Lent 5 – 13 March 2016 – Year C
Grace to you and peace from our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for this meditation is written in
the 3rd Chapter of St Paul’s letter to the Philippans: Verses 8 –
14;
8 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 9 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— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may
share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from
the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but
I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 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, 14 I press
on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
True or false: Jesus Christ went to the cross to destroy death and to give us the gift
of eternal life? - "True," we say.
True or false: Because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, our
sins are forgiven, we are covered in the righteousness of Christ, we are declared holy and
just before the throne of God? - "True," we say.
True or false: On the day of resurrection we will
experience never ending joy and peace as we stand face-to-face with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? - "True," we say.
I
challenge you! If this is our belief, then why does criticism bother us so much? Why do we often get
anxious and worried about the future? Why are we sometimes so unhappy with how our life has turned out? Why, if we know the Good News of the Gospel of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, are we so often dissatisfied and discontent? It seems
incredible that we can intellectually score 100 percent on the good news
of Christian salvation. And yet we continually fail when it comes to actually living out our Christian life.
Our text for today is from the Book of Philippians. One of the major themes of that book is the power of the Gospel to make a
substantial difference in your life, to give you joy and peace, no matter what. Paul writes: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice" (4:4).
Now, some of you might be thinking, "That’s beyond me. Rejoice in the Lord always? You don't actually expect me to take that literally, do you? You don't actually expect me to believe it's possible
for us to rejoice during the tough times, to rejoice during the hard times, do you?"
Well,
let me answer that question with a question. What was going on in Paul's life when he wrote this letter to the Church at Philippi? What might
have caused him to write such a remarkable thing? Was he on some sort of dream vacation? Was His
life easy? No. As he says in the very first chapter of Philippians, Paul wrote
this letter while he was imprisoned in Rome (v 13).
Paul understood too well how painful life
could be:
Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one I am talking like a madman with far greater labors, far
more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I
received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I
was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was ship wrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from
Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger
from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger
and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. (2 Cor 11:23-27) Paul, you see, knew how painful life
could be. Yet despite all of this, as he
sat there in prison about to be put on trial for his life, he was somehow able to write these astonishing words:
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice."
Folks, I don't
know about you, but it really doesn't take all that much for me not to rejoice
in the Lord. For example: I
do not rejoice in the Lord when someone drives into my car. I do not rejoice in
the Lord when my refrigerator breaks down. I do not rejoice in the Lord
when I take my clothes out of the wash and realise I left a packet of tissues
in one of my pockets. I do not rejoice in the Lord when I wake up in a panic
because I realise I've set the alarm for 7 p.m. instead of 7 a.m. These are times when I do not rejoice in the Lord!
But Paul (unlike me) was able to rejoice in the Lord always. Paul was able to
rejoice in the Lord despite being repeatedly beaten and tortured and tried. Why? Our
text for today from Philippians 3 gives us a clue.
Can we read over verses 8-11 of our text, and as we do try and build a mental picture in your mind's eye of Paul sitting in his rugged stone prison cell writing these words:
“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.”
Do you
see what gave Paul strength, what gave Paul hope, even in the most hopeless of
situations? He considered everything a loss compared to the surpassing
greatness of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord. He considered everything rubbish (in the Greek,
literally filth) in order that he might gain Christ and be found in him.
In other words, Paul was given strength,
courage, hope, and joy, all because he knew Christ Jesus his Lord and he knew that he would one day
see him again face to-face. As he
says here, the unshakable goal of his life was to attain, by the grace of God, the resurrection from
the dead. Why? Because Paul knew in the day of resurrection he would finally be
with his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ forever.
So, how was Paul able to rejoice in the Lord always? How was he able to write these amazing words while sitting in prison? Here is the central teaching I want you to take home with you today: knowing
that he would one day be with Jesus in the
future; knowing for certain what his eternal future would be; changed him in the present; and made his daily challenges acceptable.
This is what he means by
those well-known words found in verses 13 -14: "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."
You see, Paul knew that the prize
was certain. Paul knew that the prize would one day be his. That is what gave
him the confidence to keep straining forward, that is what gave him the
confidence to keep pressing on, no matter what. You see
like Paul ‘what we know our future
to be can actually change our present.’
Friends in Christ, we live in a country where
drugs, domestic violence and crime is our national disgrace; all around us we
see poverty and we see greed; the great divide between the have and have-nots.
The God of many lies in riches and possessions; the desire for the ‘good life’.
The great sadness is that there are growing numbers of those who know nothing
of our Triune God; the Bible and Christian belief have become the brunt of
criticism. Do we of the Christian faith feel more secure in our life? That is a
question worthy of honest contemplation.
At the beginning of this meditation I had a ‘True
or False’ quiz, fundamental questions that surely assured us that we ‘know about Jesus’; in this Bible text
Paul is telling us that His only reassurance and comfort comes not from knowing
about
Jesus, but from actually ‘knowing Jesus in a personal relationship’. To
know the ‘dynamic power of Christ’s resurrection’ and the guarantee of
the life to come, even in physical death, we will live in Christ. Such a
personal relationship with Jesus means that in our suffering, we suffer with
Jesus and in our death we die with Jesus and in our death we share in the
eternal salvation as we are resurrected into forgiveness and eternal life with
Jesus. To know Jesus is, like Paul, to be certain about our eternal future.
My friends, Jesus Christ went to the cross to destroy death and to give us the gift of eternal life. Because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, our sins are
forgiven, we are covered in the righteousness of Christ, we are declared holy and
just before the throne of God. Because Jesus Christ rose from the
dead, we can be certain that we, too, will rise. On that day of resurrection, we will experience
never-ending joy and peace as we stand face-to-face with our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. That is what our future will be! That is the prize we've already won!
What
does this mean for our life? How will knowing this change our life today? I leave you with the words of Paul found
in Phil 4:4-7:
“Rejoice
in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 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.” Amen
The love and grace of God, which is beyond all human understanding, keep
your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen
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