Attitude Toward the Church

We’re talking about Jesus becoming the Lord of our attitudes. How many of you need an attitude adjustment this morning? Some of you are raising your hands. I love it. That's honest. Welcome to Hilliard Church of Christ, where real people are finding real hope. So we're being real this morning.

I would guess most of us probably grew up being taught that we should have a positive attitude. A positive attitude has a good influence on people's lives, and it affects the way we move and act and have our being, and it influences people in a positive way.

A bad attitude is the exact opposite. Who wants to be around a person who has a bad attitude? Nobody. It reduces our effectiveness. It dampens the enthusiasm of others. In my experience, people who have a poor attitude usually don't know they have a poor attitude. At the very least, they don't know the degree to which their spirit negatively impacts others. They might call themselves realistic, pragmatic, or cynical. But most people with poor attitudes are shocked if you tell them they need to adjust their attitude. We just don't like to be around people with bad attitudes. A negative employee turns off customers, drives everybody crazy in the workplace, and frustrates leaders. An athlete who has a poor attitude affects everybody on the team. Nobody wants to play with that guy. And typically, they start losing, and it's just not good. A pouting teenager can disrupt the harmony in the home. It can zap the family's happiness. A critical church member can drain the joy of dozens of others and quench the Holy Spirit's flow in a group.

Now, when Jesus becomes the Lord of our lives, there is no doubt that he begins to work on our attitudes.

Philippians 2:5 says…

2 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus.

So our attitude should be like Jesus’ attitude. As followers of Jesus, we ought to be becoming more and more like Jesus every single day. Unfortunately, there are some Christians who never catch on to this truth. And that is, Jesus is to be the Lord of our thinking as well as our behavior. Not just what we do, but what we think. So, that's what we're going to discover this morning. In Luke chapter nine four different groups of people who need what you might call an attitude adjustment. Maybe some of us could learn some lessons from these people today. So, we're going to talk about how Jesus is the Lord of our attitudes every single day, and how we relate to other people in our lives.

Let's start with the church family.

Our attitude ought to be one of humble servanthood toward the church family.

Let me ask this. How do you feel about your church family? Don't you love it here? I love our church family. I've said this before. I still believe it. This is the best church family I've ever been a part of. It's amazing. Let me ask this question: Have you ever thought about ways you can serve your church family? Now let me drill it down a little bit deeper. Have you ever thought, “How could I serve one other person in my church family? What could I do to encourage somebody to make somebody's life better?”

That's not what the disciples were thinking about. They needed an attitude adjustment among their friends.

Luke 9:46 says…

46 An argument started among them about who was the greatest of them.

That doesn't happen in the church, does it? Who's the greatest?

Now I think by now the disciples are starting to realize that this Jesus thing is for real. Think about what's going on. They have discovered that Jesus is the Messiah. He is the Christ. He is the Son of the living God. And they've heard Jesus teach, they've watched him perform miracles, they've seen Jesus do these great things. And I think they've got to be thinking to themselves, “Man, we are on the cusp of something amazing. Jesus has come to turn this thing all upside down, and he is going to be king.” Now, in their minds, they think he's going to be king in Jerusalem and overthrow the Roman government. But their thinking is too small. He is King of kings and Lord of Lords. But in their minds, they've got to be thinking something amazing is about to happen.

Now, couple this with the thinking that it seems like Jesus has some favorites. Peter, James, and John are always disappearing to places by themselves. We talked about Jairus’ daughter a couple of weeks ago, and whom did he take with him? Peter, James, and John. Later, Jesus took Peter, James, and John to the mountain of transfiguration. And what happens on the mountain of transfiguration? Well, Moses, Elijah, and God show up, and they're all talking together. Peter, James, and John get to witness this; they get to experience this with Jesus. And they've got to be thinking we must be the favorites. This is what happens. Perceived favoritism can stimulate some hard feelings among each other, can't they? So, of course, they started arguing about who's the greatest.

It happens in our world today. Politicians jockey for position leading up to the day of the election. Who's the best? I'm the best. No, vote for me. I'm the best. You know, it just goes back and forth. They're trying to be the greatest. Athletes who score the most points and do the best for the team. Well, they get the most fans, they get the most media attention, and they're aiming to be the GOAT, the greatest of all time. Business leaders work hard to capture the attention of their boss or their supervisor. They work hard because they want the corner office, they want the highest salary, they want to climb the next rung up the ladder, and they're jockeying for position. Siblings get jealous when the newborn baby comes because the question is, :”Sho's the favorite?” I'll give you a little hint. It's the oldest that's the favorite. Christians think, “If I'm going to be somebody in the church, then I've got to be an elder. I've got to be a preacher. I've got to be a ministry leader. Or at the very least, I've got to be close to the preacher, the pastor. I've got to be close to one of the ministry team members.”

Ego is an amazing thing. It's always getting us to compete for who's the greatest. But our attitude is to be the same attitude Jesus has.

So let's see what happens. They're saying, “I'm the greatest.” “No, I'm the greatest, you know.”

Matthew 9:47-48…

47 But Jesus, knowing their inner thoughts, took a little child and had him stand next to him. 48 He told them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me welcomes him who sent me. For whoever is least among you—this one is great.”

It seems the disciples, up to this point, had been concerned with associating only with those who were important in society, with the influential people. But Jesus comes along. He redefines who's important in the kingdom of God. He says, “If you want to be great in my kingdom, then you need to spend time serving people who in the eyes of the world don't matter much, like this little child.”

Serve the child as much as you would the adult. Pay attention to the elderly widow as much as you would pay attention to the successful business person. Focus on the disabled person in the wheelchair as much as you would focus on the professional athlete, the blue collar worker as much as the CEO, the unattractive person as much as a beautiful person. If we want to be great, if we want to be important, if we want to be influential in God's kingdom, then we need to disregard the status symbols of the world and serve the least of these.

A Christian author once wrote, ”The Almighty didn't act high and mighty. The Holy One wasn't holier than thou. The one who knew it all wasn't a know-it-all. The one who made the stars didn't keep his head in them. The one who owns all the stuff of earth never strutted it.”

Our attitude ought to be like Jesus, a humble servant.