I Will: Attitude

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 2:3-5, CSB)

Technically I was supposed to preach on Jeremiah chapter 2. I had told the team, hey, we're going to do Jeremiah chapter 2, we're going to talk about broken cisterns. There's a word there where God brings Israel into this judicial moment and says, why are you exchanging my glory for glories that are not glory? And he makes this joke about all the other gods from the east and the west, all these little g's. All these people are worshiping their gods and they don't give up their gods, and yet you have given up the God of the universe.

And I was like, oh, I'm going to preach it this week, and talk about my favorite thing, sin. The exchange of sin. Because really, if we understand it, most of our lives is this exchange. We have choices, and sometimes we make the choice to do the thing we know is wrong, and we come alongside Paul where he says, I know what is right but I do what is wrong. I think it's a beautiful thing to talk about, because it opens our eyes to the fact that we all have sinned, and it is something we need to hear.

But while we were in Copper Mountain this week, I don't know if you know this or not, but Alicia and I have a really bad problem with something. We are people watchers. And we enjoy it. I enjoy looking at people's faces, and how they smile or don't smile.

We were walking through Breckenridge, just trying to kill some time before dinner, and we sat down right in front of the Starbucks on Main Street, and we said, you know what, we're going to get some coffee and just sit here and enjoy people watching. And as we're watching people, there are dogs everywhere. I don't know what it is with Breckenridge and dogs. They made me miss my dog. And then this beautiful golden retriever came up, and the owner was like, you don't have to be friendly with everybody. And I said, well, he could be friendly with me. And she said, really? And she comes over with the dog and gives me treats, and he does all kinds of cool tricks, sit and give kisses. Those are the two I did. I love the kisses. A little wet, but worth it.

While we were sitting there, we were enjoying the different languages we were hearing. Russian, and Indian, and some Spanish.

It's funny that when it comes to profanity, sometimes it just is out there. I don't know about you, but in my younger days profanity was an adjective in my life. Every word I had, had to have some sort of profane word attached to it.

And I was sitting there, and there was an older gentleman on a bicycle riding up, and Alicia looks over at me and she says, you're working on your sermon this week. And I said, yeah, you know, sometimes you just can't turn it off. And I'm supposed to be on this retreat.

And all of a sudden we hear this honking of horns. Honking of horns this way, and honking of horns, and honking of horns. And then it was right in front of us. There was this older gentleman riding his bicycle up the hill, and a big old SUV behind him, and they were just laying on the horn. And as they went past this old man on the bike, they started yelling at him for being so slow on the main street. And of course they had profanities, and he had profanities.

And then it was really something, as I'm sitting there watching it. Have you ever noticed that whenever you're in a moment where there's conflict, you kind of pause, because you don't know what to say? There's a part of you that wants to rebut and rebuke and say, well, let me tell you. And that doesn't help me at all. And then what do you do? You stew on it in your mind, and you stew with it in your heart. And the next thing you know, it becomes a part of who you are.

And so as I'm sitting there studying for Jeremiah 2, going to talk about this exchange of sin, I said, you know what? We have an attitude problem at times in our life. And I have an attitude problem. And if I have one, and it's a human thing, then I know you have an attitude problem. Don't deny it. I know you do, because we're human.

The question is, if we go back to this word exchange, have you exchanged your attitude problem for the right attitude? Have you made the choice to glorify God in the way that you speak and act and do? Or have you chosen to live life self-glorifying you?

When I was a young kid, basketball was a big part of my life. We used to go out and play basketball all the time in Jane Lew, and everyone in the '90s had the same person who loved basketball. Who was your person? Michael Jordan. And I loved Michael Jordan, but I couldn't be Michael Jordan, because one, I'm not that good, and two, my best friend always chose to be Michael Jordan. In football he was Joe Montana. I was probably Barry Sanders or Emmitt Smith. That's who I would pick. And the Cowboys were cool back in the '90s. Now, not so much. Go Steelers. I actually moved from being a Cowboys fan to a Steelers fan at the time the Steelers lost the Super Bowl to the Cowboys. Go figure.

I was a Dennis Rodman fan. I loved Dennis Rodman because he was wild, and he was different than everybody else, and he was dominant. He wasn't the best shooter. He wasn't the best point maker. But he was a person who put all of his effort into getting the ball, and then getting it to Jordan. And I've always admired that.

And I can tell you from my life, most of my life trying to play basketball, I utterly failed at being a basketball player. And a lot of it is because of what I'm going to talk about. Pride. Pride. Arrogance.

I failed miserably at playing basketball. I went to my first basketball tryout and I failed miserably, because they wanted me to do layups and I had no clue what a layup was. They wanted me to do foul shots. I had no clue what that was. This was around sixth, seventh grade, and I failed.

So then I put every effort into being better. I started dribbling and learning how to do crossovers, and going through the legs, and going backwards, and becoming this magician of ball handling. And I worked really hard.

And then when I got to high school, my freshman year, it was my opportunity to join the freshman basketball team. I went to all the tryouts, and they had multiple tryouts because there were so many people. And believe it or not, as I am now, I was the fastest person there. I was the best dribbler there. Every single one-on-one matchup, I made it known to the coach. I don't care who is trying out. I want you to give me the hardest challenge. And I'm trying out, and I beat every single one of them one-on-one. I razzle-dazzled. I'm laying it up, and now I know everything. I'm foul shooting. I'm hitting my threes, except for if they were in the corners. I was horrible at that.

And close to the end of practice, almost every single tryout, I would hurt my ankle. I might have been the fastest kid there, but I was also the clumsiest kid there. I had weak ankles, and I would roll my ankle, and if I rolled my ankle I would fall down and hit my knee, and my knee would be sore, and now I couldn't walk. But every day I would show up the next day, taking the pain, pushing it away, saying, put me up against the best.

And on our final day of tryouts, practice was over, and we're waiting for the coach to come out and post who made the team. That's all it was. If your name wasn't on that paper, you didn't make it. And I was nervous. So I'm hobbling over to this paper on the wall that the coach had put up. And to my surprise, my name wasn't on it.

And I felt like it was the worst day of my life, because I already have other prideful issues in my life. One of them is that I don't like being rejected. I've lived my entire life trying not to be rejected. And my best friend, the guy that I beat one-on-one, made the team.

I had shown up early. I had stayed late. I had put the practice in. I had done everything that I was asked to do, and I dominated it. And here I am hanging my head as I'm walking out the door.

As I was gathering my things and walking out the door, the coach comes up and puts his arm around me and pulls me aside, and he begins telling me all the things he admired about my work ethic. He says, you were best at everything. Everything that I asked you to do. When you had to do suicides, when you had to run, when you did the laps around the gym, when you played one-on-one, you did absolutely amazing. Every match was an obstacle I put in front of you, and I wanted to see how you would react in those obstacles.

But before you leave, I wanted to tell you why I cut you. First, as you know, Matthew, you have never played organized basketball in your life.

And I hadn't. I grew up in a small town of Jane Lew, and all we had was the outdoor courts, where we would go and shovel the courts off in the snow, and they actually got us squeegees from the fire hall so we could squeegee the court.

And he was telling me, all the simple things, you did everything well one-on-one, but when you got into the team part of it, you didn't know what to do. You didn't know how to pass. You didn't know what man-on-man was. You didn't know any of the plays, the plays you would have learned in your younger years if you had gone to little league basketball.

Now, he's not blaming my mom or me for not being able to join little league, but that really bothered me, because I thought it was about dominating.

My second issue was this. He said, Matthew, you have the wrong attitude. He says, while you were playing, you got very prideful and you got very cocky. And a lot of times when you got cocky, you got injured, because you were showing off. And in your pridefulness you twisted your ankle. And every tryout that you've come out, you've done something in some way that you got injured. And I need a point guard who can stay healthy the entire season.

And so something that I learned that day is that you can have all the skill required to do something, but skill never trumps having the right attitude.

And I want to make this very clear. Our attitude determines our success and forges our future more than any factor in our life.

There's a book by John Maxwell, and it's about leadership and learning how to have a better attitude, and he says, never underestimate the power of your attitude.

I did. I underestimated, every single time, that my attitude would get in the way, that my pride would get in the way of something I was trying to accomplish in this life.

And Maxwell goes on to say, it is the advance man of our true selves. Its roots are inward, but its fruit is outward. It is your best friend, and it is your worst enemy. It is more honest and more consistent than your words and your experiences. It has an outward look based on your past experiences. It is the thing which draws people to us, or it is the thing that repels them. It is never content until it is expressed. It is the librarian of your past. It is the speaker of your present, and it is the prophet of your future.

So what we learn is that attitude is the key to many things God calls you into. Having the right attitude is the key to getting along with others. Having the right attitude is the key to living a Christlike life. It is the key to listening to the Holy Spirit. Having the right attitude is also having the key to hear him, to obey him, to walk forward into what it is that God is calling you into. And not just walking forward, but walking forward in an attitude that is joyful and peaceful.

One of the things we notice when we go to work is that if a worker has the right attitude, they will learn to do the job better, and then they will proceed to do the job cheerfully. We can go to work and be happy about it even when our job is the worst.

Now, I put that into practice one time. I used to work third shift, from eleven to seven, at the glue factory. And I would walk in every day at eleven and I would be the most cheerful person in the room. I would smile. All the guys are laying there, all scruffied up, and I've got to go shave, because you have to shave before you go to work. And they're sitting in there smoking their cigarettes, like, we've got to go to this hot box. And they would look over to me and say, well, Matthew, why are you so joyful?

Let me tell you about Jesus. Let me tell you about the experience I had this morning when I opened his word and I got reminded that God is faithful. Let me remind you that I don't have the perfect marriage, but I do have a perfect wife and an imperfect husband.

There's a story I hear oftentimes, and I'm going to apply it to my life. There's only two perfect people in this world. Jesus and my wife.

The husband and wife, when you think about marriage, have to have the right attitude. How do you handle difficult situations? You handle them when you have the right attitude, not only about each other, but also the right attitude about how you see God. You can respect your spouse with the right attitude when you're willing to love one another as Christ has loved the church.

But the thing I've learned is that the coach will always choose the athlete with the best attitude, even when they are not the best. And I think about that with employment too. The employer looks for the person who has the right attitude. Or the man or woman who is seeking someone to spend their life with.

Your attitude in life will determine how successful you are. Because even if you fail, your attitude says to have joy. Even if you fail at something, the attitude will be, get up, try again, do a do-over, redo, try to do something different with your life.

Your attitude in life determines your success.

Now, Paul is talking to the Philippians, and because of everything that we experience in life, we know somewhere deep within our hearts that we want to make sure that we are okay. And so what did my coach do? Paul puts the coach right back on me and says, listen, if you're going to live this life of no selfish ambition or conceit, you have to check your pride. You have to put it in check.

Some people would say, well, I would be happy in this life if all the jerks in my life weren't here. Right? And I don't know about you, but when you're driving down the interstate and that person cuts you off, or they drive around you and yell at you, what do you do? Well, if it wasn't for the idiots around me, I would have a perfect life. I would just be fine.

Well, the thing is, it seems like a good thing to say, but it's not always true. Listen. Attitudes are not caused by people or circumstances. Attitudes aren't caused by people or circumstances.

Now think about this. If you rewind life and go back to the garden, to Adam and Eve, they had perfect bodies. Think about their life. They would never die, because they had access to the tree of life. They had Dad walk around with them all the time. And they were in perfect union with the Father.

They never had to experience what it's like to get poison ivy or poison oak. They never had to experience what it's like to be shut up in your house because of COVID. They never had to experience the death of a loved one, or the potential death of a loved one. They never had to worry about being poor, whether they'll have enough. They never had to worry about being homeless. They never had to feel the things that we feel because of the fall. Loneliness.

Wouldn't that be amazing, to go through life knowing that you have the perfect relationship with the Father, and never feeling lonely, because you know the Father is always near? Or anxiety, or depression. One thing I've learned is that it is a human thing, that every single one of us struggles with loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

Nothing negative ever happened to them. And yet, in all of this goodness, what happened? Why were they unsatisfied? Why were they ungrateful? Why did they rebel?

Let me put that in perspective. They had all they could ever want, and yet they chose whatever it was, and not the Father.

King David is a curious person, because he comes years after the fall, and he comes with a different attitude. Because I think about David's life, and in the worst times of his life, he had the best attitude. In the best times of his life, he had the worst attitude.

Most of David's psalms in the Bible are written from his life when all the things that were happening to him were wrong. The Philistines are trying to kill him. King Saul is trying to pursue and kill him. He was running all the time. And yet in these moments, his attitude was what? One of praise and adoration to God. He had a trusting heart, that God's plan was going to be fulfilled, because God is faithful. That's one of the reasons I read the CSB, because it's always this continuous faithful love, faithful God, he in his faithfulness. He had a trusting heart. He had a yearning for God.

What happened in all the good times? There's war, and instead of going and fighting with his men, he was successful enough that he had the choice to stay behind and have other people fight the battles for him. What happened? He met Bathsheba and fell into this great sin. And we can look at the census, when he got to a moment of great growth and took a census to see how powerful he had become, and in his pridefulness there were people who died.

In the worst times of his life he had the best attitude, and in the best times of his life he had the worst attitude.

And then I began to think about what's another way, not just pride, but what's another thing that happens in our life. Entitlement. That I deserve something. It's an attitude killer. Entitlement is believing that everyone owes you because of something you have done.

Paul had this beautiful word, and to be honest with you, up until this message, I forgot about it. It's easy to forget the word sometimes if you're not focusing on it. Paul says, I'm a debtor. I'm a debtor. There is nothing that I can do to ever repay what Christ has done on the cross for me.

And so when you're a Christian, one of the first things that I think should come to our mind is that because of that great sacrifice of what Christ has done, and he continues to do, pouring out salvation to the ends of the world so that you and I can come to know the Father, so that we can be one in Christ as Christ is one in the Father.

And Paul begins to write, I am a debtor to Christ. I am a servant to others.

Entitlement is killed at the cross. When we pick up the humility of Christ, then the Bible tells us that we are robed in his righteousness. That is what every single life is commanded to do. To put your life on the cross and to kill it, for the blood to be applied, and for your life and your attitude to be renewed and to be made into the image of Christ.

Paul begins to tell the Philippians in this verse, he says, in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.

How important is attitude with the people around you? Have you ever been around someone who has a poor attitude and you're like, I don't want to be in this situation? In the oil and gas industry, man, those guys had a poor attitude, and I hated it. I hated it with all of my heart.

Maybe you can think of some time when you had a poor attitude. Maybe it's when you're driving down the freeway and someone cuts you off. Maybe it's when you've done something really nice for someone and they don't give you the recognition you felt like you deserved. Or maybe when you're riding your bicycle and all of a sudden that Yukon comes up beside you and starts screaming obscenities at you, and you start giving them the only sign language you have ever been taught.

I tell people there's only a little bit of sign language that I know, and it's that one. You know what it is.

Back in 2017 I was on my way to church, and I stopped at McDonald's, and they told me to pull up into the front to get my meal. You know how that is. You go and you're expecting your meal at that second window. You paid. Give me my meal, because you're fast food. And if your food is not fast, then you can't call yourself fast food, even if it's only five minutes. And they're like, just pull forward to that sign and we will bring you your food. I'm like, okay, I've got to go to church. I can't go to church hangry.

Well, the guy behind me didn't realize that they had told me to pull up to that sign, and his car was super long with a trailer. And he pulls up beside me, slams on his brakes, rolls his window down, slams on his horn, and he looks over at me and begins yelling at me and giving me sign language. And then he drives off.

And my first response was, man, if he was here, I'd give him a piece of my mind. But then Jesus was like, where are you going? I'm going to church. And I was like, man, you need Jesus. And then I was reminded, I need Jesus.

And then I got on the interstate and he cut me off. And then I started praying, Lord, give him a flat tire.

Or maybe there was a guy that drove past you at a hundred miles an hour. You ever have those people? I hope they get pulled over. Sometimes when people pass me, I'm waiting for them to be pulled over by a cop so I can go, ha ha, in Jesus' name.

Maybe it's when you go to the store and you walk up to the return desk and they won't take your return without a receipt, and you're like, well, I don't have a receipt. You know, we don't keep paper around here anymore.

When someone didn't give you something you felt like you deserved in return, what was your attitude like? And how does your attitude affect those who are around you? Because I can't tell you how many times I've been in the line waiting to return something and the person in front of me is arguing with them, and everyone in the line is just like, dude, just get out of the line so those of us who brought our receipt can get our money.

What about family arguments, when emotions run high and people resort to shouting and name-calling, and when people in your home begin to disrespect one another?

You see, humility begins with having respect. And what we do is, we have to be respectful to people.

And I love this thought. You don't know everyone's story. And if you don't know what people are going through, be respectful. Not everyone is holy. Not everyone is trusting in God fully. And not everyone has someone to walk beside them, to disciple them, to love them, and to show them. And not everyone has someone who shows them grace just as they show grace.

You see, Jesus tells the people, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, because this is the Law and the Prophets. This is literally the golden rule of the Bible. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Sounds profound, doesn't it? We all know it and we all believe it. But why do we have the wrong attitude for it?

Paul tells us in Romans 12:10 that you are to love one another deeply. He doesn't just say I should love you. He says I should deeply love you.

And if I can love my wife, and we can spend twenty-one years getting to know what that love means, and she can love me and all of my weirdness, like those times when I say, honey, I'm going to learn how to play the violin. And she goes, no, you're not. And I said, wow, honey, what deep love you have. So I bought a violin, and I didn't learn it.

You can't honor a person by smearing their name, or by lifting yourself up over them. You see, that's pride, and that's an attitude killer. You can't honor someone when you refuse to serve them. And humility means looking at yourself first.

Another attitude killer is negativity. All one ever does is focus on what is wrong.

You know something? I can tell you all kinds of things I find wrong with anyone. I can tell you all kinds of wrongs in this life. I can probably sit down with you, if you want me to, and I can tell you all of what I think is wrong with you. And I think you can do the same with me.

You know what's wrong? The fact that biscuits and gravy don't make you skinny. That's wrong. But that negative view doesn't stop me from having biscuits and gravy.

If something is wrong, first ask yourself, is it me? Am I the problem? Is it my attitude? I might be wearing the wrong lens in this situation. Maybe it's wrong because I set the wrong expectation. Maybe it's wrong because I feel entitled. Maybe it's wrong because I have a negative attitude.

You see, these are the things that we all have to ask one another when we are in a situation.

And then finally he says, look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

What would happen at work, or in your home, or when you're at the grocery store, if you had the attitude of kindness and gentleness and compassion? What would happen if your heart was calibrated by the Holy Spirit to see others as more important than yourself?

Now that I say that, I don't want you thinking that you should become worthless. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that when we see others, we've got to give them the benefit of the doubt, because they may not have been convicted the way you have been convicted on something.

And I learned that very young as a minister. Just because God has convicted my heart to not drink, or to not do drugs, or to not do something, doesn't mean that those I lead, or those I shepherd, or those I walk with, have yet to be there.

You see, one of the things you're going to notice about church is this. We all have fallen short of the glory of God. Every single one of us. And we all have a wrong attitude about something in our life.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and pretend I know what yours is, because that's not why I'm here.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

And listen to this. For it is God who is working in you, both to will and to work according to his good purpose.

Do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world by holding firm to the word of life.

So go today. Be light. Go shine.