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"Shining
Like Stars" February
24, 2002 Rev. Gary LeTourneau Therefore, my dear friends, as you always have obeyed--not only in
my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your
salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to
act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may
become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and
depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold
out the word of life--in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did
not run or labor for nothing. But
even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service
coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.
So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. Philippians 2:12-18 Well,
I confess I found this a very hard message to prepare, and I'm finding it a very
hard message to deliver. Joan and I
have very, very much enjoyed being here in Minnetonka, and I've enjoyed very
much being pastor of Faith Church. I
look out at the congregation and I see people with whom I have cried and with
whom I have celebrated--baptisms, weddings, funerals.
And mostly I see people who are very, very much a part of my life and my
family's life. So it's very hard
for me to say to you that we're going to be saying "Good-bye," but we
are. And as I say that, I feel very
confident that God is leading Joan and me and our family in our next step, and
like all of us, we wait to see what that next step is and what it's going to be
like. So I'm just going to have to
get used to having some difficult messages, but I'll be your pastor for another
couple of months. Somebody
asked me a couple days ago if I was really going to give some
"zingers" now. And I'm
not. I'm going to resist it.
I think the last thing you or I want is somebody giving you a lot of
advice on what to do ("And another thing . . .")
But I don't want to squander this time, either.
I care very much for Faith Church. I
have great love for you and the highest hope for our church. I
invite you to open you Bible and look at Philippians with me. A long time ago I decided to preach from the book of
Philippians for this period of Lent. I
started at the annual meeting, talking about my conviction, based on Philippians
1, that God, who began a good work in us will bring it to completion.
Last week we looked at our example in the journey of discipleship:
Jesus in His servanthood. And
so today we come to one of my very favorite passages in the Bible because it has
a very attractive analogy for the Church of Jesus Christ--this is you and me.
In verse 15--you may have missed it because Paul just sort of sneaks it
in there--but he says that in this world in which we live, a crooked and
perverse generation, you the church (we the church) shine like stars in the
universe. You know, the Greek is a
little bit ambiguous and actually just says that you and I are to literally
"be revealed as lights"--that in a dark world, the Church of Jesus
Christ is the one institution which God has appointed to be the light of the
world, light in the darkness. Do
you like watching the Olympics? I
love it! The opening ceremonies,
the drama: Who is it that's
actually going to light the torch? And
this year it was the what--1980 hockey team.
It's a big secret and nobody is supposed to know.
Now, how many are on a hockey team?
It's more than just one or two! I
thought probably this was one of the most widely-known secrets in the United
States. A whole lot of people had
to know who it was going to be. After
all, those men on that hockey team couldn't say, "Honey, I'll be gone for a
couple weeks. I've got a little
assignment in Salt Lake City." But
I was thinking about the imagery of that Olympic torch. Of course, it begins in Greece and travels all across the
United States. We in Minnesota got
snubbed, but out in the West they didn't get snubbed.
In every town that had the Olympic torch coming through, they had a
celebration and a parade, and here came the torch.
Then on that night of Opening Ceremonies you saw that torch being passed
from person to person, representing the Olympics' rich history, and the 1980
hockey team, and then the torch is lit. The
imagery is compelling, that when you receive the torch you are receiving the
tradition, and the values, and the ideals of the Olympics and you're holding
them up for the world. You receive
it as a steward. It's not your
torch. The torch belongs to the
Olympics, and you're offering it to the world to lift up as well. And
that's a picture of the Church of Jesus Christ.
The light we receive, we receive as stewards. And when we receive the light of Christ, we receive that
light and all of its ideals, and its values, and its great traditions, and we
hold it out to the world. But
Jesus says that's not enough. You
and I are not simply stewards of the light of Jesus Christ.
Do you remember what Jesus says in His Sermon on the Mount?
He doesn't say simply, "Hold the light of the world."
He says, "You are the light of the world." There's
something quite different between simply holding a torch, and becoming a torch,
a light. A light shining in the
darkness. And Jesus says about you
and me that that is precisely what you and I are in the world.
And if you can imagine a sky without stars, you can imagine what the
world would be like without the light of Christ.
And that light of Christ is in the Church of Jesus Christ.
So you and I together as the Church, we have a great privilege and a
great responsibility to be the light of the world, shining in the darkness. So
Paul has a couple of pointers on how to go about being that, and doing that for
the Philippians. He says in verse
16 specifically how it is that it's going to happen: "It is by your [the Church] holding fast to the
word of life that I can boast that I did not run in vain or labor in vain."
In other words, when the Church holds fast to the word of life, we are
the light of the world. I'm
amazed at how much ambiguity there is in this passage.
When it says "hold fast," if you look at your New
International Version, there it says "holding out" the word of
life. In other words, the church is
the light of the world when it takes the word of life and holds it out and
offers it to other people. Our
translation in the New Revised Standard says "holding fast"--not
so much you're holding it out to others, you're clinging to it.
Because when we cling to the word of life so we gain life and become the
light of the world. I think this is perhaps one of those cases where the
ambiguity is deliberate. What is
the Christian life, anyway? Holding
on and holding out. Isn't that what
it's like for you? That's what it's
like for me. Grab hold of what God
has offered you in Christ Jesus, the world of life.
Take it into yourself, cling to it, and don't let it go. And at the very same time, hold it out for others so that
they may receive life as well, so that they may know Jesus.
So that they may be drawn to the light and may become part of that light
shining in the darkness. So,
the first thing we do: Hold on to
the word of life and hold out the word of life.
And Paul fills it out with some specific directions. Verse 14: "Do
all these things without murmuring and arguing." Of all the things he could have selected, why did he choose
that? I think it's because when you
and I begin to murmur and argue, complain and bicker, what we're really showing
is we're not depending on God and what He's given us and what He's provided for
us, but we're questioning that, and we're questioning the gift and other
people's place in that gift. I
like the story about the monks who lived together in a remote monastery.
Together they had taken a vow
of absolute silence. There was no
talking among them at all except once a year at Christmas, one monk was selected
and he was allowed to say one sentence. So
one year Brother Thomas was selected, and he rose at the right time and said,
"I love the delightful mashed potatoes we have every year with the
Christmas roast." Then he sat
down. Three hundred and sixty-five
days of silence followed. Brother
Michael got his turn the next year: "I
think the mashed potatoes are lumpy, and I truly despise them." Then once again followed 365 days of silence.
The following Christmas, Brother Paul rose and he said, "I'm fed up
with this constant bickering--can't we just get along?" Well,
whether it's a monastery or a church, you see we don't have time for bickering,
or murmuring, or arguing. We have a
great task: to be the Church of
Jesus Christ, holding fast the word of life and holding it out for others.
And when we're engaged in that task, we'll be cheering each other on, not
bickering, not murmuring. Paul
says, in Philippians 2:12 and 13 that the normal thing for the Christian is to
be growing in their faith: "Work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling." It's not enough just that you and I have received it; we have
to work it out, we have to absorb it, we have to grow in our capacity to love
God and to love others. The Bible
describes this process. The
theological word is called "sanctification."
It means becoming more Christlike. And
whose responsibility is it for you and me to grow?
I love the balance in this passage:
"Work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
Whose responsibility is it? It's
my responsibility, right? I can't
look at somebody else and say, "They didn't feed me.
They didn't nourish me. I
could be a better Christian if only [whatever]."
Paul says, "No, it's your responsibility.
You work it out." If
that was the only verse on this topic we have, and if it stopped with that
verse, we would conclude it's a hundred percent our responsibility to grow as
the bearers of the world of life. But
Paul doesn't stop there. "Work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling [as if it's a hundred percent up
to us--then he goes on and says] for it is God who is at work in you, both to
will and to work for His good pleasure."
If you only have the second part of that verse, whose job would you
conclude it was? A hundred percent
God's job. "God is at work in
us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." And you know, the Bible consistently says that as we're
called together to be the Church of Jesus Christ and we're called together to
grow, it's a cooperative effort. It's
almost like it's all our effort and it's all God's effort. I
like that because it spares us the temptation to laziness. The problem is if it's a hundred percent up to God, we might
be tempted to fold our arms and sit back and say, "Well, God, whenever you
do it, I'm there with you." On
the other hand, we're protected from pride of thinking, "Isn't it great
what I've done? Isn't it great what
we've done? Look at this great
church we've built together?" And
God says, "No. I'm the one who
breathes in life, I'm the one who sent His Spirit, I'm the one who makes it so
you can grow." You
know, every now and then we Presbyterians get asked what we believe about
predestination. Have you ever been
asked that? "How can you be
Presbyterian and believe in predestination?" I always come back to this verse, because it seems to me like
if what Paul says is true, that we're to work out our salvation with fear and
trembling, that sounds like free will to me--it's a hundred percent up to us.
"For God is at work in you both to will and to work for His good
pleasure." Well, that sounds like predestination. That's God being in charge, and God making it happen,
regardless of what we do. Well,
I like this passage because the apostle Paul evidently believed in complete free
will and predestination at the same time. He
used both concepts in the same sentence and didn't feel in any way that he was
contradicting himself or leading into a huge philosophical debate.
Somehow, Paul says, God is at work both to will and to work for his good
pleasure. Somehow it's true that
you and I are at work, making choices, working out our salvation. Philip
Yancey drew this analogy. He talks
about in high school he himself wanting to be a good chess player.
He describes himself in one of his books as sort of the ultimate nerd who
was in the high school chess club and read books on Classic King's Pawn Offenses
and treatises like that, and tried to learn them.
But he says: Shortly after high school I put chess away and didn't play again
for 20 years until, as an adult, I got to know a person who was really a chess
master, and he and I started playing. I
tried to draw on everything I had learned in high school and I found that no
matter which offense I chose--whether it was one of the classically-defined ones
or something incredibly unorthodox and maybe even stupid, no matter which way I
turned, this chess master was able to account for my move and just make it a
part of his game plan. I could
never surprise him. He was always
way ahead of me in possibilities. [and
Yancey says] Maybe that's a picture of our cooperation with God--that whether
it's the good in our life or all the bad in our life, God knows it and
incorporates it into the plan for our future.
And
the only difference would be that in a chess game, your opponent is out to beat
you. In life, God is your first cheerleader, the one who is committed,
above anything else, to bring to completion that which He began in us.
He's not a competitor who's out to defeat us.
He wants to lovingly bring us through to the end. And
somehow, whatever has preceded this moment in your life and in mine--the good,
the bad, the ups, and the downs--God can use those to work for good in your life
and my life to make us more and more like Jesus Christ so that we will be the
light of the world and will be revealed as lights shining in the darkness.
That's our opportunity together. Now,
you know what? I worry that
sometimes we feel we've arrived. Maybe
we wouldn't say it that bluntly, but spiritually what we do is we think,
"You know, there aren't a whole lot of challenges left for me.
I'm going to attend church. I'm
going to worship. I'll participate
in the offering and in the life and service of the church, but not much else is
going to happen." I don't
think that's an option because we together are to be the light of the world.
It doesn't say to work out your salvation 'til some point--'til you get a
new job, 'til you retire, 'til your kids are grown.
It doesn't say that. It
says, "Work out your salvation wherever you are."
If God is really the God of the universe, and Jesus Christ is His Son,
and you know Him as Savior of your life, then you've got some work to do,
wherever you are on life's journey. And
it's true for you and it's true for me. I'm
glad the season of Lent is the opportunity for us to think about what it means
to be a disciple and how we can grow as disciples.
I just count on you to be able to articulate your answer to the
questions: How
am I growing? What
has God called me to do? How
am I working out my salvation with fear and trembling as I seek to be the light
of the world in witness to Jesus Christ in the world? Let's
pray. Thank you, dear Lord, for the
gift of life. Thank you for the
gift of your church, which has been for so many of us a lifeline.
We pray today that in this season of discipleship that we together will
grow in our love for you and our love for each other, and that we will be the
light of the world as you empower us through Jesus, our Savior.
It's in His name we pray. Amen. Rev. Gary LeTourneau Senior Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota [Transcribed from an audiotape of the 9:00 a.m. worship
service on February 24, 2002] |
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