Engaging the World with Compassion and Faith

The Christian is a man who should be more sensitive than anybody else because he sees the horror of things more than anybody else. Jesus wept not out of mere sympathy; it was partly sympathy but much more because he saw what sin had done in the world and he wept over it and groaned in his spirit. [00:15:14]

The Christian doesn't contract out of the world. Why? Well, because he knows that this is still God's world and God hasn't abandoned this world. The powers that be are ordained of God. It is God who's appointed kings, queens, presidents, governors, forms of government, magistrates—all these are ordained of God. [00:17:19]

The Christian's outlook upon everything is governed by the Revelation which he has in the Bible. This is the wisdom from God. You see, there are only two possibilities this morning with regard to our thinking and our outlook upon life and upon the whole present situation. We are either approaching it in terms of human thought, human philosophy, human understanding, or else we're looking down upon it all from the standpoint of this wisdom. [00:22:14]

The difference between the two outlooks is mainly one of depth, depth of understanding. The world never sees anything except that which is on the surface, and it reacts very superficially. It has no other dimension. Of course, it believes man is everything; there is nothing apart from man. Man is in control of the affairs of this universe, and there is no higher power. [00:23:13]

The man who's got the mind of Christ, the man who has this wisdom that is obtained from God through the teaching of the Bible, is in an entirely different position. He looks at it not in terms merely of an incident which happens, but he says, why does it happen? Why do such things happen at all? [00:25:30]

The Christian knows that this is the kind of thing that must happen, but he knows, thank God, also the purpose of God which is above and beneath and beyond it all and which will be carried out come what may. Very well, there's an entire difference with regard to the depth in which the problem is regarded. [00:29:10]

The man who has the mind of Christ has a permanent point of view. Here it is; it's been applicable throughout the running centuries. It is as applicable this morning as it has ever been. Let me put that in another form in the fourth place by saying that the Christian's view as the result of having the mind of Christ is always a realistic view. [00:33:57]

The Christian does never expect too much from this world. That's why he never gets excited. That's why he never becomes passionate over politics. That's why there's never hatred involved in his politics because he doesn't expect too much. He knows what man is, and he knows also that this over-optimism is something which is quite divorced from the facts of life. [00:38:20]

The Christian is calm. The Christian is confident. The Christian should never be hysterical. You've seen the world is hysterical. We've been witnessing a great deal of hysteria the last 48 hours in intellectual people. You see, their intellectual point of view doesn't help them, and when it doesn't, ultimately they become hysterical. [00:33:57]

The man who has the mind of Christ is a man who has a sense of proportion. He has balance. He's not stampeded. He's not carried away on waves of emotion. His preaching isn't determined by what happens in the world. He's not a topical preacher. He's an expounder always of the scriptures, and he knows the scriptures always speak whatever may happen. [00:38:20]

God grant that we may learn all of us more and more to humble ourselves under the almighty hand of God. Oh, that what the world is feeling today in its occasional mood of tenderness, oh, that the spirit of God might come down and take hold upon it and so send this word of wisdom to it. [00:38:20]

We should thank God more than ever that we have the mind of Christ, that we have received of his fullness and grace upon grace. We should thank God that he has made Christ to be unto us wisdom, that we are able to draw of all those treasures of wisdom and of knowledge that are there for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. [00:38:20]