Pressing Matters

 June 5 2022

Philippians 3:10-21

As I have come to the end of the required classes that were necessary for my ordination, I find myself reminiscing about the teachers that I have spent hours with, learning from them not just what was required but so very much more. The teacher I had in my last series of classes, Ryan, was twenty years younger than me and lived in Wisconsin. To say that Zoom, (the video sharing app) is a game changer is an understatement. He is a very scholarly person and has had several of his works published. He was always suggesting this or that book for us to look into which let me know that we both enjoyed a good read. The teacher I had before Ryan, was Walt, who resides in Zanesville. Now, he was also a very learned man but because he was closer in age to myself he seemed to lead with what he had learned through his many years in pastoral ministry. One thing that he repeated often that has stuck with me is that most of the problems in our churches today are the result of a breakdown in discipleship. His theory is that when the church fails to work at discipling those who have placed their faith in Christ then the church will inevitably run into problems.  For some reason, what he said just seems to make so much sense. I guess it is a lot like raising children in that if you don’t take time to discipline your children then, yes, there will be problems down the road. This same analogy is used in the book of Hebrews, the twelfth chapter where the writer of this letter tells his audience that “it is for discipline that they have to endure. God is treating you as his sons and daughters. For what child is there that doesn’t have a Father who disciplines them?” Further, in this section about discipline, the writer goes on to conclude that “God, our Father, disciplines us for our good, that we may share the very holiness of God. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather, than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” So, I guess the point of this is that  our suffering on account of our belief in Jesus is the means that God uses to train us in order that we can take on the very characteristic of God, his holiness. Not only that, we are also told that it produces as the writer states, the “peaceful fruit of righteousness”.  To be righteous means that we are one of God’s people, and so the peace we have is that, in time, as we endure, we come to know that it is with God that we belong, it is his way of life, this being holy, this life, we can say, is our life too. So, I guess it makes sense that if people aren’t being discipled in the church then it just figures that the way of following Jesus becomes hard then people are going to wonder just what went wrong and act out against this difficulty instead of understanding that this is a situation that God is using to bring certainty into their life that they are indeed united with God.

This being united with God, what we know in the Greek as being koininia, this common life that we have with God and each other, this appears again and again in Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi. Paul wrote in the first chapter of this letter, that he thanked God for this little church at Philippi, for their koininia, the partnership, the fellowship, this common life they had with him in the good news of Jesus Christ. Then, in the second chapter, Paul again writes that what is certain to be found in this church at Philippi, is koininia, in the Spirit. This is a life that they were living together, a life bound in unity by the very Spirit of God. And here in the third chapter, in the verses that precede the ones that were read in todays reading, Paul again speaks of koininia, stating that because he now understands that he is one of God’s people because of the faith he has in Christ, Paul now desires to know Jesus, to know the power of the resurrection of Jesus, to know the koininia, the fellowship, the common life of the suffering of Jesus so that he might take on the same form of Jesus in his death. This reference to the form of Jesus is a reminder to what Paul wrote in the second chapter of this letter, where he wrote about Jesus taking on the form of a servant, willing to serve us even unto death. Paul knows that only by his being united with Jesus as a servant, only as he holds to this way of life all the way to the end of life will he at last be able to come face to face with Jesus, who is our resurrection and our life.

So, for Paul, this koininia, is a way of speaking of life, together, with each other and with God. Koininia, is this unity that binds them all together, they are one because of the message of good news of Jesus Christ that they have heard and believed in; they are one in the Spirit of God that Jesus has baptized them with; they are one in serving and suffering, taking on the same form of Jesus, knowing that beyond this momentary affliction they will come face-to-face with Jesus, their resurrection. This at least is what Paul knows about himself and his hope is that those he writes to will also understand that this is where they should be as well. 

As we read this third chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, it is quite apparent that Paul is speaking to the issue of discipleship within the life of the church. In the eleventh verse of this chapter, Paul speaks about being mature, as being people who have reached the goal, who have become people who, as we heard in the book of Hebrews, have become people who have been transformed because they have seized ahold of, and have made the very characteristic of God, his holiness, their very own. This holiness of God, this unchanging nature of God is his steadfast love and faithfulness. This steadfast love and faithfulness, this holiness of God, this is embodied in the life of Jesus. To know Jesus is to know what the very holiness of God is all about. In Jesus, we come face-to-face with the steadfast love of God, and with the faithfulness of God. The faithfulness of God is the very power of the resurrection, that God in his faithfulness would not allow his servant to see the corruption of death. The steadfast love of God formed the life of Jesus so that being a servant is the only life he could come and live among us. Jesus loved us with the very steadfast love, faithful all the way to the cross on which he died. Paul wanted to know Jesus so that he could live a life that showed that he knew Jesus, that showed that the faithfulness of God, and the steadfast love of God were visibly present in his life.

Now, Paul was honest to admit that he had not yet fully obtained such a life. In the Greek, the way Paul speaks of it is that he has not yet actively fully laid ahold of this life of Jesus. This knowing Jesus by living the life of Jesus, this Paul says is the goal which he desired to reach more than anything else, this is why he goes on to say that he pressed on to make such a life his own. A better way of putting what Paul is saying here is to say that he is pursuing the life of Jesus like a hunter going after their prey. This for me is a better way of thinking about what Paul is trying to get across than to just state that we are to make the life of Jesus a pressing matter. No, we are to go after this life of Jesus in the same way that my dog, Mazy, goes after whatever animal is on her radar at the moment.  This means that if what you are hunting is in a hollow log than you contort your body and crawl in there after it. If that possum needs eliminated than you just go down the hole in the ground after them even if it means that you end up underground yourself. If said possum comes across your path late at night then you just stay with them even if it means staying up to 2 in the morning. This, I think, conveys more of the meaning of how Paul believes we should pursue the life of Jesus, with reckless abandon. The reason we should be so driven to take hold of this life of Jesus according to Paul is this: Jesus first pursued us with reckless abandon and has seized ahold of us. Jesus has grabbed ahold of us and has let us know that we are his possession. He has given everything in order that he might call us his very own. This is why Paul goes on to say that he is going to have total amnesia about his past, he no longer is focusing on the woulda, coulda, shoulda’s of life instead Paul is focused on laying hold of Jesus just as Jesus had first laid hold of him. Paul, again, writes, that he is in hot pursuit of the life of Jesus. In very interesting terms, Paul states that this is a life that he can see, using the Greek word from which we get our word for scope. A scope is used to see a distant object and this is what Paul is implying that we need to keep our eyes upon Jesus. Then Paul emphasizes that Jesus is something physical, real, that we can take hold of when he uses the Greek word for prize or trophy. Then Paul leads us to understand that Jesus is the one we can hear, the one whose voice is speaking to us, calling out to us from above. What Paul has written here, is similar to what John wrote at the beginning of his first letter, where he said of Jesus that he “is the one who was from the beginning, the one which we have heard, the one we have seen with our eyes, the one we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-the life which was made real to us”.  You see, if we are pursuing the life of Jesus, then we just need to keep our eyes on Jesus, we need to reach out and keep in touch with Jesus, we need to attune our ears so that we can hear the voice of Jesus speaking to us above the noise of this world.

Pursuing after Jesus, pressing on to take hold of the life of the one who has already taken hold of us, this is the way Paul says that we become children of God who have been seized by the holiness of God, his steadfast love and faithfulness and have found that this same steadfast love and faithfulness are now living in us. This, Paul teaches us is to be our frame of mind, the way we have now re-oriented the way we think about the world. We are to think differently, Paul tells us, than the rest of the world and the reason why we are to be people who don’t conform to the rest of the world’s mindset is that now our life is to be ordered by what has already been given to us by God. We are left wondering for the moment just what Paul is referring to when he states that we are to be a different kind of people all because now we are ordering our lives around something that God has already given to us. The answer is given to us after Paul first takes us aside and warns us to not live, in his terms, as enemies of the cross. For people who oppose the cross of Jesus, their goal is their very destruction, their focus of their worship is their gut and they find their glory in their shameful behavior. And what is the source of such a life? Where such a downward spiraling life begins is with a frame of mind set on earthly matters. In our everyday language, these are people whose minds really are in the gutter. Now, what must be remembered when we read of these who are living a life as adversary’s of the cross is that these were people that Paul knew personally, people who at one time had been good Jesus loving folk not people who had never known or had never placed their faith in Jesus. This is why we must pause and consider just how people who had once said, yes, to Jesus could now be found be people who are going to be eventually far from him. The answer is found in what Jesus promises us, this hope of heaven. The problem is that what people want is the glory and goodness that awaits us as our reward to be given to them in the here and now. These are people who are unwilling to wait, to endure, but like children who have been brought up without discipline want what they want and they want it now.  The tragedy is that what they desire is what God gives instead of desiring the God who does the giving. When people become fixated on what’s in it for them, what God can give them here and now, their lives become so inward turned that they are indeed, polar opposite of the life which demonstrated self-giving love upon the cross. Such a life will face destruction because it is a life which has never known the faithfulness of God which is the power of the resurrection. Theirs is a life that will miss out on the glory that awaits those who pursued the life of Jesus instead of pursuing now what is promised for us later. What is wanted by those whose minds are set on earthly things is not a life that kneels in the dirt to wash the feet of others, a life whose love is steadfast and faithful to loving others even unto death. These are people who simply can not comprehend that there is no crown apart from the cross. This is why Paul wept for those he knew who would not pursue the life of Jesus and instead pursued the life they expected Jesus to give to them in exchange for their faith.

So, understanding how misguided people can be when Paul speaks about us having a frame of mind situated in heaven, just what does it mean for us to have as he puts it, to understand that our citizenship is in heaven? Paul here is telling us that our life is safe because it is securely held in the faithfulness of God who dwells in heaven. The importance for us to know that our lives our secure in heaven is not so that we can experience the wonder and splendor of heaven in the here and now but rather so that we are at last able to love with the self-giving love of Jesus. Only as we know that it is the faithfulness of God that preserves our life and not anything we might do to try and keep ourselves safe, only then will we be able to take on the form of Jesus, to have his life live in us, to give ourselves to others without reserve. You see, only as we understand that heaven is our hometown, that there is where our heart, indeed our very life is, only then can we really know Jesus, really know his love because we at last can love as he loved. Only as we rely upon the faithfulness of God which is the power of the resurrection can we share in the common life, the koininia of the suffering of Jesus, becoming like him in his death. This is the utter importance of our faith that heaven is ours not so that we can somehow believe that the goodness and glory that wait us can somehow be ours to revel in right now but rather when heaven is ours this is when we can witness to the world that we know Jesus because his life and his love are seen in us.

You see, Paul kind of turns how we normally think about heaven on its head because he tells us to consider that our life is already at home in heaven, right now. We are already home, Paul insists, so go and live like it. This is what he means when he tells us to order our lives according to what we have already been given. So, if we know that our future is already set then doesn’t it make sense that this understanding is going to change the way we live in the present? The faithfulness of God who anchors our life will cause that same faithfulness to be in us. Our suffering on account of Jesus then will witness to the world that we do think differently than the world. Life is not just about self-protection and self-glorification but it is rather about pursuing the life of Jesus, a life of steadfast self-giving love and faithfulness even unto death. When we take on the form of Jesus, the form of a servant, when his love has become our life then one day we shall be face-to face with Jesus, who is our resurrection because he is our very life. This is when we are told that our lowly bodies will then take the form of the glorious body of Jesus. It is the power of the resurrection, the utter faithfulness of God which assures us that this will be our reality and not only that but through that same power, through the faithfulness of God, one day all things will come under the rule and reign of God. This is what we hope for; this is what we wait for, knowing that right now this life is not yet ours. Instead we have more pressing matters, we must be on the hunt, actively pursuing the life of Jesus. Are your eyes focused on him? Can you feel the prize that will be yours? Are you listening for the upward call of Jesus who is ever leading us ever homeward? Then by all means, press on!Amen.