Attitude of Christ Jesus

I usually pick sermon topics a long time in advance, sometimes that can mean the sermon topic doesn’t deal with some huge news event that is occuring. Today is definitely one of those days, as the United States is doing a military action in Iran. So it might seem to our church that what happens in the world is not important. Yet far from that: we have a responsive reading from the Bible every week and it ends with calling all of us to take on the attitude of Christ Jesus.

That should be what we are seeking every day of our lives. No matter what is happening anywhere at any time. Whether we are on vacation, in the hospital or even in a war zone, we are to have the attitude of Christ coming from us and in us.

So today, isn’t about another war. It’s about you. It’s about me. Because we are in this world, and our way of living makes an impact in it. It’s about our role in how we treat others. How we act as followers of Jesus in our community and homes.

Which leads me to ask us all to think. I want to ask a weird question. It’s very different than what we have been talking about and other usual questions,

like the ones you will get tomorrow, “how was you weekend” or maybe the one you got today, “How was last week.”

I want to ask a question, that I actually ask somewhat often, even though, I am more aware maybe than most pastors because of my work in school as a teacher of how weird it is . It is a question that almost no one asks another person but I ask it, honestly the question can come up in people’s minds without me even having to say it.

It’s similar to “how are you” but it’s different.

You know how questions change based on who is asking like if your doctor says, “How are you?” your answer should be much more detailed than if your coworker asks How are you?

Do not tell your coworker about that itch you can’t seem to get rid of, but do tell your doctor.

In society, when I as your pastor. When I say how are you, It’s often true that I am really saying

how are you doing spiritually?

I would like to stop right here and have you consider your answer to that question. If you have some paper, or your phone, or some way to really answer this very open-ended question. You don’t have to tell anyone but I want you to answer it and I really want you to remember your answer.

I’m going to give you time to really meditate on this but it is essential that you remember what you answer. So here is some time.

THE QUESTION WITH A TIMER

It’s a question most people don’t ask and far fewer answer. Thank you for answering it.

But now I want more, I want to get META. Which is a greek prefix to say, above. I want you to think about the why and the way of your thinking in how you came about that answer.

meta analysis, meta cognition, thinking about thinking, fancy big words, for thinking how we think. We are doing this because Jesus did stuff like this meta thinking.

When Jesus said things like , “Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and God what is God’s” he was thinking and asking us to think. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus moves beyond the law and when He talks to the woman at the well He reminds us that there will be a day when we will worship in spirit and truth. That’s a lot of meta thinking and its a lot of biblical recall that some of you might not get and that is ok, but for all of us, thinking about how we think is what followers of Jesus should do!

So I really want you to look at

Why did you answer - “how are you doing spiritually?” the way you answered it?

Because for many and you can see if this is your answer, they would think there is some practice, some job, some work that would determine their answer to this question.

For example, some people when they hear it asked, “how are you doing spiritually,” people often answer, “I’ve been praying.” It’s a good practice, prayer. This is our week to lift up Stockton in prayer. Prayer is an action that a person does, maybe even you wrote down an answer like this,, “I read my Bible a lot more now.” “I’ve been to huchurch every week.”

Let’s think about what you are saying is a good answer, that somehow your work reveals your spiritual state. How are you doing spiritually is revealed by some religious practice . Even though God loves us in His Grace

Romans 11:6 CSB

Now if by grace, then it is not by works; otherwise grace ceases to be grace.

Hebrews 4:16 NLT

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

Many of you know this. We quickly want to think about what we do, rather than who we are. I get it, I am an American too. I will often answer who I am by telling the jobs I do but I am not wise because I am a teacher, but hopefully I am a wise teacher.

Instread of works you might have come up with your answer in a totally different way.

If my doctor said, How are you? And I said, “I have a normal body temperature and experience no pain.” We might both agree I am in good health. When you were asked for how you were spiritually and you gave an answer of what you do, that your thinking your work determines how you are spiritually. But what if you gave an answer of how you feel. Your answer is about your mental state. Depression, Joy, Grief, Awe. Something of feeling. I have to say God cares about your feelings.

Jesus said,

Matthew 5:4 NLT

God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

And early followers of Jesus were reminded as we are today that

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 NLT

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

If you have have feelings written down, when I asked

how are you doing spiritually?

and they are negative, I want you to know that God sees you, if you share with us we will see you too and do our best to love you as God loves you.

Psalm 34:18 NLT

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

Psalm 147:3 NLT

He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.

God loves you. We are hear for you today.

If you answered the how are you doing spiritually with feeling words, mental health words, and they are positive like joy, awe, love or something like that, what a wonderful thing, we join you in that, and give thanks to God that things are good for you right now.

However just like works, if our spiritual state is based on how we feel, we can run into a huge danger. We might have a little God. We might not see that God is bigger than us and believe that God is how we feel.

For those that learned about Bible stuff you might know the story of Job. Job was good and righteous.

Job 1:1 NLT

There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless—a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil.

He was awesome. Completely good with God. A good guy. But horrible, horrible problems came his way. He lost all of his property and all his kids died. Yet he stayed faithful to God.

I have many people tell me that they feel like Job in their life because bad things are happening to them. That they can even doubt God. But my friends that wasn’t Job. Job was a really right guy in all he did. Most people can tell me at least about their one or two sins but all their amazing good stuff and yet bad things still happened to them. Again that isn’t Job. We cannot contain the consequences of sin. It rears its ugly consequences in ways that cannot be controlled. Remember that old show breaking bad, Sin cannot be controlled.

The consequences of sin are usually unfair, untimely, mean, cruel, and sometimes can be direct and sometimes indirect but always awful. That is why Jesus came to die for all of our sins and create a way for us in the end to be perfected.

Yet many people go around claiming they are blameless in their bad and live like Righteous Job, But often I think people are more like the prophet Jonah.

Jonah lived in a time when a bad people who did bad things were in power. God called on Jonah to tell those people they were bad, but Jonah didn’t want to because He knew God would forgive them if they repented and Jonah couldn’t stand those people. Jonah’s feelings were his spirituality.

Jonah fled from God’s call, because He couldn’t stand people. Jonah got on a boat to go far away when God was wreaking the lives of the people who were sailing the boat, Jonah slept, He didn’t care. Finally he cared he got tossed over board, swallowed by a large fish, Jonah felt really bad, repented, went to the evil people, told them what God would do, they repented and God forgave them. Jonah was so happy! I’m sarcastic! No Jonah was mad. He sat in the desert and pouted. Jonah then got really hot in the desert outside of the city and cried out to God. So God gave him a plant to shade him and Jonah was happy. Then the plant was eaten by an insect and Jonah poured out his complaints about God.

Jonah was very, very aware of how he felt and He wanted his feelings to be more important than what God was doing in the world.

I have to tell you many of us care way to much about are current feelings than we do about what God is doing.

I am speaking to the ones who judge their spiritual state on what they feel.

But if you are going through an incredibly hard time right now in your life, sickness, death, I want to apologize because today’s sermon is not directed at you. We really care. It is ok to mourn. It is ok to grieve. But God doesn’t change based on our circumstances. We are dealing with how we can take on the same attitude of Jesus as we think about our spiritual state. Jesus followed God even when he was being crucified. If your life is a midst of tragedy right now, I want to maybe give you hope, that the Lord may, quickly bring you back to a time of peace and you will once again need to think about the answer to How are you doing spiritually and it will not revolve around the very real grief in your life. God is holding you in your grief. If your grief right now, rest now, and now we love you.

I want to reveal what God really thinks about how we should think when we answer this question. Beyond what religious practices we do and beyond how we feel. But about when we followers of Jesus ask each other, How are we doing spiritually, we need to think about our character, who we are, Look at this:

2 Peter 1:5–8 CSB

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I read these verses many months ago and God spoke to me so deeply that I had to share them with all of you. The end of the verses are really important.

If You want to be useful and fruitful in Jesus. Let me give an illustration of how.

It comes from The Chosen Bible Study, we were watching the video, and while this quote is not directly in the Bible the vibe of it is all over. See there was a thing that Peter said to Jesus as they left one miracle. He said to Jesus something that really holds the truth of what it means to be a follower of Jesus for you and I. Peter said to Jesus, “Thanks for letting me be a part of that.”

You see as we follow Jesus, God doesn’t need us for miracles, to transform people, to help people, to see lives change. But we get to be part of what God does.

We are saved by faith, not by our works, but as we allow God to change our character we get to be a part of what God does in this world.

2 Peter 1:8 CSB

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Useless is such a harsh word.

I really should stop calling people that.

I’m kidding. Yet, if you read what God calls us to be, and think about what the opposites would be you could quickly see why we would be useless. There are seven things we are called to be, what our character should be:

good, knowledgeable, self-controlled, enduring, Godly, brotherly affectionate, and loving.

This should be for you. If you are a follower of Jesus this should be growing in your character.

Let’s think about the opposite of any of those:

evil, stupid, impulsive, quick to quit, immoral, mean, and hateful.

Anyone of these would make a person useless in the body of Christ. If a person is quick to quit how can they be loving when bad times come. Some of you are going through a tough time right now, you need your fellow brothers and sister to be there for you and do what they say. You do not need someone who says, “I’ll take you to the hospital at your next appointment” because they impulsively felt good in the moment, then does not actually show up. Who would want to worship alongside a person who says they love Jesus with all their heart but completely ignores what God wants and lives a life being immoral, dishonest, wicked.

Think about all the criticisms you hear about churches or church people, and the overwhelming majority of them revolve around these characteristics. Characteristics we aren’t supposed to have.

Let’s look back at the positive.

2 Peter 1:5–7 CSB

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

I have to tell you more about a crucial word in their, and remember the Bible was first written in very old Greek so it takes some work to figure out how to get the right meaning in modern day English, the word for supplement is pretty cool. My study in the Bible Knowledge Commentary led me to this cool truth,

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 1:5–7

The word supplement

There are seven things we are called to generously grow in: good, knowledgeable, self-controlled, have endurance, Godly, show brotherly affection, and love.

It’s not just a little bit but a lot.

Now I want you to look back at your answer, the one where you said how you were doing spiritually. How does your list match with this list. How does your thinking go with the thinking here from scripture?

Did you list the ways you are Good? State how you have grown in the knowledge of God? State the self-control you’ve shown, marvel in the endurance.

Honestly for many of us even though these actually might be greater than most when we come into the presence of God we realize how much greater we need to go.

This passed week I met a Seattle Seahawks fan. You know the Super Bowl Winning Seahawks. It was incredibly fun because she was super obnoxious. Even starting with, Hey how do you say yes in spanish and when I said the answer, “Si” she in the middle of the hotel lobby screamed, “HAWKS!”

As one fan to another, I appreciated the joy. But do you know what I immediately wanted to talk about as a 49er fan? NEXT YEAR! Because her team had reached the highest possible victory in the sport. There was nothing better.

In your life, you might have a kind of spiritual depression where you focus more on the fact that you haven’t won the super bowl of Goodness or Self-Control, Endurance or Godliness and think of yourself negatively, with guilt, as a loser. But even if you had shown the most self-control this past week, you are enduring so much, you can’t possibly reach Self-Control super bowl status. Because life is not over. Look again at the action word in this verse.

2 Peter 1:5 NLT

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge,

Championship, arrival, being finished, is not what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Being a follower means you generously pursue these. It’s not about arrival it is about focus. We will always need Jesus more. It’s about in order to grow in Goodness I need to lean on Jesus every day. Grow in knowledge, means grow more in my relationship with Jesus.

So we look at your answer to your question earlier and we wad it up, I want to ask you again,

The judge of spiritual health is pursuing generously for our faith goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

Are these visible in your life?

How are you doing spiritually?