Human Mind and Emotions of Christ

Pastor Martin pictures buying a model of Oliver Cromwell from a hobby shop. You're not free to leave pieces in the box, swap them, or rearrange them. Every piece must be used or you don't end up with Cromwell. Just so, every Gospel piece about Christ must be assembled.

Now, if you were to go into a hobby shop and say, do you have a model of Oliver Cromwell? And they look down through the stock and they say, yes, we do. You would take home a large box that would show on the outside what that model is supposed to look like when you're all done. But now when you open it up, all you see is a bunch of gray plastic pieces strewn all over the box.

7:52 - 8:11 Read in full sermon

Jesus comes to a fig tree from a distance to see if there is fruit on it — a real human mind dependent on physical observation, not bypassing his humanity by divine omniscience.

And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came if happily he might find anything thereon. And when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season of figs. Now, is the gospel writer saying that Jesus was playing games? That because of the omniscience of his divine mind, he knew ten miles away whether that...

17:12 - 17:38 Read in full sermon

Of that day and hour knoweth no one — not the angels, not even the Son. Jesus places himself in a category beyond angels yet still confesses ignorance as a true human mind.

But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only. Now what makes this text so unique is this. In this passage, our Lord on the one hand is self-conscious that he's in a class above men and angels. Look at the text.

19:14 - 19:36 Read in full sermon

He invites the children: 'You're going home tomorrow from school and the bully on the bus...' — using a child's daily fears to define what emotions are: feelings aroused to the point of awareness.

Now let me define emotions. when our feelings are aroused to the point of awareness we call them our emotions you kids you're going home tomorrow from school and the bully on the block is starting to walk towards you and he's got that look in his eyes that he gets when he's going after someone in the neighborhood now what happens your feelings of fear are aroused to the point where you're aware of them That's your emotion of fear. Or maybe your dad's been away for a week. And you're expecting him home any time.

28:36 - 29:12 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Holy zeal and burning, divine indignation and irritation in His spirit. And I'm sure in His eyes.

Pastor Martin pictures Jesus pouring out the changers' money — coins clinking — then taking the tables by the side and turning them over. If you walked in cold, you'd say, 'There's a madman.' Yet the man was holy, harmless, undefiled.

He cast all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen. Poured out the changers' money. He finds their boxes of money and He turns them up. And you can hear the coins clinking and rattling down through the stone floor of the temple.

44:32 - 44:50 Read in full sermon

Warfield translates Luke 19:41 as 'He wailed over the city' — the same word used of professional mourners. Jesus' weeping over Jerusalem was no quiet tear but uncontrollable yet controlled lamentation.

Warfield translates it, Wailed! He wailed over the city. There was uncontrollable yet controlled weeping. There was the giving full then to all of the brokenness of heart over the judgment to come, yet always under the control of one who did that which was pleasing to the Father.

49:31 - 49:57 Read in full sermon

The point: Whatever your cultural temperament — volatile Latin or stiff-upper-lip Britisher — submit it to the Christ-shaped pattern of sanctified emotion.

To the volatile Latin Christ says, 'Get your temperament under the control of the Spirit.' To the phlegmatic German and stiff-upper-lip Britisher he says, 'It's no virtue to act emotionally neutered.' Christ levels both sinful extremes.

You know what he says to the phlegmatic German and to the stiff upper lip Britisher? He says, it's no virtue to act as though you were emotionally neutered.

56:21 - 56:31 Read in full sermon