Have you got attitude?
Questions for Home Groups or Private Reflection
It is very good to have another baptismal service, with Simon & Peter Leighton being baptized. The message this week focuses on a description of the ‘attitude’ of Jesus, as it is recorded in the letter Paul wrote to his good friends in the church in Philippi some years after he had ‘planted’ the church.
1Christ encourages you, and his love comforts you. God's Spirit unites you, and you are concerned for others. 2Now make me completely happy! Live in harmony by showing love for each other. Be united in what you think, as if you were only one person. 3Don't be jealous or proud, but be humble and consider others more important than yourselves. 4Care about them as much as you care about yourselves 5and think the same way that Christ Jesus thought:
6Christ was truly God. But he did not try to remain equal with God.
7Instead he gave up everything and became a slave, when he became like one of us.
8Christ was humble. He obeyed God and even died on a cross.
9Then God gave Christ the highest place and honoured his name above all others.
10So at the name of Jesus everyone will bow down, those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. 11And to the glory of God the Father everyone will openly agree, "Jesus Christ is Lord!"
- First of all read through the passage in this version which will be unfamiliar to most – it is the Contemporary English Version.
- Take time to be quiet and then talk together about any aspect of the passage which has struck you freshly. You might like to take it in three sections: v1-5, 6-9,10-11.
- Verse 1 gives us four statements – things that Paul assumes are true of the Jesus followers in Philippi –look at each one. Are they all true for you – or fir us as a Christian community. Which ones do you need to work on?
- Do you think others would consider you someone who cares as much as others as you do for yourself? Talk about how others have shown you that kind of care in the past – hopefully recent past.
- Focussing on the description of Jesus as a human, how could you sum up the ‘way that Jesus thought?’
- Is this what you see in the contemporary world around you – or even in the church? What can we do about that? Does it mean changing what you value in other people, what kind of people you ‘imitate’?