Sermon Cloud

Phil 2:12-30

Welcome- Dustin (announce different space next week)

Maggie and Athena/Homeless- Dustin?

Prayer- for homeless ministry

All right, we are going to jump right into the deep end this morning- no warm up. We’re going to do some stretching of our philosophical muscles…

Let’s take a chair, for instance… what is the essence of “chair”? What is “chair” all about?

If the chair becomes so unstable that it’s dangerous or impossible to sit in it, is it still a chair? Or how about this- If no one ever sits in a chair, is it really, truly a chair? Or does it just look like one?

Hmm… okay- rhetorical question here: what is it that defines the essence of “human.” What is it that if we never do, or experience, someone would have reason to question whether we are really “human” or just look like it?

If you have a bible, grab it- we’re in the book of Philippians- a letter a man named Paul, who was a leader in the early church, wrote to a small group of Christians in the Macedonian city of Philippi in about 60 or 62 AD. He’s writing from house arrest- he’s been imprisoned for telling people about Jesus- the religious leaders of his day were threatened by this new movement and they tried to kill it. So, there’s this question hanging over Paul as he writes this short letter- is it going to be life or death? Will they let him go, or will they kill him? At times he sounds more confident, at others times less, that he’s going to be released…

We’ve done chapter 1 and half of chapter 2, and last week, after a telling the people at Philippi that their lives as Christians, as people following Jesus, had to match up with the message on which the Christian life is based, that their lives need to be in harmony with the Gospel. And then he tells them their lives not only have to be in harmony with the Gospel, but they need to be in harmony with others around them also following Christ. The kind of infighting and bickering that too often happens in groups of people, Paul says, with you? Not so much. 

And more than just being in harmony with the Gospel and being in harmony with each other, he says… if you are going to call yourself a Christ follower, your life has to be in harmony with the way Christ Himself lived. That’s what it means to follow Him. Not to join a church like it was a country club, or even to join a church that is like a country club… but rather, to live your life as Christ did- as a servant, as one obedient to God, humble, putting other first.

He writes this amazing, soaring hymn of praise to Jesus, the one who humbled Himself for our sake, and then brings it back down to earth a bit and says…

VS 12

He says- you were always obedient to what you knew God wanted from you when I was there physically- don’t let that change now that I’m not. And then he makes a wild statement. He says “work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.” We’re going to spend some time talking about these two verses in depth.

Do any of you have a different translation than this? The Bible talks different ways about “salvation”- what are some of the pictures, some of the metaphors that are used?

So however you describe this relationship with God, whatever metaphor you use, Paul tells us- Work hard at it- and in light of what he says elsewhere, he probably doesn’t mean “Work hard to earn”, but maybe as the NLT puts it here: work hard to show the results of it.  What do you think he means- “work hard to show the results of your salvation”? What is he referring to?  What do you think the “results” are?

Elsewhere, Paul gives a list of things that one can expect if he or she is pursuing a relationship with God- he says that relationship results in an increase in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And here he says- work hard at showing those results. Work hard at being more patient, at being kinder, at loving people. Put some effort into it… And here’s where I confess that I stumble. I want to be more patient. And I want it right now…. But I can’t seem to make myself more patient, more kind, more joyful…

Basketball story

See- the problem is, our main metaphor for maturing in our relationship with God is good, but insufficient- we talk all the time about growth. Spiritual growth. Growing spiritually… and it’s a good metaphor- it’s in the Bible, so we can’t just toss it completely…

But the thing is, no matter how hard I try, I can’t will myself to grow. If I could, I would 5’9’’ at least, and probably a little taller than that. If sheer willpower were enough…

We focus so much on growth- why aren’t I growing, why do I feel stuck, why aren’t I where I want to be… and I think what we neglect is health. See- I can’t control growth, but I can control, to a certain degree, my health. What I take into my body… How I treat it. And if I live on a diet of ice cream and pixie sticks and then accuse my doctor of malpractice when she tells me I have diabetes…

She can help me, she can work hard on my behalf for my health… but if I’m not also working hard, the results will be different than I hoped.

So- we’ve talked about the “results” part- what does it look like to “work hard”? How does someone trying to live in relationship with God do that? Some of you have been doing that for awhile now- let’s say we’re talking to someone who’s just starting out- what do you tell them? Is it easy?

So Paul says work at this. Work at this spiritual life, this life of following Jesus. Because really- it’s what matters most.

Relationship with God, the spiritual life, following Jesus, living it out in community- I don’t know where we got the idea that those are things we fit in around job and career and hobbies and all the rest. You need to have a job. But sacrificing your spiritual life on the altar of your career or your hobbies is like selling the engine out of your car to buy a really nice pair of spinning rims. Kind of defeats the purpose, yeah? Might look nice, but it’s not going to get you anywhere, and someone might have reason to question- is it really a car if it doesn’t have an engine? If it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do?

I was talking to someone this week who had been doing a job for a few weeks and just discovered that one of the things he thought was kind of peripheral to his job, was, in reality, the main thing. You know what I say? Better to discover that early on…

Relationship with God- This is the work of our lives- this is the thing without which, we’re not truly human- without which we are missing the entire point of our existence. We were created to know Him, to be known by Him, to be in relationship with Him. The old Presbyterian catechism used to say “What is the chief end of man?” Anyone know?

To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That’s the very nature of what it means to be human, to be created in the image of God – to represent Him well, to point at  Him, not ourselves. And if we aren’t representing Him well, if we aren’t glorifying Him, then, in a very real sense, we are being less than human- like a chair that’s never sat in, a dress that’s never worn, a movie no one sees... Are they still what they were made to be? Kind of… but not really.

And that’s where the idea of “fear and trembling” comes in—imagine that one would reach the end of his or her life and realize that what they thought was the point of life wasn’t and that they had missed completely their whole reason for existence- You want to talk about hell? That’s hell- realizing that not only did you spend your life ignoring God and pursuing self, but the self that you pursued, the self that you preferred over God, that you nurtured and fed and sustained, that “self” was the least authentic, the least real version of yourself that could have possibly been… that in the very act of seeking your life, you actually lost it. That’s hell.

But the good news, the Good News, is that not only does God point us towards what we need to be, in Scripture, in the person of Christ, through our consciences, in community… but He actually helps us become that.

VS 13

I love that- yes, He says- work hard. That’s difficult to hear. And when we try, we realize our utter inability to do what we need to do- to grow. So, as I said last week, far from helping those who help themselves, God helps those who realize they can’t help themselves. He tells us- for those who are working hard, who are focusing on health, God works. God gives the growth.

God sees your planting, your watering, your pruning… your efforts at spiritual health- your desire to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him- in fact, He gave you that desire in the first place.

You know- I rarely worry about someone who says “I’m struggling spiritually.” I think to myself- Good. It’s when you stop struggling that you get in real trouble.

So- you can’t say it’s easy. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be work. But neither can you say it’s impossible- because God Himself is working alongside you on this, giving you the ability to do what needs to be done.

Listen- Relationship with God, prayer, worship, serving God by serving others… This is the work of your life. Not your career, not your hobbies, not your bank account, not your freakin’ khakis. Relationship with God. We pursue the trivial as though it were the imperative, the essential, the indispensable… and we fit in God in the left over spaces. Time to see what is essential to our human existence as truly essential- and time to give ourselves to the pursuit of it.

I don’t want to get out of balance and I certainly hope this isn’t the only time you ever come to this community and the only message you ever hear from it- life in the way of Jesus isn’t all work, and paradoxically a thing of deep rest and comfort- a lifting of a burden rather than laying one on… but- we balance that with the idea that we work at worshipping God as we should. We work at praying for the world and for others as we should. We work at knowing God like we should. We pursue those things with the same dogged determination we give the most central part of our life- or at least we should.

So- not to guilt you or anything- I don’t wanna be that guy… but how’s the work coming? And I’m talking to myself here. In fact, I will just talk to myself-

Bob- do you put the same effort into praying for people that you do into working on your stupid blog?

Bob- do you serve others with the same determination you give your hobbies?

Bob- do you make any effort at all at worshiping God, the very thing you were created to do? Or do you simply throw up a prayer now and again, serve when it’s convenient, show up on Sunday hope the music is good so you can “worship.”

Let’s pray, we’ll take some time for worship and reflection, and then we’ll finish this passage…

Break- 

Song

Psalm-

Reflection-

Song

Real quick here… he says:

VS 14-15

Wow- “A crooked and perverse generation”… He’s quoting from the OT there- making an allusion to Israel in the desert… These people God had saved, and yet who spent 40 years wandering around in the desert, moaning and complaining about what God gave them, how He provided for them… and Paul says- Don’t be like them. Your life, if you are someone who calls themselves a Christ follower, is meant to point people to God, and when you spend your time complaining about your life, you communicate something about God- perhaps unintentionally, but it still speaks. When we can’t get along with each other, we say something about ourselves, certainly, but we’re also telling people very clearly about God, about the impact or lack of impact, that He has on us. So Paul says

VS 15-

Your life speaks. Your life says something whether you want it to or not, so you might as well make it say something good, something that matters…

VS 16-17

“Hold firmly” isn’t the best translation… “Hold out” might be a better one. Hold out the word of life to people- that is, let the way that you live, the way you speak, your words and your works, let those thing point people towards God, towards forgiveness and relationship with God. Point people towards Jesus…

Paul says, if you do that, whether I get out of jail here, or they end up killing me, I’ll be happy, because I know at the end of my life, it was worth it.

On the day we decided to plant this church, a couple of years ago, I was having lunch with a guy named Jim Schoene. And at the beginning of that lunch, I was thinking about planting a church. But at the end of it, I knew I needed to just do it. And he asked me a question- he said “So how are you going to define failure?”

And I thought for a minute and then said- you know, if we define failure as “not enough people show up” or “getting a building” or even whether it keeps going or not, we’re in trouble.

I said- for us, failure is going to have to be if no one gets fed, clothed, taken care of. Failure is going to have to be if people don’t hear about Jesus. Failure isn’t whether we do this for any set length of time, but how we do it for however long we have.

You guys are making me proud. When I see you love each other, when I see you take care of people, people you know and people you don’t- when I see you worship God, and work hard at knowing and loving Jesus, I know that this thing we’re doing is worth it. Whether it goes on for another 3 years, or another 10 or another 20, it’s been worth it. This is a good thing to give ourselves to.

Can we as a community decide together that we are going to continue to work hard at the things that matter? That we will give ourselves to the worship of God and the service of our neighbors? That we will love each other and live in community without complaining or arguing, but live in such a way that people get a glimpse of the God who is sending us to them? Can we work hard at those things?

Let’s pray to God and ask for His help in doing that.

Songs

Blessing/Wrap up/Verses 19-30