Oxygen session 4
(rough notes)
Think Christ
Matthew 24:34-40 - 34 When the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. 35 And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test Him: 36 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
Feelings are important in pursuing God.
The neglect in being obedient to God by pursuing Joy is ripe within the Church today. We must be obedient to God as he commands us that we pursue Joy.
Delight in God. Treasure God. This is what is means by following God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength.
If you love God, there will be a result. You will obey God. Loving God yields obedience.
2 Corinthians 1:24
We are workers for their joy.
Right thinking about God exists for the right feeling about God - thesis of the talk.
Logic for the sake of love Doctrine for the sake of delight Heads exist for hearts Knowing the truth for admiring the truth
Thinking exists for the sake of affection. They are both true though they aren’t equal.
Knowing doesn’t hold the ultimate place. It is treasuring, admiring, trusting, longing for, et cetera that are how we correctly relate to God.
If your affections aren’t based upon right thinking, then you aren’t honoring God.
Affections must be based upon our thinking.
God is not honored by affections which aren’t grounded by right thinking about God.
Ten biblical proofs.
- Romans 10:1-2 “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation! 2 I can testify about them that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.”
They have a zeal for God that doesn’t accord to knowledge and that ends up with the going to Hell. You can have a passion for God yet be lost.
- 2 Timothy 2:7 “7 Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”
You have to think. Consider it. For the Lord will give you understanding.
Since God gives the illumination you need to think over it.
God gives you understanding as you think over the texts.
Think and pray.
- Acts 17:2-3 2 As usual, Paul went to the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and showing that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead: “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah.”
Reason, demonstrate, prove things. All from the scripture.
Paul knows that the mind of the flesh doesn’t receive the things of the spirit.
Paul knows that the Jewish people in the synagogue are dead. They have no spiritual life.
Paul reasons with them and argues with them.
God changes peoples lives through preaching that is filled with reason, logic, proofs.
We can’t short circuit this by abandoning the word of God.
Spirit and truth.
Spirit and word.
The Holy Spirit opens peoples hearts to give head to the word of God.
- Luke 12:54-57 54 He also said to the crowds: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, right away you say, ‘A storm is coming,’ and so it does. 55 And when the south wind is blowing, you say, ‘It’s going to be a scorcher!’ and it is. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why don’t you know how to interpret this time? 57 “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right?
Jesus himself expects people to use reason and logic to look at the time. Jesus is asking them why they don’t recognize Jesus as the messiah through logic.
The heavens are telling the glory of God.
- Matthew 21:23-27 > 23 When He entered the temple complex, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to Him as He was teaching and said, “By what authority are You doing these things? Who gave You this authority?” 24 Jesus answered them, “I will also ask you one question, and if you answer it for Me, then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 Where did John’s baptism come from? From heaven or from men?” > They began to argue among themselves, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘From men,’ we’re afraid of the crowd, because everyone thought John was a prophet.” 27 So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” > And He said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
When it comes to thinking and talking. Jesus admires clarity and forthrightness.
Don’t evade questions and avoid telling the truth.
2 Corinthians 4:2
2 Instead, we have renounced shameful secret things, not walking in deceit or distorting God’s message, but commending ourselves to every person’s conscience in God’s sight by an open display of the truth.
- 13 times Paul asked the question “Do you not know”
If you knew you would have different actions and affections.
We need to know things, lots of glorious things.
It is filled with glorious truth.
- Ephesians 4:11-12 > And He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ,
We must be equipped to teach. That is a qualification for an elder.
God is into hierarchy.
Teachers are responsible for opening up the word.
- Acts 20:27 > 27 for I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole plan of God.
When you say the whole council, you imply that there is something of unity and coherence in the whole.
It is our job to find and discern and explain the whole council. It is our responsibility. It is hard work. It is thinking work.
2 Timothy 2:15
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth
The workman should not be ashamed.
- The bible is a book.
God came in the flesh, Jesus was not a book.
When Jesus left, he left behind apostles and prophets who are the foundation of the Church and what they left behind was a book.
What we are given as special revelation is a book.
We must learn how to read. It is an intellectual exercise.
To read well is a grueling intellectual exercise.
The bible is a chain not a string of pearls.
We must get to what each for is for.
Ephesians 3:4
By reading this you are able to understand my insight about the mystery of the Messiah.
Everywhere the Church has gone, schools and hospitals go as well. We think (teach poeple) and serve (help people)
- Teaching ministers affection for the glory of God
Matthew 7:7-12
7 “Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door n will be opened. 9 What man among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 12 Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them—this is the Law and the Prophets.
Jesus is using reason and logic. There is thinking required to understand. It is a logical argument.
conclusion
God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
The only way we may glorify God is by knowing Him rightly and rejoicing in Him rightly.
