New Testament Lesson Philippians
3:4b-14
7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 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 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ,[a] the righteousness from God based on faith. 10 I want to know Christ[b] and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal;[c] but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved,[d] I do not consider that I have made it my own;[e] but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly[f] call of God in Christ Jesus.
With the arrival of my grandson, I have
been revising my will.
This has led me to think about what will happen to all the ‘STUFF’
my wife and I have collected over the years.
We’re not talking cheap stuff, we’re talking wonderful
treasures.
Well – at least they are wonderful to me.
For example, on my wall above my desk at home there is a
framed certificate. It is an award that
I won in a fishing contest in 1962 when I was just a little boy. It is the award for both the largest fish AND
the most fish caught in that contest.
I value that certificate.
I look at it and I remember how my Dad and I were at a lake
with hundreds of other fathers and sons.
I was so ready and eager to start fishing that I was the first one to
throw my line into the water.
Looking back, I remember so very clearly how as soon as that
line hit the water I caught a fish!
Now it was a small fish and I was just about to throw it back
but my Dad reminded me that there was a prize not only for the biggest fish –
but also for the most fish.
So I kept that fish, threw in my line, eager for the next
catch.
But there was no next catch.
That was the only fish caught that day.
And so today I have that certificate hanging over my desk –
the largest fish and the most fish caught in that contest.
I can’t throw that away!
But I know that someday my son or grandson will gather at my
house after my wife and I have been buried, they will look at treasures like
that certificate and toss it into the trash can.
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is convinced that our homes are
nothing more than what he calls “Garbage Processing Centers.” Everything you buy and bring into your home
is destined for the land fill. For
example, you buy the latest machine that dries out fruit so you can store it in
your pantry. You bring it into your home
and put it on your table. Then it makes
its way to the kitchen cabinet. Once in
the kitchen cabinet, it begins to get in the way so you move it to the
closet. Once in the closet it moves
further and further back until you cannot find it until you do your Spring
Cleaning, which you really do only every ten years. You find it and you wonder why you ever bought
it, so you throw it away. Or, if you are
kind, you give it to Goodwill so they can sell it to someone else who will
eventually give it back to Goodwill or eventually just throw it away.
Our homes are full of treasurers, but all of these treasurers
are eventually on their way to the junk yard and the land fill.
Paul is writing to the Philippians and in his letter he talks
about his treasures.
He is at the end of his life, and he is
pondering his last will and testament.
He is reflecting back on his life and pondering what has been important,
and what was not important.
What is the most valuable possession you own?
Looking back on your life, what is it
that you value most?
If you went on a treasure hunt in your
home, what would you find?
Years ago, I read in one of Ann
Landers' columns an interesting story about a woman who had married a
tightwad. This man married a real
skinflint and she could never get any thing out him -- not even an extra
quarter. He controlled every little bit
of money in the household. And he would
take his money and put 20% of all of the money he earned, and save it.
But he would save it by putting it
under his mattress, because he did not trust banks.
Whenever the woman would ask for money
from her husband, he would refuse, and would insist that the money was going to
come in handy in their old age.
When
the man was 60 years old, he was diagnosed as having cancer. Toward the end, he
made his wife promise, in the presence of his brothers, that she would take the
money he had stashed under the mattress and put it into his coffin so he could
buy his way into heaven if he had to.
They
all knew he was a little odd, but this was clearly a crazy request. But sure enough, the wife made the promise.
Then, when the man died, the first
thing she did was to take the money to the bank and deposit it in a new
account.
But she found a way to honor her
promise.
The first check she wrote was for the
full amount -- $752,457.99.
She made it payable to cash, so that anyone could cash it,
and then -- right before the burial -- she very quietly put it in her dead
husband's casket. Let's see him cash
that check.
She had the best of both worlds –
honoring her husband’s request, and yet also having the ability to spend the
money in that account.
We all value the strangest things. We go through life being told, "You
can't take it with you," but this man sure tried.
It is said that about 200 years ago,
the tomb of the great conqueror Charlemagne was opened. The sight the workmen saw was startling. There was his body in a sitting position, clothed
in the most elaborate of kingly garments, with a scepter in his bony hand. On
his knee lay the Holy Scriptures, with a cold, lifeless finger pointing to Mark
8:36: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world,
and loose his own soul?"
What do you value? That is an important question, because if you
go through life and begin to value the wrong things, you lose meaning to your
life. You lose your very soul.
Paul's life, on the other hand, is in
perfect balance and harmony, because he knows what he should value. He knows
what he needs to be committed to.
Not the money.
Not the fine home.
Not the car.
Not the smart phone.
Not the clothing.
Paul said, "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 Paul, nothing was more important
than Christ.
Most of us think of Christ as important
to our lives. But for most of us, Christ
is NOT the most important aspect of our lives.
But for Paul, he said everything else
in life was without value at all – just worthless - compared to knowing and
following Christ.
Sometimes it takes a crisis in our
lives for us to think about what is important -- really important -- in our
lives.
Fred Craddock tells a story about friends
of his who were missionaries to China
So the missionaries began to ask
themselves, what is it that we value? What are those things that are most
important to us?
The typewritter? No.
Too heavy and too easily replaced.
The vase that has been in the family
for generations? Yes. Pack that.
The family photos? Sure.
The candlesticks the church had given
them in honor of their work? Hard to
say. They mean a lot, but they are so heavy.
Set them aside, we'll decide later.
Finally, they had their luggage. Each adult missionary had packed 400 pounds
each. They had measured and re-measured and they had left no room for error.
They got to the boat docks and they
were being checked out by the authorities when one of the Chinese officials
said, "Did we not explain this to you?
The 400 pounds includes your children."
So much for the candlesticks, the vase
that belonged to Great grandmother, and many of the other items they thought
they had valued.
In the moment of the crisis it had
become clear what they really valued most.
We live in an age that seems to treasure all of the wrong
things.
We put great value on the home, but not
so much on the family within the home.
We take time for golf, but not for
Christ.
We want to be served by others, but
we've forgotten how to be servants of God.
We really don't know what we value
most.
There is a point in the Gospels when
people are ready to make a commitment to Christ, but Christ turns them away.
Why?
Because to be committed to Christ is an all or nothing experience.
You can't make half a commitment to
Christ.
It is all or nothing. Because God's commitment to us, was all and
total.
In Luke's Gospel, (Luke 9:57-62), Jesus
encounters a man who says, "I will follow you wherever you go."
Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes
and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his
head."
"He said to another man,
"Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and
bury my father." Jesus said to him,
"Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God kingdom of God
I think we all treasure Christ,
otherwise we would not be here today.
But are we still on a treasure hunt looking for something better?
We have a commitment to Christ.
But how deep is our commitment?
We cannot follow Christ with half of
our heart.
We cannot be half way committed to him.
Christ himself rejected such followers,
telling them that it was better for them not to follow at all, if they could
not follow all of the way.
What do you value?
If you do not value Christ above all things,
if you have not committed yourself to
Christ above all things,
then you have no commitment to Christ
at all. Your life is out of balance.
It is an easy thing to treasure Christ.
It is a difficult thing to treasure him
above all other things in our lives.
How can that be possible?
Tom Long is a friend of mine who served
a church in Georgia
Tom greeted his friend with open arms.
The laughed and talked about old times.
They talked about this. They talked about that. And finally, they talked about IT.
Tom's friend said, “You know I'd heard
you'd become a minister, so I thought I'd look you up. I really need to talk to someone about my life. I don't seem to value anything. Nothing is important to me. And that bothers me. I've been thinking about it, and I've come to
the conclusion that my problem is that I'm not committed to anything.”
Tom told me that he had just written a
stewardship sermon, and he was tempted to preach it to his friend right then
and there. “You better believe your life
won't count for anything, so you'd better get your life in order and find
something to be committed to.”
But then, it dawned on Tom that this might not be the right approach. He looked at his friend and said, “I hear you saying you don't believe you are committed to anything. I'm wondering if what you're really feeling is, 'no one is committed to you.'”
But then, it dawned on Tom that this might not be the right approach. He looked at his friend and said, “I hear you saying you don't believe you are committed to anything. I'm wondering if what you're really feeling is, 'no one is committed to you.'”
Paul was not committed to anything,
until he learned how committed Christ was to him.
Paul is in the midst of a crisis. He is in prison. He is writing a letter to
the Philippians and he says, “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for
the sake of Christ. What is more, I
consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them
rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be
found in him.”
Christ is fully committed to us.
Therefore we need to be -- we are able
to be -- fully committed to him.
We treasure our smart phone, we
treasure our car, and we treasure our home.
But in the end, what we should treasure
most is Christ – above all other things in life.
Copyright
2014
Dr. Maynard
Pittendreigh
All rights
reserved.
