Your intentional presence and mine in these gatherings is our way of remembering God is the audience, we aren't. This is for him not you or me. This is about him not you or me. Or to get back into the football analogy, which I don't like using football analogies, but it's here. We, you and I, are the players in this Gathering. And when we come to this Gathering as a player not a fan we soon find out how big of a player God is in these gatherings.
The Hebrew word for worship literally means, work or serve, it's not a passive thing. In the words of one commentator worship means, and these are his words, “to expend considerable energy and intensity in a task or function.” Think about this, have you ever left here on Sunday exhausted, because you expended considerable energy and intensity in what we're doing? Using the language of this author, “to worship God, is to expend considerable energy and intensity honoring and adoring him in this Gathering.” Note the intentionality that's embedded in Psalm 100, “worship the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful songs, enter his gates with Thanksgiving and his courts with praise, give thanks to him and praise His name.” In short, be intentional, show up, engage your whole self, in worshiping our good and great King.
Grace has much to say about these things, but Grace encompasses more than sin and forgiveness and post-death destinies. Grace is the beginning, middle, and end of the biblical story. In John 1:16, Jesus said, “out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.” Now I don't really know what that means. It's kind of confusing, but it seems to imply Grace is the start of the story, the point of the story, the theme of the story, and the end of the story.
Throughout his letters Paul describes the power of Grace actively at work in the details and particulars of life and hardship and difficulties and relationships. Grace is a dynamic force in other words in the real-life stuff we deal with. So, Paul had some sort of weakness in his body. Literally some kind of weakness, brokenness, something or other in his actual body. Some think it was bad eyesight. Others think he had a bad leg, and he walked a certain way. Maybe he had a proclivity toward depression or discouragement, so it was emotional or psychological. Or some other kind of persistent Frailty plagued his mind or his body or his circumstances and the point is he was burdened by this pain. So, we read in our reading, he earnestly prayed that God would heal him by removing this, “thorn in his flesh”, as he calls it in our passage, but God didn't heal him. God didn't heal the Apostle Paul of this thorn in his flesh. I think it's good to pause here. If all this Grace talk feels nice and churchy, but its tad bit removed from reality. We are now standing at a door that leads into the real lives we actually live in this broken and fallen world. Paul experienced pain and he prayed fervently for it to be healed, but it wasn't. Now who of us sitting here can't relate to that?
Certainly, the Garden of Eden was not some place where Adam and Eve strolled around going, oh my gosh look how pretty that tree is, I'm so sick of looking at that! There's none of that. There's a sense of renewal and growth and they worked with their hands. They took care of things. It seems to me the future involves discovery and learning and working. The Bible calls it reigning with God. The perishable will put on the imperishable as in 1 Corinthians 15, but I don't see anything in the Bible to indicate we instantly get a brand-new character, and all the crud Gets zapped out. Again, maybe that's what happens, but since that's where we're heading it makes more sense to me to start now. And perhaps, some seem to think so, who we are becoming and who we will be when all is said and done is part of our offering of worship to God. We offer him the life that we have lived and the person that we have become. God the Holy Spirit at work in us to form his character in us is preparation for an eternity with him. Life before death matters. What we read, what we watch, how we spend our time, who we become and are becoming, life is the practice field for eternity. Heaven before we die, and Jesus is our example.
I suppose in some isolated Chambers at Nassau or Space X, gravity is not currently at work. But in nearly every other square inch of this planet, if I throw a ball up into the air it will come back down. Or if I jump out of an airplane without a parachute the fall might be fine, but the landing will be a tad messy, because gravity is present and working everywhere. And in a similar fashion God is present and working everywhere. I wonder if we believe this. Everywhere we go, every single day, every single moment of every single day, God is already there. And he's already at work bringing the reality of his Kingdom to those who inhabit those spaces. And if we are his follower then our primary vocation, if you don't like vocation insert job, if you don't like job insert calling. Our primary vocation is to be his agent and Ambassador in those spaces where we go. Verses 5 and 11 of our passage, Moses the servant of the Lord who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt. Servants are sent to do things for the one they serve and a life well-lived is one spent in service to something bigger than self, bigger than success, bigger than comfort, bigger than safety. A life well-lived is one poured out in service to God and the work of his kingdom. And of course, we still do our jobs and build our careers and go to school and raise our families and celebrate along the way as much as possible. But we do all this remembering that as followers of Jesus our primary vocation, job, calling, is to serve God and be about his kingdom work right where we are.
Believe It or Not prisoners had to finance at least a portion of their incarceration. They had to pay for it. So, they needed money to buy food and clothes and other supplies or they went hungry, and they got cold, and as you can imagine nobody really cared. So The Philippian Church sent Paul money and maybe some other gifts. And they sent them with a man named Epaphroditus, who traveled from Philippi to Rome, found the Apostle Paul and delivered these gifts. And Paul was thrilled, and he was thankful that they showed him their Love by providing for his practical needs. And he says in verse 14, by doing this, he says this marvelous thing, “they share in his troubles.” And once again we can see, and we can feel, Paul's love, and Paul's connection with the people in this church. Relationship, connection, partnership in the work of the kingdom. And it reminds us that this thing called church, this thing we do, is not a machine. It's not a program. It is not a weekly event. And it is not a building. Church is people connected to God and to each other through Jesus Christ. It is about relationship. It's about togetherness. It's about using this phrase, “sharing in each other's troubles.” It's about caring for one another. It's about investing in each other's lives. It's about journeying together on this adventure with God. In a word church is family. Certainly, an imperfect family and in all sorts of ways a dysfunctional family, but still family.
But all that said, Paul's real passion, just like my professors many years ago, was never merely to inform his readers, but to transform them. His interest was not that they and we would know our Bibles, important as that is, but that they and we would know that, using words from Oz Guinness; “Spirituality for the follower of Christ is a matter of a different world, with a different reality, different energies, different possibilities, and different prospects.”
The goal is not to know our Bibles, but to live as a citizen of the kingdom of God whatever our circumstance. Or in the words of Philippians 1:27, “Whatever happens conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Live it out in the daily grind of your everyday lives.” See the words in these Bibles that we look at, read, and cherish, are inspired by God, to inspire us and to empower us to live as his people no matter the situation we are in. And one way we live as God's people in this unhinged world is by experiencing his peace regardless of the turmoil and regardless of the tough circumstances we might be facing. Verse 6 of Philippians 4, “Do not be anxious about anything.” Now just sort of contemplate the last few days, contemplate the world, contemplate your life. The Apostle Paul says to not be anxious about anything. Here's my response, “Are you serious Paul? You losing it there buddy?”
I don’t know about you, but I’ll just tell you I am stirred to the core about what the Apostle Paul reveals about himself in this passage. I mean this brilliant biblical scholar is showing us his raw self. He's cutting himself open right in front of the Philippians and right in front of us and he is saying, “this is who I am, and this is who I am not.” I am stirred to the core by the Apostle Paul's vulnerability and humility. He is showing the people of Philippi who he is and he's showing the people of Philippi who he is not. He's showing them his desire to grow, and I'm stirred by his mindset. My answer to the question is that I have had both mindsets.
I've had seasons of fixed growth where my attitude about my Christian growth, in a word is, “whatever.” I am what I am. And I've also had seasons of Greater intentionality where I felt like I've embraced the challenges that God has set before me. I've had a kind of curiosity to continue to learn who I am and who God is. I've had this passion to grow and have his character formed in me as the spirit does that work. See, we have this rather amazing power, each one of us. You have it and it was given to you by God. You have the power as do I, and you have the Freedom as do I, to set our minds on whatever we want. Think about that. We decide what we're going to give our attention to. This is not to diminish the thousands upon thousands of things at any moment that are clamoring for our attention, but we get to decide what we're going to give our attention to. We get to decide what we’re going to focus on.
And I would suggest to you that Anthony’s adventure in football very much resembles our Christian experience. It’s a long process, of gradually learning the way of Jesus. And gradually becoming the individuals and the church community that he wants us to be. And through the process there are forward and backward steps, but even the backward ones are often forward. There are advances by inches and retreats by feet, but the retreats are often in a strange sort of way, advances as well. And our job through the process is to continue to take another step in the process. Philippians 2:12-18, what we read a moment ago draws our attention to this dynamic process of growth. Formation as we call it. Becoming individuals in a church community that increasingly displays the humility and goodness and character of King Jesus.
Paul did not say, "Everything has a purpose." He did not say, "In spite of the difficult circumstances of me being in prison, God did something good." Paul simply did not make the best of a bad situation. What Paul said is far more remarkable.
He said, what has happened to me—that is, getting thrown into prison—has served to advance the good news. In other words, what has happened to me, the sufferings I am enduring, unjust as they are, have opened up an opportunity for the good news of Jesus' resurrection and new life to advance. And if I hadn't been put in this prison, this might not have happened. It's a remarkable recognition of God's bigness over his troubles.
This is not an "in spite of" perspective. It's a "because of" perspective. You see, Paul has this gigantic view of God. A really big view of God. And he knows that God is always at work bringing forth His Kingdom purposes, and nothing can stop God's unfolding plan.
How does the resurrection make a difference on a Wednesday? When I'm bored at school? When I'm grocery shopping at Trader Joe's? Or languishing at a mundane job I only endure for the paycheck? Now we can have a fine time today kicking around some theology of the resurrection, or maybe naming two or three proofs for the resurrection, but I want to take it out of the clouds and drop it into a typical Wednesday. How does the resurrection matter on a Wednesday? How does it bring hope in the real world where we are actually living in 2024?