Sermon By: Jared Thompson

Written By: Amy Adams

            This sermon is about possessions and the end of you losing your mind and gaining the mind of Christ; well sort of. We’re going to do a reversal after this sermon about gaining the mind of Christ. It’s not the new things that change us, it’s remembering the old things that speak to us. All scripture is given for correction and edification. It’s not just meant to make you feel good. It’s mainly for instructions and reproof. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t lift you up, like the book of Psalms. The purpose of all scripture is to correct and to guide.

• Philippians 4:19: “My God shall supply all of your needs according to His riches and glory.”
• Luke 6:38: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
• 1 Corinthians 2:14: “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.”

            You can find yourself in David pretty easily. He had his ups and downs like all of us. But, read Luke 6 and see how much it’s in context with giving. Who has ever heard of something called the prosperity gospel? It just the good news of succeeding. If we look in the book of Genesis, it was a half truth when the serpent said their eyes would be open and they would be like God. The only thing we think God has worth for besides gaining possessions in this world is to make sure that we don’t go to hell, but everything else about the spiritual world is here and now…but that’s ludicrous. Truthfully, it would cause some of you to miss the mark if y’all were wealthy. Some of you probably couldn’t handle it.

Now, let’s talk about the possession of emotions. Who can’t control them? How many of us possess emotions but end up having them possessing us? Replace possessions with a non-physical thing. Materialism has made it into Christianity more than we know. Eternity is here and now. We cannot help ourselves but be naturally-minded about possessions. Some emotions are given by God to express something.

Mental possessions are also known as thoughts. Relationships are possessions. How do we view possessions? Relationships, thoughts, emotions… how do we relate all of this to the mind of Christ? You can only be possessed by one thing at a time. When it comes to spiritual matters, you can only be possessed by one thing. A self evaluation of what is possessing you is needed to see what is possessing you. The best thing you could ever learn: don’t have an opinion. If you want the mind of Christ, you are not supposed to possess your own opinion about anything. The mind of Christ is supposed to be our possession.

There’s another idea when it comes to possessions: stewardship. A steward is someone who takes care of something that is not theirs and treats it as if it belongs to them. This analogy starts to fall apart if you don’t even take care of your own things. Do we treat our thoughts accordingly and take care of them? To steward oneself is the goal. Replace all of the natural things with your thoughts, emotions, and relationships. This is why we don’t have nice things. The word for this is called discipleship. Disciple is the root word for the word discipline. How much more difficult is it to overcome laziness and what we know with something that is abstract and something we can’t touch?

Parables are stories to help us better understand a concept. This is how eternity works: Matthew 25:14-30 is a parable that talks about a businessman who went out of the country and gave money to his stewards. He gave one 5 talents, another 2 talents, and another 1 talent. The businessman going to a far off country is God and we are the stewards. Based off of the abilities, He gave us different things. God gave us the “goods:”  His spirit. The point of this parable is not really talking about physical possessions. At the end, the one with 5 and 2 talents make a return on it. The man with one talent buries it because he was afraid. He called the steward wicked. He knew the Spirit of God and thought He was rough, but that is not how the Spirit of God is at all. He should have at least been a steward of what he had, but he didn’t. We should fill ourselves with His Spirit and spread it across the world. At the very least, you should have just maintained what was given to us. The last steward was wicked, twisted and slothful.

Have you been burying your talent or have you been growing your talent? Stewardship: it’s not ours to begin with. We were trusted with stewardship of the Spirit of God. Matthew 6:19-21: “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth…But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” You are either burying the Spirit or you are lifting it up and growing. The Spirit of God is into the expanding business, not the maintaining business. If you think you are just going to maintain the spirit you have, that is not having the mind of Christ. You need to drop that spirit and pick up the Spirit of God. We can use our possessions to move the Spirit of God forward. If it is eternal, it must exist in the eternal realm.

What is the one thing that we know is eternal? The Spirit of God. To know God and be known by God is the eternal possession. The word glory means like a light shined upon or to look upon. What does it mean when Jesus says to glorify me and you? It means to know Him. “The Weight of Glory” by C.S. Lewis asks the question: what is a child’s greatest glory? It’s when a parent notices their accomplishments and they get told well done. The nature of it is just to be known. The glory of God is just to be known by Him. Children trust implicitly. They know how to love the glory of their mothers and fathers.

Matthew 18:3: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” This verse means to trust and learn how to be in God’s glory. Don’t let it get twisted and don’t let it get recognition elsewhere. Doxa is Greek for fame and sometimes fame can become an addiction.

Matthew 7:21: “Depart from me you worker of iniquity because I never knew you.” We need to be good stewards of our thoughts and that’s what God does to unprofitable stewards. Unselfishness is a negative term but has a positive outcome. Most people would say we have too much desire and we desire too much. Maybe God thinks you don’t desire enough and you’re too easily pleased. We don’t truly know what glory means. If I know you and you know me, we’re going to be talking face to face and that’s exactly what it means to be in the glory of God.

• Colossians 3:1-5: “Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.”

Instead of asking God to give you things you desire, ask God to give you desires. Keep in mind, this can be a dangerous prayer. We think hidden in Christ means hiding within Him but it means forgetting who we are and gaining the mind of Christ. The anointing and the Spirit of God is not just to cover our mess ups. We need to use that Spirit and walk that path and to the point people can’t tell if it’s us or Jesus; our walk just screams of the Spirit of God.

So when Christ appears in your life and you take hold of the Spirit, that’s when we’re in the glory with Christ. There’s a hope that we can walk with the Spirit of God and He can know us and we can know Him. We’re not understanding what it means to let go. Minister to everyone you know and move past getting outside of your comfort zone. It’s like a filter of life. Get a Spirit filter. Don’t repress it, get rid of it and give life to others too.