Rev. Walter L. Taylor
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
July 19, 2009
The English writer D.H. Lawrence wrote a short story, published in the 1930s, about a family that by all counts looked to others as happy, successful, and content. But this family knew that they were far from anything that resembled happiness or success, much less contentment. Lawrence wrote:
Although they lived in style, they felt always an anxiety in the house. There was never enough money. The mother had a small income, and the father had a small income, but not nearly enough for the social position which they had to keep up. The father went into town to some office, but though he had good prospects, these prospects never materialized. There was always the grinding sense of the shortage of money, though the style was always kept up.
At last the mother said: “I will see if I can’t make something.” But she did not know where to begin. She racked her brains, and tried this thing and that and the other but could not find anything successful. The failure made deep lines come into her face. Her children were growing up, they would have to go to school. There must be more money. The father, who was always very handsome and expensive in his tastes, seemed as if he never would be able to do anything worth doing. And the mother, who had a great belief in herself, did not succeed any better, and her tastes were just as expensive.
And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money! The children could hear it all the time, though nobody said it aloud. They heard it at Christmas, when the expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery. Behind the shining modern rocking-horse, behind the smart doll’s house, a voice would start whispering: “There must be more money! There must be more money!” And the children would stop playing, to listen for a moment. They would look into each other’s eyes, to see if they had all heard. And each one saw in the eyes of the other two that they too had heard, “There must be more money! There must be more money!”
And so they lived in a house haunted—not by ghosts—but with their own anxieties, their own worries, their own never ending drive for more. There must be more money. Lawrence goes on to tell a story of cataclysmic tragedy that strikes this family in their drive for more, more, more.
I dare say that more families live this way than they would ever want to admit. Christmas comes not as a celebration of the mystery of the Incarnation of our Lord, but as a time anxious with the worries of gifts and money. In fact, many homes are probably haunted by those words today as in any time: “There must be more money.” And in our drive to fulfill that unspoken voice today, more tragedy occurs than we are aware of.
When God gave his people his law, summarized in the Ten Commandments, he put at the end of that list what is probably the most overlooked, and yet perhaps for us the most pertinent, of the commandments, the commandment against coveting:
You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. [Exodus 20:17 (ESV)]
In giving his people this commandment, God was calling them to learn to live in contentment. To this point they had been slaves in Egypt. But the day was coming when they would enter into a plentiful land, abundant with land, bountiful harvests, and the ability to gain wealth. But with that promise came the danger that these things would become for them the whole point of their lives, and that in their pursuit of them, they would forget God himself (cf. Deut. 8). And as they began the course of forgetting God, they would begin to become more and obsessed with their things, their stuff, their possessions, their wealth. Like the English family D. H. Lawrence writes about, it would all be, “There must be more money.”
We live in a society that has a profound interest in you having and cultivating a covetous heart. Our whole economy is built on coveting, on people desiring what they do not have and so spending their money to get it. When I listen to economic forecasts, one of the things that strikes me so often is what is good for families and individuals (saving) is not “good” for the economy. And everyone seems to be in on the act of you coveting what you don’t have. That is what advertisement is all about, to “create a need,” to create a desire in you for something you don’t have (and probably do not really “need”), so that you buy it. Even the government is in on the action, with the creation of lotteries in most every state. “You could be a million-dollar, power-ball winner.” When someone does win the lottery, you can bet that it is in the interest of the state government to show that person’s happy face with a million-dollar check in hand. The world has an interest, an investment, for you to live with a covetous, non-contented heart.
But from the beginning of his dealings with his people, God has made a different call to us. It is a different way of living, a different way of thinking, a different way of seeing everything. It is the attitude that Paul states so well in the closing verses of his letter to the Philippians.
…I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. [Philip. 4:10-13 (ESV)]
When Paul wrote these words he was a prisoner in chains. In Roman times, a prisoner was not someone who got three square meals a day and medical care from the state. If your loved one was a prisoner and you wanted him to receive those things, you would have to provide it for him. Paul, a prisoner in Rome, awaiting trial, was dependent on the gifts of his supporters, and one of the reasons he wrote this letter to the Philippians was to thank them for the support they delivered to him through Epaphroditus, one of their members who made the long journey to Rome. There seemed to be people of means in the church at Philippi, and it was a generous church in its support of Paul.
Yet Paul also wanted to teach a lesson to the Philippians (and to us) about contentment, contentment in Christ. This is not a contentment that is born of worldly wealth and security. It is not what we so often talk about as “being happy.” When Bob Dylan was fifty years old, the Rolling Stone Magazine interviewed him. At the end of the interview, he was asked, “Are you a happy man?” This question caught Dylan by surprise. While sitting in his chair, he looked down at his folded hands in his lap, and thought about it for a moment. He finally said, “Happiness, unhappiness, these are Yuppy words.” And then speaking out of his experience of faith, he said, “It’s either blessed or unblessed.”
True Christian contentment, what Paul is talking about here, is grounded not in us or what we have or what we have achieved. It comes as a gift from God through Jesus Christ. In fact it comes to us as a result of truly knowing Jesus Christ. Contentment is a willingness to accept where we are in life, and in that place nonetheless find our blessing in what God has done for us. That is how Paul tells us that he had learned to be content in both wealth and poverty, in plenty and hunger. This is how he, as a prisoner with nothing to his name, nonetheless could say:
…I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. [Philip. 4:10-13 (ESV)]
True contentment like this comes from knowing Jesus Christ.
And when I say, “Knowing Jesus Christ,” I do not mean simply “meeting Jesus Christ.” It is not enough to say, “Well, on a warm summer day 1975 I went forward in the morning service, made my confession, and got baptized, so I ‘know’ Christ.” Perhaps that was when you were introduced to him. But there is a real difference between being introduced to Jesus Christ and knowing Jesus Christ. Back in 1993 I was introduced to Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. We were both at the same theological conference in Spain, and I stood with two or three others who welcomed him there right after he arrived. I shook his hand, and he told me his name (which I already knew) and I told him mine (which he did not know). But for all of that, I no more know Desmond Tutu than I know Adam. In fact, if you to approach him and ask him, “Archbishop Tutu, do you know Walter Taylor?” he would say, “Who? No, I don’t.”
Knowing Jesus Christ means discipleship. It means walking daily with him throughout our whole life. It means knowing him as a living presence in our hearts and minds, and that can only come through living daily in him and with him. Being introduced to Christ is just the beginning. One must study him, learn him, and hence come to know him. That is why Paul, writing earlier in Philippians, says that the great desire of his life is: “that I may know him [that is, Christ] and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…” [Philip. 3:10 (ESV)]. I can well imagine the Philippians saying, “But Paul, of course you know him already. Weren’t you the one who brought him to us? Weren’t you the one who first preached the Gospel here in Philippi down by the river when Lydia and the others were there, when they first believed?
But Paul knew well that knowing Jesus Christ is never something that is finished in this life. It is an ongoing, ever deepening relationship. And because he struggled to know Christ in all his truth and power and suffering, in his death and resurrection (there is no other way to know him), Paul learned what it is to be content in all life’s circumstances. Because it is not the circumstances that bring happiness or contentment, but knowing Jesus Christ in all of life’s circumstances.
And it is in this context that Paul dared to say a verse that we so often rip entirely out of its context when we repeat it: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). Too often Christians have taken this verse to mean that I can go through life from one victory to another in Christ, that I can do anything because of Christ. But that is not what he is saying here. Paul is saying that because he has learned true contentment in Jesus Christ, he can “do all things through him.” That may well mean “doing” some things that we ourselves would not choose if we had the choice. It may well mean not being healed from our disease, but facing our disease in, through, and with Jesus Christ. It may well mean, as some teach, that God does not intend for us to be wealthy in life, but rather to “do” our poverty or “do” our financial struggling in, with, and through Jesus Christ, who is our strength.
Our closing hymn this morning has a story behind it, as most of our hymns do. Horatio Spafford was a successful Chicago lawyer who lived in the latter part of the 19th century. In 1871 he and has wife lost a son who was born to them, and then, shortly afterward, his fortunes literally went up in smoke in the great Chicago fire. Two years later he was going on a trip to Europe with his family, but he had to postpone his leaving with them due to zoning problems in Chicago in the aftermath of the fire, matters that pertained to in his legal work. So he sent his wife and four daughters on ahead, and he was to join them later. The ship they sailed was involved in a collision in the Atlantic Ocean with another ship. All four of Spafford’s daughters died, though his wife survived and sent him the now famous telegram, “Saved alone.”
When he set sail to meet his grieving wife in Europe, during the journey, at roughly the same general place at sea where this collision had occurred, he sat down and penned the words to this hymn:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
There are two other verses of this hymn that did not make it into our hymnbook, for whatever reason, but it is important for us to hear them:
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mind, for in death as in life,
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
But Lord, ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.
“The sky, not the grave, is our goal.” That is the basis for our contentment. That is why, above everything else, Paul states that he wants to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. For God has not saved us in Christ for calamity, for destruction, but for resurrection. In Christ every sorrow, every tear, even death itself, shall be transformed in resurrection. The sky, not the grave, is our goal.
The apostle Paul wrote the Philippians that he had
learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. [Philip. 4:11-13 (ESV)]
Brothers and sisters, may we all let the Lord teach us this as well. And may we all follow him day in and day out, in such a way that even at our life’s end we may say, as Paul did, that our greatest desire is to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
On Rejoicing: Philippians 4:4-9
Rev. Walter L. Taylor
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
July 12, 2009
“Rejoice in the Lord always…” Rejoice in the Lord always? Always? Can we take this seriously? Can we really take what Paul says to us seriously when he tells us to rejoice in the Lord always? Apparently Paul himself thought so, because he went on to say, just in case you were not listening, “…again I will say, Rejoice” (4:4). How can the apostle Paul, or anyone for that matter, tell us to rejoice, command us to rejoice? Isn’t that akin to telling a child not simply to eat his broccoli, but to enjoy eating it?
Sometimes we simply do not feel like rejoicing. Perhaps we are going through a difficult time, or we are having a bad day, or things are not at all going our way. It may well be that even this morning we come to worship, and sing these psalms that tell us to rejoice. Yet we come bearing great burdens. Perhaps we carry grief over the loss of a loved one, or worry over an illness, or bear anxiety about the future (and there are plenty of things we can worry about…).
But Paul’s words direct us through this. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” Paul says. Paul does not say, “Rejoice in your circumstances,” nor does he say, “Rejoice in your personal victories,” or even, “Rejoice in your personal happiness.” He says for us to rejoice in the Lord. We find our joy in the Lord. In the Lord we have something about which to rejoice.
So what does it mean to rejoice in the Lord? Well, for starters it means that we must be guided not by our feelings or our circumstances, or even our own thoughts, but by the Lord. We are to be guided by God’s thoughts, by what God wants us to think and know. It means that we are to be guided by what God teaches us in his revelation, in his Word. Because if our lives are grounded in him, we will find that in him we may rejoice, and always rejoice when we consider his goodness and grace to us in Jesus Christ.
And that means, of course, being grounded in God’s Word. This is a real challenge for us today. Are we really grounded in God’s Word? When we open our Bible is it simply for some sort of “devotional” reading, a little biblical snack, or is it so that we may really bite into a chunk of it. Something that really strikes me about our order of service today, this order of service that was used in Geneva in the time of Calvin, is this: it is biblical to the core. Many Christians in our time and culture today will talk about how much they love the Bible. Yet, when it comes even to the lives of the churches, the Bible is notoriously absent, even in worship. Oh, perhaps a few verses might be read by the preacher before the sermon, and hopefully the sermon really hovers around the Bible [far too much preaching today is what has been called “Launching Pad” sermons: the Bible is the launching pad for the sermon. The Bible is read, the preacher gets started, and he lifts off from the launching pad never to return to it!].
But if you look at this order for our worship today, you will notice that everything sung in the service is Scripture, with one exception—the Apostles Creed, which in itself is a summary of Scripture. You have sung the Ten Commandments and Psalm 100. Later you will sing Psalm 124 and the Song of Simeon (from the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel). Loving the Bible for Calvin and the church of his day meant more than waving it around or using it as a prop. It meant learning it, singing it, allowing its words to become our own words, that it might take root in our lives and grow.
In order for us to be able to rejoice in the Lord, we must know him. We must know his character (it is holy). We must know his mercy and his grace. We must know that he has not given us what we deserve, but in giving Jesus Christ to us, he has given us what we do not deserve, solely out of his love and goodness. Knowing him means knowing him according to his thoughts, his truth, rather than depending on our own thoughts or our own circumstances to tell us who God is and what he has done for us.
And Paul does not teach us here a lesson that he has not had to learn himself. The same Paul who wrote to the Philippians to “Rejoice in the Lord always,” wrote those words in chains, in stocks. He was chained to a Roman soldier, awaiting trial before the supreme court of Caesar himself. He was not a free man, but a prisoner. Yet, Paul is able to look beyond all of that to see what really matters, what is above everything else. And having his eyes fixed on that, he is able to rejoice, even in his chains.
When Paul tells us to rejoice, he is revealing a perspective on life that the world does not know and so it cannot give us. In the ears of an unbeliever, Paul’s call for us to rejoice in the Lord always sounds like the popular song from a few years ago, “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” For all the fun in that song, what makes that song so funny, so enjoyable, is that it is unbelievable.
But what Paul is getting at here has to do with the central claim that the Gospel makes about life—life in general as well as your own life. Is life simply what we make of it? Is it simply ours to make it through? Or is this life more—a preparation for eternity? If it is the latter, if the fulfillment of this life cannot be contained within this present life, then it makes all the difference in the world, because Jesus has made all the difference in the world and in the world to come for us. And if we believe that above all our pain and suffering and distress that God really is Lord, that he really is sovereign over all things, and that this same sovereign God who made all things chose us before the foundation of the world to be his own in Jesus Christ, then we can rejoice, even when we are weighed down, because we are rejoicing in the Lord. We are rejoicing in what he has done, is doing, and will do for us:
“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”
Are those things true? Are they real? Are those things God’s gifts to us in and through his Son Jesus Christ? Then “rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
Several years ago a man in my last congregation came to saving faith in Jesus Christ. He began coming to church more out of concern for his wife and children. He figured that his children needed some moral foundations, and that the church was the best place to find them. He also came because he had heard the statistics, that when children go to church with both parents (and especially with the father), a higher percentage of those children remain in church as adults than those who only go with their mothers. In the course of attending church, taking part in worship, and the preaching of the Word, he experienced a profound change in his life, confessed faith in Christ and was baptized.
After attending church for a while, he approached me one day and asked me why so few folks really seemed excited about what we have in Christ. Why were so few folks there really “plugged in” to how wondrous, how great the message is that in Jesus Christ we have salvation, the forgiveness of sins, all these things that we confess each week? In effect, he was wondering why Paul’s words sound so strange even on the ears of Christians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
Perhaps that is the question we ought to struggle with today. Does this text ring something in our hearts?
Paul is describing the life of one whose core has been grasped and altered by the Gospel. Paul tells them to rejoice, and then he goes on to tell them what difference this ability to rejoice makes:
Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. [Philippians 4:5-7]
Paul is describing the life of one who can, in every circumstance, rejoice in the Lord. When he says to let our “reasonableness” be known to everyone, he is describing that gentleness, that reasonability, which comes from our trust in God, from our conviction that in Christ God really is in charge of the world and our lives. It is the kind of trust that leads us to understand that indeed “The Lord is at hand.” He is over the world. He is also closer to us than our own breath. This is the true peace that comes not from the world or our reading of the world or our own thinking about life and world. It is a gift that comes from knowing God as our Father; and knowing his Son Jesus Christ as our Lord and our brother.
Agnes, my wife and I, met as students just outside of Geneva, Switzerland, at a theological school. In that school were students from all over the world. Over the period of a semester we lived in a community where we studied together, at together, and worshiped and prayed together. Something that still strikes me (dare I say, “haunts” me) was the fact that the most joyful Christians among us were from Africa. These were also the people among us who knew some of the greatest suffering and deprivation among us as well. In fact, one of the Africans—a pastor from Nigeria—received word during the course that his brother, back in Nigeria, had taken ill and died. As we talked to him about this, he revealed to us how many loved ones he had lost in circumstances that we here could not begin to imagine. Yet, in all of that, even in the midst of his sorrows, there was a profound joy in the Lord that ran deep. He had learned that even in the sufferings of this life, the Lord is kind, and his steadfast love endures forever.
In the early years of the Protestant Reformation in the German city of Heidelberg, there was need for a catechism, a teaching manual to be used to instruct the people of that town in Christian belief and practice. A committee came together, under the leadership of a theologian named Zacharias Usrinus. They produced a little document that has been used in Presbyterian and Reformed churches since, known as the Heidelberg Catechism.
Far from being some dusty old theological instruction manual, that catechism has stood the test of time. Even today it is still used around the world. The first question and answer it gives us is worth the price of buying it:
Q. 1. What is your only comfort, in life and in death?
A. That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death
not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ,
who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins
and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil;
that he protects me so well that without the will
of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head;
indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation.
Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life,
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on
to live for him.
This is something to rejoice about. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Amen.
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
July 12, 2009
“Rejoice in the Lord always…” Rejoice in the Lord always? Always? Can we take this seriously? Can we really take what Paul says to us seriously when he tells us to rejoice in the Lord always? Apparently Paul himself thought so, because he went on to say, just in case you were not listening, “…again I will say, Rejoice” (4:4). How can the apostle Paul, or anyone for that matter, tell us to rejoice, command us to rejoice? Isn’t that akin to telling a child not simply to eat his broccoli, but to enjoy eating it?
Sometimes we simply do not feel like rejoicing. Perhaps we are going through a difficult time, or we are having a bad day, or things are not at all going our way. It may well be that even this morning we come to worship, and sing these psalms that tell us to rejoice. Yet we come bearing great burdens. Perhaps we carry grief over the loss of a loved one, or worry over an illness, or bear anxiety about the future (and there are plenty of things we can worry about…).
But Paul’s words direct us through this. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” Paul says. Paul does not say, “Rejoice in your circumstances,” nor does he say, “Rejoice in your personal victories,” or even, “Rejoice in your personal happiness.” He says for us to rejoice in the Lord. We find our joy in the Lord. In the Lord we have something about which to rejoice.
So what does it mean to rejoice in the Lord? Well, for starters it means that we must be guided not by our feelings or our circumstances, or even our own thoughts, but by the Lord. We are to be guided by God’s thoughts, by what God wants us to think and know. It means that we are to be guided by what God teaches us in his revelation, in his Word. Because if our lives are grounded in him, we will find that in him we may rejoice, and always rejoice when we consider his goodness and grace to us in Jesus Christ.
And that means, of course, being grounded in God’s Word. This is a real challenge for us today. Are we really grounded in God’s Word? When we open our Bible is it simply for some sort of “devotional” reading, a little biblical snack, or is it so that we may really bite into a chunk of it. Something that really strikes me about our order of service today, this order of service that was used in Geneva in the time of Calvin, is this: it is biblical to the core. Many Christians in our time and culture today will talk about how much they love the Bible. Yet, when it comes even to the lives of the churches, the Bible is notoriously absent, even in worship. Oh, perhaps a few verses might be read by the preacher before the sermon, and hopefully the sermon really hovers around the Bible [far too much preaching today is what has been called “Launching Pad” sermons: the Bible is the launching pad for the sermon. The Bible is read, the preacher gets started, and he lifts off from the launching pad never to return to it!].
But if you look at this order for our worship today, you will notice that everything sung in the service is Scripture, with one exception—the Apostles Creed, which in itself is a summary of Scripture. You have sung the Ten Commandments and Psalm 100. Later you will sing Psalm 124 and the Song of Simeon (from the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel). Loving the Bible for Calvin and the church of his day meant more than waving it around or using it as a prop. It meant learning it, singing it, allowing its words to become our own words, that it might take root in our lives and grow.
In order for us to be able to rejoice in the Lord, we must know him. We must know his character (it is holy). We must know his mercy and his grace. We must know that he has not given us what we deserve, but in giving Jesus Christ to us, he has given us what we do not deserve, solely out of his love and goodness. Knowing him means knowing him according to his thoughts, his truth, rather than depending on our own thoughts or our own circumstances to tell us who God is and what he has done for us.
And Paul does not teach us here a lesson that he has not had to learn himself. The same Paul who wrote to the Philippians to “Rejoice in the Lord always,” wrote those words in chains, in stocks. He was chained to a Roman soldier, awaiting trial before the supreme court of Caesar himself. He was not a free man, but a prisoner. Yet, Paul is able to look beyond all of that to see what really matters, what is above everything else. And having his eyes fixed on that, he is able to rejoice, even in his chains.
When Paul tells us to rejoice, he is revealing a perspective on life that the world does not know and so it cannot give us. In the ears of an unbeliever, Paul’s call for us to rejoice in the Lord always sounds like the popular song from a few years ago, “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” For all the fun in that song, what makes that song so funny, so enjoyable, is that it is unbelievable.
But what Paul is getting at here has to do with the central claim that the Gospel makes about life—life in general as well as your own life. Is life simply what we make of it? Is it simply ours to make it through? Or is this life more—a preparation for eternity? If it is the latter, if the fulfillment of this life cannot be contained within this present life, then it makes all the difference in the world, because Jesus has made all the difference in the world and in the world to come for us. And if we believe that above all our pain and suffering and distress that God really is Lord, that he really is sovereign over all things, and that this same sovereign God who made all things chose us before the foundation of the world to be his own in Jesus Christ, then we can rejoice, even when we are weighed down, because we are rejoicing in the Lord. We are rejoicing in what he has done, is doing, and will do for us:
“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”
Are those things true? Are they real? Are those things God’s gifts to us in and through his Son Jesus Christ? Then “rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
Several years ago a man in my last congregation came to saving faith in Jesus Christ. He began coming to church more out of concern for his wife and children. He figured that his children needed some moral foundations, and that the church was the best place to find them. He also came because he had heard the statistics, that when children go to church with both parents (and especially with the father), a higher percentage of those children remain in church as adults than those who only go with their mothers. In the course of attending church, taking part in worship, and the preaching of the Word, he experienced a profound change in his life, confessed faith in Christ and was baptized.
After attending church for a while, he approached me one day and asked me why so few folks really seemed excited about what we have in Christ. Why were so few folks there really “plugged in” to how wondrous, how great the message is that in Jesus Christ we have salvation, the forgiveness of sins, all these things that we confess each week? In effect, he was wondering why Paul’s words sound so strange even on the ears of Christians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
Perhaps that is the question we ought to struggle with today. Does this text ring something in our hearts?
Paul is describing the life of one whose core has been grasped and altered by the Gospel. Paul tells them to rejoice, and then he goes on to tell them what difference this ability to rejoice makes:
Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. [Philippians 4:5-7]
Paul is describing the life of one who can, in every circumstance, rejoice in the Lord. When he says to let our “reasonableness” be known to everyone, he is describing that gentleness, that reasonability, which comes from our trust in God, from our conviction that in Christ God really is in charge of the world and our lives. It is the kind of trust that leads us to understand that indeed “The Lord is at hand.” He is over the world. He is also closer to us than our own breath. This is the true peace that comes not from the world or our reading of the world or our own thinking about life and world. It is a gift that comes from knowing God as our Father; and knowing his Son Jesus Christ as our Lord and our brother.
Agnes, my wife and I, met as students just outside of Geneva, Switzerland, at a theological school. In that school were students from all over the world. Over the period of a semester we lived in a community where we studied together, at together, and worshiped and prayed together. Something that still strikes me (dare I say, “haunts” me) was the fact that the most joyful Christians among us were from Africa. These were also the people among us who knew some of the greatest suffering and deprivation among us as well. In fact, one of the Africans—a pastor from Nigeria—received word during the course that his brother, back in Nigeria, had taken ill and died. As we talked to him about this, he revealed to us how many loved ones he had lost in circumstances that we here could not begin to imagine. Yet, in all of that, even in the midst of his sorrows, there was a profound joy in the Lord that ran deep. He had learned that even in the sufferings of this life, the Lord is kind, and his steadfast love endures forever.
In the early years of the Protestant Reformation in the German city of Heidelberg, there was need for a catechism, a teaching manual to be used to instruct the people of that town in Christian belief and practice. A committee came together, under the leadership of a theologian named Zacharias Usrinus. They produced a little document that has been used in Presbyterian and Reformed churches since, known as the Heidelberg Catechism.
Far from being some dusty old theological instruction manual, that catechism has stood the test of time. Even today it is still used around the world. The first question and answer it gives us is worth the price of buying it:
Q. 1. What is your only comfort, in life and in death?
A. That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death
not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ,
who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins
and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil;
that he protects me so well that without the will
of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head;
indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation.
Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life,
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on
to live for him.
This is something to rejoice about. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Amen.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Getting Along: Philippians 4:2-3
Rev. Walter L. Taylor
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
July 5, 2009
Perhaps some of you remember the experience yourself, because you were on the receiving end it. But have you ever been in church and hear a child or a group of unruly children making noise, perhaps up in the balcony or in a back pew, when suddenly they are called down from the pulpit? I myself have done that very thing on a few occasions in my ministry. There is no better way to bring an end to chattering and noise in the service than to do that! On those few occasions when I have been compelled to do it, you can almost feel what’s going through the minds of everyone else: “Oooh, I know that boy is in trouble when he gets home.” It tends to have a quieting effect on the whole church.
And so it must have in Philippi on the day when Paul’s letter was read aloud to the congregation (as it would have been), and the reader of that letter got to what we know as the beginning of the fourth chapter. For here, Paul engages in a little “call down” of his own. He does something here that he rarely does in any of his letters, he calls down a couple of people by name, two people actually. You can imagine the hush that went over that congregation when this verse was read:
I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. [4:2-3]
Euodia and Synteche would have been there, and they would have heard this call of Paul to put away whatever it was they were at war over. They would have heard Paul’s call for someone else to step in and help settle the matter (this “true companion” or “loyal Syzygus,” perhaps implying a particular individual Paul new in the congregation). You can imagine and almost hear the “ooooohs” in the congregation.
We don’t much at all about the issues between Euodia and Syntyche. We do not know what got them at cross purposes with each other. Different scholars have proposed different things, from serious theological differences between them to some sort of personal matter between them. I would agree with those who conjecture that this was some personal matter, and not some great theological matter. Paul makes it plain that both of these women have been fellow workers with him in the gospel, something Paul would not have said about someone teaching heresy. In fact, Paul emphasizes this role that these two women have both played. They have “labored side by side” with Paul and other leaders. That word translated “labored” can also be translated “to struggle (or fight) alongside.” It was a word used to describe working together, but also people who fought alongside each other against a common enemy.
But now they are fighting each other, and their fight must have been spilling over in the life of the congregation because Paul addresses it so publicly in this letter to the whole church. Given that Paul says these two women had before struggled alongside of him for the sake of the gospel, and that their names are written in the Book of Life, this tells me that whatever it was that they were at loggerheads over was probably something more personal than substantive. But personal fights, “personality conflicts,” do spill over, especially in the life of churches, and others inevitably get pulled in.
The church at Philippi, from the beginning, had prominent women in the congregation. Paul’s first convert in Philippi was a woman, Lydia, who was an influential person in that church. Euodia and Syntyche may well have been among these first converts, given how well Paul knows them, and how important they were in the life of that church.
Having grown up in the church myself, I have seen the impact church squabbles can have, both in small and larger congregations. In my more than 19 years in ordained ministry I have seen all kinds of church conflicts, from little brush fires that could be called “silly” at best to massive conflagrations that have threatened the future of a whole congregation. In one church I served I saw people whose battles with each other began when they were in high school and continued into their fifties: I remember, for instance, a conversation with a woman whose tensions with another member went as far back as when they were together on a high school trip and had words over a toothbrush!
There are indeed times when there needs to be a conflict, when essential matters of Christian truth are at stake. Paul himself, in other letters, addresses those situations. In the book of Acts Paul warns the elders of the church in Ephesus that “wolves” will rise up from their midst and attempt to due damage to the people of that church (Acts 20:29). In this letter to the Philippians Paul addresses the issue of the “Judaizers” who are causing trouble within the church at Philippi. But then there is the conflict he addresses now, probably over something small, a harsh word, a stern glance, a “turf battle” that grows bigger and bigger, draws in more and more. The battle grows, even though they do not really know what they are battling over. Perhaps this was nothing more than a rivalry between two people who both wanted to be in the spotlight.
In another church I served, on one Sunday, a couple in the church got their noses “out of joint” over a decision that had been made (a decision to allow the women deacons to begin taking up the offering). This couple got up during the offering and walked out. In the aftermath, two elders, who up to that point had been “fellow laborers” together, had words at the door, and went home angry with each other. The next day I phoned them both (they were better than this), and told them that I wanted to see them that evening in my study to settle the matter. They came and settled things, and each apologized to the other. But in the course of my conversation with one of the elders earlier that day, he said to me, “Walter, I have a bad temper. That is just the way I am, and I cannot change now.” I said to him, “Is it that you cannot change, or is it that you will not change?” Isn’t that usually what it comes to?
These things rise up in the life of the church, and as long as we allow people to join the church, it will happen. Recently I came across a little ditty that captures well the attitude that many have when it comes to dealing with one another in the life of the church:
To live above with the saints we love,
Oh, that will be glory.
But to live below with the saints we know,
Well, that’s another story.
But Christ calls us “to live below with the saints we know.” Paul even calls this being a part of the “Body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12, ff.). Oh, it is messy, to be sure. But there never was a time when Christ called anyone to come follow him alone, apart from others who simultaneously follow him. In fact, he called his first disciples by twos, and not individually, because following Christ always means walking with his church. It is only in the context of the church, of being a part of the people of God that Christ calls us to be, that we too are able to share in being “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God’s] own possession…” (1 Peter 2:9).
You see, we have no choice, just as Euodia and Syntyche had no choice. And they had no choice but to work things out because their names had been written in the Book of Life. Let me ask you a question. Who wrote their names in the Book of Life? Who put their names there? God did. That is a book that only God himself gets to write in. And do you know when God wrote those names into the Book of Life? The New Testament teaches that God wrote these names in the Book of Life “before the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). Therefore, if God has put their names in the Book of Life, then they have no choice but to deal with each other. It is God’s idea that they do.
There have been times in our home when our children have had some minor clash over something, something minor enough that it has not warranted a full fledged “intervention” on the part of their parents. On more than one occasion, I have told them that the two of them would have to work it out: “The two of you will have to deal with each other for the rest of your lives, so you better deal with it now,” I have said. In many ways, this is what Paul is telling Eudia and Syntyche. They will have to deal with each other forever. Their names are written in the Book of Life, and therefore they must deal with this matter, this issue, this rivalry between them. As I knew was the case with the two elders I mentioned earlier, they were better than this. For Christ had recreated them to be so.
And I know the temptations no less than you or anyone knows them. We can sit back and say, “Well, if he has a problem with me, then it’s his problem and he needs to deal with it. He needs to come to me, because I’m not going to him. It is his problem, after all.” But is that what the Bible says to do?
In his “Sermon on the Mount”, at the beginning of his earthly ministry, Jesus says otherwise:
So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. [Mt. 5:23-24]
Now Jesus did not say if your brother has a problem with you, then wait for him to come to you. Here he says that if your brother has something against you, you go to him. It would seem that neither Euodia nor Syntyche have done this. So Paul is asking for someone else to get involved, to intervene: “…help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel,” Paul writes.
Today is a good day for us to take stock of ourselves as well when it comes to this teaching from our Lord and his apostle. Is it not the case that we prefer to “let things lie,” to let things simmer over time? One of the problems with that, however, is that very often a simmering pot with a lid placed on it may well eventually explode. Our Lord calls us to be accountable, to him and to one another. Sure, there will be times when we may disagree with each other. As long as those disagreements do not touch on the essentials of the faith, Scripture teaches us that we must observe good order in the name of Christ, and follow those who have been chosen to lead the church. But when we harbor ill will, grudges, against one another, we do dishonor to our Lord Jesus Christ and to the name he has given us to live by, the name Christian.
And particularly on this Lord’s Day, when we share together in this feast—this covenant meal, the Lord’s Supper—it is all the more important to remember and live by the words of our Lord and his apostle. For this is the feast of reconciliation with both God and one another. To sit at the Lord’s table with our Lord means we must also sit with one another around that same table, for that is how the Lord has called us.
As we prepare, therefore, to share together in the Lord’s Supper, remember the words that Paul wrote:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. [4:8-9]
Amen.
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
July 5, 2009
Perhaps some of you remember the experience yourself, because you were on the receiving end it. But have you ever been in church and hear a child or a group of unruly children making noise, perhaps up in the balcony or in a back pew, when suddenly they are called down from the pulpit? I myself have done that very thing on a few occasions in my ministry. There is no better way to bring an end to chattering and noise in the service than to do that! On those few occasions when I have been compelled to do it, you can almost feel what’s going through the minds of everyone else: “Oooh, I know that boy is in trouble when he gets home.” It tends to have a quieting effect on the whole church.
And so it must have in Philippi on the day when Paul’s letter was read aloud to the congregation (as it would have been), and the reader of that letter got to what we know as the beginning of the fourth chapter. For here, Paul engages in a little “call down” of his own. He does something here that he rarely does in any of his letters, he calls down a couple of people by name, two people actually. You can imagine the hush that went over that congregation when this verse was read:
I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. [4:2-3]
Euodia and Synteche would have been there, and they would have heard this call of Paul to put away whatever it was they were at war over. They would have heard Paul’s call for someone else to step in and help settle the matter (this “true companion” or “loyal Syzygus,” perhaps implying a particular individual Paul new in the congregation). You can imagine and almost hear the “ooooohs” in the congregation.
We don’t much at all about the issues between Euodia and Syntyche. We do not know what got them at cross purposes with each other. Different scholars have proposed different things, from serious theological differences between them to some sort of personal matter between them. I would agree with those who conjecture that this was some personal matter, and not some great theological matter. Paul makes it plain that both of these women have been fellow workers with him in the gospel, something Paul would not have said about someone teaching heresy. In fact, Paul emphasizes this role that these two women have both played. They have “labored side by side” with Paul and other leaders. That word translated “labored” can also be translated “to struggle (or fight) alongside.” It was a word used to describe working together, but also people who fought alongside each other against a common enemy.
But now they are fighting each other, and their fight must have been spilling over in the life of the congregation because Paul addresses it so publicly in this letter to the whole church. Given that Paul says these two women had before struggled alongside of him for the sake of the gospel, and that their names are written in the Book of Life, this tells me that whatever it was that they were at loggerheads over was probably something more personal than substantive. But personal fights, “personality conflicts,” do spill over, especially in the life of churches, and others inevitably get pulled in.
The church at Philippi, from the beginning, had prominent women in the congregation. Paul’s first convert in Philippi was a woman, Lydia, who was an influential person in that church. Euodia and Syntyche may well have been among these first converts, given how well Paul knows them, and how important they were in the life of that church.
Having grown up in the church myself, I have seen the impact church squabbles can have, both in small and larger congregations. In my more than 19 years in ordained ministry I have seen all kinds of church conflicts, from little brush fires that could be called “silly” at best to massive conflagrations that have threatened the future of a whole congregation. In one church I served I saw people whose battles with each other began when they were in high school and continued into their fifties: I remember, for instance, a conversation with a woman whose tensions with another member went as far back as when they were together on a high school trip and had words over a toothbrush!
There are indeed times when there needs to be a conflict, when essential matters of Christian truth are at stake. Paul himself, in other letters, addresses those situations. In the book of Acts Paul warns the elders of the church in Ephesus that “wolves” will rise up from their midst and attempt to due damage to the people of that church (Acts 20:29). In this letter to the Philippians Paul addresses the issue of the “Judaizers” who are causing trouble within the church at Philippi. But then there is the conflict he addresses now, probably over something small, a harsh word, a stern glance, a “turf battle” that grows bigger and bigger, draws in more and more. The battle grows, even though they do not really know what they are battling over. Perhaps this was nothing more than a rivalry between two people who both wanted to be in the spotlight.
In another church I served, on one Sunday, a couple in the church got their noses “out of joint” over a decision that had been made (a decision to allow the women deacons to begin taking up the offering). This couple got up during the offering and walked out. In the aftermath, two elders, who up to that point had been “fellow laborers” together, had words at the door, and went home angry with each other. The next day I phoned them both (they were better than this), and told them that I wanted to see them that evening in my study to settle the matter. They came and settled things, and each apologized to the other. But in the course of my conversation with one of the elders earlier that day, he said to me, “Walter, I have a bad temper. That is just the way I am, and I cannot change now.” I said to him, “Is it that you cannot change, or is it that you will not change?” Isn’t that usually what it comes to?
These things rise up in the life of the church, and as long as we allow people to join the church, it will happen. Recently I came across a little ditty that captures well the attitude that many have when it comes to dealing with one another in the life of the church:
To live above with the saints we love,
Oh, that will be glory.
But to live below with the saints we know,
Well, that’s another story.
But Christ calls us “to live below with the saints we know.” Paul even calls this being a part of the “Body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12, ff.). Oh, it is messy, to be sure. But there never was a time when Christ called anyone to come follow him alone, apart from others who simultaneously follow him. In fact, he called his first disciples by twos, and not individually, because following Christ always means walking with his church. It is only in the context of the church, of being a part of the people of God that Christ calls us to be, that we too are able to share in being “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for [God’s] own possession…” (1 Peter 2:9).
You see, we have no choice, just as Euodia and Syntyche had no choice. And they had no choice but to work things out because their names had been written in the Book of Life. Let me ask you a question. Who wrote their names in the Book of Life? Who put their names there? God did. That is a book that only God himself gets to write in. And do you know when God wrote those names into the Book of Life? The New Testament teaches that God wrote these names in the Book of Life “before the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). Therefore, if God has put their names in the Book of Life, then they have no choice but to deal with each other. It is God’s idea that they do.
There have been times in our home when our children have had some minor clash over something, something minor enough that it has not warranted a full fledged “intervention” on the part of their parents. On more than one occasion, I have told them that the two of them would have to work it out: “The two of you will have to deal with each other for the rest of your lives, so you better deal with it now,” I have said. In many ways, this is what Paul is telling Eudia and Syntyche. They will have to deal with each other forever. Their names are written in the Book of Life, and therefore they must deal with this matter, this issue, this rivalry between them. As I knew was the case with the two elders I mentioned earlier, they were better than this. For Christ had recreated them to be so.
And I know the temptations no less than you or anyone knows them. We can sit back and say, “Well, if he has a problem with me, then it’s his problem and he needs to deal with it. He needs to come to me, because I’m not going to him. It is his problem, after all.” But is that what the Bible says to do?
In his “Sermon on the Mount”, at the beginning of his earthly ministry, Jesus says otherwise:
So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. [Mt. 5:23-24]
Now Jesus did not say if your brother has a problem with you, then wait for him to come to you. Here he says that if your brother has something against you, you go to him. It would seem that neither Euodia nor Syntyche have done this. So Paul is asking for someone else to get involved, to intervene: “…help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel,” Paul writes.
Today is a good day for us to take stock of ourselves as well when it comes to this teaching from our Lord and his apostle. Is it not the case that we prefer to “let things lie,” to let things simmer over time? One of the problems with that, however, is that very often a simmering pot with a lid placed on it may well eventually explode. Our Lord calls us to be accountable, to him and to one another. Sure, there will be times when we may disagree with each other. As long as those disagreements do not touch on the essentials of the faith, Scripture teaches us that we must observe good order in the name of Christ, and follow those who have been chosen to lead the church. But when we harbor ill will, grudges, against one another, we do dishonor to our Lord Jesus Christ and to the name he has given us to live by, the name Christian.
And particularly on this Lord’s Day, when we share together in this feast—this covenant meal, the Lord’s Supper—it is all the more important to remember and live by the words of our Lord and his apostle. For this is the feast of reconciliation with both God and one another. To sit at the Lord’s table with our Lord means we must also sit with one another around that same table, for that is how the Lord has called us.
As we prepare, therefore, to share together in the Lord’s Supper, remember the words that Paul wrote:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. [4:8-9]
Amen.
Monday, June 29, 2009
On Citizenship: Philippians 3:17-4:1
Rev. Walter L. Taylor
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
June 28, 2009
This next weekend our whole area will be consumed in what is the largest Independence Day celebration in the state. The festivities will begin well before July 4, and will continue through next weekend. The Fourth of July is a huge celebration of all things American. We will celebrate our unity, our common American identity, our freedom. Already the flags are flying, and more are surely to follow. And already I can imagine many of the sermons that will be preached next Sunday in those churches that are convinced that the Fourth of July is a Christian feast day, alongside Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. In many of those churches what people see as the natural connection between being American and being a Christian will be lifted up and celebrated. And in many of those sermons, perhaps, preachers will raise the question of what has happened to this once Christian land.
I love my country, probably too much in fact. But for all the tendencies we might have to confuse being Christian and being American, between being a citizen of this earthly nation and a citizen of God’s kingdom, there is a great division that runs through our society today, and in many ways that line is more prominent that perhaps in other times (though I only say, “perhaps”). That great divide that runs through our country today is not that between Democrats and Republicans, or political conservatives and political liberals. It is between those who see themselves as fully at home in this world, and those who sense in this world a homesickness for their true native home. It is between those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and struggle to live by that confession, and those for whom the point of life is “the pursuit of happiness,” or, in the words we know so well, simply to “be happy.” And no matter how much we wave our flags or proclaim, “E. Pluribus Unum” (out of the many, one), if we who confess Jesus Christ as Lord attempt to blur or wipe away that distinction, we do so to our own peril.
This is the great divide that runs through all human history, and is so clearly laid out for us in the pages of Holy Scripture. This is the divide that Jesus was getting to in the Gospel of Matthew when he spoke of the great difference between the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13), between the sons of light and the sons of this world (Luke 16:8). In the third chapter of his letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul again speaks of this great divide when he writes:
For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. [3:18-19]
What was Paul talking about here? Who are these people he calls “enemies of the cross of Christ,” whose “god is their belly”? Was he talking about the Judaizers that we have discussed before? Some think that Paul is here talking about former Christians who have simply walked away from Christ and from his people, because Paul mentioned such people in other places in his letters. The most famous, in fact, was a young man named Demas, whom Paul mentions three times in his New Testament letters. In his letter to the Colossians and his letter to Philemon, Demas appears as a fellow-worker with Paul, traveling with him, helping him in his ministry (Col. 4:14, Phi. 24). But in one of his later letters Paul mentions Demas again. In his second letter to Timothy Paul informs Timothy that Demas has left him, and not simply has he left Paul, but he has left Christ as well: “For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica” (2 Tim. 4:10). Others think that he may well have in mind those who by all outward appearance seem to be Christian, but who by the manner of their lives are not.
But really, it does not make a lot of difference whether Paul has in mind any one specific group or not, because the language here is pretty wide—“enemies of the cross of Christ.” This is a “catch all” term, a term that includes all those outside of the true fellowship of Christ, whether they be openly hostile to the Gospel, or whether they be wolves in sheep’s clothing (preachers who proclaim a false gospel), or whether they are what we might call “imposter Christians.” These are the tares, the weeds, no matter the field where they are growing. And truth to tell, this is that category of people who, for the most part, rule our world and set the pace for our culture.
Of course, that the vast majority of people in the world are not “in Christ,” is a notion that has become increasingly offensive to modern ears, even within the walls of the churches. In many places it is considered downright uncharitable to make such an observation. It assumes that there actually is truth, and what’s more that this truth is actually available to us. Even many people in the churches today want to underplay this great line of division that runs through society and throughout all history. But we do not do ourselves or anyone else any good by denying it. In fact, we do ourselves and others great harm, even eternal harm, by pretending otherwise.
What does Paul mean when he says that for such people their god is their belly, and have their minds on earthly things? Basically, these are people who live day to day without much thought of anything beyond this life, beyond the here and now. Their god is their belly: in other words, what prompts them is their desires. Life is a full stomach, a good living, a nice place to live, and having one’s desires met. For some this means opulence, though it doesn’t necessarily mean that for everyone. But it is life lived out without any thought of God. More specifically, it is life lived out apart from Jesus Christ. And such a life, Paul says, ends in destruction, “soul-wreck,” we might even say. Such a life is life lived apart from the source of life, life lived out without reference to the purpose for which our lives were created, God and his glory.
“They glory in their shame,” Paul says. One does not have to watch a “Reality Show” very long before seeing that Paul’s description is accurate. We live in a very similar world, I think, to that Paul encountered in the world of the Roman Empire. Increasingly, there is little sense of shame in our society today. Things that people in previous generations would have worked hard to cover over are all out in the open today. Mind you, Paul takes no pleasure in this observation, and neither should we. We should find no pleasure in it at all. In fact, Paul makes this observation of the reality of life “with tears.” He mourns the fact that most live out their days without God, without much thought of God, “with minds set on earthly things.”
That is a danger anywhere and everywhere human beings gather. But I am going to risk “going off on a limb” here and say that living in a coastal resort community like makes this temptation even greater. When the ancient Christian monks decided to go off to a place where they might not be sidetracked by the world and by the sensual delights of the world, they went to the desert, and not to the beach. The beach can invite a certain sense of superficiality when it comes to the eternal things of life. The danger in living in a place like this is the temptation of making enjoyment our god, rather than learning to “enjoy [God] forever.”
John Piper, pastor of the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, tells a story in one of his books that makes this point. He writes:
I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader’s Digest, which tells about a couple who “took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 feet trawler, play softball and collect shells.” At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn’t. Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life—your one and only precious, God-given life—and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at great day of judgment: “Look, Lord. See my shells.” That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. Over against that, I put my protest: Don’t buy it. Don’t waste your life.[1]
Life at the beach, whether in retirement or much sooner, does not ever mean retirement from our God-given call to serve Jesus Christ with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. One cannot ever retire from that kind of service.
But Paul does not end this thought with his tears, with his mourning the destination to destruction that so many have taken up. No, he goes on to say:
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. [3:20-21]
Our citizenship is in heaven. This is a wonderful thought for us to remember this week. Before our national identity and our American citizenship is our identity in Jesus Christ. Our citizenship is in heaven. The Philippians would have understood Paul’s point here, because Philippi was a Roman colony. Not every city in the empire was. The citizens there had all the rights and responsibilities that the citizens of Rome had. They knew how precious, how important, such an identity was. Paul therefore uses this same image to emphasize life on the other side of the great divide running through history, the children of God, the sons of light. Our citizenship is in heaven. John Calvin made this point well when he wrote: “For, if heaven is or homeland, what else is the earth but our place of exile?” [Institutes 3.9.4]
And this is something we need to remember next week, as we celebrate the Fourth of July. For while most of us have American citizenship, it is a small thing when compared to our heavenly citizenship. In fact, our citizenship in heaven, our citizenship of the kingdom of God, not only trumps our this-worldly identity, but will outlast it. It also means that no matter how patriotic we may feel about our earthly nation, in a profound, spiritual sense, we are nonetheless exiles here in our own land, because our citizenship, and hence our true identity, is found in Jesus Christ. This is why, for so many Christians around the world and, I believe, a growing number here in this land, we feel increasingly less at home in this world. We have been called to live by a different standard, by a different way of seeing life. For we belong to God in Jesus Christ. This cannot help but meant that we will see the meaning of life and the meaning of all things radically different from those who do not confess him as Lord.
I have lived in a different country before. No matter how “at home” I may have felt in Belgium, no matter how much I might have grown to love that land, the fact was that I was not a citizen of that nation. I had no claim to make on Belgium, and Belgium had no claim to make on me, aside from my Christian responsibility to abide by the law in that land. But I must say that whether I am in Belgium or in my own native country, the United States, I feel less and less at home in this world. Oh, don’t misunderstand. I am not ready to leave it, not yet. But a day does not go by when I don’t feel some sort of tension, some sort of struggle, between my earthly citizenship as an American and my citizenship in heaven, in the kingdom of God. In that sense, a follower of Jesus Christ will always be “an alien” in this world, an exile passing through on a journey to our true home, a home that we already begin to know now, but will not know fully until that day comes when our Savior comes and transforms our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body. That is when we will be home, truly home.
“Therefore,” the apostle Paul tells us, in the midst of this world, in the midst of this proud nation, which for all its earthly glory is also passing away, “stand firm thus in the Lord” (4:1). We must never allow ourselves to “get lost in the mix” as Christians living in the world today. Sure, there are times when we tempted otherwise, when we do not want to be “different” from others, when we wish that we could take the way of “least resistance” and simply move in the same direction as the crowd. But the problem is that the crowd is walking the wrong way. They are walking the path that leads toward destruction.
For there is only one way, one path, that leads to life, true life, everlasting life, and he is Jesus Christ. All other ways are illusionary. All other ways are dead ends. Let us then take up with joy the way of our Lord, knowing that even our sense of “homesickness” in this world is nothing less than the Spirit of God reminding us that we are citizens of another land, children of God.
Some of you may well remember the old series “Hill Street Blues,” a police show set in a rough, urban area. Each week the show began with the duty sergeant having his daily meeting with the police crews before sending them out. Each time he would send them out with the words, “Now let’s be careful out there.” Good words for us today, even as Paul says it the way he does, “Stand firm in the Lord.” Amen.
[1] John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003), pp. 45-46.
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
June 28, 2009
This next weekend our whole area will be consumed in what is the largest Independence Day celebration in the state. The festivities will begin well before July 4, and will continue through next weekend. The Fourth of July is a huge celebration of all things American. We will celebrate our unity, our common American identity, our freedom. Already the flags are flying, and more are surely to follow. And already I can imagine many of the sermons that will be preached next Sunday in those churches that are convinced that the Fourth of July is a Christian feast day, alongside Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. In many of those churches what people see as the natural connection between being American and being a Christian will be lifted up and celebrated. And in many of those sermons, perhaps, preachers will raise the question of what has happened to this once Christian land.
I love my country, probably too much in fact. But for all the tendencies we might have to confuse being Christian and being American, between being a citizen of this earthly nation and a citizen of God’s kingdom, there is a great division that runs through our society today, and in many ways that line is more prominent that perhaps in other times (though I only say, “perhaps”). That great divide that runs through our country today is not that between Democrats and Republicans, or political conservatives and political liberals. It is between those who see themselves as fully at home in this world, and those who sense in this world a homesickness for their true native home. It is between those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and struggle to live by that confession, and those for whom the point of life is “the pursuit of happiness,” or, in the words we know so well, simply to “be happy.” And no matter how much we wave our flags or proclaim, “E. Pluribus Unum” (out of the many, one), if we who confess Jesus Christ as Lord attempt to blur or wipe away that distinction, we do so to our own peril.
This is the great divide that runs through all human history, and is so clearly laid out for us in the pages of Holy Scripture. This is the divide that Jesus was getting to in the Gospel of Matthew when he spoke of the great difference between the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13), between the sons of light and the sons of this world (Luke 16:8). In the third chapter of his letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul again speaks of this great divide when he writes:
For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. [3:18-19]
What was Paul talking about here? Who are these people he calls “enemies of the cross of Christ,” whose “god is their belly”? Was he talking about the Judaizers that we have discussed before? Some think that Paul is here talking about former Christians who have simply walked away from Christ and from his people, because Paul mentioned such people in other places in his letters. The most famous, in fact, was a young man named Demas, whom Paul mentions three times in his New Testament letters. In his letter to the Colossians and his letter to Philemon, Demas appears as a fellow-worker with Paul, traveling with him, helping him in his ministry (Col. 4:14, Phi. 24). But in one of his later letters Paul mentions Demas again. In his second letter to Timothy Paul informs Timothy that Demas has left him, and not simply has he left Paul, but he has left Christ as well: “For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica” (2 Tim. 4:10). Others think that he may well have in mind those who by all outward appearance seem to be Christian, but who by the manner of their lives are not.
But really, it does not make a lot of difference whether Paul has in mind any one specific group or not, because the language here is pretty wide—“enemies of the cross of Christ.” This is a “catch all” term, a term that includes all those outside of the true fellowship of Christ, whether they be openly hostile to the Gospel, or whether they be wolves in sheep’s clothing (preachers who proclaim a false gospel), or whether they are what we might call “imposter Christians.” These are the tares, the weeds, no matter the field where they are growing. And truth to tell, this is that category of people who, for the most part, rule our world and set the pace for our culture.
Of course, that the vast majority of people in the world are not “in Christ,” is a notion that has become increasingly offensive to modern ears, even within the walls of the churches. In many places it is considered downright uncharitable to make such an observation. It assumes that there actually is truth, and what’s more that this truth is actually available to us. Even many people in the churches today want to underplay this great line of division that runs through society and throughout all history. But we do not do ourselves or anyone else any good by denying it. In fact, we do ourselves and others great harm, even eternal harm, by pretending otherwise.
What does Paul mean when he says that for such people their god is their belly, and have their minds on earthly things? Basically, these are people who live day to day without much thought of anything beyond this life, beyond the here and now. Their god is their belly: in other words, what prompts them is their desires. Life is a full stomach, a good living, a nice place to live, and having one’s desires met. For some this means opulence, though it doesn’t necessarily mean that for everyone. But it is life lived out without any thought of God. More specifically, it is life lived out apart from Jesus Christ. And such a life, Paul says, ends in destruction, “soul-wreck,” we might even say. Such a life is life lived apart from the source of life, life lived out without reference to the purpose for which our lives were created, God and his glory.
“They glory in their shame,” Paul says. One does not have to watch a “Reality Show” very long before seeing that Paul’s description is accurate. We live in a very similar world, I think, to that Paul encountered in the world of the Roman Empire. Increasingly, there is little sense of shame in our society today. Things that people in previous generations would have worked hard to cover over are all out in the open today. Mind you, Paul takes no pleasure in this observation, and neither should we. We should find no pleasure in it at all. In fact, Paul makes this observation of the reality of life “with tears.” He mourns the fact that most live out their days without God, without much thought of God, “with minds set on earthly things.”
That is a danger anywhere and everywhere human beings gather. But I am going to risk “going off on a limb” here and say that living in a coastal resort community like makes this temptation even greater. When the ancient Christian monks decided to go off to a place where they might not be sidetracked by the world and by the sensual delights of the world, they went to the desert, and not to the beach. The beach can invite a certain sense of superficiality when it comes to the eternal things of life. The danger in living in a place like this is the temptation of making enjoyment our god, rather than learning to “enjoy [God] forever.”
John Piper, pastor of the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, tells a story in one of his books that makes this point. He writes:
I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader’s Digest, which tells about a couple who “took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 feet trawler, play softball and collect shells.” At first, when I read it I thought it might be a joke. A spoof on the American Dream. But it wasn’t. Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life—your one and only precious, God-given life—and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at great day of judgment: “Look, Lord. See my shells.” That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. Over against that, I put my protest: Don’t buy it. Don’t waste your life.[1]
Life at the beach, whether in retirement or much sooner, does not ever mean retirement from our God-given call to serve Jesus Christ with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. One cannot ever retire from that kind of service.
But Paul does not end this thought with his tears, with his mourning the destination to destruction that so many have taken up. No, he goes on to say:
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. [3:20-21]
Our citizenship is in heaven. This is a wonderful thought for us to remember this week. Before our national identity and our American citizenship is our identity in Jesus Christ. Our citizenship is in heaven. The Philippians would have understood Paul’s point here, because Philippi was a Roman colony. Not every city in the empire was. The citizens there had all the rights and responsibilities that the citizens of Rome had. They knew how precious, how important, such an identity was. Paul therefore uses this same image to emphasize life on the other side of the great divide running through history, the children of God, the sons of light. Our citizenship is in heaven. John Calvin made this point well when he wrote: “For, if heaven is or homeland, what else is the earth but our place of exile?” [Institutes 3.9.4]
And this is something we need to remember next week, as we celebrate the Fourth of July. For while most of us have American citizenship, it is a small thing when compared to our heavenly citizenship. In fact, our citizenship in heaven, our citizenship of the kingdom of God, not only trumps our this-worldly identity, but will outlast it. It also means that no matter how patriotic we may feel about our earthly nation, in a profound, spiritual sense, we are nonetheless exiles here in our own land, because our citizenship, and hence our true identity, is found in Jesus Christ. This is why, for so many Christians around the world and, I believe, a growing number here in this land, we feel increasingly less at home in this world. We have been called to live by a different standard, by a different way of seeing life. For we belong to God in Jesus Christ. This cannot help but meant that we will see the meaning of life and the meaning of all things radically different from those who do not confess him as Lord.
I have lived in a different country before. No matter how “at home” I may have felt in Belgium, no matter how much I might have grown to love that land, the fact was that I was not a citizen of that nation. I had no claim to make on Belgium, and Belgium had no claim to make on me, aside from my Christian responsibility to abide by the law in that land. But I must say that whether I am in Belgium or in my own native country, the United States, I feel less and less at home in this world. Oh, don’t misunderstand. I am not ready to leave it, not yet. But a day does not go by when I don’t feel some sort of tension, some sort of struggle, between my earthly citizenship as an American and my citizenship in heaven, in the kingdom of God. In that sense, a follower of Jesus Christ will always be “an alien” in this world, an exile passing through on a journey to our true home, a home that we already begin to know now, but will not know fully until that day comes when our Savior comes and transforms our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body. That is when we will be home, truly home.
“Therefore,” the apostle Paul tells us, in the midst of this world, in the midst of this proud nation, which for all its earthly glory is also passing away, “stand firm thus in the Lord” (4:1). We must never allow ourselves to “get lost in the mix” as Christians living in the world today. Sure, there are times when we tempted otherwise, when we do not want to be “different” from others, when we wish that we could take the way of “least resistance” and simply move in the same direction as the crowd. But the problem is that the crowd is walking the wrong way. They are walking the path that leads toward destruction.
For there is only one way, one path, that leads to life, true life, everlasting life, and he is Jesus Christ. All other ways are illusionary. All other ways are dead ends. Let us then take up with joy the way of our Lord, knowing that even our sense of “homesickness” in this world is nothing less than the Spirit of God reminding us that we are citizens of another land, children of God.
Some of you may well remember the old series “Hill Street Blues,” a police show set in a rough, urban area. Each week the show began with the duty sergeant having his daily meeting with the police crews before sending them out. Each time he would send them out with the words, “Now let’s be careful out there.” Good words for us today, even as Paul says it the way he does, “Stand firm in the Lord.” Amen.
[1] John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003), pp. 45-46.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Running the Race: Philippians 3:12-16
Rev. Walter L. Taylor
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
June 21, 2008
The 1981 Oscar winning film Chariots of Fire told the story of two runners who ran on the 1924 British Olympic team, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, and why they ran. Eric Liddell runs for the glory of God; God made him fast, he would say, and so he felt God’s good pleasure when he ran. Harold Abrahams, on the other hand runs not for the pleasure of running, but because he is out to prove something. Abrahams is an outsider; he is Jewish. He wants to show the nation that nonetheless he is an Englishman. In one scene, Abrahams sits in the stands sulking after losing a race. He relives the defeat over and over in his mind, while a friend, his future wife, tries to console him. He is inconsolable. Finally, he tells her, “I run to win. If I can’t win, I won’t run.” Exasperated with him she replies, “If you don’t run, you can’t win.” If you don’t run, you can’t win.
In the third chapter of Philippians, the apostle writes to the Philippians to encourage them to oppose those who are teaching that the observance of the Old Testament Law is necessary for Christians. Paul points out that in his former life in Judaism, he was more strict, more observant, and more serious than any of these Judaizers. Paul lays out how, when he came to know Christ, he laid aside his former life and all the notoriety and congratulations he had known as a result of his commitment to following the Law. He tells the Philippians that for the sake of Jesus Christ he suffered the loss of all of that.
Yet, in making this point, Paul does not want the Philippians to get the wrong idea about him. He does not want them to think that he is bragging about his progress in the Christian life, or pontificating about what a great spiritual giant he is, or how superior he is to other believers. No, Paul wants to make it clear that he still has a way to go, that he has not “arrived,” as we say, when it comes to the final goal and destination in the Christian life. “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect,” he says, “but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (4:12).
And then Paul goes on to describe the life of the Christian in imagery that he has taken from the world of track and field:
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. [Philip. 3:13-16 (ESV)]
“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” This is the language of running, the language of athletics. Paul compares the Christian life to running a race, and he tells the Philippians that he is still in the running.
As a slow, flat-footed man with short legs, I was never a good runner. But I have always had a profound admiration for those who can “run like the wind.” And one thing that I do understand about good runners, especially those involved in sprinting, is that you can never look back. You do not look back, because in the course of looking back, you lose time. Great runners have lost races because they have looked back to see where their opponents were. Yet, in the slight shifting of the body, in the turning of the head, they inevitably slow down. To win races you must focus on the finish, look ahead, and give it all you can.
And so it is with the life of being a disciple of Jesus Christ, the life that Paul describes here as “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (3:14). Already, Paul has described all that he left behind when he took up following Christ—the respect, the admiration of others for his love and observance of the Law. But he knows that he cannot rest in that, but he must continue running his race. While Paul is not calling us to some sort of “amnesia” about the past, he is telling us that Christ is calling us forward in service to him, and therefore, we must not get lost in our past failures or achievements. We must focus on the finish, and run, because we are running not into our own future, but the future God has in store for us in Jesus Christ.
I have know people who in the Christian run have focused so much on the past, that it slowed them down. In one congregation I served I had a young woman who struggled with something in her past, something so deep, so painful, that she could never even bring herself to tell me what it was. It like a weight around her neck. When she seemed to make progress in her walk with Christ, this unspoken weight would suddenly appear, slowing her down. One day, as she kept going back to it, refusing to let it go, I asked her a question intended to shock her a bit, “What is it about your past, about this sin in your life, that makes it so power that the blood of Jesus Christ cannot cover it? Is your sin so special?”
But isn’t that what we are saying when we look back over the brokenness of our past, a past that we handed over to Christ Jesus, and yet find ourselves continually held back by it? Are we not saying, in effect, “Lord, I know your work on the cross is powerful, but this weight I carry is even more powerful”?
After coming to Christ, Paul could have gotten bogged down in that place. Before he became a Christian, Paul was not merely an unbeliever, but he was also a persecutor of Christians. When the first Christian martyr, Stephen, was stoned in the city of Jerusalem by an angry mob, Paul was there, egging them on. Paul literally stood there holding their coats for them so that they could pick up the rocks and throw them at Stephen. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul said this about himself:
“For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.” [1 Cor. 15:9-10a]
“By the grace of God I am what I am,” he says, or as he writes to the Philippians, “I press on to make it my own, because Christ has made me his own” (3:12). In making us his own, Jesus Christ takes us, our past, our sin, our failures and even our successes, and bears those things away on the cross.
But the past can hold us back not just because of our past failures, but also because of our past successes as well. One congregation I served a number of years ago was a small, inner-city congregation. On a good Sunday we would have sixty people in worship. Yet, some of the people there still remembered the glory days of the church 25 or 30 years before, before the city changed, before most of the people moved out to the suburbs. The sanctuary was full in those days. The city was a different place. It was easy to think back on those times. Yet, these people also knew that those days were done, and God was calling them to deal with the road that was ahead of them, and not the one behind them.
And such looking back on the past is not simply on days of past glory. As congregations change and grow with time, some people will still long for the past. I have also known places where some members remember the past days of the church, when it was smaller and therefore seemed more “like a family.” When churches grow, when new people come through the doors, that changes. But through these changes, we are to keep our attention on what lies ahead, on what God is calling us to, on the horizon ahead of us, and not behind us.
And too often individual Christians can likewise dwell on their past glories and successes, when their lives seemed more vibrant, more lively. Perhaps it was how wonderful the old “little brown church in the vale” was for them. Very often, when I have found people looking back wistfully on the life of their church, what they are really looking back on is the days of their own youth, days that were a lot more difficult than what they remember. Of course, the church they are a part of now cannot ever compare, because it is being compared to memories (memories which may or may not truly reflect reality!).
When Paul writes about running the race, not looking back, but looking ahead, he is calling us all to the serious life as a follower of Jesus Christ. It is not a life that is finished when we come to know Christ and the power of his love and grace. That is only the beginning of that life. This is a call to Christian maturity, a maturity that the apostle Paul acknowledges that he has not fully reached. Do you know what is the root of the word “disciple”? It is the word “discipline.” To follow Jesus is an act, a course, of discipline, no less than training to be a runner, or a swimmer, or a cello player, for that matter. It is a course of study, a study of the “upward call of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Earlier I mentioned the film Chariots of Fire, and the other runner depicted in that film, Eric Liddell. Liddell was a very different sort of person that Harold Abrahams. Liddell was the son of Scottish missionaries to China, and later followed in their footsteps himself. He ran for the glory of God, and said that when he ran he felt God’s good pleasure, for the Lord made him fast. In 1923, Liddell was running the 400 meters race in a match between the Scottish and French national teams. In one of the first turns in the run, the runners were bunched up, and Liddell was knocked down. Many runners would not have bothered to get back up and finish the race. But Liddell got back up, and resumed the race, though he was 20 meters (more than 60 feet) behind the other runners. But he ran as quickly as he could, and not only caught up with them, but in the last seconds of the race pulled ahead to win.
What do we do in those moments when we fall, when we lose our course, or feel knocked down? Perhaps we feel knocked down by life, or we look back and lose our focus, or stumble over our own failures. I know a man in ministry to whom that happened. He was serving a grand congregation, and by all counts looked to be a “success” as we measure success. But he fell; he stumbled. He owned up to his failure, acknowledging that he was involved in an affair. He could have left ministry altogether after that. He could have called it quits and found something else to do. But he stood back up and resumed the race. Resuming the race in this case meant facing the seriousness of what he had done. His presbytery led him through a three year period when he was not allowed to engage in ministry, but instead sought out spiritual help, spiritual counsel and recovery. Through all that found grace again. He is running again, now.
We all inevitably will fall, to one degree or another. We all look back and lose our pace and our speed. Perhaps that is where you are today. Christ is there, calling you, lifting you up, urging you on. Follow him. Run after him. For no one runs without stumbling, no one.
In fact, those Christians who are truly mature believers are those who know how much they have yet to run, and how often they have stumbled. They are the ones who are fully aware not of all that they are, but of all that they are not. They are the ones who know that the call of Christ is not simply a one time conversion experience, but a lifetime of conversion, of running the race daily. They are the ones who know that the Christian life is a long distance run.
But they are also the ones who, like Paul, press on, knowing that they are not yet perfect or complete, but still “make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” He has made you his own. He is calling you to follow him for the distance, through the struggles, through the failures, and through the successes, on to the finish line, a line that we will not know in this life, but will be that finish line where Jesus Christ himself greets us when we arrive.
And if you don’t run, you can’t win. Amen.
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
June 21, 2008
The 1981 Oscar winning film Chariots of Fire told the story of two runners who ran on the 1924 British Olympic team, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, and why they ran. Eric Liddell runs for the glory of God; God made him fast, he would say, and so he felt God’s good pleasure when he ran. Harold Abrahams, on the other hand runs not for the pleasure of running, but because he is out to prove something. Abrahams is an outsider; he is Jewish. He wants to show the nation that nonetheless he is an Englishman. In one scene, Abrahams sits in the stands sulking after losing a race. He relives the defeat over and over in his mind, while a friend, his future wife, tries to console him. He is inconsolable. Finally, he tells her, “I run to win. If I can’t win, I won’t run.” Exasperated with him she replies, “If you don’t run, you can’t win.” If you don’t run, you can’t win.
In the third chapter of Philippians, the apostle writes to the Philippians to encourage them to oppose those who are teaching that the observance of the Old Testament Law is necessary for Christians. Paul points out that in his former life in Judaism, he was more strict, more observant, and more serious than any of these Judaizers. Paul lays out how, when he came to know Christ, he laid aside his former life and all the notoriety and congratulations he had known as a result of his commitment to following the Law. He tells the Philippians that for the sake of Jesus Christ he suffered the loss of all of that.
Yet, in making this point, Paul does not want the Philippians to get the wrong idea about him. He does not want them to think that he is bragging about his progress in the Christian life, or pontificating about what a great spiritual giant he is, or how superior he is to other believers. No, Paul wants to make it clear that he still has a way to go, that he has not “arrived,” as we say, when it comes to the final goal and destination in the Christian life. “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect,” he says, “but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (4:12).
And then Paul goes on to describe the life of the Christian in imagery that he has taken from the world of track and field:
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. [Philip. 3:13-16 (ESV)]
“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” This is the language of running, the language of athletics. Paul compares the Christian life to running a race, and he tells the Philippians that he is still in the running.
As a slow, flat-footed man with short legs, I was never a good runner. But I have always had a profound admiration for those who can “run like the wind.” And one thing that I do understand about good runners, especially those involved in sprinting, is that you can never look back. You do not look back, because in the course of looking back, you lose time. Great runners have lost races because they have looked back to see where their opponents were. Yet, in the slight shifting of the body, in the turning of the head, they inevitably slow down. To win races you must focus on the finish, look ahead, and give it all you can.
And so it is with the life of being a disciple of Jesus Christ, the life that Paul describes here as “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (3:14). Already, Paul has described all that he left behind when he took up following Christ—the respect, the admiration of others for his love and observance of the Law. But he knows that he cannot rest in that, but he must continue running his race. While Paul is not calling us to some sort of “amnesia” about the past, he is telling us that Christ is calling us forward in service to him, and therefore, we must not get lost in our past failures or achievements. We must focus on the finish, and run, because we are running not into our own future, but the future God has in store for us in Jesus Christ.
I have know people who in the Christian run have focused so much on the past, that it slowed them down. In one congregation I served I had a young woman who struggled with something in her past, something so deep, so painful, that she could never even bring herself to tell me what it was. It like a weight around her neck. When she seemed to make progress in her walk with Christ, this unspoken weight would suddenly appear, slowing her down. One day, as she kept going back to it, refusing to let it go, I asked her a question intended to shock her a bit, “What is it about your past, about this sin in your life, that makes it so power that the blood of Jesus Christ cannot cover it? Is your sin so special?”
But isn’t that what we are saying when we look back over the brokenness of our past, a past that we handed over to Christ Jesus, and yet find ourselves continually held back by it? Are we not saying, in effect, “Lord, I know your work on the cross is powerful, but this weight I carry is even more powerful”?
After coming to Christ, Paul could have gotten bogged down in that place. Before he became a Christian, Paul was not merely an unbeliever, but he was also a persecutor of Christians. When the first Christian martyr, Stephen, was stoned in the city of Jerusalem by an angry mob, Paul was there, egging them on. Paul literally stood there holding their coats for them so that they could pick up the rocks and throw them at Stephen. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul said this about himself:
“For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.” [1 Cor. 15:9-10a]
“By the grace of God I am what I am,” he says, or as he writes to the Philippians, “I press on to make it my own, because Christ has made me his own” (3:12). In making us his own, Jesus Christ takes us, our past, our sin, our failures and even our successes, and bears those things away on the cross.
But the past can hold us back not just because of our past failures, but also because of our past successes as well. One congregation I served a number of years ago was a small, inner-city congregation. On a good Sunday we would have sixty people in worship. Yet, some of the people there still remembered the glory days of the church 25 or 30 years before, before the city changed, before most of the people moved out to the suburbs. The sanctuary was full in those days. The city was a different place. It was easy to think back on those times. Yet, these people also knew that those days were done, and God was calling them to deal with the road that was ahead of them, and not the one behind them.
And such looking back on the past is not simply on days of past glory. As congregations change and grow with time, some people will still long for the past. I have also known places where some members remember the past days of the church, when it was smaller and therefore seemed more “like a family.” When churches grow, when new people come through the doors, that changes. But through these changes, we are to keep our attention on what lies ahead, on what God is calling us to, on the horizon ahead of us, and not behind us.
And too often individual Christians can likewise dwell on their past glories and successes, when their lives seemed more vibrant, more lively. Perhaps it was how wonderful the old “little brown church in the vale” was for them. Very often, when I have found people looking back wistfully on the life of their church, what they are really looking back on is the days of their own youth, days that were a lot more difficult than what they remember. Of course, the church they are a part of now cannot ever compare, because it is being compared to memories (memories which may or may not truly reflect reality!).
When Paul writes about running the race, not looking back, but looking ahead, he is calling us all to the serious life as a follower of Jesus Christ. It is not a life that is finished when we come to know Christ and the power of his love and grace. That is only the beginning of that life. This is a call to Christian maturity, a maturity that the apostle Paul acknowledges that he has not fully reached. Do you know what is the root of the word “disciple”? It is the word “discipline.” To follow Jesus is an act, a course, of discipline, no less than training to be a runner, or a swimmer, or a cello player, for that matter. It is a course of study, a study of the “upward call of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Earlier I mentioned the film Chariots of Fire, and the other runner depicted in that film, Eric Liddell. Liddell was a very different sort of person that Harold Abrahams. Liddell was the son of Scottish missionaries to China, and later followed in their footsteps himself. He ran for the glory of God, and said that when he ran he felt God’s good pleasure, for the Lord made him fast. In 1923, Liddell was running the 400 meters race in a match between the Scottish and French national teams. In one of the first turns in the run, the runners were bunched up, and Liddell was knocked down. Many runners would not have bothered to get back up and finish the race. But Liddell got back up, and resumed the race, though he was 20 meters (more than 60 feet) behind the other runners. But he ran as quickly as he could, and not only caught up with them, but in the last seconds of the race pulled ahead to win.
What do we do in those moments when we fall, when we lose our course, or feel knocked down? Perhaps we feel knocked down by life, or we look back and lose our focus, or stumble over our own failures. I know a man in ministry to whom that happened. He was serving a grand congregation, and by all counts looked to be a “success” as we measure success. But he fell; he stumbled. He owned up to his failure, acknowledging that he was involved in an affair. He could have left ministry altogether after that. He could have called it quits and found something else to do. But he stood back up and resumed the race. Resuming the race in this case meant facing the seriousness of what he had done. His presbytery led him through a three year period when he was not allowed to engage in ministry, but instead sought out spiritual help, spiritual counsel and recovery. Through all that found grace again. He is running again, now.
We all inevitably will fall, to one degree or another. We all look back and lose our pace and our speed. Perhaps that is where you are today. Christ is there, calling you, lifting you up, urging you on. Follow him. Run after him. For no one runs without stumbling, no one.
In fact, those Christians who are truly mature believers are those who know how much they have yet to run, and how often they have stumbled. They are the ones who are fully aware not of all that they are, but of all that they are not. They are the ones who know that the call of Christ is not simply a one time conversion experience, but a lifetime of conversion, of running the race daily. They are the ones who know that the Christian life is a long distance run.
But they are also the ones who, like Paul, press on, knowing that they are not yet perfect or complete, but still “make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” He has made you his own. He is calling you to follow him for the distance, through the struggles, through the failures, and through the successes, on to the finish line, a line that we will not know in this life, but will be that finish line where Jesus Christ himself greets us when we arrive.
And if you don’t run, you can’t win. Amen.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Rubbish! Philippians 3:1-11
Rev. Walter L. Taylor
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
June 14, 2009
Ronald, a friend of mine who is a Presbyterian minister, once had the occasion to serve a congregation that was in the same presbytery in which an older, well-known, Presbyterian minister and writer also served. When Ronald first began his ministry there, this well-known minister phoned him up and asked him to lunch. My friend was nervous as they rode together to this highly-esteemed, older minister’s favorite restaurant, Denny’s. Now before I say more, I must tell you something about this older minister. I have a shelf of his books in my study. His books on ministry are probably the best I have read. He is theologically solid, spiritually grounded, and has the ability to discern where God is working in the world, all without coming across as sanctimonious at all. I would love to have lunch with him at Denny’s!
Once they arrived, this older minister proceeded to “show him the ropes” regarding the presbytery. It was an embattled presbytery, and not a friendly place for ministers committed to a biblical, Reformed understanding of the faith, as both of them are. My friend sat ready to hear the lofty wisdom he was sure would roll off the lips of this older, wiser colleague.
The advice came. This highly esteemed colleague began to give my friend a laundry list of ministers in the presbytery that he was not, under any circumstances, to trust. “So-in-so is a snake, and will stab you in the back in a heart-beat. Joe Blow is a liar, and will sooner lie to you than tell you truth.” My friend told me he sat there stunned. But, he also told me it was one of the most helpful conversations he could have had, because everything this older minister told him was true!
As shocking as those words may sound, this is essentially what we heard today from the Scripture, from the third chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians:
Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. [Philip. 3:1-2 (ESV)]
Perhaps it sounds harsh to your ears that the apostle Paul would refer to his theological enemies as dogs and evildoers, no less than my friend’s shock at the advice he received. In our day we are told that we must be tolerant of the attitudes and ideas of others. But the fact is that in both cases, the advice was profoundly spiritual, and profoundly necessary.
So what got Paul that wound up? One of the first theological battles that raged in the church in the time of the apostles is referred to as the conflict with the “Judaizers.” The issue was this, how “Jewish” must a Gentile become in order to be a Christian. Jesus Christ is the Jewish Messiah. The Bible of the early church is what we know today as the Old Testament. The consistent witness of the apostles was that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel, now open to all the world in Christ. But how “Jewish” must one become, then, to serve God in Christ, to confess him as Lord and Messiah, to claim for one’s self the authority of the Bible? Did a Christian have to follow the Jewish Law? Did a Christian have to take on the mark of the Old Covenant, circumcision, in order to be a part of God’s people now that the Christ has come?
At the heart of the issue, however, was whether Jesus Christ was enough for salvation. Was faith in Jesus Christ, in his finished work on the cross and in his resurrection enough? Or was there still something left that we must do in order to be saved?
There was a group of Jewish-Christians in the first century that taught that to be a real Christian, one had to perform the works of the Law, to be circumcised, and follow the dietary restrictions of the Old Testament. Jesus just wasn’t enough, they reasoned. It was Christ plus the Law, Christ plus works-righteousness. And this group was beginning to make its presence felt in Philippi.
You can imagine how a church of young Christians could be led astray by such teaching. These Jewish-Christians come to town, speaking the same biblical talk that the Philippian Christians themselves knew. And then, suddenly, they tell the Philippians, “Well, of course, you are keeping the Law, receiving the covenant sign of circumcision, and doing all the other necessary things, now, aren’t you?” You can imagine their confusion.
But had this point of view won out, there would not be a Christian Church today. There would not be a Gospel of grace. Christianity would have become just another denomination among the Jews, and eventually would have blended in with Judaism in general. The Gospel would have been lost altogether. That is why Paul responds as sharply and pointedly as he does. This is not simply some technical theological debate, but it is a battle for the heart and soul of the church.
Perhaps you might wonder the relevance of this whole theological battle for us today. I have not confronted anyone recently who was out to make us follow the Jewish Law, or combine our service a baptism with a service for circumcision! Yet there is something relevant here. What was at issue in Paul’s time and what is at issue for us today is whether we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, or by what we do. Do we contribute anything to our salvation? Is salvation somehow a coming together, a mix, of Jesus Christ plus us? Is salvation something that is a joint effort between Jesus and us, perhaps 80% Jesus and 20% us?
Human nature is offended at the idea that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, and not by our own doing. The world will not have that message. So often today you hear people assert that all religions are basically about the same thing, doing good deeds. Or perhaps you will hear that all religions are about the message of “love.” Of course, when people begin to say that, they also say that the Gospel message that salvation comes only through Jesus Christ is narrow. Such message does not meet their standard of “love” and tolerance. If we are all going up the same mountain, does it really matter if we are taking different paths?
Human pride is such that we do not want to accept the idea that salvation is something that we cannot bring about, something we cannot attain. If you were to ask virtually anyone on the street how to get to heaven, you would probably hear something about how you must be a “good person,” and hope that at the end of your life your good deeds have outweighed the bad deeds. Grieving relatives frequently say that they know that their recently departed one is in heaven because he or she was “a good person.”
But one of the things that the New Testament teaches us over and over is that we cannot appeal to our own goodness or our own good works in order to secure our salvation. In fact, Paul makes it clear that he had to give up the idea of his own goodness in order to experience the true righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.
Ppealing to the example of his own life before coming to Christ, Paul states here that if it were possible to save oneself by good works, particularly by observing the works of the Law, then no one had anything on him. He was a Jew, a true Israelite with the pedigree to prove it: descended from the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day, and a strict adherent of the Law. Paul was a Pharisee. We know about the Pharisees, because Jesus encountered them throughout this ministry. Do you know why Jesus seemed to do battle with the Pharisees than the other Jewish groups of that time? It was because they had so much in common. Jesus had more in common with them than with any of the other Jewish denominations of that time. And by their standards, Paul says, he was as serious and devout and “righteous” as anyone could be. In fact, he carried his commitment to the Law so far that he actually persecuted Christians.
But Paul gave up all of his pretensions to such righteousness:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. [Philip. 3:7-11 (ESV)]
When he came to Christ, not only did Paul give up the worst qualities about his life, but he also gave up what he had considered his best qualities:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish… [3:7-8]
What our translation translates as “rubbish,” the King James Version translates a bit more literally and, technically speaking, correctly: “dung.” However, the word “dung” is still a little too formal for what Paul says here. Paul uses a Greek word that was considered a bit crude, skubala: refuse, dung, rubbish, garbage. In ancient Greek this term was used to describe the most rotten, putrid things that are thrown out.
When Paul calls all of his past claims to righteousness as a result of his own works “skubala,” he is not simply saying that Jesus Christ is better than the worst of his life (that often seemed to be the message I heard in “testimonials” in revival meetings when I was a child). He was saying that Jesus Christ was greater than the best of his life, that even the best of his achievements were “skubala” in comparison to the righteousness of faith that comes as a free gift of grace in Jesus Christ. The grace of Christ not only means that the worst of us is in need of transformation; even the best of us is in need of transformation.
But that comes to us as a hard lesson, because we really do want to cling to ourselves, or at least something of ourselves, when it comes to righteousness. The words we sang already this morning set us straight about the way we must come to Christ:
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress,
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Savior, or I die!
Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Or as the apostle Paul said, “…whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ” (3:7).
But remember, when we throw ourselves unreservedly before the grace of Christ, and hold out our empty hands, emptied of whatever self-righteousness we would otherwise bring, he does not leave them empty. He fills them with good things, like the gift of truly knowing Christ, and the power of his resurrection, sharing in his suffering, becoming like him in his death, that we may attain the resurrection from the dead (3:10-11).
What about you? Have you found God and church unsatisfying? Has it been because in the course of your life you have sought to have a righteousness of your own? Has it been because when you have come before the cross you have still brought your baggage, and yet have found that the best you have is still far below the measure?
Christ calls you to let go of your self-made righteousness, and cling to him in faith, that coming before him naked, stripped of your own pretension, you may be clothed in his righteousness. Have you embraced him in faith, in that kind of faith?
Foul I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Savior, or I die! Amen.
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
June 14, 2009
Ronald, a friend of mine who is a Presbyterian minister, once had the occasion to serve a congregation that was in the same presbytery in which an older, well-known, Presbyterian minister and writer also served. When Ronald first began his ministry there, this well-known minister phoned him up and asked him to lunch. My friend was nervous as they rode together to this highly-esteemed, older minister’s favorite restaurant, Denny’s. Now before I say more, I must tell you something about this older minister. I have a shelf of his books in my study. His books on ministry are probably the best I have read. He is theologically solid, spiritually grounded, and has the ability to discern where God is working in the world, all without coming across as sanctimonious at all. I would love to have lunch with him at Denny’s!
Once they arrived, this older minister proceeded to “show him the ropes” regarding the presbytery. It was an embattled presbytery, and not a friendly place for ministers committed to a biblical, Reformed understanding of the faith, as both of them are. My friend sat ready to hear the lofty wisdom he was sure would roll off the lips of this older, wiser colleague.
The advice came. This highly esteemed colleague began to give my friend a laundry list of ministers in the presbytery that he was not, under any circumstances, to trust. “So-in-so is a snake, and will stab you in the back in a heart-beat. Joe Blow is a liar, and will sooner lie to you than tell you truth.” My friend told me he sat there stunned. But, he also told me it was one of the most helpful conversations he could have had, because everything this older minister told him was true!
As shocking as those words may sound, this is essentially what we heard today from the Scripture, from the third chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians:
Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. [Philip. 3:1-2 (ESV)]
Perhaps it sounds harsh to your ears that the apostle Paul would refer to his theological enemies as dogs and evildoers, no less than my friend’s shock at the advice he received. In our day we are told that we must be tolerant of the attitudes and ideas of others. But the fact is that in both cases, the advice was profoundly spiritual, and profoundly necessary.
So what got Paul that wound up? One of the first theological battles that raged in the church in the time of the apostles is referred to as the conflict with the “Judaizers.” The issue was this, how “Jewish” must a Gentile become in order to be a Christian. Jesus Christ is the Jewish Messiah. The Bible of the early church is what we know today as the Old Testament. The consistent witness of the apostles was that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel, now open to all the world in Christ. But how “Jewish” must one become, then, to serve God in Christ, to confess him as Lord and Messiah, to claim for one’s self the authority of the Bible? Did a Christian have to follow the Jewish Law? Did a Christian have to take on the mark of the Old Covenant, circumcision, in order to be a part of God’s people now that the Christ has come?
At the heart of the issue, however, was whether Jesus Christ was enough for salvation. Was faith in Jesus Christ, in his finished work on the cross and in his resurrection enough? Or was there still something left that we must do in order to be saved?
There was a group of Jewish-Christians in the first century that taught that to be a real Christian, one had to perform the works of the Law, to be circumcised, and follow the dietary restrictions of the Old Testament. Jesus just wasn’t enough, they reasoned. It was Christ plus the Law, Christ plus works-righteousness. And this group was beginning to make its presence felt in Philippi.
You can imagine how a church of young Christians could be led astray by such teaching. These Jewish-Christians come to town, speaking the same biblical talk that the Philippian Christians themselves knew. And then, suddenly, they tell the Philippians, “Well, of course, you are keeping the Law, receiving the covenant sign of circumcision, and doing all the other necessary things, now, aren’t you?” You can imagine their confusion.
But had this point of view won out, there would not be a Christian Church today. There would not be a Gospel of grace. Christianity would have become just another denomination among the Jews, and eventually would have blended in with Judaism in general. The Gospel would have been lost altogether. That is why Paul responds as sharply and pointedly as he does. This is not simply some technical theological debate, but it is a battle for the heart and soul of the church.
Perhaps you might wonder the relevance of this whole theological battle for us today. I have not confronted anyone recently who was out to make us follow the Jewish Law, or combine our service a baptism with a service for circumcision! Yet there is something relevant here. What was at issue in Paul’s time and what is at issue for us today is whether we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, or by what we do. Do we contribute anything to our salvation? Is salvation somehow a coming together, a mix, of Jesus Christ plus us? Is salvation something that is a joint effort between Jesus and us, perhaps 80% Jesus and 20% us?
Human nature is offended at the idea that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, and not by our own doing. The world will not have that message. So often today you hear people assert that all religions are basically about the same thing, doing good deeds. Or perhaps you will hear that all religions are about the message of “love.” Of course, when people begin to say that, they also say that the Gospel message that salvation comes only through Jesus Christ is narrow. Such message does not meet their standard of “love” and tolerance. If we are all going up the same mountain, does it really matter if we are taking different paths?
Human pride is such that we do not want to accept the idea that salvation is something that we cannot bring about, something we cannot attain. If you were to ask virtually anyone on the street how to get to heaven, you would probably hear something about how you must be a “good person,” and hope that at the end of your life your good deeds have outweighed the bad deeds. Grieving relatives frequently say that they know that their recently departed one is in heaven because he or she was “a good person.”
But one of the things that the New Testament teaches us over and over is that we cannot appeal to our own goodness or our own good works in order to secure our salvation. In fact, Paul makes it clear that he had to give up the idea of his own goodness in order to experience the true righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.
Ppealing to the example of his own life before coming to Christ, Paul states here that if it were possible to save oneself by good works, particularly by observing the works of the Law, then no one had anything on him. He was a Jew, a true Israelite with the pedigree to prove it: descended from the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day, and a strict adherent of the Law. Paul was a Pharisee. We know about the Pharisees, because Jesus encountered them throughout this ministry. Do you know why Jesus seemed to do battle with the Pharisees than the other Jewish groups of that time? It was because they had so much in common. Jesus had more in common with them than with any of the other Jewish denominations of that time. And by their standards, Paul says, he was as serious and devout and “righteous” as anyone could be. In fact, he carried his commitment to the Law so far that he actually persecuted Christians.
But Paul gave up all of his pretensions to such righteousness:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. [Philip. 3:7-11 (ESV)]
When he came to Christ, not only did Paul give up the worst qualities about his life, but he also gave up what he had considered his best qualities:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish… [3:7-8]
What our translation translates as “rubbish,” the King James Version translates a bit more literally and, technically speaking, correctly: “dung.” However, the word “dung” is still a little too formal for what Paul says here. Paul uses a Greek word that was considered a bit crude, skubala: refuse, dung, rubbish, garbage. In ancient Greek this term was used to describe the most rotten, putrid things that are thrown out.
When Paul calls all of his past claims to righteousness as a result of his own works “skubala,” he is not simply saying that Jesus Christ is better than the worst of his life (that often seemed to be the message I heard in “testimonials” in revival meetings when I was a child). He was saying that Jesus Christ was greater than the best of his life, that even the best of his achievements were “skubala” in comparison to the righteousness of faith that comes as a free gift of grace in Jesus Christ. The grace of Christ not only means that the worst of us is in need of transformation; even the best of us is in need of transformation.
But that comes to us as a hard lesson, because we really do want to cling to ourselves, or at least something of ourselves, when it comes to righteousness. The words we sang already this morning set us straight about the way we must come to Christ:
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress,
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Savior, or I die!
Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Or as the apostle Paul said, “…whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ” (3:7).
But remember, when we throw ourselves unreservedly before the grace of Christ, and hold out our empty hands, emptied of whatever self-righteousness we would otherwise bring, he does not leave them empty. He fills them with good things, like the gift of truly knowing Christ, and the power of his resurrection, sharing in his suffering, becoming like him in his death, that we may attain the resurrection from the dead (3:10-11).
What about you? Have you found God and church unsatisfying? Has it been because in the course of your life you have sought to have a righteousness of your own? Has it been because when you have come before the cross you have still brought your baggage, and yet have found that the best you have is still far below the measure?
Christ calls you to let go of your self-made righteousness, and cling to him in faith, that coming before him naked, stripped of your own pretension, you may be clothed in his righteousness. Have you embraced him in faith, in that kind of faith?
Foul I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Savior, or I die! Amen.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The Way of Obedience: Philippians 2:12-30
Rev. Walter L. Taylor
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
June 7, 2009
Some years ago I was involved in an installation service for a congregation in another state. This congregation had had a history of conflict over a number of years. A new pastor had come, and at his installation service, the preacher dealt in a fairly open way with the fact that the church had had this controversy. He told the congregation assembled that on many occasions he had parents tell him that they just could not understand why their adult children, who had been in church when they grew up, were no longer involved in church. He then went on to say, “In many of these cases I have known why they weren’t in church. They weren’t in church because Sunday after Sunday, year after year, they went home from church, sat down for Sunday dinner, and were served up a heaping portion of Roasted Preacher. Why would they want to go to church as adults when all they heard as children was how bad it was?”
But is that not a danger? For preachers’ families there is a slightly different danger, being served up a heaping portion of “Roasted Congregation.” Grumbling, complaining, whining. From the time when the Israelites marching through the desert until now, grumbling and complaining have been among the greatest curses that the people of God have known. R. Kent Hughes, former senior pastor of the College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, put it well when he said:
Critical, complaining spirits are the historic bane of the church from Philippi to Peoria to Philadelphia. They are found in every culture, like the nineteenth-century Scots who went to church to see if the gospel was preached. Or today’s McChurch worshippers who leave their church to go down the street to find a church more to their liking.[1]
It was also a problem in the days of the apostle Paul, who wrote to the Philippians,
Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life… [2:14-16]
The second chapter of Philippians began with a hymn like summary of the Gospel. Jesus Christ, though equal with God, let all his glory go, and humbled himself to the point of becoming flesh and blood, a human being. Not stopping there, he was obedient to the will of his Father to the point of death, and not just any death, but the painful, shameful death of the cross. But God exalted him, and the day is coming when all creation will bow before him, acknowledging him as Lord over all. This is the key to all history, the great purpose for which everything exists.
But Paul loses no time after reciting this beautiful passage to make his point: an obedient Savior leads to obedient followers. An obedient Christ leads to obedient Christians.
Obedience has fallen on hard times in our culture. In fact, we are probably more likely to use the word with reference to our dogs than with out children. For decades now, our culture has been singing the praises of rebellion and revolution. In fact, the whole genre of “Rock and Roll” music was born in the midst of rebellion and revolution. Now don’t get me wrong; even I enjoy listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and the Rolling Stones, who were major spokesmen for the great rebellion. But rebellion, especially when it is rebellion for the sake of rebellion, is not, biblically speaking, a virtue. For the believer, the only rebellion that is virtuous is the rebellion against the lordless powers of our age, a rebellion against the spirit of rebellion itself.
When Paul wrote to the Christians of Philippi to live obedient lives to God, to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (2:12), he particularly instructed them not to fall to the temptation to be grumblers and complainers. And he did this knowing full well that throughout the Old Testament this was one of the constant failings of the people of God. Throughout the Old Testament, and especially in the Exodus story of Israel, grumbling and complaining were at the top of the list of Israel’s sins. Having left Egypt, the Israelites went into the desert, and complained against Moses and the leaders of the people. First they grumbled because they had no food, then they grumbled about the food they had, because the food in Egypt had been better than this. Sure, they may have been slaves there, but at least they were not hungry slaves. They grumbled against Moses and their leaders, which ultimately meant they were grumbling against God, who had given them Moses and their leaders. And God remembered their grumbling, because it was outright disobedience and a lack of faith toward him.
Eventually, God had his fill of their grumbling, because in the eleventh chapter of Numbers we are told this:
And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. [Numbers 11:1]
And while I have not heard about a church being consumed by fire in the middle of a Sunday service because of the grumbling of the members, I have seen plenty of churches that, over time, were consumed by the grumbling of the members. It sucks the life out of a church, and leaves it a dried up shell. In other cases, grumbling people may well become church nomads, going from one place to another, inevitably finding something wrong with the new place, and then heading on yet again, like Kent Hughes mentioned earlier, those whom he described as McChurch worshippers.
The apostle Paul knew his Bible well. He knew well Israel’s history of grumbling and the damage it did. He did not want this to become the story of the church in Philippi as well. Paul knew that Jesus Christ had not given his life’s blood so that his people would, like their ancestors in the faith, become yet another group of grumblers.
Rather, Paul reminded the Philippians of that high calling they had in Christ, to “shine as lights in the world,” to be God’s children, “without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation” (2:15).
When Paul says that the followers of Jesus Christ are to “shine like lights in the world,” he is drawing from an Old Testament image. In the twelfth chapter of Daniel, when it describes the end of time, it describes the saints of God as those who “shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). So, we Christians have such a calling, to “shine like lights in the world,” like stars in the sky. Perhaps for us, who can barely see the stars anymore, the power of this image is lost. But it was not so many years ago, in an age before GPS systems, when travelers were dependent on knowing the stars. Sailors would sail at night according to the position of the stars. That was how they knew which direction to take. This is why, even today, among sailors and navies the star is such an important emblem for them.
Paul tells us that we should not be grumblers, questioners, complainers, but stars, people who are able to show others the way to go. By our faith and faithfulness, our compassion and kindness, we are to be the stars that point them beyond themselves to that eternal home and destination we have in Jesus Christ. Like stars shining in the dark sky by which the mariners of old found their way, so we too as a congregation ought to shine like constellations, giving direction, pointing the way to that eternal, heavenly port we have in Jesus Christ.
How do we do that? Paul points us in the right direction when he goes on to describe it in terms of “holding fast to the word of life” (2:16). To live this way, to embody this way of living so that others may see it for themselves, we must know it. We must learn it. We must write it on our hearts, and treasure it for the precious truth it is.
Paul ends this section of his letter to the Philippians drawing out two great examples of Christians who lived out their obedience without grumbling and complaining, Timothy and Epaphroditus. The Philippians knew them both well. Timothy, a young Christian pastor himself, was one of Paul’s lieutenants, who already had spent time in Philippi. Epaphroditus was himself a part of the congregation at Philippi. He was the one that the Philippians sent to deliver their love gift, their collection of funds, to Paul. But in the course of that journey, Epaphroditus became ill and nearly died. But God preserved him, and so he returned to the Philippians with this letter we know as a part of our Bibles in his hand. Speaking of Timothy and Epaphroditus, these two lights shining in the world, Paul says, “honor such men” (2:29).
Grumblers or lights in the world: that is the choice set before us today. Which shall we be, as individuals and as a congregation? Oh, grumbling is the easier, to be sure. It demands little out of us, while holding others to such a high standard that they will never reach it. It is also addictive, and like most addictions, destructive of life. But being a light in the world, in the midst of a twisted and crooked generation, a star in a constellation showing the way to our heavenly home that others, with the Word of truth in their hearts, may be able to navigate themselves there, now that is a life worth living.
In your life, along the way somewhere, you have known such stars. Perhaps they are in our congregation here. Because they were where God had placed them in your life, you are here today. So God is calling you, likewise, to be such a star now. Which will you be?
May God deliver us from grumbling, and in its place put praise, praise to him for all he is doing here among us and even through us and in us. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
[1] R. Kent Hughes, Philippians: The Fellowship of the Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), p. 100.
Oak Island Presbyterian Church
Oak Island, North Carolina
June 7, 2009
Some years ago I was involved in an installation service for a congregation in another state. This congregation had had a history of conflict over a number of years. A new pastor had come, and at his installation service, the preacher dealt in a fairly open way with the fact that the church had had this controversy. He told the congregation assembled that on many occasions he had parents tell him that they just could not understand why their adult children, who had been in church when they grew up, were no longer involved in church. He then went on to say, “In many of these cases I have known why they weren’t in church. They weren’t in church because Sunday after Sunday, year after year, they went home from church, sat down for Sunday dinner, and were served up a heaping portion of Roasted Preacher. Why would they want to go to church as adults when all they heard as children was how bad it was?”
But is that not a danger? For preachers’ families there is a slightly different danger, being served up a heaping portion of “Roasted Congregation.” Grumbling, complaining, whining. From the time when the Israelites marching through the desert until now, grumbling and complaining have been among the greatest curses that the people of God have known. R. Kent Hughes, former senior pastor of the College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, put it well when he said:
Critical, complaining spirits are the historic bane of the church from Philippi to Peoria to Philadelphia. They are found in every culture, like the nineteenth-century Scots who went to church to see if the gospel was preached. Or today’s McChurch worshippers who leave their church to go down the street to find a church more to their liking.[1]
It was also a problem in the days of the apostle Paul, who wrote to the Philippians,
Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life… [2:14-16]
The second chapter of Philippians began with a hymn like summary of the Gospel. Jesus Christ, though equal with God, let all his glory go, and humbled himself to the point of becoming flesh and blood, a human being. Not stopping there, he was obedient to the will of his Father to the point of death, and not just any death, but the painful, shameful death of the cross. But God exalted him, and the day is coming when all creation will bow before him, acknowledging him as Lord over all. This is the key to all history, the great purpose for which everything exists.
But Paul loses no time after reciting this beautiful passage to make his point: an obedient Savior leads to obedient followers. An obedient Christ leads to obedient Christians.
Obedience has fallen on hard times in our culture. In fact, we are probably more likely to use the word with reference to our dogs than with out children. For decades now, our culture has been singing the praises of rebellion and revolution. In fact, the whole genre of “Rock and Roll” music was born in the midst of rebellion and revolution. Now don’t get me wrong; even I enjoy listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and the Rolling Stones, who were major spokesmen for the great rebellion. But rebellion, especially when it is rebellion for the sake of rebellion, is not, biblically speaking, a virtue. For the believer, the only rebellion that is virtuous is the rebellion against the lordless powers of our age, a rebellion against the spirit of rebellion itself.
When Paul wrote to the Christians of Philippi to live obedient lives to God, to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (2:12), he particularly instructed them not to fall to the temptation to be grumblers and complainers. And he did this knowing full well that throughout the Old Testament this was one of the constant failings of the people of God. Throughout the Old Testament, and especially in the Exodus story of Israel, grumbling and complaining were at the top of the list of Israel’s sins. Having left Egypt, the Israelites went into the desert, and complained against Moses and the leaders of the people. First they grumbled because they had no food, then they grumbled about the food they had, because the food in Egypt had been better than this. Sure, they may have been slaves there, but at least they were not hungry slaves. They grumbled against Moses and their leaders, which ultimately meant they were grumbling against God, who had given them Moses and their leaders. And God remembered their grumbling, because it was outright disobedience and a lack of faith toward him.
Eventually, God had his fill of their grumbling, because in the eleventh chapter of Numbers we are told this:
And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. [Numbers 11:1]
And while I have not heard about a church being consumed by fire in the middle of a Sunday service because of the grumbling of the members, I have seen plenty of churches that, over time, were consumed by the grumbling of the members. It sucks the life out of a church, and leaves it a dried up shell. In other cases, grumbling people may well become church nomads, going from one place to another, inevitably finding something wrong with the new place, and then heading on yet again, like Kent Hughes mentioned earlier, those whom he described as McChurch worshippers.
The apostle Paul knew his Bible well. He knew well Israel’s history of grumbling and the damage it did. He did not want this to become the story of the church in Philippi as well. Paul knew that Jesus Christ had not given his life’s blood so that his people would, like their ancestors in the faith, become yet another group of grumblers.
Rather, Paul reminded the Philippians of that high calling they had in Christ, to “shine as lights in the world,” to be God’s children, “without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation” (2:15).
When Paul says that the followers of Jesus Christ are to “shine like lights in the world,” he is drawing from an Old Testament image. In the twelfth chapter of Daniel, when it describes the end of time, it describes the saints of God as those who “shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). So, we Christians have such a calling, to “shine like lights in the world,” like stars in the sky. Perhaps for us, who can barely see the stars anymore, the power of this image is lost. But it was not so many years ago, in an age before GPS systems, when travelers were dependent on knowing the stars. Sailors would sail at night according to the position of the stars. That was how they knew which direction to take. This is why, even today, among sailors and navies the star is such an important emblem for them.
Paul tells us that we should not be grumblers, questioners, complainers, but stars, people who are able to show others the way to go. By our faith and faithfulness, our compassion and kindness, we are to be the stars that point them beyond themselves to that eternal home and destination we have in Jesus Christ. Like stars shining in the dark sky by which the mariners of old found their way, so we too as a congregation ought to shine like constellations, giving direction, pointing the way to that eternal, heavenly port we have in Jesus Christ.
How do we do that? Paul points us in the right direction when he goes on to describe it in terms of “holding fast to the word of life” (2:16). To live this way, to embody this way of living so that others may see it for themselves, we must know it. We must learn it. We must write it on our hearts, and treasure it for the precious truth it is.
Paul ends this section of his letter to the Philippians drawing out two great examples of Christians who lived out their obedience without grumbling and complaining, Timothy and Epaphroditus. The Philippians knew them both well. Timothy, a young Christian pastor himself, was one of Paul’s lieutenants, who already had spent time in Philippi. Epaphroditus was himself a part of the congregation at Philippi. He was the one that the Philippians sent to deliver their love gift, their collection of funds, to Paul. But in the course of that journey, Epaphroditus became ill and nearly died. But God preserved him, and so he returned to the Philippians with this letter we know as a part of our Bibles in his hand. Speaking of Timothy and Epaphroditus, these two lights shining in the world, Paul says, “honor such men” (2:29).
Grumblers or lights in the world: that is the choice set before us today. Which shall we be, as individuals and as a congregation? Oh, grumbling is the easier, to be sure. It demands little out of us, while holding others to such a high standard that they will never reach it. It is also addictive, and like most addictions, destructive of life. But being a light in the world, in the midst of a twisted and crooked generation, a star in a constellation showing the way to our heavenly home that others, with the Word of truth in their hearts, may be able to navigate themselves there, now that is a life worth living.
In your life, along the way somewhere, you have known such stars. Perhaps they are in our congregation here. Because they were where God had placed them in your life, you are here today. So God is calling you, likewise, to be such a star now. Which will you be?
May God deliver us from grumbling, and in its place put praise, praise to him for all he is doing here among us and even through us and in us. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
[1] R. Kent Hughes, Philippians: The Fellowship of the Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), p. 100.
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