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INTRODUCTION:
What does Dad do for a living[1]
When Gina Bennicasa was a kid,
Gina and her dad had a running joke. If anyone asked what he did for a living,
she was to reply, "He's a sports mechanic. He fixes boxing matches and
horse races."
Once, she answered a teacher this
way. She flipped out and summoned my parents. Dad calmed her down by explaining
it was a joke.
"So what do you do?" she
asked.
Dad, a sales rep for a
pharmaceutical company, said, "I sell drugs."
I.
This is a mind game.
A. It is
not too funny.
B. It is
not too intelligent.
C. It may
lead to misunderstanding and future troubles.
II.
In answer to the question of the scribe Jesus said:
...you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, (Mark 12:30,
NRSVA).
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MAIN
BODY
III.
We have spoken about heart and soul.
A. You
shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart.
1. Love
that is dedicated, faithful.
2. There is
no real halfway measure.
3. It is
all or nothing.
B. You
shall love the Lord, your God with all your soul.
1. Love is passionate.
2. It is
not cold or lukewarm
In
Revelation 3.114-16, Jesus send an angel to the church of Laodicea with these
words: And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The words of the
Amen, the faithful and true witness, the origin of Gods creation: I know your
works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. 16So,
because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out
of my mouth, (Revelation 3:14-16, NRSVA).
IV.
Today we are challenged with the statement You shall love
the Lord, your God with all your mind.
According
to the commentary of Jamison, Faucett, and Brown: This commands our
intellectual nature: Thou shalt put intelligence into thine affection in
opposition to a blind devotion, or mere devoteeism, or, in the fullest exercise
of an enlightened reason.[2]
A. Mind =
Intellect and intelligence.
B. There
are some negative ways of looking at the misuse of our intelligence.
1. We could
be an Egg Head
In the
slang of the United States, egghead[3] was
an anti-intellectual epithet, directed at people considered too out-of-touch
with ordinary people and too lacking in realism, common sense, virility, etc.
on account of their intellectual interests. The term egghead reached its
peak currency during the 1950's, when vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon
used it against Democratic Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. It is now
rarely used, having been replaced in U.S. politics by other anti-intellectual
epithets and socially by terms such as nerd and geek.
Shortly
after the campaign was over, Louis Bromfield, a popular novelist of right-wing
political persuasion, suggested that the word might some day [sic] find its way
into dictionaries as follows:
"Egghead:
A person of spurious intellectual pretensions, often a professor or the protg
of a professor. Essentially confused in thought and immersed in mixture of
sentimentality and violent evangelism. A doctrinaire supporter of
Middle-European socialism as opposed to Greco-French-American ideas of
democracy and liberalism. Subject to the old-fashioned philosophical morality
of Nietzsche which frequently leads him into jail or disgrace. A self-conscious
prig, so given to examining all sides of a question that he becomes thoroughly
addled while remaining always in the same spot. An anemic bleeding heart.
2. You
could be a Pot Head
a. Refers
to those who are using Mary Jane, Marijuana
b. Those
who, because of use, have minds that are clouded and not able to discern the
right use of intellect.
3. You
could be a Dead Head
a. Near cult
followers of the Grateful Dead.
b. Dead
Heads may also be Pop Heads.
4. Or you
could be a Bobble Head
a. Those
dolls on which the head bobbles up and down, back and forth and around.
b. They
have no sense or sensibilities.
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V.
There are three ways we can become the intelligent,
intellectual disciple Jesus is calling us to be.
A. The
intelligent, intellectual mind of the Christian is...Alive with Faith.
1. If the truth
be told, there is a lot of faith out there. But how much faith in God?
2. We know
people who have lost faith in God but not faith in scotch or self or angels.
3. There
are plenty of homes where there is no living faith in God but abundant faith in
hedonism or materialism.
a. A man
fell into a pit and couldn't get himself out.[4]
(1)
A subjective person came along and said, "I feel for
you down there."
(2)
An objective person came along and said, "It's
logical that someone would fall down there."
(3)
A Pharisee said, "Only bad people fall into a
pit."
(4)
A mathematician calculated how he fell into the pit.
(5)
A news reporter wanted an exclusive story on his pit.
(6)
A fundamentalist said, "You deserve your pit."
(7)
An IRS man asked if he was paying taxes on the pit.
(8)
A self-pitying person said, "You haven't seen
anything until you've seen my pit."
(9)
A charismatic said, "Just confess that you're not in
a pit."
(10)
An optimist said, "Things could be worse."
(11)
A pessimist said, "Things will get worse."
b. What
kind of faith does it take for the person in the pit to hold on to the fact
that someone sometime will help her or him get out of the pit?
Jesus,
seeing the man, took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit!
4. A sign
in front of a church read: "Come in for a Faith Lift."
B. The
intelligent, intellectual mind of the Christian is...Alive with Hope
1. We live
in a world of cosmic gloom.
2. When you
look at what we are facing and what is going on out there in 21st
Century, it is enough to make Robert Schuller say, "I can't," or Oral
Roberts to promise, "Something bad is going to happen to you."
Enter
this third-grade classroom. There is a 9 year-old kid sitting at his desk and
all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants
is wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine
how this has happened. Its never happened before, and he knows that when the
boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out,
theyll never speak to him again as long as he lives. The boy believes his
heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, Dear God,
this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now Im dead meat.
He looks
up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says
he has been discovered. As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named
Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in
front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boys lap.
The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, Thank
you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!
Now all
of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of
sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on
while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees
cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have
it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone
else-Susie. She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. Youve done
enough, you klutz!
Finally,
at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to
Susie and whispers, You did that on purpose, didnt you? Susie whispers back,
I wet my pants once, too.
C. The
intelligent, intellectual mind of the Christian is...Alive with Love.
1. Someone
has written:
In the
midst of backbiting, name-dropping, self-praising, power-worshiping, face-saving
people, Christ makes us into dare-to-care disciples -- people who dare downward
mobility rather than upward mobility; people who find themselves by losing
themselves in others; people with a capacity to suffer for others; people who
give Cheek-to-Cheek rather than Eye-for-Eye responses to injury; live-it-up
people, who aren't afraid of the abundant life, but where abundance is not a
treasure trove for us to squander on ourselves, but a trust for us to invest in
others.
2. Shalom
Alekum tells a delightful story about an old man standing on a crowded bus. The
young man standing next to him asked, What time is it?[5]
The old
man refused to reply. The young man moved on.
The old
mans friends, sensing something was wrong, asked, Why were you so discourteous
to that young man who was asking for the time?
The old
man answered, If Id given him the time of day, next hed want to know where
Im going; then we might talk about our interests. If we did that he might
invite himself to my house for dinner. If he did, hed meet my lovely daughter.
If he met her they would both fall in love. I dont want my daughter marrying
somebody who cant afford a watch!
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VI.
The Bible may help us to understand how the mind, the
intellect, may be used to nurture our own or anothers spiritual growth.
A.
Peter writes in 1 Peter 3:15-16
15but in your hearts sanctify Christ
as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an
accounting for the hope that is in you; 16yet do it with gentleness
and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned,
those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame, (1
Peter 3:15-16, NRSVA).
B. Paul
reminds his spiritual son Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15:
Do your
best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no
need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth, (2 Timothy 2:15,
NRSVA).
1. To
rightly explain is to know what needs to be known.
VII.
We have no excuse for ignorance except our own
unwillingness to learn with all the rationalizations we offer because we do not
want to learn.
A. If you
really want to know, the Holy Spirit is available to help you.
B.
As John Dalrymple, in The Longest Journey: Notes on
Christian Maturity has written:[6]
The journey inward is the journey from the issues of this world toward God. It is a journey toward the mind of Christ, beyond feelings of expediency or fear of what people will say, to truth itself. It is followed by the journey outward, back from the depths where we meet God, to the issues facing us in our everyday life, a journey which we now undertake with a new sensitivity to the will of God in all things.
CONCLUSION:
VIII.
Founded in 1944, the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) has
grown to become one of the nation's best-known charitable organizations.
A. Funds
contributed to the UNCF make it possible for 43 UNCF member colleges and
universities to keep tuitions low and the dream of an education within every
student's reach.
B. In 1972,
the UNCF partnered with the Ad Council to launch a public service advertising
campaign encouraging Americans to support the fund.
C. The
campaign slogan, "A Mind is a Terrible Thing To Waste," has remained
unchanged for more than three decades and has become part of the American
vernacular.
IX.
It also ought to be part of the Christians vocabulary.
A. You shall
love the Lord your God, with all your mind.
B. Amen
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[1]http://www.rd.com/jokes/9536656/article9536656.html?trkid=LAUGH1015
[2]The Commentary on the Whole Bible
by Rev. Robert Jamieson, D.D., Rev. A. R. Fausset, A.M., Rev. David Brown,
D.D., Database 8 2000 iExalt, Inc. iExalt
Electronic Publishing
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egghead
[4]David Gibbs, from a book by Barbara Johnson, in Ecunet
(database online), (cited 5 November 1994), meeting name: Eculaugh, file name:
A000000S.MSG.
[5]Jerry Neff, “The
Good Samaritan,” August 26, 2001, A & M United Methodist Church
Web Site, Am-umc.org/sermons/sermon010826.htm.
[6] (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1979), 17-18.