Before I started training for the Methodist Ministry I was a Church Steward. One of the things I had to do was to try to find people willing to do Bible readings in the service. It was always easy to find somebody to read from the gospels. I could usually find somebody willing to read from the Old Testament if there were no complicated names; but it was virtually impossible to find anybody willing to read a passage from one of Paul’s letters. They can be tongue twisters I must admit, but as I could never find anybody else willing to read them I usually ended up reading from Paul’s letters myself and got plenty of practice.
Some Christians also avoid reading Paul’s letters in their private devotions because they find him too complicated. This is a pity as there is a lot of good Christian teaching in Paul’s letters. Paul wrote his letters to different Christian churches and much of what he wrote is very practical stuff about how to be a Christian.
Our text this morning is from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi. Most of this letter is about the practicalities of Christian living, but our text is different, it is actually concerned with what makes a person right with God.
Paul begins with what almost seems to be a boast. He tells us about his credentials as a Jew, which are impressive. He was a Jew from birth rather than a convert to Judaism and from the tribe of Benjamin, a tribe regarded by Jews with particular esteem. He had been a Pharisee and had been zealous in trying to keep the Jewish law, which he had thought would make him right with God. Paul had even persecuted the early Christian church because he thought it was against everything he believed. Paul had believed that everything he was doing, his zealous keeping of the law and persecution of the early church would ensure that he was righteous before God and earn him the reward of eternal life.
Many people in twenty first century Britain have the same opinion. They don’t persecute the church, but they do think that they will go to heaven if they live a good life. I’m sure we’ve all talked to people who say something like, “Well, I don’t go to church or anything, but I try to live a good life and do the right thing. I’m sure God will reward all the good things I’ve done when I die.”
There are also people who think the same way in our churches each and every Sunday. Some Christians think that they can somehow earn favour with God with all the good things they do; by being Church stewards, by serving on the Church Council or Circuit Meeting or by doing a thousand and one other things, by constant business in the service of God.
Paul realised that all his efforts to please God amounted to nothing. That is why he wrote, “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.” He knew that for all his efforts in keeping the law and trying to do only good he could never perfectly keep every bit of the law and to break one single part of the law was to break the whole law. As the scriptures say, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
We cannot make ourselves right with God, no matter how hard we try, no matter how hard we work, no matter how much we do for him. We cannot do it. That is why God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
The simple and timeless message of the good news is this. We have all, at some time in our lives, sinned. We have all done things that are selfish because we put ourselves first instead of putting God first, others second and ourselves last of all. There is only one consequence for this sin, this rebellion against God and that is spiritual death which is eternal separation from God. No amount of good deeds can bring forgiveness for our rebellion.
There is a way we can be forgiven though, and that is through faith in Jesus. Jesus, the only Son of God, is the only person who has ever lived a life of perfect obedience, the only person who has never put himself first, but always pleased his Heavenly Father. He is the only person who has ever lived who did not deserve death and yet his did die, he died one of the most horrible deaths ever devised by man. Jesus died on the cross in our place; he took the punishment for our sins and in doing so brought forgiveness for us. All we have to do is to confess and repent of all our sins and accept Jesus as our Saviour and Lord and we are forgiven and receive the reward of eternal life and the assurance of our place in Heaven with God. It’s as simple as that!
Some of us don’t like that; we don’t want it to be that easy. We want to do something to earn our salvation but we can’t, there is nothing we can do to earn God’s favour. We have a gracious God who loves us more than we can ever know and it is out of that love that he unconditionally forgives us when we put our trust in Jesus.
That is not to say we should not try to live good lives and that we should not work hard for God. After all James, the brother of Jesus, wrote, “faith without deeds is dead.” It is the reason for doing good that matters. If we continue to do good because we are trying to impress God then that is the wrong motivation. If we do good because we think it contributes towards our salvation then that is also the wrong motivation. The only Christian motivation for trying to live a sin free life, for working hard serving God and our fellow men and women; is grateful thanks for all that Jesus has done for us. Like Paul we need to be found “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Jesus Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”
This passage reminds us that our salvation comes not from any effort on our part but from the amazing grace of a God who loves us more than we can ever know. This is good news indeed. Yet this passage does not only contain good news, it also reminds us that there is a cost to following Jesus. Paul writes of sharing in Jesus’ sufferings and becoming like him in his death.
We are relatively lucky as Christians in this country, we don’t face serious persecution. In some countries you can be imprisoned, tortured or even killed for being a Christian. More people were killed for being Christians in the twentieth century than in the previous nineteen centuries put together. To be a Christian in many parts of the world can be fatal, yet millions in those countries still follow Jesus Christ faithfully because they know that he is “the way, the truth and the life”.
Paul certainly paid the price for following Christ. He was imprisoned on several occasions, whipped more than once, beaten again and again and finally beheaded on the orders of the Emperor Nero. Tradition has it that all the Apostles died because of their faith in Christ. James, the brother of John was beheaded in Jerusalem and Peter was crucified upside down in Rome.
We may not face that level of persecution in this country, but it is becoming harder to be a Christian.in Britain than it used to be. The press frequently carries stories of Christians at risk of losing their jobs because of their active faith. We hear of nurses and doctors disciplined because they have offered to pray for patients, of people suspended from work and threatened with dismissal because they insist on wearing a cross or crucifix, of Christians prosecuted for taking a stand against political correctness that just isn’t scriptural; of a Christian registrar who was dismissed because she refused to conduct gay marriages and Christian pharmacists who are forced to issue the morning after pill. We may start to face increasing persecution for our faith as our society moves further and further away from its Christian roots.
Some American evangelists promise that as Christians our lives will be full of blessings and this is true; we have an extravagantly generous loving God who loves to bless his children, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t have suffering in our lives as well, and persecution from those who are opposed to Christian beliefs and values. Our Lord Jesus suffered torture and death; many Christians throughout the centuries have suffered persecution for their faith: why should we be any different?
Yet anything we may suffer pales into comparison with knowing Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. To know Jesus and acknowledge him as our Lord and Saviour is the best thing possible because through Jesus we receive the promise of eternal life and an eternity of inexpressible joy in the Kingdom of Heaven. No wonder Paul wrote, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
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