn't that neat? Thoughts? Well, I was thinking about, you know, there's so many other truths about that we have something in the Lord positionally and he asks us to live it out conditionally. I mean, that's the paradigm we see so often in Scripture about you have all these wonderful things in Christ and you need to live them out based upon your position in Christ. So this is a wonderful example of that paradigm. Other thoughts? Yeah, thanks Roger. Well, Roger set the stage for what's to follow. It's the application.

We can talk about theology all we want, right? Isn't theology wonderful? We can turn to pick our favorite passages and just rest in our position, but this condition is the day-to-day walk. And I would say if you're working out this attitude and mindfulness and trying to accomplish this, that failure is the only outcome. That's what's so refreshing about Miles, is that he constantly positions us above to realize that we our own capabilities are incapable of working this out.

Now, is that let go, let God? Anything but that. I think that's the criticism we often get in terms of the positional truths made conditional, is that it's let go, let God. It's not that. We have an act of faith that we have to respond to, right? And let's see how we do apply this.

In Romans 8.5 it says, For those who are according to the flesh set their mind, same word, on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. That's the mind of Christ. Now, back to where from once we've already come.

1 Corinthians 2.14, I said we'd return to this. But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, For they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because their spirits are discerned." So we as believers are privileged in terms of this mindedness to realize that the position in which we've been established, ultimately the condition can be modified by our faith in terms of who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. What are the things of the Spirit?

Don't look at your handout. Describe to me what are the things of the Spirit? If you cross Holy Spirit or Spirit or Holy Ghost in your thesaurus, you'll come up with multiple references. First of all, the Greek term Spirit is pneuma, which could be just the human spirit of being alive. But when used in context as the Holy Spirit, it directs us to the third person of the triad God. So what are the things of the Holy Spirit?

Well, I'm going to suggest to you strongly that they're not the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit are not the things of the Spirit. They're the outcomes of the Spirit working in us. That's the fruit. The fruit is not the tree and the branches. The fruit is what the tree and the branches bear. So we can go to Galatians 5 and list all the fruits of the Spirit. But the things of the Spirit, it's not the outcomes of the Spirit. The things of the Spirit are in Christ. So what's the Spirit about? Well, the Spirit's about Christ.

Let me take you to John 14.26, "...but the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said unto you."

And secondly, John 15.26, "...but when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, he shall bear witness of me."

So the things of the Spirit are the things of the new nature that are actually born out of it. Some of that's fruit. So an outcome of the Spirit working in us is His fruit. But when I think of the things of the Spirit, if I go to the fruit, I'm studying the fruit. Right? And I think that's wrong, to study the fruit, because we study the Lord Jesus Christ.

You almost might want to say it's the ministry of the Spirit, possibly, the things of the Spirit. so important to see his ministry is that he's pointing you to Christ. He's showing you the things of Christ. So his ministry is all about, not himself, but focusing you on Christ. So I'm kind of tying that back with the other thing.

Well, if you extend that thought a little bit further, Rogers, the Spirit's there to convict us when we're in the flesh or in the sin nature. But he doesn't activate the sin nature to become better. I mean that's not his job to look at the fruit because the fruit doesn't come out of the flesh. The fruit comes out of the new nature, doesn't it? I think we can make the Holy Spirit sometimes much too complicated. We can look at all the various verses and you would come out confused.

I think most simplistically, in a reductionist manner, the Spirit's there to bring the new life alive in each and every one of us. Wayne says to bring to you remembrance. Remembrance, that's the mind, isn't it? To me, that's part of it, and then the teaching part too.

And I guess when we respond by faith, we're responding by the fact that the Spirit is really activating that faith within us to bring us to understanding who we are in Christ. So this attitude and mindedness is a work of the Spirit to reveal the new man within each of us. That's not something we work at. The only thing we work at is our faith. And that's not hard work when we're born again. Our minds can't understand this new creation that we are. Well, that's right.

If we go up to 1 Corinthians 2, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. And the Spirit of God is in the position of revealing His sign to us and who we are in Him. Now again, I'm not belittling the Spirit. All I'm saying is if we begin with the major purpose of the Spirit, which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself indicated, then everything else falls out.

Well, I always think it's just so incredible that the third person in the Trinity says, don't look at me, look at the Lord Jesus. He says, don't look at me. He says, I'm just here to focus. It's incredible. Look at this. He's going to bring remembrance to all that he said.

And then secondly, he shall bear witness of me. So are we there to walk in Jesus' shoes that we might ultimately get people to look at the Lord Jesus Christ? No, we don't walk in his shoes because the human feet fail. But ultimately the Spirit lifts us up into heavenly places where our position gets increasingly capable of transforming and conforming us to the image of himself. Boy, that's a rest. Is that not a rest and a peace by God's great grace? Let's go on.

I took this, every time I teach it seems like the hungry, not that the hungry heart of the day has something in it that relates to the Sunday school lesson. I'm not sure if that's because the spirit was really activating miles to the day of my lesson, I don't think, so there's nothing wrong with that. So anyway, today, it was very long, so I just cut it in half, but the last part of this sentence really works quite well.

It's only as we see that the spirit dwells within us for this very purpose, and know how to accept and yield towards His working, that we can really stand to the liberty with which Christ has made us free. Isn't that great? Today. It's only as we see that the Spirit dwells within us for this very purpose, and that's really to reveal the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that's where our freedom comes from. So this freedom that Christ talked about, remember He said, I'm going to make you free indeed. What's that freedom relate to? The freedom to do whatever we want? What's the freedom from that Christ talked about when He's going to make us free indeed? What's that freedom? Freedom from the bondage to sin. Right. Perfect. It's the freedom to live a life from above, lifted up and personified in the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Colossians 3.2, set your mind or attitude and mindedness on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. So again, you know, clearly a biblical challenge ultimately to see ourselves positionally so that the attitude and mindedness of His nature, led by the Spirit, may be in fact portrayed in our human existence. What does setting your mind on things above mean? What about the experience of thinking about things above?

I mean, do we do this? We've got a quiet group here today. Are the questions too difficult? What this brings to my mind, Bob, is that there are all these truths about us in Christ, who we are in Christ. It seems like this is alluding to that fact that we're focused on who we are in Christ, we're not focused, and that's the things above, not the things of the earth. The things of the earth says, boy, who knows what's going to happen. The election may go this way or that way, but things above are eternal and fixed.

Well, and then also right in with that is we're dead, right? And that's what tells us we've died. And so our reality is in heavenly places. And it's really an open door as a ticket to our citizenship. That's where we're positioned. That's where he sees us. And when we focus on things above, as we live by faith of who we are in Christ, ultimately our lives get increasingly transformed and conformed to his image without us working on it. It's an act of faith. Well, I'm thinking too, you know, everything that he's given us is there, right?

It's not here. Right. Any other comments or thoughts? Jim, welcome. Barnes says this, he says, the thoughts should be occupied about the things where Christ now dwells, where our final home is to be, where our great interests are. And since we're raised from the death of sin, Donna, and are made to live anew, the great object of our contemplation should be the heavenly world. Now, I'm going to challenge the class a little bit. How might you modify this commentary? I can think of one place that we can modify this and make it even better.

And it's not on your handout. Everybody's looking up. This is good. So it's not on the overhead either, right? No, you're not going to get the answer by looking at the page. This is guess what I'm thinking. The last phrase? The object of our contemplation should be Christ himself. I'm accepting of that. There's no right answer here. That's not what I was thinking. Anybody else? Modify this. Dawn? Well, you know, every time you see the thoughts should be or immediately defaults to a command, right? Okay, another acceptable perspective, not what I had in mind. Anybody else, guess what Bob's thinking?

And by the way, this, you'll pass or fail based on getting this now. What I thought was the thoughts should be occupied about the things where Christ now dwells. I mean, we can modify that, I'm okay with that. Where our final home is to be. Here's why I had an objection to it. How about where our home currently is? It's just not my final home, it's my current home. The focus isn't on the home, it's on Christ himself.

It is, and I think we could tear this apart. I think overall it's a good statement. Barnes has it correct here. We all can tweak this a little bit to make it a little bit better. Remember, we don't all have a perfect interpretation about setting your minds on things above all that. I would like it better if it says where our home is. Not now, but eternity past, eternity present, and eternity future. Right? Okay, that's fine.

Colossians 3.1 then, I put two there to just get this mindedness, this attitude about coming from things above.

Colossians 3.1 says, if then you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. So, it's almost like two should be before one, but we're going to use one-two because that's the reason we're to set our minds on things above. It's because we're risen with him.

Good old Romans 6, right? Buried with him with baptism unto death and risen with him in newness of life. And by the way, that's positional truth, but it's also conditional truth. Good. Okay. Moreover, isn't this where our citizenship resides? And it is. It's our home.

So setting our minds on things above is kind of like growing up as children of the Lord, increasingly being given meat and not milk. And that is a process of transformation. How does this setting your mind on things above work? So let's say we've all decided that scripture says we should be setting our minds on things above. And we're doing that by faith, looking at the Lord Jesus Christ. What's the mechanism by which that creates an attitude and mindedness in us? I think it gets pretty practical. on things that are heavenly, because that's his perspective. So it requires, obviously, the knowledge of scripture and ultimately the knowledge of himself. I think so, Donna.

Good job. Well, you know, I crank it even back further to the point where you have to have a relationship. You have to know that God loves you. You have to have a practical revelation of who he is, that he is, in fact, capable of doing all the things that he said, and that he has already completed everything in Christ. It's a process, but you keep ratcheting it back. The first thing you go to when something panic happens is, God loves me. He's not here to punish me, I'm here to understand, but he loves me. It seems like you always fall back to that basic.

Right. I mean, think about your time spent with your parents as a child, and when there were problems, particularly the younger you are, kind of a fault of getting older a little bit, you always come home and tell mom and dad about it. You know, you rely on them as comforting and directive in terms of their response to your needs. In our homes in heaven, and when in fact we set our minds on things above, ultimately we're seeing it, Jim nicely put it, through God's perspective.

And by the way, that's Holy Spirit-led. This isn't an intellectual thing. We meet the Lord in the Word. We don't meet Him experientially. But as we know Him better in the Word, ultimately our lives are being transformed and conformed to His image. And that's exciting.

One other thought that's kind of occurred to me as well, looking at some of the other from the sin nature. These are contrasts. These are earthly things. These things have been put to death. So there's also that recognition of self and its incapacity, inability to deal with this. And it's through that that faith in Christ actually comes with it. It seems like there's a constant contrast of recognition of I am what I am responding to by nature, my signature is not in this situation. And then it's a remapping back to the word.

We began the class today by saying is this attitude and mindedness for the believer, is it something we work on? And I think exactly what you said, we've mentioned this, that the flesh is not capable of this attitude and mindedness. This is not the job of the Holy Spirit to groom the old nature to become more Christ-like, right? This, again, is a position of truth that's made reality by the Spirit, by faith, ultimately, and seeing it through God's perspective. Okay, good. All right, let's go ahead and see if we can deal with this question. It's both a process of transformation and confirmation, and I alluded to that a couple of times in the last few minutes.

Transformation, 2 Corinthians 3.18, but we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are transformed into the same image from glory to glory even as from the Lord the Spirit. Wow, again the Spirit shows up again. This process of transformation is an act of the Holy Spirit. And remember what the Holy Spirit is there to do? What's he there to do? It reveals the new nature within. Good. Second transformation.

Romans 12.2. And be not fashioned according to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind for Neal, and ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So the Christ-mindedness is in fact the life we live. Again, it's not works-oriented.

It's who we are. that ultimately is the truth portrayed in our transformed life. Interestingly, the Greek word for mind here is not phrenio, but nous, comprising alike the faculties of perceiving and understanding and those of feeling, judging, and determining. So this mind here is not the phrenio that we've been studying here, being Christ-minded. This is in fact the human capabilities of the mind. So we're renewing our human mind. This is not the attitude and mindedness. We're talking about the human mental existence is being renewed by this process of transformation.

That's neat because mind is quite different in the Greek here than having the attitude and mindedness. And I can't explain why a different term was used. But I think it's kind of neat because this attitude and mindedness of who we are in Christ Jesus is in fact working through our human faculties. to make that transformation complete. Thoughts about that? Anybody want to reflect on this at all?

I'm speculating as to why different terms are used, but the phronia is in here because it's the thinking that's ultimately phronia, but the mind itself is a different Greek term. But remember, we're not robots. It's an important reminder that we're not puppets on a string here where someone's manipulating us.

But while we're in the process of transformation, we're also being conformed to His image. In familiar verses I'm sharing with you right now, Romans 8, 28, 29, we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.

Whom he foreknew, he also foredained to be conformed to the image of the Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. So this dual process of transformation into his image is ultimately a process by which we as humans get conformed to that image. Transformation and confirmation ultimately is the dual gun process of the Holy Spirit. And the next question, how is this Christ attitude and mindedness perceived? And we might say, who's perceiving it?

Well, there's only two classes of citizens, right? Although Peggy would disagree with this, right? There's the citizens of heavenly places, meaning believers. By the way, what's it take to be saved? Well, he died for our sins, basically. It's that simple, right? And then there's the unbeliever.

So when we think of perception of this attitude of mindedness, we're thinking about the perception of everyone. How's it perceived? I would suggest to you that someone doing good works we might attribute to the Lord, but they may in fact not know the Lord Jesus Christ. We can't look at the works themselves. Look at the Mormons. They're good people. Lots of good things that they do. I would say there's part of Islam where the outward acts of their lives may be God-glorifying to the same God who's our God, as Peggy would say.

The works themselves may be falsely perceived. Let's look at this in a little bit more detail. It's really by seeing that what we do is who we are. So it's not what we do, it's who we are that really is the source of what we do. So I guess if we look at works only and have a worldly view from a non-believer's perspective, you would be skeptical and call these people good people. And again, you can be fooled by the works. But from a believer's perspective, we say everything that looks wonderful before is really an act of the Lord, where in fact it could be an act of polishing up the old man to look good, right?

Vanity. Pride? Roger, you look like you're poised to say something. I'm just saying that the world is all about metrics and all about, you know, group A has so many good works, group B has so many more good works, therefore this group has more, they must be better than this group, and so it's all about metrics and how many good works, and how many pats on the back you can give each other, and how many good works you can give. Do you tithe? Right, exactly. I tithe even more than you tithe.

That's right. And what's that called? What's a simple definition of that? The metrics? You speak like an engineer. What is this human perception of metrics of performance, human performance? It's called basically self-righteousness, isn't it? Isn't that what it is? Isn't it, woe unto you, Pharisees and scribes?

Self-righteousness often doesn't get perceived for what it really is, but ultimately in the life of the believer, the results of who we are is what we do. But yet, I'm going to say the perception may be misconstrued by both the world system and many times by we as believers.

Let's not look at the works, but let's look at the source of the works. And I think when you get to know people better, you get a better sense of where the works are coming from, although we're not meant to be works examiners. But we do have to make decisions of judgment of those that are around us and ultimately from whence they come.

But should we be taking credit for this performance? Let's say we know who we are and we're in fact living by faith and hopefully some good things show up because of that. Hopefully they should. But is this something that we should really be denoting, this attitude and mindedness? Boy, I was good today. This attitude and mindedness was just where the Lord wanted it.

No, of course not. How about life, or Zoe, and not performance? It's the life. that ultimately is the source, and it's not the performance that we're going to measure. No A's and B's, good and bad. It's ultimately the life. Let's look at this. God forbid it's not the performance that should be judged. We're not here accounting ourselves as right attitude and right mindedness. In fact, what happens in the life of a believer, Romans 12, for I say through the grace that was given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think as to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith. This is not something we're accounting to ourselves.

In this verse, by the way, think is this hyperphrenia, think of himself more highly is actually the hyperphrenia, and the other think is a phrenia. So here's where phrenia is actually translated as think, not mind. Same Greek term. Attitude, mindedness, now in terms of thinking in that mindset.

Romans 12.16, Be of the same mind towards one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation or your own conceit, which is the King James. So this is again a life lived out without really taking credit for this. something that we're ultimately not measuring on our own behalf.

Philippians 2.2, another nice verse that uses this word, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, and intent on one purpose. So this mindedness of the believer is in the body. All of these verses really point to a body that's healthy, that interacts without taking credit, not getting haughty, being humbled by our life because it's led by faith and it's sourced in the Lord Jesus Christ, and not in the flesh.

Philippians 3.15, Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be made complete, have this attitude or mind, and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also unto you.

So isn't that sweet? That when the flesh shows up and there's self-righteousness that ultimately is the motive for what we're doing, we may not recognize it, but the Spirit will. Isn't that refreshing? That the Holy Spirit's purpose is to reveal Christ. And when in fact there's a different motive, and it's really inactivating the incapable old man to look good, the Spirit's about his business. Now we could question when we sense that in someone who we're close to or seeing, but it's ultimately the Holy Spirit's job to ultimately reveal that to them.

Any thoughts about this at all? All right, any thoughts? And all of this Christ attitude mindedness is enabled by God's great grace and our response by faith. Keep in mind, it's not let go, let God. We talked about that a little earlier. It's our faith. And it's our faith in who we are. And that ultimately is a transforming and conforming faith that the Lord's about and the power of the Holy Spirit. Do we really believe him in all that he's revealed? I mean, it's funny, we talk about selective, you know, scripture analysis, right? We like the things that fit and don't like the things that don't fit so well.

I do, I think I've mentioned this before, I do J. Bernard McGee of the Car of the Morning going down, and I'm in Daniel now. He was dealing with the three Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the fiery furnace, and ultimately the fourth guy that shows up in there, right? Which is probably a pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ shows up there in the fiery furnace. He said, look, you know, people pick and choose their miracles, and I've heard people from a scientific perspective explain how, well, of course, if the fire is so hot that the guards outside the chamber were burnt up, it's probably Not worth trying to explain this scientifically how three people can be in the fire and not be consumed by the fire, but nevertheless.

J. Bernard used that as a springboard to getting into selective scriptural belief, right? I believe this miracle, but don't like the other one.

So you want to tell the story about walking on the water? Yeah, that was what Peggy said. She said, do you really think that Christ walked on the water in Galilee? Yeah, I did. And she said, well, how can you believe that? And I said, well, you know, I think all of scripture is true.

Because if you pick this one and don't pick this one, then what makes you think that one is correct? If you throw out some of it, people pre-sin can say, well, none of it's true. So you either believe it or you don't. Well, I would challenge the believer also in terms of the position of truth of who we are in Christ.

Many, many years ago, I was going back into the late 80s, early 90s, and I was in a church, which I won't mention. But actually, one of the appetizers to get Sharon and I to attend that church, we were interested in that church because of the school system. But beyond that, we had met with the pastor briefly, and then we were both kind of coming into this identification truth kind of theology, which of course we believe is correct. And we sat down with him privately, and he talked about this. And then he actually preached a sermon about Jacob that next Sunday, the transforming of Jacob in terms of the Bethel experience. I don't remember exactly where Jacob went through his trials, but anyway, he had many of them. So ultimately, as things went on there, we had the Bible study at our home at that point, which was attended by a whole different group of people than there are now. But I think maybe the doors, I think maybe you were starting to show up. And there was a woman in there who went back to the pastor. and said that Eccles don't believe in prayer. I don't know where she got that idea.

I asked Miles, what's prayer? And he said, you've asked a very good question, Miles. That was his answer. But anyway, cut to the chase. He said, I believe where you're coming from in terms of Christ, you being co-crucified with Christ, sin nature being crucified, but I don't own that.

In other words, he outwardly said, it's in the Bible, but you've got a work to do for God. I mean, basically, that's a sumerial statement about this. So do we believe what God has revealed? I believe some miracles, but not others. Oh, and I believe that ultimately, yes, the sin nature was crucified, but that's not where a Christian performance comes from.

I mean, seriously. I think we challenge each and every one of us to kind of see how selective we are and what segments of the Word we in fact accept and appropriate. And I would say Holly Hills has this in mind. That's why we're here. Because we believe it's the power of the Spirit living through the new man in Christ Jesus that ultimately allows God's glory to be seen. It's not about us. It's about him. And what happens when we don't? We fall into the flush. And the flush is failure. They both start with F. Flush fails.

But it's perceived as maybe being something wonderful and incredible. That's pretty sad. So, the bottom line is we got to keep looking down. I know we reuse that constantly, but there's no better quick one phrase statement to say to someone who in fact is discouraged, distraught, felt unloved, etc. We got to position ourselves back where we start. And that, remember, is a process of transformation as we look at the mirror and see Christ reflected in it. So keep looking down. We're down here, but ultimately our citizenship is in heavenly places. So in summary, this attitude and mindedness is one of being in Christ and seeing that ultimately the life which we live is encouraged and catalyzed by the Holy Spirit.

Yes, Ruthie? I've been sitting here mulling over Philippians 4, 8. Okay, read it. Where it says, Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think on such things, whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, and seen in me, put it into practice, and the God of peace will be with you."

Isn't that what the Holy Spirit does to us? He shows us these things, the true, the pure, the lovely, and that's the transformation. He's doing that within us. Yeah, those are great verses to share for that, because effectively what these things are is everything we are in the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? Whatsoever things are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtue, praiseworthy, all of these are wrapped up into the new nature, as is energized, if you will, by the Holy Spirit. Absolutely. Good. That's good.

Any other thoughts before we close here today? So Jim's going to take this same topic and probably provide a bit different but hopefully related perspective on it next week and I'm sure that will be hopefully helpful to clarify certain issues and maybe build on those that we've started today. So we'll let the class be the judge. By the way, if one or both of us is wrong, we're in trouble here. We'll let the Albert correct us, Jim. Jim, close us in prayer, would you please? Lord, we just thank you so much for the time we've had together to open your word and think through the reality of you working in our minds and by faith We might behold you through your word again this morning with Aaron and grow to know you