How to live the Christian life series
How to have a Christ like Attitude
Part three of 12
Acknowedgement: Dr. Henry Schorr, Calgary AB
Good morning. Several years ago Stella Lieback sued McDonalds for pouring hot coffee on herself. Her grandson was driving the car with Stella in it. At her request he stopped the car so she could add cream to her coffee. She spilled the coffee on her leg and burned herself. Her lawsuit originally awarded her $2.7 million in punitive damages. The judge later reduced it to $480 thousand. That set off the Stella awards for frivolous lawsuits.
An example was in 2006, while shopping at a mall, a lady named Meckler stepped outside and was "attacked" by a rabid squirrel that lived among the trees and bushes. And "while frantically attempting to escape from the squirrel and detach it from her leg, [Meckler] fell and suffered severe injuries," her resulting lawsuit says. That’s the mall’s fault, the lawsuit claims, demanding in excess of $50,000, based on the mall’s "failure to warn" her that squirrels live outside.
Then there was the man that purchased a new motor home. He set the cruise control. Then he got up and with the vehicle moving at 70 miles per hour went to the back to make coffee. Then the vehicle crashed and went off the road. He sued because the owner’s manual failed to warn him of the risks of the motor home running on cruise control without a human at the wheel.
We laugh because these decisions are so absurd. How is it possible for judges and juries to make such decisions? Yet these are not the only things that cause us to shake our heads.
I have been a witness to many family conflicts. As an outside observer I wonder as I look back ‘how did things that turn out so bad.’
As we look at some churches we also wonder how did things get so bad? When churches are stressed young people think I cannot invite my friends here. The big people don’t even get along. My friends could care less if your Baptist or Pentecostal, or your arguments about the Bible and other things. My friends just need hope. They need love.
Many people have a house of conflict. Many churches are strained and off focus. They have a house of strife, even though people are just looking for hope and peace.
So for the next two weeks were going to be looking at ‘how to get along in the Christian church.’ So would you stand with me as we read this next section together?
Reading of Phil. 2:1-11
Paul is very concerned that this wonderful work that was started in Philippi would be destroyed by conflict in the church.
Nothing will destroy our joy faster than people not getting along.
Nothing will destroy our witness faster than disunity in the local church
God stands back and says fine, go at it. But I am not going to use you. There will be no witness. If we put the truths in this passage into practice it will bring peace and harmony to our lives. Paul is concerned that conflict be killed in the church. He knows that nothing destroys our collective joy faster than when we do not get along. I can walk into a church and know right away if they are getting along. He is going to give us four mentors to look at: Jesus, himself, Timothy and Epaphroditus.
In order to have joy filled life and a church useful to the master we must:
1. Maintain a Christ like perspective
We need to keep the big picture in mind, what we are here for. We often get buried in minor things in the church, style of worship, times of service, type of governance, budget differences, all secondary things; not one is eternal
We shake our heads and say how we got into this mess, whereby we disagree on so many things.
We must draw our identity from Christ; not from what others say. The flesh tempts you to prove to others how important you are. On the other hand the Spirit of God says rest in your identity in Christ. The flesh drives you to bring glory to yourself.
Then we focus on who we know, what we know and the degrees we have
We chase our dreams which often just bring glory to our self.
The flesh says ‘hold onto my rights.’
I am not what my resume says. I am first and foremost a child of the King.
It is not going to matter what people think of me at my funeral. What matter is what God will say about me. If were living for what others say about us were living for the wrong things
When you have lost your joy and you’re tempted to lash out at someone remember who you are in Christ.
Paul says -Vs. 1 ‘make my joy complete by being like minded
Being like minded means to think the same way about eternal things
You many have had the worst day ever. But do not lose sight of the fact that God loves you. You are His forever child.
In order to have a Christ like perspective we must remember His:
a. Position in Christ
Imagine for a moment what you would consider the most comfortable place on the planet (Israel, Hawaii)
For you maybe it is the chair your sitting on – you drift off better here than anywhere else. That is what physical comfort feels like. Have you ever wondered what spiritual comfort is?
It is the knowledge that Jesus loves me
Jesus has compassion for me
Jesus wants to do my day with me
I am loved by the King of Kings
There is one who loves you with an everlasting love and His name is Jesus
In order to have a Christ like perspective we must remember His:
b. Purpose for our lives
Verse two Paul says be one in purpose
This may shock some of you but God’s ultimate purpose for you life is not to be happy or healthy
God’s ultimate purpose for our lives is godliness
Happiness is all about me, getting my needs met and seeing things my way
It spills over into the local church
If you don’t do things my way I am not giving
I am out of here
These attitudes kill the very work that the Holy Spirit wants to do in our lives
Happiness and godliness are not the same
It’s not about us
It is about becoming closer to Jesus and becoming more Christ like
Were going to have trouble in this world and conflict – expect it
Were going to run into unhappy people; difficult people
There will be people who will see your motives in an unfair way
Some will feel intimidated by you and ignore you
Some will be envious of you
They will say unkind things about you behind your back
They will not even like you
Expect those kinds of things
Do not be shocked by them
Such is life in this broken world
Let’s ask God to see his purposes through our difficult days
Do not let Satan get you off focus for what God is calling you to do
The truth is this planet has gone way off the mark from God’s original intentions
The question is ‘how are you going to respond to that?’
You see it is not the things that happen to you in life so much
The real issue is will you respond in a Christ like way
Let’s take a real life example
Have you stopped to consider why God allowed that difficult person in your life?
You just think they are difficult to work with
Have you ever stopped to think that it might be you?
Have you prayed for patience lately?
Have you prayed to love those who are difficult?
O God I do not understand this brother in Christ
I need your help to love them
Have you ever thought God may have allowed that person into your life to draw you closer to Himself?
One day were going to stand before King Jesus
What is going to matter is whether we drew close to Him by making things right with others and serving Jesus
Don’t let difficult people or times drive you away from God
Let them drive you to your knees in dependence and worship
2. Maintain a Christ like love
Vs 3. Consider others better than yourselves
Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others
We do not do this naturally
We tend to be proud; selfish by nature
A Christ like love is an agape love - a decision to love another
- -saying no to selfish ambition
- Sibling rivalries as children
- Competed against siblings or others for adult approval
- Now older and more sophisticated but some of us are still competing with our brothers or sisters in Christ
- In the Christian church were supposed to be on the same team and family but were competing against one another
- Well let me tell you what I think we need
- I have my rights here
- There is no agape love in those attitudes
- Every time that spirit wells up inside of you a decision needs to be made
- You have to say no to selfish ambition
- You need to say no to vain conceit – who is noticing me
- The heart of that is pride
- Make a conscious decision to stop blowing your horn
- Stop getting all bent out of shape when someone does not accept your ideas or agree with you
- You keep thinking that way and you will become one very unhappy person
- So what does it mean to be like minded
- Have you ever thought of that
- Does it mean I come to some meeting and yell the loudest about my point of view
- Does it mean that the members and adherents all agree about the same things
- No
- As Christians, we’re all headed to heaven. We’re headed in the same direction. So the Bible says we’re to have fellowship with each other. Because the Bible says the church is a fellowship, a top priority in fellowship is harmony and unity. You can have unity without having uniformity.
- Have you noticed we’re all different? We have different colored hair, different colored skin. We’re different ages. We’re different sizes. We like different music. God loves diversity. Thank God we’re not all alike. It would really be boring if there was only vanilla in the world. I like many flavors. And so does God. God made you to be a flavor and He wants you to be you, not somebody else.
- When we talk about unity, we have unity because we’re all saved by Jesus Christ, not because we all look alike, act alike, breathe alike, talk alike or even dress alike.
- Unity has nothing to do with us all agreeing on the type of preacher, type of music, what we use the building for, how we use our funds
- The Bible says "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." The next verse says, "Let us concentrate on the things that make for harmony and the growth of our fellowship together." The Bible teaches that anything that causes disunity is sin.
- When you cause conflict in a church, when you get Christians mad at other Christians, what you’re doing is destroying the fellowship. And if you destroy the fellowship, you don’t have a church.
- If your mad at one another you have destroyed your witness to outsiders
- Do not demand you rights
- A church is not a democracy. A church is a theocracy. God is in charge and our whole job is to find out what God wants us to do and then do it.
- We can only find out through humility and prayer
- So being like Christ is a decision to put my own selfish ambition aside and to seek what is best for this body of Christ
- We need to say no to selfish ambition and say yes to some things
- We should see others as worthy of respect and honor
- Treat others well and with respect
- Say nothing that will tear them down
- Have their best interests in mind
- That means to have a daily ambition to serve others in any way that you can
- We often make a decision to look after our own needs first
- Then we wonder why our marriages are in trouble
- We wonder why our churches struggle
- We wonder why our relationships are strained
- One man passionately sang this hymn at the church ‘Lord take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee.’
- The man stood there singing that hymn with his wife at his side
- The man was in the pastors office by mid-week
- He told the pastor he was leaving his wife
- He was really saying ‘Pastor take my wife and let me be. I need her anywhere but consecrated to me.’
- It is one thing to sing about sacrifice but it another thing to live it out daily
- If you refocus on Christ your going to have to make a meal for the sick
- It means that you stop looking at the church and saying ‘they should do this; they should do that.’ ‘I don’t like this or that.’
- Instead you roll up your sleeves in humility and say ‘how can I help.’
- Instead of complaining you set your alarm and get up and come and pray with us on Sunday mornings
- You want to see the church grow but when is the last time you had a newcomer over for lunch
- When you have other Christians over do you find ways to be thankful for the ministries and what we have
- When is the last time you talked as a family about how you can serve
Jesus in the local church
-God never called anyone to sit and soak; He called you to serve and give
- Joy comes to those who come to serve and not those who look to be served
- It means instead of watching a hockey or football game you serve your family; take out the garbage, shovel the walk, make a meal for someone else
3. We need to have a Christ like attitude
- vs. 5 what kind of attitude did Jesus have
- attitude of humility
- humility is not thinking less of yourself
- it is not putting yourself down
- Humility is when I don’t demand my rights; my agenda
- There is not a pastor I know that has not had someone say to them ‘well if you don’t listen to me I am not giving to this church.’
- That is an un-Christ like attitude
- Humility is a decision to think more of others
- it is an attitude or a decision not to nurture the pride within us
- the truth is most of us would rather move up than down
- most of us by nature have that desire to climb that corporate ladder
- and sometimes if things do not work out that way we sulk
- yet the Bible says that you can get addicted to power and achievement
- you begin to think you don’t God
- then hey I don’t really need that wife of mine
- no time for the kids anymore
- in the end you may have gained what your after but you will find yourself alone
- if you want to have a joy filled life, and joy filled relationships then you need to let go of your perceived rights
- Jesus did not let equality with God to get in the way of the mission God called Him to
- Make no mistake – Jesus is God
- He chose to submit himself to God the Father and take his direction from God
- Now he did not stop being God when he came to earth
- But He came from the top and chose to go to the bottom
- He took on the form of man
- He did not come as the Prime Minister of Israel
- He came as a helpless baby and was born into a poor family
- This is the most incredible demotion in the history of mankind
- Royalty did not have a pompous ceremony to celebrate his birth
- Just a few shepherds on a hill
- He did not stay at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem or a Five Star resort in Tel Aviv
- He was born in a cave with smelly animals
- Jesus released his rights
- He made himself nothing taking on the nature of servant
- He gave away his life for others
- He did not come to serve but to serve and give his life for you and I
- He stooped down and washed his disciples smelly feet
- He willingly obeyed God the Father
- He did this for our redemption so we could live with Him in glory forever
- The way to kill that ugly pride is to humble yourself
- Every time you choose:
- to serve others in some way
- to forgive others
- to not get revenge
- to let it go
- your emptying yourself of that ugly pride
- your opening yourself up to become more like Jesus
- Pat Nixon – the Mustard Street Ministry - Gov. General said why do you do this
- He said this is how I worship God
- Worshipping like we do is important
- We place far too much weight on what we do here in 1.5 hours
- Every day we are to worship God in spirit and truth
- True humility says I need help (Pastors/Board retreat)
- I let God be God and realize I cannot be:
- The perfect husband
- The perfect pastor
- The perfect employee
- The perfect boss
- The perfect leader
- When someone is humble they can laugh at themselves
- They are not uptight about life
- As I have said I already know that I am going to fail you
- Will you give me an opportunity to make things right with you?
- You can tell you are becoming a humble servant by how you react when others treat you badly
- When you think of a humble person isn’t that the kind of person that you would like to spend time with
- Isn’t that the kind of the person that you would like to be married to
- Isn’t that the kind of a boss you would like to have
- Are you willing to be wide open before God and say here I am
- Direct me, teach me, guide me, use me
- I am ready to serve, not just attend but serve King Jesus
- I am ready to obey the Lord
- Ask God to keep you humble
- St. Francis of Assisi – every time someone gave him a compliment he would ask someone to remind him of all his faults
- Barbara Glance – consultant who spoke to a crowd of 3000
- Spoke on serving others
- 19 year old man there with down syndrome
- Just a grocery bagger in the store
- Decided there was something he could do to serve others
- He decided he would make up 300 notes of encouragement for customers
- He took the notes and put one in each customer’s grocery bag
- He would look the customer in the eye and tell them about it
- Manager called Barbara the consultant
- He said your not going to believe this – tells her about Johnny
- He said Johnny’s lines three times longer than the other baggers in the store
- So then the manager would get on the Intercom urging people to move lanes
- Nobody moved
- Johnny became the most important person in that store
- His example impacted all the others
- Floral department changed their policy
- Instead of throwing out roses that were seconds they found a senior to pin the rose on
- Bakery – gave free cookies to children
- That store was a brand new place
- The Bible says the First will be last; last first
- The Bible says that the servant is the greatest of all
- If it can happen in a grocery store surely it can happen here
- You can become the most important person in this church – when you say Jesus live your life through me
- You can bring healing to the relationships around you instead of harboring a prideful attitude
- We all need healing
- That God’s spirit will do a revival right here at Calvary
- You see if were going to become just like Jesus then someone we need to change, not Jesus
- Allow the Spirit of god to talk to you about what you need to surrender, what you need to release, what you need to let go of, and start to serve others with humility.
Conclusion
I had people bow their heads and asked the Holy Spirit to speak to their hearts about their own attitudes.
