Central Presbyterian Church,
Russellville, Arkansas
Sunday,
Nov. 2, 2008
11/2/08 Philippians 3:2-11
How many times after a church
service, a wedding or funeral, does someone comes into the
office and asks, Did anyone turn in a pair of glasses, a
cell phone, a hearing aid?
We were in the middle of a wedding in the small
Greenstone Presbyterian Church in Nottingham,
Pennsylvania, my first congregation.
The two twin nephews, 5 or 6 years
old, were the ring bearers. Joey and Jeffrey
Jackson began to get distracted during the
ceremony. They started playing with the
cushions holding the rings. The rings came
loose and fell to the floor, rolling under
the Communion Table. Joey and Jeffrey
dropped to their knees, crawled under the
Table and got into a tussle over the rings.
The bow ties came off before order was
restored. Needless to say, it was one of my
more memorable weddings!
Would we agree with Paul about the most important
things we can lose in church?
When a member comes
into my office for the first time, how do
you think she will introduce herself?
I have been
in this church for ... so many
years. I have served on the deacons,
or the session, my parents were
members in this church. Our family
runs the .... business down town, my
husband serves on the .... board of
the city.
Or you
might come into the pastor’s office
and see him sitting behind a big
desk. You might say: I feeel
uncomfortable coming in to talk to
you, because you are the pastor and
in a position of authority, but I
ask you to just listen to what I
have to say.
I hope I
will step away from the desk, sit in
a chair right beside you, or we
might go into another room where the
walls are a little thicker and visit
one-on-one,
like two Christians, two
forgiven sinners in the eyes
of God.
I believe his
church stands at a crossroads today. We are
in a battle for the soul of this
congregation:
whether we
will be a mainline Presbyterian(USA)
church family who holds dear our
long Reformed heritage, or whether
we will be something else.
whether we
can do whatever is popular or seems
good in our own eyes, or whether we
will be self-sacrificing, obedient
servants of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the way Paul teaches us in
Philippians.
Consider this
story: Two strangers met on a cruise ship
and struck up a conversation. The first
person says, "I could not help but overhear
you saying you were a conservative Baptist
from eastern Tennessee. Me too." The other
fellow says, "Where in eastern Tennessee?"
"Well, I’m
from Jonesborough."
"Oh, I’m
from Greeneville-- 25 miles away."
"What
church in Greeneville?"
"Our family
goes to the Standing Rock Baptist
Temple."
"I go to
Jonesborough Free Will Conservative
Baptist."
"Would that
be Conservative Evangelical
Baptist?"
"Yes, sir,
it sure would."
"We are
also. Pre-millenialist or
post-millenialist?"
Oh, my
family has always been
pre-millenialist.
"Open Book
or Closed Book?"
"Closed
Book, the way Brother Jedediah
Wilson taught it."
"Never in a
million years! Closed Book, but only
the way Evangelist Joe Pool taught
it. "
"Die, you
heathen pig!" [pause]
Paul claims, if
anyone in the church has the right to boast,
he does.
If anyone
is able to boast in keeping the law
perfectly, he is.
But
he does not boast in the
law.
He speaks
fluent Hebrew when few other Jews of
his time could.
But
he does not boast in his
education.
Any of
those Gentiles who might boast in
being converted to Judaism has a
certificate of adult circumcision.
But
he had been circumcised on
the 8th day, and
he did not boast in that.
if anyone
is able to boast in his geneology,
it would be Paul. He is descended
from the tribe of Benjamin, one of
the premier tribes.
And they
are still important to some Jews,
but not to him.
Paul in his own way
de-canonizes Jewish Scripture,
relegates it to secondary status. Here a
teacher of the law, a righteous Pharisee,
rejects the literal truth of the Jewish Law!
Compared to "his consuming desire to know Jesus
Christ," to have that one gift, all else is as good
as lost, no longer desired.
For this saint, "Christ
surpasses everything of worth to me!"
The "righteousness"
I had was a human righteousness. Now it
counts for nothing in my view, for I have
received the gift of God’s righteousness,
and I do not need or want anything else.
It brings to mind
those twin parables of Jesus in Matthew 13,
where the kingdom of heaven is like a
treasure, a pearl buried in a field, which
someone discovers and in their joy sells all
they have to buy that field,
There once
was a king who was famous for his
abhorrence of waste. It was quite
surprising when he came into the
room where his aides were assembled
around a breathtakingly beautiful
pearl. The king asked, what do
you think this pearl is worth? Oh,
many trunks of gold, your majesty,
said one of the servants. Smash it!
the king said. Never! It would be an
insult to the king to destroy this
pearl. The king turned to a second
man and showed him the gem. How much
do you estimate the value of this
pearl to be? One cannot put a price
tag on such an exquisite jewel as
this, replied the second man. Smash
it! said the king. Such senseless
destruction is unthinkable,
insanity! replied the servant.
The king
now turned to a humble laborer
who in return for a kindness he
had shown the king, had been invited
to live in the palace. What do you
think this pearl is worth? the king
asked this laborer. "More than all
the gold and silver I will ever see
in my life, my Lord. Smash it! the
king said. Without a moment’s (page
2) hesitation, this fellow took up a
large rock and in an instant reduced
the pearl to a thimbleful of dust.
(P, etc. 9/88) This man is mad,
cried the others in the room.
Holding up his hand to quiet the
murmerers, the laborer said: Which
is of greater value; a beautiful
pearl or obedience to the king’s
command?
III. Here in the third chapter,
Paul immediately gives us a strong warning: "Look out for
the dogs...!"
A.
Who were the dogs?
Who are the dogs in our congregations today?
1. I remember one
Presbytery meeting my wife Peggy and I
attended in Norman, Oklahoma. We parked in
the parking lot and were uncertain where was
the main entrance. Two beautiful Alaskan
malamutes walked up to us as if they were
the official greeters in the parking lot. We
followed them. They escorted us right to the
door of the sanctuary, very friendly. They
were around for the break and the lunchtime
as well and many of the commissioners petted
them and made friends. I later asked the
senior pastor, Dr. Bob Rice, did those dogs
live there? He laughed and said, No, he had
not seen them until the day before down town
on one of the main streets of Norman. They
must have followed him back to the church. I
guess dogs even look for a church home.
2. The good and
faithful synagogue-going Jews looked down on
outsiders as so many filthy dogs.
a. It was a
swear word.
Now Paul is
warning these people who are trying
to sell their version of religion
like so many
peddlars.
He turns
the tables back on the so-called
faithful by referring to them as
dogs.
Remember Dr. Morna
Hooker from Cambridge? She takes us back to chapter
2 and says this text and that hymn are connected.
1. When you and I
become a part of this church family, each of
us have willingly been stripped of all our
privileges, just as Jesus was stripped,
scourged, spit on, illegally beaten and
condemned like a criminal, completely
disowned by his fellow Jews.
2. Like him we have
emptied ourselves, counted equality with
each other, or special privilege before God
as something to be hung on to/exploited, but
now we sacrifice ourselves totally to become
obedient.
a. The word
"servant" which is so big in the
letter to the Philippians comes from
an old Latin or Mediterranean word,
which originally meant one who sat
in the underbelly of a Roman ship,
a tyrene, and had to be a rower, the
worst place to be on the boat, the
hardest labor, that done only by an
indentured servant or a slave.
b. The man
who wrote "Amazing Grace," John
Newton had been just such an
indentured person before he became a
free man and a pastor, and one
opposed to the slave trade.
In Luke 12,
the parable of the rich fool and his
warehouses, Jesus warns us to beware
of the self-righteous faithful,
the dogs "‘
who
lay up treasures for themselves and
are not rich toward God.’"
(page 3)