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"What
Do You Want?" March
3, 2002 Rev.
Gary LeTourneau Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss
because of Christ. More than that,
I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have
suffered the loss of all things, and I regard 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 one that comes from faith in Christ, the righteousness
of God based on faith. I want to
know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings
by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from
the dead. Philippians 3:7-11 Many
years ago when I was a Youth Pastor at Albuquerque--First Presbyterian Church in
Albuquerque, New Mexico--our church had an old, yellow bus.
I'll never forget George, the bus mechanic.
When the bus needed any kind of maintenance, I was told when I got there
that I wouldn't have to worry about the bus--just looking at it had made me a
little bit nervous because I thought I was going to be stuck getting it repaired
all the time. But no, just call
George and he'll come take care of it. So
I tried it. And George was always very consistent. He arrived at about four in the afternoon.
He drove an old, beat up blue Chevy van, and he wore a mechanic's
jumpsuit. Whatever the bus needed,
he would do. And that bus needed a
lot! George came and changed the
oil, did maintenance things. One
day I noticed that the brakes weren't quite feeling right, so I called George.
I thought he would say, "Brakes?
You gotta take those in," but George said, "No problem.
I'll be over." And so
he showed up with all the stuff to do a brake job on our bus.
He drove into the church parking lot and I was feeling a little bit
guilty because I called him so often and he spent so much time--just as a
regular, church member volunteer. So
I thought, "I'll stay and talk to him while he does this job.
Maybe I can help hold his tools." We
started talking and, you know, I had pretty quickly sized George up as a
mechanic. He drove a beat up Chevy
van. He wore a mechanic's jumpsuit.
He did all this work on our bus. So
I asked George, "Where do you work?" and he told me, "I work at
Sandia National Laboratory." It's
in Albuquerque and it employs about 8,000 people.
It's a huge defense contractor. I
immediately thought, "How nice! George
has a good job--probably in the machine shop at Sandia Labs."
I could just see him in there grinding stuff away.
What a perfect place for George to be. He
started talking. He asked me
questions about my family, where Joan and I had been to school, and I told him
that. Then he happened to mention
something about when he went to school. I
thought, "Isn't that nice? Sandia
probably paid for George to go to Vo-tech to get a little better at
welding," or something like that. I
was awful! We
talked a little more and then he said something about going to school and being
gone for several years. And I
thought, "You don't go to Vo-tech for welding and go away for several
years," so I said, "Where did you go to school?"
He
said, "Oh. That's when Sandia
sent me to Notre Dame to get my Ph.D." I
thought, "You probably don't work at the machine shop at Sandia, do
you?" So then I said,
"Well, George, what do you do at Sandia, anyway?" "Well,
I'm in charge of the nuclear weapons lab at Sandia National Laboratory." "Oh!
. . . uh . . . tell me about that .
. ." The
next day in the newspaper, there was his picture on the front page, receiving an
award in the federal government for the work of his lab at Sandia and he was
literally a nuclear rocket scientist! He
was the one I thought was a mechanic or a machine-shop guy, and I was completely
wrong about it. I had to reassess
and reevaluate what I thought about George, my relationship with him, what I
thought about other people, and how I tend to size people up and I'm a hundred
percent wrong! The apostle Paul, in
almost every single one of his letters, returns to the same theme, and the theme
is simply this: When I first
considered Jesus, I had Him sized up in a certain way.
But I was wrong. I was so wrong! But
now that I see Jesus in the correct light, I have reevaluated my life
completely. You
remember how the apostle Paul gives his introduction in the New Testament.
It's not as an apostle. It's
not as a believer. He had the name
Saul--that was his given-name. Paul
was just his nickname among the followers of Christ.
Saul was a Pharisee. He
studied at the feet of Gamaliel, which means he went to the sort of
"Harvard of the ancient Jewish world."
He was smart, and he was convinced that this new sect of Christians were
wrong, and they were so wrong they had to be suppressed and even eliminated. When Stephen, the first martyr, was stoned to death, Paul has
his introduction in the New Testament as the man standing on the side, holding
the cloaks of those who killed Stephen for witnessing to Jesus Christ.
Saul decided that was a pretty good thing to do and he built a career out
of trying to gather evidence against Christians with the Jewish
authorities--that Christians were committing blasphemy because they were
proclaiming Jesus was God. He would
get some evidence against them, get some letter written, and hunt them down to
have them arrested and killed because he was convinced that Christianity had to
be eliminated. And of course, you
know what happened. He was on his
way to Damascus to arrest the Christians there and the Lord met him on the road.
He was blinded. And after he
went to Damascus and Ananias prayed for him, Saul received the Holy Spirit.
He
realized he was wrong about Jesus. And
because he was wrong, he had to reevaluate his life.
It made such a mark on him that in every single letter he has the theme,
"Who is Jesus?" and "What does it mean to be in relationship with
him?" I'd like to read our
Scripture lesson from The Message, the New Testament recently translated
by Eugene Peterson. It's a
paraphrase. I think it helps us get
the precise meaning that Saul/Paul has in this letter. Here's what he says: The
very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm
tearing up and throwing out with the trash, along with everything else I used to
take credit for. And why?
Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone
from my life. Compared to the high
privilege of knowing Christ Jesus my Master first-hand, everything I once
thought I had going for me is insignificant.
It's dog dung. I've dumped
it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by Him.
I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from
keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind of righteousness that
comes from trusting Christ--God's righteousness.
I gave up on that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally,
experience His resurrection power, be a partner in His suffering, and go all the
way with Him to death itself. If
there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do
it. He's
looking back on his life. A serious
life, a successful life, a scholarly life, one dedicated to learning and to
teaching, in which credentials were of the utmost importance--and he says,
"I was wrong. That is just
garbage. Now I want to tell you
what is real, and what's true, the One who is the Truth.
I want to tell you how I'm looking at my life." First
he takes up his task and he says, "All those achievements, all those
credentials are nothing more than empty promises which didn't really bring me
any credit and which now I see as not having any worth at all." I
enjoyed reading a story by a man named David Gibson.
He's a pastor now. He writes
about returning to his own high school's 30-year reunion of his small school's
very first football team. He was on
that team. He remembers that when
he was a senior on that team, he was voted Co-Captain and Most Improved Player
on the basketball team. At the annual sports assembly [he writes] I was called forward in
front of the entire student body and presented with two trophies--one for being
Co-Captain of the basketball team, the other for being the Most Improved Player.
Well,
he got back to his hometown for his thirtieth reunion. He says he walked through the old high school to see what it
looked like after three decades. I found the lobby where all the sports awards are displayed and I
looked for the two plaques, one for the Captains of the basketball team, the
other for the annual persons voted Most Improved Player, to find my name there.
[And he says] I found both plaques,
and I found that in both cases, the name of one of my teammates had been
engraved where my name belonged! Now
I'm certain that I won the awards. I
remember receiving them, and I still have the trophies recognizing me for that.
But somebody made a mistake and my name was not on the plaques where it
belonged. My promised glory had
been stolen from me. And
that's just what the apostle Paul says. We
work our whole lives to gain some status, or ambition, or certification, or
education. And we think, "When
I finally get there, I will have arrived."
Paul said, "When I look back now through the lens of knowing Christ,
I see it was just an illusion. And
all of those certifications and credentials, impressive as they were at the
time, are nothing more than empty promises that have vanished over time."
Paul says he's mentally wrapped them all up and thrown them away. Modern
translators of the Bible have a little bit of a hard time with this passage
because the word Paul uses--what Eugene Peterson translates as "dog
dung"--is a very earthy word. I'd
get in trouble if I said it, but that's what it means.
It's no more than that that I've just thrown away and pushed out of my
life. He's stating as strongly as
possible that compared to knowing Jesus and having a right relationship with
God, everything else in this life doesn't amount to anything at all. So
he says, "I've dumped it all so I could embrace Christ and be embraced by
Christ. The most important thing
about my life is not what I've learned, is not what I've done.
It's what the Son of God has done for me." And
you know, there are some people whose primary fame in life is not what they have
done, but who they are related to. I
always have just a small case of that. I
experienced it with some of you. My
grandfather's brother was a very prominent speaker--Christian speaker, president
of a college, Christian businessman who flew all over the country and spoke in
the '50s and '60s. Every Christian
knew the name of R. G. LeTourneau and many received a newsletter of his college.
(I think he was the original mass-mailer in Christian circles!)
It used to be I couldn't go a week without being asked two or three
times, "Oh--LeTourneau. Are
you any relation?" Most of
these people are getting old enough now that they don't remember any more, or
they're gone. But for most of us,
maybe our greatest claim to fame is not something we've done, but who we're
related to. The
apostle Paul says for every Christian, the greatest claim we have is not what
you've done, but who you're related to. That
you know Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, who came to die for you and to give
you what you didn't even know you needed and couldn't get yourself.
And here you've been spending your whole life trying to grab and
accumulate whatever it is that's worthwhile and Jesus comes and says,
"Forget all that. Let me give
you a relationship with the God of the universe."
And Paul says, "As I look at my past, I've just consigned it all to
the trash heap and now I live for one reason and one reason only:
To know Christ and to be known by Christ."
Paul says in the present there's only one word for you to know about my
life: Jesus.
Because that's what my life is all about. When
he says, "My life's goal is to know Christ and to be known by Him,"
please understand he doesn't mean know about Jesus. He means to know Him personally.
He doesn't mean come to church. He
doesn't mean serving on a committee. He
doesn't mean going to Sunday School. He
means knowing Jesus in a personal relationship, just as you would know a friend. The
verb "to know," as he's using it here, implies the deepest intimacy.
And to know Jesus is what Paul's life is about.
You know that just because a person goes to a garage, that doesn't make
them a car. Just because a person
goes to church, that doesn't make them a Christian. Paul
says there's only one thing that matters, and that's for you personally to know
Jesus Christ, and have invited Him to be a part of your life, and look forward
to spending the rest of your life together.
He says there are three things involved in that for him.
There may be more, but he says first of all, "I want to know the
power of His resurrection." You
and I live in a world in which we're offered many, many solutions for how we can
put our lives together in a way that we're told will make them new and exciting.
We do the thing, and we study, and we learn, and we do what's involved,
and we get to the end and find out, "Guess what--I'm still the same old me.
I've just been recycled into a new package.
It's already getting old, and I'm now going to have to find something
else." Again,
another just great story because of the image.
It's told by Len Sullivan. He
writes about his grandparents. They
married in the late 1920s and they moved into Grandpa's old family home.
It was a clapboard house with a hall down the middle.
In the '30s they decided to tear down the old house and build another one
to be their home for the rest of their lives. Much to my Grandmother's dismay, and I'm sure because of the
Depression, many of the materials from the old house were reused in the new
house. They used the old casings
and the old doors, and many other pieces of the finishing lumber.
Everywhere my Grandmother looked in her new house, she saw that old
house. Old doors that wouldn't shut
properly. Crown moldings split and
riddled with nail holes. Unfinished
window trimming. It was a source of
grief to her. All her life, she
longed for a new house. It's
a parable of a human life, isn't it? All
of our life we do, and do, and do, and we discover that when we're finished,
it's still the same old life being recycled.
Paul says there's another way to live.
There's another way. You can
invite Jesus of Nazareth to come into your life and by the power of the
resurrection, to change it. It's
like an explosion inside. It makes
a new person there. The old
person's personality is still present and recognizable, but "if anyone is
in Christ, he is a new creation." And
that's what God wants to do with you and with me--to make us new.
That's our experience in walking the Christian life. Second,
Paul says, "I want to share in the fellowship of His suffering,"
because he realized the most important thing Jesus did is to come to die for us,
on our behalf. And it is a fact
that when you and I suffer for and with Jesus, we are united to Him very
closely. Paul was writing this
letter from jail. He's in prison. We're not really sure he ever got out. Many historians think Paul was killed as a result of that
imprisonment in Rome. During the
time he wrote to the Philippians, he was experiencing that suffering first-hand.
My natural inclination would be to say, "It's not fair!
Let me out! I was framed!
Call the lawyers!" Paul
said, "Isn't this great? I
have an opportunity now to witness to the guards.
I have an opportunity to witness to the Court."
He was looking forward to having an opportunity to witness to Caesar, and
if the only way to do that was in chains, so be it.
He was glad for the opportunity to witness to his relationship with
Jesus. He learned the fellowship of
suffering. And
finally Paul says, "All the way to death, I want to live with Jesus."
He knew that his death was possible and probable.
He writes very candidly that, "This life could be over for me and I
could be with Jesus--that would just be gain for me.
But it's for your sake that I'm here, and now my hope is to stay faithful
all the way to the end." And
so he did. The past is rubbish, and
I've just consigned it to the trash. The
present is all about knowing Jesus. Next
week we're going to continue in Philippians and look at Paul discover what his
goal in life, his aim in life is, in the next paragraph. You can read ahead. It
would be excellent devotions this week in this season of Lent as we grow in our
discipleship. But
I'd like to be sure and conclude with this image for you, because it's possible
that as you've come to church, and as you've heard me preach, and as you've
heard other people speak and teach, it's so easy for us at the front to give a
list of things to do. We're
actually sort of challenged to do that. We're
told as we prepare our sermons, "You know, people want something practical.
Don't just give them something lofty.
Give them something they can walk out and work on that afternoon.
They like that." I
suppose that's true, but the danger is that we're going to leave church today,
and every day of our lives, and think, "What Pastor Gary has done is just
given me more to do, and more to do, and more to do . . ."
And the apostle Paul is saying, "No, it's not about having more to
do. It's about it being done!"
It's done by Jesus for me. Here's
the illustration. Craig Barnes is
Pastor of the National Presbyterian Church.
He writes that when he was a child, his minister-father brought home a
12-year-old boy named Roger. Roger's parents had died from a drug overdose.
There was no one to care for Roger, so my folks decided they would just
raise him as if he were one of their own sons.
At first it was quite difficult for Roger to adjust to his new home, an
environment free of heroin-addicted adults.
Every day, several times a day, I heard my parents saying to Roger,
"No, no. That's not how we behave in this family."
"No, no. You don't have to scream, or fight, or hurt other people to
get what you want." "No,
no. Roger, we expect you to show
respect in this family." Craig
Barnes writes that over time, Roger began to change.
He asks this question: "Did
Roger have to make all of those changes in order to become a part of our
family?" No.
He was made a part of the family simply by the grace of Craig Barnes'
parents who said, "We want you to be a part of our family."
But
did he have a lot of hard work to do because he was made a member of the family?
Yes. And he writes that
being motivated by gratitude for the love he had received, he was able to do the
work and to change. Now,
the spiritual application: Do you
and I have a lot of hard work to do, because we've been received in God's family
as brothers and sisters of Jesus? Yes. Do
we have to do that work to be members of the family?
Absolutely not. It's been
done for us on the cross. Jesus
says, "You are my brothers and my sisters in Christ, and heirs with me of
all God has to offer. You're a part
of the family. Now, get to work on
living like part of the family." You
see, it has to do with our motivation. For
Paul it all comes down to one thing: Jesus.
To know Jesus and to be known by Jesus.
This
week, I hope that if you do want to do something as a result of this sermon, it
will be to set aside some time to know Jesus and to be known by him.
Take ten or fifteen minutes. Begin
this afternoon. Just read a
favorite passage of Scripture, invite God to be with you, and to open your
heart, and allow His presence to just fill you.
If you and I could just do that every day, our lives would be so
different. Let's
pray. Lord, I confess, as I'm sure
all of us do, that much of our lives seems to be focused on first of all,
earning success and second of all, desperately trying to rearrange our lives so
that we can love ourselves more and have other people love us more.
Thank you for the refreshing word of grace that Jesus Christ has done
that for us, and we only need receive and accept that grace.
And, Lord, with the apostle Paul, we want to be known as followers of
Jesus, and that's what we want people to remember us for, and that's how we want
to be known by you. I pray that in
this season of discipleship, that all of us can grow in our love for you, and as
a result of that, our love for one another.
In the name of Jesus 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 March 3, 2002] |
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