Don't Just Kill 'Em With Kindness

If you have a pulse you’ve been hurt by somebody in your life.  All of us have.  For some of us, the hurt happened in our homes growing up; through words or action, or even inaction.  For others the hurt began in our pre-teen years with the words of bullies or people that we thought were our friends.  As we’ve grown into adulthood, we’ve been hurt and betrayed in ways too numerous to count. 

Hurt can linger in our hearts for years, decades or even a lifetime.  I know that the hurt in my own life bubbles up from time to time, resulting in anger and resentment and can leave me reeling with feelings of self-loathing because I believe the words of the ones who have hurt me. 

One of the ways that many of us have been taught to deal with people that hurt us or offend us is to kill them with kindness.  We’ve all had that co-worker, neighbor or acquaintance that always makes our blood pressure rise when they walk into the room.  And we’re told to rise above it, put on a happy face and to be sickly-sweet in their presence, as if that will change them for good.  To some degree, this can work in our favor, but it’s not a complete picture of what we’re called to do as followers of Jesus. 

In today’s reading from 1 Peter 3, God’s word says this in v.v. 8-11: “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.  Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.  For, "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech.  He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.”

So what does all of this mean?  How is it somehow better than just killing ‘em with kindness?  I’m glad you asked.

V.8 paints a picture of an important reality in life.  Not everybody is going to be just like us.  To live in harmony means that we realize that we’re all different.  Harmony in music is achieved when different notes of music are played or sung at the same time and yet produce a beautiful sound.  We’ve got to learn to harmonize our lives with the people around us that are different than we are and realize that there can be beauty in that as we learn to live, work or play together, and ultimately be in life-giving relationships with them. 

Sympathy, love, compassion and humility are rare characteristics in our culture today, and characteristics that only come about in our lives when we’re rooted in the love of Jesus.  This is far more than just killing ‘em with kindness.  When we kill others with kindness, we’re doing something on a superficial level while harboring feelings of resentment or even hatred.  Sympathy, love, compassion and humility require an all in, radical abandonment of our desire to get even.   

As we seek to live like Jesus, there’s no room in our lives for retaliation, sarcasm and getting even – which, really, is at the root of killing someone with kindness.  These are the ways of the world and not the ways of the Kingdom of Heaven.  The relational priorities of God’s Kingdom are magnified for us when we look at the sympathy, love, compassion and humility of Jesus. 

Imagine if instead of radically abandoning everything to reconcile us to God, Jesus came instead to kill us with kindness.   What would that mean for us?  It would mean that we’re still dead in our sin, because the cross goes far beyond killing us with kindness.  It would mean that we’re still enemies of God and not reconciled to him through the blood of Jesus.  It would mean that there’s no healing of the deep scars in our own hearts.  We would still be lost people, wondering and wandering in our sin and brokenness. 

In v.11 God’s Word tells us that we “. . . must seek peace and pursue it.”  Doing this isn’t easy.  And it isn’t fun.  It wasn’t for Jesus, and it won’t be for us.  I’ll admit this: I like to live with a chip on my shoulder and a “screw you” kind of attitude.  During my time in Colorado last week (which I wrote about here), I was confronted with this reality.  I’ve experienced some deep emotional and spiritual hurt and pain in my life over the last 10 years that I didn’t realize had so deeply scarred my heart and mind.  Too much of the past 5 years of my life and ministry have been spent insulating myself from people so that they can’t hurt me and living with a chip on my shoulder and a screw-you attitude.  Because I haven’t sought and pursued peace, I’ve pushed the hurt deeper and deeper and it’s messed me up! 

Sometimes we don’t have the opportunity – and sometimes we shouldn’t even try to create the opportunity – to seek peace and pursue it.  Being hurt by careless words and actions is not the same as being hurt and destroyed by intentional physical, sexual or verbal abuse.  I’m not suggesting that we should pursue face-to-face peace and reconciliation in those situations.  Sometimes our pursuit of peace has to come from a distance, and only from the deepest reservoirs of the grace of Jesus in our hearts. 

But sometimes, as followers of Jesus, it’s good and right and healing to go back to some of those people that have hurt us as we seek to “turn from evil and do good.” (v.11).  In The Message, a paraphrase of the Bible, it says in v.13, “If with heart and soul you're doing good, do you think you can be stopped?”

God is honored and Jesus is glorified and magnified when we seek to do good in our relationships by pursuing peace and reconciliation.  Three of the most powerful words that a person can hear are, “I forgive you.”  Think of what it meant in your own life when you really believed that God, through Jesus Christ, forgives your sins and wipes away your past.  How healing was that for you?  How freeing was that for you?  How beautiful was that for you?

Think of what that could mean for the people in your life that have hurt or wounded you.  Killing them with kindness won’t heal them.  It won’t free them.  And it won’t show them the beauty of Jesus.  But pursuing peace and reconciliation with them will. 

I'm Not Home Yet

Last week my wife Jessie and I had the incredible opportunity to spend 3 ½ days at The PottersInn at Aspen Ridge outside of Colorado Springs with 4 other couples from around the US at a Pastor and Spouse Retreat.  We tacked on an extra day of rest and relaxation at the beginning of the week, and neither of us realized quite how much we needed all of it! 

There is an incredible beauty about the Rocky Mountains that I can’t even begin to explain or comprehend.  For those of us who have spent the majority of our lives in the eastern 2/3 of the US, we can’t really even begin to imagine it until we’ve been there.  This was my fourth trip to Colorado, and here’s what I particularly noticed this time:

·      Although oxygen is a little bit tougher to come by at 9,500 feet in elevation, the air is so clean and crisp.  When you ascend a flight of stairs or walk a hill, the burning in your lungs almost feels good.  It reminded me that every breath we take is a gift from God. 

·      Here in Western PA, I’ve heard that 75% of the days throughout the year are cloudy or overcast.  I don’t know if that’s true, but it sure feels like that for most of the days from November through March.  In Colorado, it seems that the sun is always shining, and despite the chill of being at elevation and the wind, the sunshine is always warm and inviting.  It reminded me that even in times of darkness and gloom, that the light of Jesus is always waiting to burst forth.

·      The terrain around Colorado Springs is a study in contrasts.  In the high plains at the foot of the Rockies, when you look to the east, everything is drab – tans, browns, olives, and muted greens.  Even most of the buildings and houses are built to blend in.  It’s funny to see familiar franchises – McDonalds, Starbucks and Walmart – that are built to blend in to their surroundings.  At the Potters Inn, we were in the shadow of the snow dusted Pikes Peak and could see the stunning snow covered Sangre de Christo mountains to the south.  The evergreen forests were a deep, rich green.  From one of our vantage points on a hike to The Crags in Pike National Forest, we could look out over the landscape and see three of the most shimmering, crystal blue reservoirs that I’ve ever seen.  It reminded me that even in the wilderness when most things seem dead and hopeless, that there is abundant, beautiful life all around.

Our time in Colorado last week was incredible.  It was incredibly refreshing and rejuvenating from a physical standpoint.  How wonderful and beautiful it was to spend 4 days alone with my wife away from our kids and to reconnect in ways we haven’t connected in years.  As parents with kids who are 12, 10 and 3, physical rest and times of peace and solitude are at a premium.  We had permission to rest physically, mentally and spiritually.

But our retreat also included some intense, even exhausting work, in our own hearts and minds and in our relationship as a husband and wife.  It was work that otherwise probably wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t made the commitment to get away from home and our kids for a few days. 

Despite being absolutely amazed by my surroundings, each time I’ve visited Colorado, Colorado has never felt like home to me.  I’ve always enjoyed my time there, but it’s never felt like home.  As we boarded our flight from Denver to Pittsburgh last Friday night, I knew that I was going home and I was looking forward to it.

One of the greatest challenges of our faith journey with Jesus is learning how to take what we’ve experienced in those deep, life-changing, mountain top experiences with God and to live them out in our daily lives.  In today’s reading from 1 Peter 1 in our Daily New Testament Reading Plan, the Apostle Peter talks about this in the first chapter of his first letter.  He begins his letter with this salutation in v.1: “. . . To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia Bithynia . . .”

As followers of Jesus, we’ve always got to remember that we’re not home yet.  As people “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ . . . (v.2),” we are strangers in the land in which we live. 

In the days since I’ve been home from Colorado, I’ve had a deep longing to go back.  Not to live there, but to drink in more of what I was experiencing in my journey with Jesus in a place and time that wasn’t cluttered with the demands of daily life.  It’s certainly not a complaint because I’m blessed to be able to do the things I do and live the life I live, but there is a longing to escape again and to just be still and quiet with God.  It’s good to be on the mountain top – literally and metaphorically – because that’s what we’re made for.  That’s when we’re most alive and aware of the transforming work that God needs to do in our lives. 

But that’s not where most of us live.  We live in the Pontuses, the Galatias, the Cappadocias, the Asias and the Bithynias.  We live in places and have demands in our lives that constantly remind us of the fact that even though this might be home on earth, this is not the home that we were created for.  Although we don’t get to live on the mountain top, the grace and majesty of God that we experience there helps us to navigate the daily grind of our lives.

One thing that Scripture always promises to followers of Jesus is this: we will have trials and face problems in life.  Peter says so in v.6.   But look at God’s promise to us in v.7.  “These (trials) have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be prove genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

Our faith in our daily life is a precious gift – more precious and of greater worth than gold.  Realizing that we’re not home yet and that we’re not yet all that God has created us to be, is an exercise in faith building.  One of the deepest things I learned in Colorado last week is that I still have a long way to go in believing and living out the promises of God in my life in every area of my life – as a follower of Jesus, as a husband, as a dad, as a friend and as a pastor. 

There are days when I hate the fact that I’m not home yet.  I hate the fact that I’m a stranger in a strange land.  And yet as I endure the process of becoming like Jesus and being transformed, my hope is in Jesus and what I have in him – new life because of his resurrection; the riches of heaven as an heir of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; the power of God that shields my life; and the joy that I can have in all of these things (v.v. 4-6). 

As you and I struggle to live this life and to become like Jesus, we have incredible hope as we journey towards our heavenly home.  Jesus isn’t an escape from this life, and isn’t an escape from our trials and problems.  The power of Jesus at work in us transforms us as we long to be home.  As Rick Warren once said, the power of Jesus at work in us turns our test into a testimony; our mess into a message and our misery into a ministry.  This is what it means to live as strangers in a strange land longing to be home while we hold onto the hope that we have in Jesus. 

The Supremacy of Jesus

If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you probably saw something I posted earlier this morning.  There has been an article making the rounds for the past few days called, “Marriage Isn’t For You.”  It’s good.  It’s nice.  It points us in the right direction.  But for me, it’s really just kind of ho hum.  In my post, I shared Ephesians 5:22-28 and said that it’s much bigger, better and beautiful than the article that’s been going around.

Why?  Some might say I’m a killjoy or curmudgeon.  Many that know me would say you’d be right on the curmudgeon part.  But it’s because I believe that the way of Jesus – which is the way of the Word of God – is far superior to some words written by a mere man about not being selfish in marriage.  Ephesians 5:22-28 is far superior to “Marriage Isn’t For You” because Ephesians 5:22-28, and the entirety of Scripture, is about Jesus and his supremacy and superiority over everything.

Today’s reading from Hebrews 8 continues on with the overarching theme of Hebrews in laying out the supremacy of Jesus.   The focus today in this chapter is about the supremacy of the priesthood of Jesus. 

Hebrews was written to a group of Jews who had become Christians.  Shocking, I know, especially given the name of the letter.  We see throughout Hebrews that God is providing instruction to these people, and to us today, about the efficacy of the priesthood of Jesus and how it is far superior to the Levitical priesthood established under the Old Covenant in the Old Testament. 

Verse 1 establishes the fact that the priesthood of Jesus is superior because he is a priest ministering on our behalf in the throne room of heaven, at the right hand of God.  This is great news for us today, just as it was for this group of Jewish Christians nearly 2,000 years ago.  Many followers of Jesus today have a limited understanding of how atonement for sin was accomplished in the Old Testament under the Old Covenant that God established with his people through the prophet Moses. 

Because God is perfectly holy and righteous, He cannot tolerate sin.  To be in right relationship with God requires atonement for sin, and under the Old Covenant, God demanded a blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin.  The demand of a blood sacrifice for sin is an incredible picture of the reality of sin in our lives – sin leads to death.  Through the sin of Adam and Eve, sin brought the punishment of physical death for the human race.  And sin also brings with it the punishment of spiritual death in our separation from God.

Under the Old Covenant, priests were continually offering sacrifices on behalf of the people of God.  The book of Leviticus prescribes many different types of sacrifices for different types of sin, many of which required that the blood of perfect animals be offered as atonement for sin. 

I don’t know if you’ve ever killed and cut open an animal before.  As a hunter, I have many times.  It’s messy.  It stinks.  It’s labor intensive with an animal as big as a deer.  This was life for the Israelites.  Day after day.  Week after week.  Month after month.  Year after year.  It was a never ending process.

And what made it all the more difficult was that many of these sacrifices were required to be offered by a priest who was a sinful and broken as the people for whom he offered the sacrifice. 

I would imagine that for the people and for the priests, the process of offering sacrifices caused a lot of anxiety and fear.  Is my animal perfect?  Did I offer the right sacrifice for the right sin?  Are there any sins I forgot to make sacrifices for?  Am I offering this sacrifice with a clean heart and clean hands?  Will God accept my sacrifice and offering?

All of these things – the process, the doubt, the never-ending nature of offering sacrifices – point to the supremacy of Jesus as our Great High Priest.  John the Baptist called Jesus “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  Jesus not only stepped into the role of priest and performed the function perfectly, but he was – and still is – the only perfect sacrifice that has ever been made for sin. 

V.3 tells us that, “Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer.”  What Jesus offered was Himself.  On our behalf.  Because he loves us and wants to free us eternally from the punishment of sin.  This is why, “. . . the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is the mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.” 

What does it mean for us?

It’s a matter of the heart.  Verse 10 tells us this. “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

Our right standing with God happens when our hearts and minds are made new by the power of Jesus and the supremacy of his sacrifice for our sin. It means that Jesus is all that we need to be made right with God, and to experience forgiveness that is full and complete and eternal.  Our forgiveness and our right standing with God come through Jesus and Jesus alone.  No priest or pastor makes us right with God.  No ritual or ceremony makes us right with God.  Good works and being a good person don’t make us right with God.  Only the sacrifice of Jesus, and trusting fully in that sacrifice make us right with God.

In a culture whose highest virtue and value is tolerance, what God’s Word teaches us is dangerous and world-tilting.  Jesus is our only hope.  Jesus is our only salvation.  Jesus is the only way to be made right with God.  This is the supremacy of Jesus.    

Icing and Sprinkles

Wow, realized this morning it’s been over a month since I’ve written anything here.  So to those of you who appreciate this blog, my apologies.  Good to be back at this today, and to wrestle with God’s Word.

So, one of the things I look forward to every week is hanging out with the teens from our church during ALIVE Teens, which we host at our house on Wednesday nights.  Last night was our Costume Party and our ALIVE Teens Director Julie had a great lesson planned in conjunction with this.

She made a bunch of cupcakes – half of them were iced and half of them weren’t – and offered them to the kids.  The iced ones were beautiful – orange icing with little bat and pumpkin shaped sprinkles.  The un-iced ones weren’t beuatiful.  Just plain, drab vanilla cupcakes.  Of course most of the kids went for the iced ones.

But Julie had baked cotton balls into the iced cupcakes.  It was really funny to watch the kids take these huge bites of cupcakes and cotton balls and get these awkward looks on their faces.  And of course, Julie, being the awesome person that she is had a jar of frosting and another batch of cupcakes for the kids.

Her lesson in all of this was based on 1 Samuel 16:7 and how the attitude of our hearts is much more important to God than our outside appearances.  I think that this is also a great illustration of one of the truths that we find in today’s reading from Hebrews5, which begins by talking about the supremacy of the priesthood of Jesus for our salvation and ends in v.v. 11-14 by exhorting us to take our growth and transformation seriously.

We don’t know for certain which human author The Holy Spirit worked through to pen the book of Hebrews, but we do know that the author was writing to a group of Christians who were struggling with grasping the basics of the faith and taking their faith seriously as we see in v.11:  “. . . you are slow to learn.”  V.12 certainly seems to be written with an air of exasperation, when the writer says, “In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again.  You need milk, not solid food!”

The issue for this audience ultimately was about their lack of commitment to training themselves to distinguish good from evil.  Like the kids at youth group last night choosing the fancy, iced cupcakes, many followers of Jesus make superficial decisions because we haven’t taken seriously the calling of Jesus to live lives that are marked by inward transformation of our hearts and minds.  V.14 says, “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” 

When you’re faced with a situation in life, are you grown up enough to think through the consequences of the decision you make regarding that situation?  Are you drawn to shiny, pretty things like icing and sprinkles that offer fleeting, carnal satisfaction or are you a Christian that has studied God’s Word, prayed through the situation and is able to think through the consequences of how you react in the situation?  Have you used the tools of Scripture study, prayer and fellowship with other believers to train yourself to think like Jesus? 

One of the most disheartening things for me as a pastor that cares deeply about the people that God has called me to lead is seeing people who just don’t care about their transformation.  It’s sad to me to see saints who have been incredibly faithful for a season of life all of a sudden quit caring about transformation and honoring God and continuing to grow and mature.  I think it breaks God’s heart as well.

In my decade plus of ministry to teens and adults, I’ve come to hate apathy.  And really, this is what v.v. 11-15 are about.  Apathy is the greatest danger to my own faith journey.  When I’m apathetic about my own growth and transformation, I’m impotent to do the things that God has called me to do.  I hate when I get apathetic about my growth.  When you’re apathetic about your own growth and transformation, you’re impotent to do the things that God has called you to do. 

When we’ve decided to follow Jesus, our lives are about so much more than icing and sprinkles.  Our lives are not about what’s easy and what brings us the most pleasure.  Our lives are about dying to ourselves; learning to hate evil and sin and to love righteousness and holiness; and living for the Kingdom of God.  Sometimes, like the plain, drab, un-iced cupcakes that the Jesus life seems mundane and boring.  Sometimes, it means enduring hardship and suffering as God refines us and our priorities.  Sometimes, it means leaving relationships that are look beautiful on the surface but toxic to our hearts as we pursue holiness and righteousness. 

What are you choosing in your life right now? Are you apathetic about the condition of your heart and mind?  Are you missing out on opportunities to honor God and grow His Kingdom because you’re enamored with the icing and sprinkles?  Are you having an impact on the people that God has placed in your life, or are you impotent because of your apathy?

More Than a Cliche

In our community, separate gatherings for men, women and teens have become an established part of our worship and focus on Good Friday.  It’s wonderful to see The Church in our community come together in worship and reflection on the sacrifice of Jesus on this day.

About 12 years ago, I took some of the kids from our youth ministry to the Youth gathering.  I was excited to be a part of this worship, and to hear Robin Cole – part of the infamous Steel Curtain defense of the Steelers in the 70’s and early 80’s – share his faith story and encourage us in our walk with Jesus.

Robin shared his faith journey with us that morning, recounting how as a young man he came to trust in Jesus as his Lord and Savior and how he overcame a very rough and tumble childhood and teen years.  I don’t remember all the specifics, but I do recall that he shared with great passion about how God had changed his life and delivered him from a gang infested community in Compton, CA.  I was really impressed with his faith and his trust in Jesus.

And then his talk took a nosedive into the cheesy motivational speech, telling the kids, “You can be anything you want to be.”  As I heard him speak, I was thinking, “Sure, that’s easy to say when you’re a 6’3” stud linebacker who has been given incredible strength and athletic ability.”  This isn’t to minimize what he had overcome, or the hard work that he invested in becoming a great NFL linebacker. 

But as I looked around at the room, I saw a bunch of scrawny middle school and high school kids, the biggest of whom might weigh 150 pounds dripping wet.  My immediate thought was, “So you’re telling us all that if we want to be an NFL linebacker, we can be?” 

And then he did it.  He dropped the Philippians 4:13 bomb on us: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”  The ultimate cliché of the Christian world.  If you just work hard enough, you can do anything.  If you just believe in yourself enough, you can do anything.  If Jesus is your Lord and Savior, everything will fall into place for you. 

It’s sad and a little troubling to me that so many people – of course mostly with good intentions – have robbed this verse of its power and meaning in an attempt to motivate people.  It is a verse of great promise and hope for us in our struggles in life, but it is not a cliché about doing whatever we want to do and being whatever we want to be.

You might recall, as I wrote last week, that Paul is writing the Book of Philippians from prison and encouraging his friends at the Church in Phillipi to keep up the work that God has begun in their lives, despite their outward circumstances.  In today’s reading from Philippians 4, Paul really brings it all together for us and helps us to see that Philippians 4:13 is much more than a cliché. 

In v.4, Paul says these words to his friends: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”

From prison.  In chains.  Beaten and battered.  And not in a prison with 3 square meals a day, cable TV and a recreation area funded by taxpayers.  Through Paul, God tells us that we can always choose to have joy no matter our circumstances.  Choosing joy, and choosing to see the big picture of what God has done and continues to do for us in Jesus Christ, is not a cliché and is not based upon our circumstances.  No matter where we find ourselves in life, we can choose to be joyful because of what Jesus has done for us.  This is the foundation for knowing and believing and living out the truth that we can do all things through the strength of Jesus.

Paul goes on to talk about this reality in greater detail.   In v.11, he says, “ . . . for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances,” and in v.12 he reminds us that he is familiar with hardship.  The key to Paul’s faith in such situations, and the key to faith for us in difficult circumstances, is knowing and believing that even in the hard times, Jesus is our source of joy, contentment and strength. 

Jesus isn’t our Genie in a Bible that gives us whatever we want or allows us to do whatever we want to do.  Jesus is our source of life and power; our source of grace and mercy; and our source of contentment as we seek to live a life that glorifies and points other people to Him as we become like Him.

Doing all things through Christ is about doing all things FOR Christ.  Are you struggling to maintian your integrity because you're disappointed with your circumstances?  Jesus will give you the strength to maintain it.  Are you struggling to maintain your faith and keep moving forward in becoming like Jesus because God is humbling you?  Jesus will give you the strength to maintain your faith and to keep moving towards him.  Are you struggling to maintain your holiness and righteousness because you're being mocked and scoffed at?  Jesus will give you the strength to maintain it.  

Jesus will give us the strength to glorify Him in EVERY situation in life when our overwhelming desire and focus in life is to bring Him glory. In every situation in life – whether good or bad; easy or difficult – we have two choices.  We can honor Jesus and reflect his glory or we can honor ourselves and be consumed with selfies and self-promotion.  When we choose to live for Jesus, we can be confident that by his power and strength, he will give us all that we need in every situation in life. 

Think about it this way.  This is a promise straight from the heart of God to us.  Do you think this is a cliché to Him, or does He really mean it?  My hope and prayer is that in my life, and in yours, that this would be more than a cliché and that it would be a source of strength, hope and power for us as we seek to live for the glory of Jesus. 

Consumed With Selfies and Self Promotion

In case you’re not up to speed with the digital age and current trends in American/Western culture, a selfie isn’t about sex.  A selfie is a picture you take of yourself with your phone or mobile device to post to Facebook, Twitter or other social media platforms.  The occasional selfie isn’t bad – after all, social media is a way that we connect with friends and others in our lives and share what’s going on in our lives.  It’s fun to see pics of my friends enjoying life and having a good time.  And I enjoy taking pictures of my kids and our family, and sharing with friends the things that are happening in our lives. 

But for a follower of Jesus Christ, we really need to ask ourselves what we’re promoting in our lives.  On social media.  In our relationships – at home, at work and in our communities.  In a culture consumed with selfies and self-promotion, have we become consumed with those things or are we consumed with bringing glory and honor to the name of Jesus Christ above all else.

The Apostle Paul was acutely aware of this struggle in his own life, and in today’s reading from Philippians 3, God uses him to speak to us about this very thing. 

Backtracking for a minute to yesterday’s reading from Philippians 2:3-5, Paul writes these words: “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.  You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.”

If anybody in history was every worthy of being consumed with selfies and self-promotion it was Jesus.  The perfect and sinless Lamb of God.  And yet as Paul describes what the attitude of Christ is, that we should reflect in our lives, he uses words and phrases like this:

           

 He gave up his divine privileges (v.7)

            He took the humble position of a slave (v.7)

            He humbled himself in obedience (v.8)

            Died a criminal’s death on a cross (v.8)

Giving up on the idea of promoting ourselves and our own self-interests is no easy or small thing, but it’s a necessary thing if we’re going to live for Jesus and die to ourselves.  Especially when we think we’ve got a message, product or service that we believe in and think would benefit others. 

Paul was a man with a highly impressive spiritual pedigree and had every reason to promote himself.  In Philippians 3:5&6, he lays out his impressive qualifications with regard to the strictest adherence of the Jewish law. 

But in v.v. 7&8, he tells us what we need to hear: “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.  Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ . . .”

Here’s something that makes a lot of nice, well behaved Christians squirm.  The words that we read as “worthless” and "garbage" in the original Greek text is “animal excrement.”  Cow patty.  Doggy doo.  Pig slop.  Go ahead and let that sink in for a second. 

All the things that we think make us self-important are crap.  When we are consumed with selfies and self-promotion, we are rolling in crap.  When we are consumed with work titles and recognition; making more money; climbing the corporate ladder; having the biggest and nicest toys in the neighborhood and whatever else we can do to build up our egos, we are rolling in crap. 

The one thing – the Only Thing – worth promoting in our lives is Jesus Christ.  In v.9, Paul promotes the fact that it is Jesus that has made him righteous, and not all of the hard work he did to keep the law.  In v.v.9&10, Paul promotes the fact that his desire in life is to really become one with Christ; to know Christ and to live by the power that raised him from the dead.  Paul promotes the value of suffering with Jesus and sharing in his death by dying to our desire for self-promotion so that we will experience fully the resurrection. 

That’s a pretty radical way to live, and an incredibly difficult life to promote. 

Humble as always, Paul admits in v.v. 12-14 that this is a daily, life-long battle for him.  He’s not there yet.  You and I aren’t either.  So how do we get there?

We focus on what really matters: eternal things and not temporal things. 

It doesn’t mean we have to be poor – God’s Word never tells us that poverty is a requirement for righteousness or holiness.  Enjoy what God has given you in the material realm – financial wealth; a nice house and the ability to live a life of financial stability.  But realize that there’s not going to be a U Haul behind the hearse at your funeral.  Enjoy what God has given you, and share it with others so that they can be blessed. 

It doesn’t mean that we live as desert monks and never enjoy life – the life of Jesus was full of rich, life-giving relationships; shared meals and shared experiences with friends.  Take pictures and share the fullness and richness of the life that God has blessed you with on social media, but be sure to equally share what Jesus means to you and how you are being transformed by his power.

Focusing on eternal things means that we realize the high price that Jesus paid for our salvation and that we live to reflect that reality in our own lives.  Focusing on eternal things means that we promote and live out the reality of a resurrected life, bearing witness to the reality that Jesus changes and transforms lives today, just as He did 2,000 years ago.  Focusing on eternal things means that we don’t find our fulfillment in crap, but that we find everything we’ve ever wanted and needed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Focusing on eternal things means that Jesus is everything to us!

When You Feel Like Giving Up

My son Isaac is a pretty good athlete, and most sports that he tries come naturally to him.  With some reluctance, and after a lot of thought and conversation, my wife and I agreed to let him start playing tackle football when he was 7 years old and in second grade.

He was so excited when we told him that he would be allowed to play.  It’s something that he had wanted to do, since he was about 4 years old.  One of his best friends had older brothers who were great football players for our local youth football program, and his dad was one of the coaches, so Isaac and his friend always talked about playing for the Saxonburg Spartans.

A few weeks before practice starts each summer comes the equipment pick up night, where all the boys from age 7 through 13 are properly fitted for helmets, shoulder pads, other equipment and practice uniforms.  Isaac put on a brave face as he squeezed his head into a helmet for the first time, and felt the pinch on his ears and forehead, but when we got home putting the helmet on and taking it off caused a few tears for the first couple of days.  To get him used to running around in full pads before practice started, we’d do some conditioning and football drills out in the yard each evening.

Finally, the first day of practice came.  For the first 40 minutes, the 7 and 8 year old boys on Isaac’s team were physically pushed harder than they’d ever been pushed.  They ran laps around the field, and did a series of strength and conditioning exercises, followed by a series of sprints.  And it was hot that day – in the upper 80’s. 

As the boys were sent for their first water break, there were lots of tears and looks of panic on the faces of the boys who were playing football for the first time.  For Isaac, it was even worse.  Although he had never had asthma before, he was on the brink of what could only be described as an asthma attack.  He couldn’t catch his breath and was gasping for air, because he was so emotionally worked up.  This was far harder than baseball, soccer and basketball practices and games that he had sailed through with ease since he was 4 years old. 

After my wife and I got him settled down and back to a normal breathing pace, I pulled him aside.  I reminded him that we weren’t making him play football, and that he had chosen to do this on his own.  But I also knew that he was only 7 years old and told him that if this was too hard for him that he could quit and walk away, and we’d sign him up for soccer again.  He insisted that he was going to do this because he wanted to do it.  He wasn’t going to quit. 

The rest of the practice was almost as tough as the beginning.  There were tears from many of the boys, and several of them, including Isaac, had to come to the sidelines for breaks a couple of times.  Each time he would come, I would ask, “Are you sure you want to keep going?  Are you sure you want to do this?”  I love watching my kids play sports, but I also don’t make them play sports.  Sports are supposed to be fun, and if they’re miserable, I’m not going to make them keep going.  But he fought through the tears and the emotions, and made it through his first practice. 

After that first practice, he began to really pick up on the game of football.  By the second game of the year, he was on the field for every snap – playing tackle on offense, linebacker on defense and working on the kick-off and kick-return units.  He was on the field for every snap of every game.  Now in his third season, he’s one of only two 9 year olds on the 9 & 10 year old team that’s a starter on both offense and defense.  And he plays important positions – center on offense and outside linebacker on defense.  Football is his first love in sports now, and as I watch him practice and play, the only thing I can think is that he was made for this. 

And I was the one that wanted him to give up.

That’s a longer story than I usually tell in my blog posts, but I hope you’re still reading because this is such an important concept in our life of faith.  And we see that in today’s reading from Philippians 1.  Philippians has been called the Book of Encouragement because of the circumstances surrounding the Apostle Paul when God spoke these words to The Church at Philippi through him.  You see, the book of Philippians was written by Paul when he was in prison.  And he was in prison because of his faithful obedience in preaching the Good News all over the world. 

Paul is writing these words in the midst of what could have been a time in his life where he gave up on his calling from Jesus to preach the Good News.  And yet we don’t find a single word of pity or regret from Paul.  All we find is encouragement and joy to keep on pressing on in the life of faith when we feel like giving up.

In Philippians 1:6 Paul writes these words to the Philippians: “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Those are incredible words of hope and promise for us when we feel like giving up and throwing in the towel.  Chances are very good that the problems and trials that you’re facing are much bigger than making it through your first football practice.  I’ve been praying this week for people in my church and community whose trials are much bigger than this. 

I have a friend who is in his second year of an extremely demanding but important job in education.  His responsibilities are absolutely staggering, and he’s finding that the first year honeymoon where everybody gives the new guy some grace is ending.  I have some friends who have been struggling in their marriage for years.  Despite brief periods of good times and progress, it seems that the hard times and set backs are just as frequent.  I have a friend whose 3 year old grandson started chemotherapy for a brain tumor this week, and the prognosis for his healing is grim. 

These are certainly times when giving up would be understandable.  And yet for the Christian – the person who knows what it means to be called by God to the grace of Jesus Christ – there’s something much bigger going on in these situations. 

Even when we feel like giving up, God doesn’t give up on us.  He is the one who has chosen us (See Ephesians 1) to be in Christ.  He is the one who sees where we are and knows the plans that he has for us.  He is the one who has begun a work of faith in our lives and will continue to complete that work of faith in our lives until we die or until Jesus comes back.

A little later in Chapter 1, even Paul admits that he struggles to maintain this kind of hope and faith in the midst of his trials.  In v.v. 20-24, he talks pretty bluntly about thinking about how wonderful it would be to escape the pressures and trials of this life and to be in heaven with Jesus.  In v.20 he says this: “And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die.”

Paul’s overriding goal in life was to bring honor to Christ, no matter the circumstances he faced.  And that should be the goal of our lives as well.  Sometimes there are situations in life in which we just need to walk away and hit the reset button, but sometimes there are situations in life which call for great perseverance and resolve in bringing honor to Jesus above everything else. 

The people whose faith impress me the most are the people who get this and have lived it out. They are heroes to me as they seek to live for the honor and glory of Jesus when everything within them and everybody around them is saying, “Are you sure you don’t want to quit?  We would understand.  It would be easier.”  They are heroes to me as they seek to faithfully walk in faith and believe that God is doing something greater in their lives by making their faith more complete as they endure struggles instead of giving up.

Paul concludes Chapter 1 with these words in v.30, “We are in this struggle together.  You have seen my struggle in the past, and you know that I am still in the midst of it.”

Every day might be a struggle for you to keep going, to keep walking in faith.  But you’re not alone.  There are other people who have been where you are, and would love nothing more than to walk with you through your struggle.  There are people who haven’t been where you are, but will walk with you and pray with you.  And even greater than that is the reality of the promise of Hebrews 4:14-16 that Jesus is with us and understands the struggle.  And in the midst of your struggle, his desire and his will is to give you grace and mercy from the very throne of God. 

"So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most."