Epistle for 5th October

Philippians 3.4-14 (NRSV) (Sermon)

⁴… If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. ⁷ Yet whatever gains I had these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸More 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 ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Pressing towards the Goal:

¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Some of this is inspired by the work of William Barclay.

My text this morning is written in Philippians 3:13-14:

¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul’s Jewish credentials were impeccable: he came from the tribe of Benjamin which had produced the first Israelite King; he was from a Hebrew speaking family and he was a Pharisee, a movement that existed in order to strictly keep the Jewish Law in every area of life; not just the Torah, but other laws as well to make sure that every eventuality had been dealt with. Pharisees formed themselves into small groups for study and devotion, and were active in spreading their piety by teaching an example. Paul tells us in Galatians 1.14 that he was one of the most dedicated of all the Pharisees! He was a ‘good’ Pharisee – one of the best.

Verses 7-9 reveal how radical it was for a Pharisee to become a Christian. Paul was still deeply concerned how a person could be in a right relationship with God: as a Pharisee he had thought that God had revealed this and it was in obedience to the law and that God had given us the ability to understand it and interpret it and had also given us the ability and power to obedient to it. This would mean that anyone who perfectly obeyed the Law would be in a right relationship with God. But this reasoning had made him into a persecutor of the Church and he now realized that it is in the body of Christ  - the Church - in which God’s will is truly revealed – it is in the righteousness that comes by faith in Jesus Christ.

A lovely reminder that all is of grace: it is not who we are and what we do that ensures our relationship with God; it is who Jesus is and what he has done for us. We are declared right with God on the basis of the righteousness that we receive from God by faith in Jesus, the Christ.

Faith is of central importance, especially the idea that people are put right with God by faith quite apart from any success they might have had in keeping the law. By faith we accept communion with God which God offers us freely in Christ – even to enemies - as Paul was at the time.

Once again I remember my friend’s wisdom beyond his years when in 1977, we were in Kimberley visiting his parents after a disastrous first year at Wits University. I bought a Good News Bible (that I still have) where he inscribed: “Don’t just do something – stand there!” I was trying hard, even spending time in the monastery, and had never felt quite as lost. It took some time for the penny to drop, but O how glad I am that it did. It is not about who we are and what we do; it is about who Jesus is and what he has done for us.

By faith, we come to know Christ (verses 10-11). We understand that to know in Hebrew culture was the most intimate union meaning to have close personal knowledge of. We are also reminded of that wonderful prophecy in Jeremiah 31.33-4 where it is written:

I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ... no longer shall each man teach his neighbour and each his brother and sister, saying ‘know the Lord’ for they shall all know me.

Paul’s knowing extends further, and shares in Christ’s sufferings and experiencing his Resurrection. The person who believes identifies with Christ. In Romans 6.3-4 Paul explains how experiencing the death of Christ is symbolised by our baptism where we are also set on our new path of life. This is why it is so important that the baptised are continually guided by their parents and the Church, to remain on the right path.

This knowing is of vital importance because it refers to something special; it is not intellectual knowledge, it is not complete understanding of facts, theories, principles and the intricacies of theology. You do not need to pass a test to see if you know; this knowing is a personal experience of another person – the closest and the most intimate and most personal knowledge of another person. Paul’s aim – and it should be our aim too – is not just to know about Christ, it is to personally know Christ. William Barclay helps us to understand what this means.

Firstly it is to know the power of his Resurrection. For Paul, the Resurrection of Jesus was not just an event in history; it was not just something that had happened to Jesus in the past it is ‘... a living dynamic power which operates on the life of the individual Christian ...’ It guarantees the importance of our present lives and the bodies we live in. The bodily Resurrection of Jesus shows us how human bodies are important as is the present lives that we live. It also reminds us that this life is not all that there is, because the bodily resurrection is testimony to the fact that we too will be raised. The conquest and victory over death of Christ is shared by us too. It is also testimony to the fact that Jesus is a present reality to us now, where we are in this mortal life. The Resurrection of Christ therefore tells us that this life is worth living and that our physical bodies are sacred to God and that nothing in life or even death can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ – a truth that Paul explains further in Romans 8.

Secondly to know Christ means to know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. When Christians suffer, in some mysterious way we share the sufferings of Christ. Paul explains this in 2 Corinthians 1.5, 4.10-11:

⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ. ...  ¹⁰always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. ¹¹For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.

Again in Galatians 6.17:  ‘From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body’; and Colossians 1.24: ‘²⁴ I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.’

Whenever Christians suffer, we share in the suffering of Christ; to suffer for our faith is not a penalty; it is a privilege because we share in the work of our Lord.

To know Christ is to share his very experience – we share in the way he walked, we share the Cross, we share in his death – but also we share also in the eternal life that he gives us as a gift; it is to know Christ in such intimacy that in the end we are united with him in the same way as we are united with those we love intimately on earth. Just as we share their experiences, we share his.

All this is true and a present reality – but in its fullness – not yet – as verse 12 explains. We have been declared right with God by the gift of Christ’s grace, but while we live on earth, we need to allow God to transform us, by his grace to work in our lives making us into what we have been declared to be. So we press on to make it our own, because Christ has made us his own. We have not done this; Jesus has done this for us. And so we do not dwell on the past, but strive for what lies ahead, pressing on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Amen.