NFL teams are now one and 249 since 1991 when their teams gain under 330 total yards, allow 21 plus points, commit three plus turnovers, convert 15 percent or less of their third down attempts. The Chiefs win last Sunday against the Bengals are the lonely team that beat those odds. I remember after the game wanting to post can you really win a game with three turnovers and they had all that other stuff too.
Needless to say if you haven’t heard the news a lot of people outside of the area hate the Chiefs. They don’t want the Chiefs to win, they can’t stand when the Chiefs win and they just can’t stand the side of the Chiefs at all. It’s kind of cool because they win.
Now I’m bringing this up because there is one person who hates the Chiefs more than anyone else that I can tell and his name is Jamar Chase. He is the receiver for the Bengals who had probably his worst game that he’s ever had last Sunday when Trent McDuffie covered him and he was trying to get a trade last year and he said I’ll trade with anyone but the Chiefs and this is what Trent McDuffie said about him. Let me just say this the Chiefs are living rent-free in Jamar Chase’s mind.
We know Trent McDuffie said this about Jamar Chase. We know that he’s about what he’s about and we just do our job and point to where you mess up. You don’t have to do anything extra, not allow him to catch the ball, just not getting him the ball I feel is the biggest thing for us to get in his head.
The Chiefs are living rent-free in Jamar Chase’s mind. Now I’m glad I picked the Chiefs this week and not the Royals or K-State or KU and all these slides we’ve seen lately but all of us sometimes it’s like we put a sign in our head that says for rent and we go into social media or we listen to the news. Does anybody get warm fuzzies when you listen to the news these days? Oh my gosh that is such good news.
It’s like we put a sign in our head that says for rent. If you want to get in my head you can get in my head. If you want to make me mad you can make me mad.
If you want me to feel good so I can do whatever you need me to do go ahead and do that because my head is for rent. And I’m joking about that halfway but again like we talked about the first week of this series on great minds. We have minds that are either going to be guided by God or guided by the world and a lot of that is guided by us but who are we going to let be our guide.
Today we’re going to move on to a different topic of great minds to talk about the mind’s desire. Out of 1st Timothy 2 1 through 8 Paul’s going to listen to when Paul uses the words related to desire in here and think about we desire as followers of Jesus we stand as you are able. First of all then I urge that supplications prayers intercessions and thanksgiving be made for all people for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life godly and dignified in every way.
This is good and it is pleasing to the sight of God our Savior who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all which is the testimony given at the proper time for this I was appointed a preacher and apostle I am telling the truth I am not lying a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth I desire then that in every place the men should lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling the Word of God for the people of God thanks be to God amen you may be seated in here in 1st Timothy Paul mentions desire a couple times he starts off by saying I urge now this can be toned down but urge is the root word for what other word in in English urgent it’s an urgency it’s urgency you should feel this urgency within you for supplication that means you’re asking God for things for prayers for intercessions for Thanksgivings made for whoever’s gonna make my life easier oh no it says made for all people and then just to make sure they know now if you know the history in the first century who was the ruling authority that persecuted Christians Rome the Romans the very next thing he says for Kings and all in high positions now you talk about rent living rent free in someone’s mind who may be the most hated most hated and most loved politician out there today any guesses on that yeah Donald Trump just had a second assassination attempt on his mind on his life just think of how he’s living rent free in people’s minds with this hate built up and then the media can feed into that and other politicians feed into that and then people in this weird society we’re in today can decide well the best thing I can do for the United States is to kill this man I mean it’s not the first assassination attempt but now there’s been two and it is just a picture of the hatred that rules I mean if you want to gain someone’s support or gain their trust you create a common enemy and for many that is a common enemy that is created now we all may have someone who is a common enemy but all pray for all people if you hate Trump how are you praying for Donald Trump not praying he gets shot if you hate the idea of Kamala Harris being in charge of our country how are you praying for her how are you praying that God will change the leaders hearts and minds and their desires for our country if you have someone at work who’s annoying or backstabbing or hateful or just trying to get you in trouble how are you praying for them if you in some way have been hurt whether it’s through health or or whether a family member hurt you or or a friend how are you praying for them how are you praying for God to help them in their lives I don’t know if I’ve shared this to you with you before but one thing that really changed my thinking and my desire in my prayer is when I heard a pastor say until you can pray for God to bless someone you haven’t actually forgiven them they’re living rent-free in our minds now the sermon topic is a mind’s desire what is our mind desire now you may be thinking you should be talking about the heart’s desire let’s be clear if I haven’t made this clear yet in our previous two sermons on great minds what is the heart what is the main function of the heart really not not like really say it again blood flow pump the blood through the body where in the heart do our feelings lie realistically any answers on that nowhere where do our feelings lie in our minds that’s where our feelings our desires everything we that moves us starts in the mind I mean the heart is a you know you can feel the warm fuzzies in your chest and and the Holy Spirit we sometimes feel it in our chest but when the ancients used to talk about the heart being our desire or our feelings of the heart it wasn’t the same thing as the heart that pumps the blood it’s like the center of ourselves the center of our being the core of who we are even you could even say the core of our spirit is the heart but the movement of that begins in the mind and how our minds are moved and motivated that is how we live and and how we respond and how we act in 2nd Timothy 2 verse 1st Timothy 2 verse 4 Paul says this it back in 3 says this is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth now the word desire there and is fellow in Greek and it means to will to have in mind intend to resolve or determined to purpose to desire to wish to love to make like to like to do a thing be fond of doing to take delight in have pleasure in God’s pleasure is for everyone to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ did you know that about God it doesn’t say God’s desire is for everyone who’s been chosen before the beginning of time its desire is for everyone on earth later when in verse 8 Paul says I desire that in every place the men should pray lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling that is actually the Greek word Bula my which is to will deliberately to have purpose be minded of willing as an affection to desire you see in there an affection or a desire there is a leaning towards this to say how should you feel about this not just what should you do but how do you connect that with how you feel how is your spirit connected your feelings your desires your actions how is that connected together in the global Methodist Church right now if you saw it in the newsletter the convening conference is happening in Costa Rica and they started on Friday and we have a we sent out the link to get on to the prayer guide and the prayer guide has short little prayers so I invite you to check that out and say those prayers they’re not that long September 16 says Lord God these words of Scripture remind us of the theme of our convening general conference so the world will know as we prepare to gather keep our eyes fixed upon that ultimate purpose pour out your spirit on the global Methodist Church in order that the people of every tribe and tongue and nation will cry hallowed be thy name and will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father amen and if you just say that one prayer even over and over then we will pray that we will be praying that through the global Methodist Church we will fulfill God’s desire for everyone to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ now can you imagine the pressure of you know right now we’ve been talking a lot about what we have called the transitional book of doctrine and discipline they are voting on the book of doctrine and discipline no longer transitional can you imagine the pressure of coming up of discerning of putting that together of putting the right words in place of thinking ten years down the road how are they gonna skew this so they could take it away from scripture or or whatever might happen how would you like that pressure of doing that it is a godly purpose to be able to put that together now even bigger than that can you imagine being an early church father and taking the the Gospels the letters of Paul the letters of Peter the letter of James the letter of Jude and the letters of John and putting those together and coming up with the theology and describing what Christianity is now the church fathers gave us incredible ways think about that where the concept of the Trinity comes out of there if anybody ever argues with you that the Bible doesn’t say there’s a Trinity it’s theology that is based on what we see so clearly in the Bible that God is Father Son and Holy Spirit and they debated this stuff a lot and then there were sex SEC TS sex which I seem to not be able to say clearly today who fought over should there were monastic groups that really wanted us to take our desires and shove them down and hide them and get rid of them and then there were other groups that really lived into passion and love and how all that worked and they debated a lot about that in the early church when you think of the early church fathers they were some of the greatest minds we had they were trained in the in the best Greek philosophy the the philosophy of how the mind works how people work how things work in this world and those philosophies were a lot of what guided them but it’s still difficult to say you know Jesus said if your hand causes you to sin then take it and slap yourself in the face no he said cut it off okay so how do we balance cutting that off and continuing to have feelings and desires and living into those things the the Bible has the Greek words for for love that you’re probably pretty aware of filio which is brotherly love agape which is the one used the most in the Bible and that’s sacrificial or unconditional love and then there’s Eros which is a desire or a passion in love and that’s the one that we just don’t talk about because it’s used often in such bad ways passion if passion causes you to sin then hide the passion but there’s other ways to do it that God gives us in Romans 12 to we we talked about this the first week and it’s going to continue to come up to not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God was good and acceptable and perfect transformed by the renewal of your mind now one way you can interpret this is how do you take this passion that is for hurting others or this desire to step on others or this you know sexual desires or whatever those are that can be used for negative purposes and how can you renew them and how can God glorify your passions in other words how can you take the passion for yourself and your own pleasures and transform them to be passions desires for God okay that is the difference between just trying to be stoic like a philosopher and trying to be a passionate lover of Jesus Christ Robert Lewis Wilkin talked about he pulled from a couple of editors who edited some of the works of the early church father called the blessed passion of love the affections of the church fathers in the Christian mind one person he brought up was Maximus Maximus loved paradoxical phrases such as temperate madness sober inebriation moving rest blessed passion of love the title of this chapter is one of those phrases in using the phrase he was searching for the words we say what the psalmist meant when he wrote seek the face of the Lord always for the soul that loves God is moved by an eros and he boldly uses that word rather than agape by a passion by a desire that is without end and never ceases in other words when the Bible uses the term agape with respect to God it has the meaning of eros knowledge of divine things without passion let me say this slower knowledge of divine things without passion does not persuade the mind to disdain material things completely but is like a mere thought of a thing known by the senses you know if your mind says I know this is wrong I know I shouldn’t do this that is not as persuasive as if you have the desire not to do this in the desire to serve God and love God and and please God and be that disciple of Jesus Christ for the reason for this reason there is a need of the blessed passion of holy love that binds the mind to the spiritual realities or God there is a need for holy love not evil desires and evil love but holy love that binds us to God that connects us to God one of my favorite verses is 1st John 4 7 and 8 it says let’s just read this together beloved let us love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love okay when I read this I say anyone who not does not know love does not know God because God is love now people take God is love all over the place good and bad but anyone who does not know love does not know God therefore if you know God then you know love without knowing God you do not know love as in let me put it this way in order to love your neighbor first you have to love oh come on modern person sue you have a progressive in your house yourself in order to love God that is funny because if you ask this on a public poll you probably would get that for the number one answer in order to love your neighbor properly in order to love your neighbor in a holy way in order to love your neighbor like God urges you to love and desires you to love your neighbor you have to love God first so God can put that love of the Holy Spirit in your heart and in your mind my voice is going to go and then we’re going to be done in your mind and you love and you have the desire of God one thing I pray almost every day is that God would give me the mind of Christ if we have Christ’s mind in our mind then God’s desires become our desires God’s desire is that the whole world would know him they would come to the knowledge of God that’s what would be in their mind his desire is not that we would always be able to prove that we were right but we were able to prove that God is love and that kind of love is not some wishy-washy thing that just can be molded into whatever we want but that love is connected to truth and that truth is connected to life and that life is connected to the eternal and the spiritual and the things beyond this material thing that we live in now it is the most amazing thing to have the love of God in us Wilkin goes on to talk about Augustine has everybody heard of st. Augustine or st. Augustine I mean he is one of the most famous philosophers religious leaders of his time now when God found st.
Augustine he wasn’t living a life of holy love he didn’t really want to get married so he had something called a concubine which is not talked about in proper circles but he became one of the greatest minds applied to Christianity so the world could know who Jesus is and understand theology Wilkinson said in reading the church father it is well to remember that some of the most profound thinkers in the church’s history gave as much thought if not more to the spiritual life as they did that the questions of theology yet this aspect of Christian thought and practice is not nearly as well known as the famous debates over the Trinity in Christology it is however no less important for Christian faith is not an affair not only of learning to think rightly about God but of learning to feel rightly to love God with all our heart mind and soul lacking concepts in the God to whom these words lead us we do not understand love is itself a form of knowledge I’ll just let that sink in for a minute love is itself a form of knowledge I mean when you think out of love the same desire of God you think from the perspective of God without love reason can only carry us so far for it remains tethered to the earth as Augustine wrote in the confessions addressing God he said my desire was not to become more certain about you I am more convicted I believe more but to be more stable in you stability in any relationship comes with love and with trust not just knowledge about the other one but in order to love God and love our neighbor we have to have that kind of love the mind’s desire is survival to do what we can for ourselves but with the Holy Spirit with the mind of Christ the desire transitions to love what world leader I mean whether it’s even Hamas or it’s Russia or the horrible leaders that are in the Ukraine am I late it’s out loud to say that out loud there are just some terrible people out there and all of the leaders in the United States are really awesome people okay that’s too much sarcasm this early in the morning.