Losing Our Minds for Jesus

If you could meet any celebrity, who would it be? The handsome actor or beautiful actress? Maybe it would be Bruce Springsteen or Michael W. Smith. Maybe a politician or religious leader? At this moment, I’d probably enjoy meeting Josh Allen, the quarterback for the future Super Bowl champions, the BUFFALO BILLS!

Celebrity worship can get out of hand. There are countless stories of people out of their minds about celebrities. In fact, celebrity worship can become an obsessive fascination and is associated with several mental health problems, such as symptoms of depression and anxiety, dissociation, and body image concerns.[1]I just want to meet Josh Allen – not really a big deal!

It is impossible to worship Jesus too much! I read this statement recently

…the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever - which is the essence of "Christian hedonism [pleasure seeking]." There is no final conflict between God's passion to be glorified and man's passion to be satisfied. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him…[2]

Celebrity worship leads to sickness, worshipping Jesus leads to health because this is why we are created – it is “the chief end of man”. When Jesus is worshipped, we are happy and satisfied… and God is glorified.

Out of Our Minds for Christ

In this series on Discipleship we are considering the characteristics of discipleship. I have been thinking about what it is that creates people who delight in Jesus! What is it that captures our minds and hearts for Jesus?

Most of us are familiar with the hymn, Come Thou Fount. If you are not, the lyrics are:

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace; Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious measure, sung by flaming tongues above; O the vast, the boundless treasure of my Lord’s unchanging love!

Here I raise my Ebenezer; hither, by Thy help I’m come; And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me, when a stranger wandering from the fold of God; He to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; Take my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.

The hymn was written by a man in his early 20’s while he was close to the Lord. He was prone to wander, and he walked away from the Lord, but his own hymn was used to restore him. The songwriter was Robert Robinson. He wrote the song while he was in his early 20’s. The next 30 years of his life were in and out of sinfulness. He walked away from Jesus.

One day when he was much older, he was riding in a stagecoach, traveling through the English countryside. A lady sitting near him in the coach was obviously enjoying a hymn she was reading; she was humming the tune, and singing the words aloud. She turned to the stranger beside her, held the open hymnbook out to him, and asked him if he had ever heard that hymn. The stranger was silent for a long moment, and then he burst into tears. He said to her, “Madam, I am the poor, unhappy man who composed that hymn many years ago. I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings that I had then.” Some 30 years later, the very words he had penned had been returned to him, by the grace and providence of God, to break his heart.[3]

In the hymn, Come Thou Fount, there is the line, “O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee.”

I like that word, constrained. We find a similar thought in Paul’s message to the Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 5:13–15 NIV

If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

The NIV uses compels. The NLT uses controls. Eugene Peterson uses “Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes”. I believe that the heart and minds of disciples are compelled, controlled, constrained, and moved to extremes for Jesus, so let’s explore this a bit more.

Delighting in Jesus

To be in Christ is the source of the Christian’s life; to be like Christ is the sum of his excellence; to be with Christ is the fulness of his joy. - Charles Hodge[5]

Paul’s life demonstrated that he was not interested in self-seeking or self-serving actions. Paul served God and others above all else. Because of Christ’s love he is held captive to a supreme allegiance to Jesus and that was the message that he brought to every believer who would listen to him.

Paul’s understanding of the Cross was that it was an atoning death by Jesus but also a death in which Christians participate and find their meaning and purpose.

2 Corinthians 5:14 NIV

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

Jesus is alive; therefore, we are alive. Jesus died; therefore we must also die – to the flesh and to the idolatry of the world.

Going Mad for God!

Jesus called men and women out of the world and into His kingdom on earth. It was radically different. It demanded 100% of their body, soul, and spirit.

Matthew 22:37 NIV

Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

Have you been called a ‘fool’ for Christ? You believe supernaturally. Miraculous healing is possible. Spirits are in this world and have effect and afflict people and even nations. You hold Sabbath sacred, believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God. You give sacrificially to the local church and to missionaries across the world. Through the centuries Christians have been complimented by calling it “holy folly”.

· Jesus himself was dismissed as "mad" and “possessed,”

· Paul was told by the Roman governor Festus that he was “out of his mind” because of his Christian thinking.

· G. K. Chesterton wrote similarly that a man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool.

· Dante pronounced, in words that illuminate the cross of Jesus, the wisest person in the city is “He whom the fools hate worst.”![6]

How do we answer the world when they ask why we believe or why we do the things we do? I suppose the best answer is still Paul’s,

2 Corinthians 5:13–15 NIV

To answer the world who criticizes our holy folly, they are worshipping their idols.

1 John 2:16–17 NIV

For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

The world worships at the altar of materialism is never satisfied. Their pride and ego demands more and more hours at work to get the next promotion or close the next deal while their families suffer. The world worships science and turns their nose at the Creator. The pleasures of self-indulgence create alcoholic fools, unhealthy diets, and minds that are corrupted, but Christians are called ‘fools’. Consider the irony.

Winning Our Hearts and Minds

Paul persuaded men to believe in Jesus. He encouraged men to get their minds right with God. In this passage he adds a third characteristic – controlled by the love of Christ. Let’s take a walk down Roman’s Road…

Romans 3:23 NIV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 6:23 NIV

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

No matter how good or moral you have been, we all fall short without accepting the gift of grace – salvation. But, there is good news!

Romans 10:9 NIV

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 5:1–2 NIV

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

Remember our hymn and this line?

Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee.

I think it is reasonable to assume that when a person understands the depth and the width of God’s love for him – he is constrained…compelled…captured. One last thought in closing…

You remember the woman who barged into the house of the Pharisee and began cleaning the feet of Jesus with her tears? They considered her a fool and out of her mind. The Pharisee thought badly of her, but Jesus read his mind and told a simple story…

Two men owed the creditors money. One owed over a year’s salary. The other owed a fraction of that. Neither could repay but the creditor forgave their debts.

Jesus asked this question, “Which man loved the creditor more?” Yes, the man who was forgiven much…

Disciples understand that they have been forgiven much. Their response is to love God with all their mind, their body, and their spirit – this is why Christians lose their minds for Jesus!

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6426373/ [2] https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/a-mind-in-love-with-god [3] https://truthandtidings.com/2016/03/our-heritage-come-thou-fount/ [4] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 2 Co 5:12–15. [5]Elliot Ritzema, ed., 300 Quotations for Preachers (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012). [6]https://www.shsu-xa.com/uploads/1/2/0/3/120320278/06-mind-03-let-my-people-think.pdf [7] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 2 Co 5:12–15.

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