What is required for a president to be competent?
According to the US Constitution Article 2, it requires only two things
Presidential Qualifications:
Be a natural born U.S. citizen and 35 years old.
What is it that makes someone competent? In peticular what is it that makes a Christian competent? Have you ever thought about this? What is it that makes you as a believer in Christ competent?
Competence
A specific range of skills, knowledge and ability to do something successfully, being adequately or well qualified to meet demands or conditions.
When you think of your faith, would it meet that definition?
Unconscious Competence:
The individual is competent, but they don’t recognize it.
example. a person gets into their car and drive it and they are not conscious of the fact they are driving competently
Conscious Competence:
The individual understands how to do something and recognizes this.
example. a person is driving competently and thinking about driving competently
Unconscious Incompetence:
A state of blissful ignorance. The individual doesn’t know what they don’t know.
example. it is that blissful state that people live in that they think their competent but they are not, they are the people who are texting and talking on the phone thinking they are aware of everything going on around them but they are not. How does this apply to Christianity? This person is living their lives every day thinking we have it nailed. Thinking we are good with God and we are on top of everything and we don’t have to worry about it. Not looking at reflecting or reviewing how we are doing. Not noticing what we don’t know. Missing all of skills that we are missing in us. There is nothing that looks more weird than looking incompetent.
Conscious Incompetence:
The individual does not understand how to do something but recognizes the deficit.
example. a person is driving but shouldn’t be driving and they are feeling good about themselves and thinking about it but
The whole letter of 1 Corinthians is a rebuke, because they are doing everything that they shouldn’t be doing, and they are doing it thinking that they are doing everything that they are suppose to be doing, in fact, they even think they are at the top of the curve.
1 Corinthians 3
1 Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ.
These were people when you dig into the first letter of the Corinthians, they thought they were very spiritual. They thought they were even more spiritual than even the apostles, they thought that they had special in-site that was given to them from God that others didn’t even have. Paul is saying here that they wouldn’t know spiritual even if they tripped over it.
3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?
What is Paul saying here? He is calling them out on the fact that these are people who spend their time comparing themselves to one another, each trying to one up another, time arguing over who’s going to have the best seat in worship? Who is going to get the most food in the community meals? They spent their time arguing over their pedigree, ie. I was baptized by Peter or by Jesus and Paul says I’m glad I didn’t baptized any of you because you are a bunch of children. You see incompetence in your church, in your own lives. We engage in pettiness and somehow we think God is not looking or we think God is on our side, and yet all we are living is this unconscious incompetence
1 Corinthians 5
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife.
2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?
Paul is now talking about the petty stuff, the stuff that people see when they look inside the church, but then he says that they are engaging inactions that are so immoral and incompetent that even the outside world would look and say “who would do something like that?”
Why do people look at us as weird? Because sometimes we engage that range from everything from the petty to the outright blasphemous before God and even insufferable in the world.
Our goal is to be contagious and attractive to people, to show people that we are weird but in a different kind of way but a good weird, a weird that supersedes the hopelessness of this world, a weird that loves and cares for people that nobody even seems to even notice, a weird that gives of itself that nobody wants to give. It’s a weird that you want to stand next to in life.
Paul looks at the church and he looks at the Corinthians and he says that, you guys just look weird, you guys do things that make even the pagans blush. That’s what incompetence looks like.
2 Corinthians 3
4 Such confidence we have through Christ before God.
5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.
Paul is drawing a contrast here, he says that our confidence comes from Christ before God, not that we are competent in ourselves. What level of competency do you have to rise to be president of the U.S.? you have to be as competent as the people who voted for you. What level of competency do you have to rise to be a follower of Christ? You have to rise to the level of Christ. How do you do that? You don’t do that, He does it for you, He does if through you, He does it in you.
6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Unconscious Incompetence Is Replaced With Conscience Dependence
How do we not live our lives as believers thinking that we are competent but end up looking incompetent to the world? We live them with a conscience dependence on God. Because the only way we can be competent is by being dependent on God.
What does it take to be competent to be a believer in Christ? It means that you are going to know the right things to say, that you are going to care for people in the right moments, that you are going to give when giving is needed, that you are going to live clean and immoral lives, that you are going to be intellectually astute in the things you are talking about? You would have to spend your life buried in books trying to build up experiences to build up a resume of competence and you would still fail.
When Jesus sent out his disciples he told them don’t worry about what to say when the time comes I will give you the words to speak, when the time comes I will provide the opportunities for you to act. We sometimes get so caught up by trying to be good christians by trying to check off boxes of what it means to be competent instead all we become is arrogant.
Real competence does not walk around thinking we are, it comes by being dependent on God.
Pray:
Praying reminds us that we are dependent on God, because we understand that with everything we have and care about we are dependent upon God. We pray because God has said, I want you to pray to me. I want you be in conversation with me because thats part of what it means to be dependent. You speak and know that I listen, and I will act in your best interest and the best interest in the people around you.
Study:
Why do we study the scriptures? How do you know God unless you know the things he has done and listen to the words he has spoken, that is what makes you competent, knowing that my thoughts are not only not enough but inadequate they are twisted and distorted, and I need to here from God if I want to be competent and I need to here from God if I want to love someone competently.
Worship:
We are going before God and lifting up his name and recognizing him, that he is worthy of all honor and glory that he is God and we are not.
Serve:
We do what Jesus commanded us to do we go out and care for those who are hurting and those who are helpless, we love just the way Jesus loves
Give:
Why is giving such a big deal? Because you see giving right in the beginning of the Bible, Cane and Abel they bring their offerings. You need to give to get the fact you need God. Holding back has always corrupted us, you can’t serve man and money at the same time.
Witness:
Jesus said go out through out the world and make disciples. Do we play to an audience of one? Or am I trying to impress everyone around me.
Notes taken by: Lorelllawrence@comcast.net The notes is for you to have for review in the series, also to reflect on during the week.
God Bless,
Sermon by: Pastor Frederick Williams