Some of you know that last week I graduated with my doctorate. Thank you very much for the cards. But you may not know that I had to learn about the periodic table of the elements. In fact, I had to memorize the entire table. I don’t want that information to go to waste, so I thought I would share a little bit of my knowledge. The first question is how many elements are on the periodic table of the elements. There are 118 elements, 94 of which are from the earth and the rest of the 24 are synthetically made. The chemical elements on the table are made up of three parts. They are made up of the element symbol, the atomic number, and also the atomic weight. The element symbol is kind of a short hand instead of having to write out the entire word. We would use a C for carbon or an H for hydrogen or sometimes they would attack a lower case letter like Li for lithium. That is the symbol for the chemical element. The atomic number is a little bit more difficult to understand. The atomic number has to do with the number of protons contained within an atom of the element. Are you following me? A proton is basically a charged up particle. Of course, the atomic weight has to do with the number of particles contained within the nucleus of the atom. You are all very impressed I can tell. You shouldn’t be because everything I just told you I learned by watching a two-minute video yesterday on the internet. Fortunately, for me, my doctorate had nothing to do with the periodic table of the elements. Fortunately, for you, as we enter into this new sermon series, you don’t have to know anything about the periodic table of the elements, but it would be helpful to know the six elements of what we call the spiritual life. The more you know about it, the more you memorize it, the more you apply it, the more likely you are going to continue on your track towards Christ likeness.
Now for a little refresher. We began this summer by ending up an 11-week series that actually turned into 20 weeks that was called Learning to Live Everyday Life Like Jesus. It was a sermon series based on the Sermon on the Mount. In that sermon series, Jesus painted a picture of what he would call the kingdom life. He dealt with a lot of heart-related issues like lust and greed and judgement and lying and those types of things. Things that we had to work on in our heart. Things that, if they somehow would get in our way, could actually be detrimental to our discipleship growth. Jesus taught us a lot of things in the sermon. He preached a good sermon there. But as we know, Jesus was more than just simply a good preacher and a good teacher. He was somebody who modeled the kingdom life. He modeled a life that wasn’t simply reserved for some distant time in the future, but he modeled life that really was meant to be applied right in the midst of the current situation. Right in the midst of the chaos of everyday life. So if we are going to truly live like Jesus, we have to move beyond the Sermon on the Mount and begin to observe who Jesus lived his life and begin to imitate that life. Specifically, we crack open the gospels and we begin to look at how Jesus interacted with his Father and how Jesus interacted with others. Then we look at our own spiritual life, make a comparison, and hopefully begin to make adjustments so that our life begins to be more in line with the life that God intended for us. As simple as pie, right? Very easy to do. Unfortunately, it is not because if you open the gospels you know that Jesus had a lot of stuff going on. Jesus had a phenomenal spiritual life. A phenomenal three-year ministry. It is difficult to imitate what was going on there. The easiest thing to do is to break it down into some simple elements. I have chosen six elements that are really bite-sized morsels that we can trace back to the gospels and over time begin to train ourselves to begin to apply them to our lives. We are going to look at what I call six spiritual elements.
First of all, Jesus was God attentive. Secondly, he was compassion oriented. Third, he was sacramentally minded. Fourth, he was word centered. Fifth, he was spirit empowered. And sixth, he was sin resistant. These are the elements that we are going to look at. Granted, these are not all the elements, all the components, all the dimensions of Jesus’ spiritual life, but I really think if we begin to get a handle on some of these, at a minimum what we are going to do is begin to balance out our spiritual life. It is so easy for us and for individuals and even entire denominations to become kind of lopsided in their spirituality. That is our aim to help round out our spiritual life and really round out the spiritual life of the congregation. Over the next six weeks, I am going to unpack each one of these. The way I am going to do it is quite simple. Just simply go back and try to trace it again to the gospels to show that these elements are really part of Jesus’ spiritual life. Then what I would like to do is bring some historical examples or even contemporary examples or even people from the congregation today that seem to exhibit certain ones of these elements in their own life.
Today, what I am going to do, since it is an introduction, is just kind of quickly go over these elements and give you a snapshot of how they do relate to Jesus’ life. The first one we are going to think about is the idea that Jesus was God attentive, which really is another way of saying he had a life of ongoing attention to God. If you read the gospels, you know that Jesus was very in tune with God. Very aware of God. Very attentive to God. We see it especially in his prayer life. If anything, Jesus was a man of prayer. Lots of prayer. Scripture after scripture talks about him praying. But one particular passage that seems to really highlight his commitment to prayer comes out of the book of Mark. You may recall that people were getting to know Jesus. They knew that he had healing powers so they started bringing the sick and the demon possessed to Jesus all night long. Jesus just continued to heal the people of the diseases and to cast out the demons. He was up all night. But when he was done, rather than just simply crashing on the couch and sleeping until noon, what did he do? We are told in Mark that “Very early in the next morning while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” This demonstrates that Jesus had a commitment to prayer. He had to. He knew that he needed to be spiritually recharged so to speak. Jesus didn’t simply see prayer as an end in itself. Really, I think he saw it as a means to an end. A means of constantly being attentive to God. Being constantly in God’s presence and God’s presence in his life. Likewise, if we are going to imitate Jesus, we have to change our thinking about how we approach prayer. Maybe prayer isn’t simply submitting some request up to God, although it is very appropriate. Or checking prayer off our spiritual to-do list. It is more than that. The end being to get continually in the presence of God and have the presence of God in front of you. Which means sometimes we have to move beyond the morning prayer closet or the morning ten minutes with prayer with God where we submit our request up and begin to make prayer a very active and vital part of our everyday life. Make prayer a part of our calendar so that we would train ourselves to be attentive to God not just in the morning, not just in the pockets of prayer, but all through the day. So again, Jesus was very God attentive.
Jesus was also very compassionate oriented, which basically means he had a life committed to compassion and justice for all people. Most of you know the basic gospel that Jesus came and he died for our sins and that is all a good thing, but basically, as we have talked about for the last several months, Jesus didn’t just die on the cross so we could have our ticket into heaven when we die. There is a little bit more than that. He wanted to give us a slice of heaven even right now. He wanted to do that by beginning to show what the kingdom life would look like. Basically, he came down for the purpose of reversing the effects of the fall or reversing the effects of sin in the world. He would do that by beginning to reverse the effect of injustice in the world. Injustice in institutions and systems that would enslave people. Not only that, he would begin to reverse the effects of the fall on individuals who were enslaved to their own sinful habits and their own sinful choices. He wasn’t someone who just talked the talked. Jesus obviously walked the walk. We know he did heal the sick. We know he did cast out demons. He also hung out with the so-called social misfits. He helped reverse the social stigma of the day. He always offered forgiveness of sins. He always offered to give people back their dignity by accepting him as Lord and returning up to the Father. So Jesus was about reversing the effects of the fall. The bottom line is Jesus saw the mess that the world was in. He saw the mess that the entire humanity was in. Instead of just simply bypassing and turning his head like many of us do, he chose to engage it. He did that because, as this passage tells us, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Look around this world today. Look around this community. People are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. They don’t even know it. They need compassion. If we are to be like Jesus, we have to be people who are compassionate oriented. That is a very difficult thing to do. I think Austin alluded to it last week. It is very difficult to know where to be compassionate. We know that Jesus was compassionate and we are to be compassionate, which means we are to partner with Jesus as he brings his compassion to a lost and dying world. In doing so, what happens is we begin to reverse the effects of the fall. We become participant in the renewing of all creation. That is an awesome thing. Jesus was indeed compassion oriented.
He was also sacramentally minded. The sacrament is a fancy churchy word that basically means a visible means of an invisible grace, which is a fancy way of saying that we do religious things that help make us more aware of the presence of God. Every Sunday, including in this church, we have things that technically, collectively are referred to as the sacraments. The first being Holy Communion. That is considered in many churches a sacrament. Also baptism is considered a sacrament. Marriage in the Catholic Church is considered a sacrament. These are all obviously good things. Things that if viewed rightly actually begin to help us make aware of the presence of God, and over time, they begin to shape us and mold us. These things are all good things. But it doesn’t mean that we need to limit the sacramental mindset to what goes on behind the four walls of the church. If you read through the gospel, you get the sense that Jesus didn’t have two different parts. He didn’t have the Sunday morning Jesus that came out when he went to the temple, but then he had a Monday morning Jesus that showed up at the carpentry shop or a Saturday morning Jesus that showed up fishing with the disciples. You don’t see that. You see him seamlessly weaving the sacred and the secular together. He was the embodiment of the sacred and the secular. We know that by the passage John 1:14 that says “The word (being Jesus) became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us.” Do you see the merging of the divine and the earthly? The sacred and the secular. This demonstrates that God had no intention of totally separating what is sacred and what is secular. He wanted us to see that there is value in both. Anything that God has touched is sacred. Not just what goes on Sunday morning. Likewise, if we want to be like Jesus, we have to be careful of trying to put the sacred and secular in separate pockets to restrict it. No. We should begin to try to have the sacred mindset that brings the sacred and the divine into all the different arenas of life. Into our homes. Into our schools. Into our workplaces. Develop a sacred mindset that sees everything as sacred. So what will happen is other people will begin to see the presence of God in all those arenas. We know that Jesus was sacramentally minded.
We also know that he was word centered. It was basically a life centered on the written word of God. We also know in John 1:1 that Jesus was the word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus was the word of God. The very voice of God in some sense. But he also was someone who knew the written word of God. To him, the written word of God at that time would be what we refer to as the Old and the New Testament. He would know it. In fact, he would read it. He would memorize it. He would meditate on it. He knew the word inside and out. He knew that he needed to know the word of God because it was through that word of God that he was given strength to confront people who may challenge him. Especially the devil, Satan. The story goes that after Jesus was baptized he ended up in the wilderness. He was in the desert for 40 days where it simply says that he prayed and fasted. Then it says he was hungry. After 40 days he was hungry. Of course he was hungry. The devil saw this as an opportunity to come in and tempt him. He said if you truly are the Son of God, then why don’t you take these rocks and turn them into loaves of bread and then you will have something to eat. This is when Jesus gives his classic line where he says “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Amazing passage but again speaks to Christ’s word centeredness. Speaks to the importance of him knowing the word. Likewise, we are to be people of the book. People of the Bible, which means we have to read it. We have to know it. We have to believe it. We have to meditate it. Most importantly, we have to be willing to freely give it to others. That is why when you learn a new passage, the way you are going to remember it is giving it out to somebody else. Always have a word that you can give to somebody else. In order to do that, we have to shake the dust off our Bibles. We have to quit seeing the Bible as some sort of an ancient relic that has no relevance at all for today and see it as Jesus saw it. Life giving, life sustaining, very word of God that can, 4,000 years later, continue to meet the deepest spiritual and emotional needs of people. In order to do that, you have to be word centered like Jesus.
Jesus was also spirit empowered, which basically means a life empowered and directed by the Holy Spirit. We know the story of Jesus’ baptism. When he became baptized, the heavens opened up and it says “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.” The spirit of God came on him. The spirit of God came and empowered him. Not just simply for that moment. We see evidence that from that point forward the spirit of God was with Jesus all through his ministry. You wonder why? What’s its purpose? I really believe it is that he would be able to have the power available to him to do the miracles he did. To cure the sick. To cast out demons. To part the seas. To multiply the loaves and the fishes. Even to raise people from the dead. He would have the power of the spirit with him in order that he might do this thing. There is a passage that really demonstrates that Jesus was aligned with the power of the Holy Spirit. It comes out of later on in Matthew. Jesus is going about and he is doing what he does a lot, casting out demons. The Pharisees come along and look at him and they are a little bit jealous. They don’t understand what he is doing. So they make a very dumb comment. They say he is just casting out demons by the power of the chief demon, Satan or Beelzebub or whatever they called him at that time. It is just a silly proposition. They are suggesting that Satan is using Jesus to cast out his own demons, which makes no sense at all. In fact, Jesus was the one who made the comment that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. But he uses the opportunity to really explain to the people what is going on. He goes on to say, “But if I drive out demons by the spirit of God (in other words the Holy Spirit), then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” This passage is just powerful. It demonstrates two things. It demonstrates that Jesus had to rely on the power, not his own strength, but the power of the Holy Spirit to cast out demons. He is also saying if this is happening in front of your eyes right now, then something big is happening. The kingdom of God is here. It is unfolding. Get ready because something is happening. God is unfolding his kingdom rule and reign on this earth. Likewise, when Jesus was spirit empowered, we are spirit empowered. Obviously, by now, hopefully you have figured out that this past week we had a phenomenal week of Vacation Bible School. We had all these props leftover. You saw the kids sing. Some of you were participants in it. Some of you were key volunteers. I asked the volunteers, what was the last lesson of the week? I taught the lesson. Jesus gives us power. Follow him. As I told the kids that power came by way of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was crucified, he died, and he walked the earth for 40 days letting people know he was around. Then he told his disciples to not go out and tell everybody he was alive but to wait because he had a gift that he was going to send to them. As soon as he ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit came down and filled the church up with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit became known as our advocate or also our helper. The one who gives us help. We actually use the acronym H.E.L.P. to explain what the Holy Spirit does for us. The Holy Spirit examines our heart to make sure our heart motives are pure. The Holy Spirit speaks to us maybe not audibly through our ears but speaks to us somehow to be able to give a word to somebody else. The Holy Spirit gives us legs to either walk towards areas of service or walk away from areas of sin. The Holy Spirit uses people to be able to speak into your life and for you to speak into other people’s lives. The Holy Spirit is our helper available to that and not only that, he gives us spiritual gifts. Things that we could not do on our own. Just like Jesus. Jesus could not do on his own without the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus gives us power. Follow him. He gives us power so that we might be able to go and continue to do his kingdom work on earth.
Finally, one of the things you can say about Jesus was that he was sin resistant. In a nutshell, I have defined as simply a life that responds as it should when it should. How many of you think that Jesus was capable of sinning? How many of you think that he was not capable of sinning? Some of you just don’t know. Most of us don’t know. I tend to come from the school of thought that I believe that Jesus had to be capable of sin. Because we know by the story of the wilderness that he was tempted. If you are tempted but you have no possibility of sinning, is it really a temptation? We know from the book of Hebrews that Jesus was tempted, yet he did not sin. The writer writes “For we do not have a high priest (speaking of Jesus) who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet was without sin.” If Jesus was not capable of sinning, how can we relate to him? We can’t. He was fully God and fully human. It is a mystery, but that is how it is described. Jesus wasn’t simply just tempted in the wilderness. He was tempted all through his entire life. Just read through the gospels and look at all the temptations that were thrown at him. Yet he did not sin. The reason I believe that he didn’t sin has really nothing to do with the fact that he was the Son of God but that he was so in tuned with the will of the Father, so wired in and so connected to him that in some sense he really couldn’t sin. It would just be insanity. It would be outside of himself. It would be inconsistent with his identity. So when a temptation would come, he would say get out of here. Why would he want to do anything that would offend the Father? Likewise, we are to be sin-resistant people. I defined sin resistance as a life that responds as it should when it should, which means when we are faced with some sort of a temptation or even a trial, we don’t respond as the world would respond. We don’t yield to the ways of the world. When we do mess up, we certainly don’t use an excuse and say I am only human. No Christian should ever say that. What it does is demonstrate you really don’t know much at all about Jesus. You are comparing humanity to the fallen broken humanity of the world rather than the humanity that Jesus came to model for us. To show us what the true human was capable of looking like. A human that was capable of sinning but yet because of that ongoing intimate relationship with the Father, it almost seems absurd to even think about sin, because again, that is what it means to be truly human.
Those are the six elements of the spiritual faith or spiritual formation or whatever you want to call it. The six elements of Jesus. The things that we can observe in Jesus’ life. Things that we should try to imitate or at least try to compare ourselves to where we are with it. And ideally begin to make adjustments so we are in line with Jesus so that we are continuing to be on track to learning to live our life like Jesus and partnering with God as he makes his impact in the community, the city of Pittsburgh, and the world. Let us pray.
