Value Judgment

 Texts:  Philippians 3:2-11; Matthew 13:44-52

  AROUND TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO, A father, two grown sons, and a couple of their friends out in Kansas City shared an interest in treasure hunting.  They heard tell of a riverboat called the Arabia that'd gone down in the Missouri River near there in 1856, that she'd carried a cargo of gold and barrel upon barrel of excellent whiskey.  She was said to lie under a certain cornfield-- the Missouri has shifted considerably since the mid-1800s-- and they got permission from the farmer to find her and dig her up if they could.  So the men pooled thousands of dollars of their own money for the necessary equipment and set to work.  For weeks they dug and dug until at last, the wreck of the Arabia emerged from the silt 45 feet down.  And all the time the men were thinking of that valuable whiskey and gold, how they were going to sell it and make their fortunes.

    But a funny thing happened when the steamboat started yielding up its treasures . . . and I'll tell you what it was as I conclude this sermon.  But it's human nature to want to strike it rich.  There's something in us that feels that finding hidden treasure would be the most wonderful thing that could happen to us, and it'd be worth giving up a lot to get at it.  And our Lord Jesus, does He wag His finger at us pathetic human beings and say, "Naughty, naughty!  Stop being so greedy!"?  Not at all.  He totally agrees that nothing would be more joy-inspiring than finding something of infinite value where and when we least expect it.  In fact, our reading from St. Matthew this morning has to do with that very subject.  But what Jesus wants us to understand is that there is a more valuable treasure to be found than gold or silver or jewels.  And when we find it, it's worth giving up everything to gain.

    Matthew 13:44 begins, "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field."  No use looking for mysterious meanings, there it is: the kingdom of heaven is like a hidden treasure.  But one day a man comes along and finds it.  Unlike the Arabia's salvagers, he isn't looking for it.  Good chance he's a hired man, digging the field for the landowner.  Now, it's not part of Jesus' meaning for us to get tangled up in who buried the treasure and the legal ramifications of the ancient Jewish finders-keepers laws, if they had any.  The point is, that there's a marvellous treasure, the man finds it, and he is struck by its value.  So he hides it again, sells everything he has, and buys that field.  He judged that it was worth the price, so valuable was the treasure he found.

    Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like that.  Suddenly in the midst of the ordinary pressures and desires and attractions of this earthly life we see our Lord and His kingdom presented to us in all its wonder, and we accept that it's worth giving up everything we have, if only it-- if only He-- might be ours.

    Jesus' disciples would identify with the man in this parable.  From verse 11 of this chapter of Matthew, Jesus has made a distinction between the crowds, who follow Him for what they can get out of Him in the way of healings and food and excitement, and true disciples, who truly want to know Jesus and submit to Him as their Master and Lord.  The disciples were the ones to whom it was given, as Jesus said in that same verse 11, to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.  So Jesus did not entrust this parable of the treasure hidden in the field to the crowds, but He spoke it in "the house" (probably Simon Peter's home in Capernaum), in private, to the disciples only.  They would hear it and think, "Yes, I was living my everyday life, doing my ordinary work, and all of a sudden this very ordinary-looking Man from Nazareth came along preaching the kingdom of heaven, and somehow in His presence it was like an amazing treasure was revealed to me.   Suddenly I saw that the kingdom of heaven was somehow wrapped up in Him.  And I knew I had to leave everything and follow Him, no matter what it would cost."

    Are you a true disciple of Jesus Christ?  When you look at Him in the pages of Scripture, do you recognize and confess that He, Himself, is the very embodiment of the kingdom of God?  And that He's worth following no matter what? 

    Be sure it is the real Jesus you're following after.  Beware that you don't squander everything you have on treasure that is false.  Some will tell you that the kingdom of heaven is a state of personal fulfilment where believers are continually satisfied with themselves and their lives.  Others say it will be a social utopia where everyone is equal and there are no more wars or thefts or social injustice.  Either way, they'll say it's up to us to bring the kingdom in.  Yes, the kingdom of heaven will include all those good things, but if we wear ourselves out trying to achieve good ends by us making the kingdom come, we've wasted our substance on fool's gold.  The kingdom is something only God can bring in.  It truly comes only when men and women, boys and girls, joyfully submit to Jesus Christ as their Saviour and King.  That's what the kingdom of heaven is: that state of affairs where God is King, beginning in your heart and mine.  And as our King, He's the Source and due Recipient of everything we've got and everything we are.

    And, Jesus begins in verse 45, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  Now, this is different. You'd think that He would say, "The kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great value."  But now the merchant himself and his quest for perfect pearls are an image of God's rulership in the world. 

    A pearl is an interesting gem.  It isn't like other jewel.  Every gemstone has been there since the beginning of the world and you dig them out of the earth.  But pearls represent something new.  They have to be made, by an oyster, and they start with a little piece of dirt that irritates the oyster, and the mollusc coats and coats and coats that piece of grit with mother-of-pearl until it produces the beautiful lustrous orb we see in the jewelry store.  In the ancient world, fine pearls were valued more than diamonds, and the merchant Jesus speaks of is willing to sell everything he has to acquire it.

    And the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant, who comes deliberately seeking this pearl.  Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ came into this world seeking us, His Church, and it cost Him everything He had, His very life's blood, to win us.  But wait a minute, you might say.  Before we were saved we were anything but pure and lustrous.  True. But the Lord not only sees from the beginning how things will turn out in the end, He also makes sure that things end up the way He's planned them.  In Paul's letter to the Ephesians, we're told that Christ gave Himself up for the Church, and that one day He will present her-- that is, us as a body-- to Himself as a radiant Church, without spot or wrinkle or any sort of blemish.  And in the book of the prophet Malachi the Lord indicates that a day will come when He will "make up His treasured possession," and we will be His, we who fear the Lord and honor His name.  We are His pearl of great price, and when it came time for Him to gain us, He held nothing back.  He paid the price for our sin and won us to Himself to be His holy people, precious in His sight.  It's significant, I think, that a pearl is essentially a bit of dirt covered over by radiant purity.  For in just that way Jesus Christ in His sacrificial love has covered our sins, so they are forgotten and never seen or thought of anymore; all that is seen is the loveliness we have become in Him.

    But there's a problem here.  Have you spotted it?  I'm preaching as if I assumed that all of us in this room have true faith in Jesus Christ.  That all of us have joyfully bowed the knee to Him as our King and our God.  I'm talking as if all of us have had our sins washed away in His blood and are willing, like Paul, to consider everything a loss for the sake of knowing Christ and the power of His resurrection.  I hope and pray that is so.  But it may not be.  Some of you may be like the crowds, only interested in Jesus for what He can do for you in this world.  You may think your kind of sinfulness is no big deal, that if God is offended at it that's His problem.  You may have no interest in the treasure that is the kingdom of heaven, and no desire that Christ should seek long and hard to find and purchase you for His own.

    If this is in your heart, beware.  For Jesus taught His disciples another parable about the kingdom of heaven.  He says that the it's like a great dragnet that is let down into the lake and catches all kinds of fish, both good and bad.  Do the fishermen keep all of them?  No, the bad fish are thrown away. They perish.  This, Jesus says, is how it will be at the end of the age, when He returns to judge the living and the dead.  There are many people who in this world seem to be children of the kingdom; they're all in the net.  But the time will come when mankind will be separated out and judged, the wicked from the righteous, and the wicked will be thrown into the fiery furnace.  There, Jesus says,  there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  There, people who refused to worship Him as King, who thought they could use Him as a source of good advice, will spend eternity in burning despair and frustration, weeping with rage because they know God is righteous and their sentence was just.

    Please, don't let this happen to you.  Hear the Holy Spirit today as He speaks of Christ's love for you.  There is a remedy for your sin.  He has paid the price already, that you might be His own.  All you have to do is say, "Yes, Lord, You did for me what I could never do for myself.  Please bring me into your heavenly kingdom, for I trust you as my Saviour and Lord."

    After Jesus had finished teaching these parables, Matthew tells us, He asked His disciples, "Have you understood all these things?"  He puts the same question to you. Have you understood the unsurpassable value of the kingdom of heaven, that to gain it, it's worth everything you have and are?  Do you understand that Jesus Himself gave up everything to purchase us for His kingdom?  Do you understand that there will be a time of final judgement, when God will set the true value of every human creature, according to the value they set on the blood of Christ, shed on Calvary's cross?

    The disciples said yes, they understood. Jesus accepted their answer and told another short parable, which applies both to them and to us.  They, and we, are those who have been instructed about the kingdom of heaven.  Under the training of His word, we become teachers of the New Covenant law.  And so we are like householders who possess the old treasures of what God did for His people Israel and the new treasure of His grace to us in Jesus Christ.  And we don't keep these valuable things hidden; we bring them out and put them on display in our behavior and in our words, so that an impoverished and cursed world might be enriched and blessed.

    Which brings us back to the men who spent all that money and did all that work to salvage the steamboat Arabia.  They didn't find any gold or whiskey.  What they discovered was barrel upon barrel, crate upon crate, box upon box of every kind of household good and luxury that a frontier family could desire.  To quote the Arabia website, there was "castor oil and cognac, needles and nutmegs, windowpanes and wedding bands, eyeglasses and earrings"; think of anything you might want in your home, it was there in abundance. For a moment-- just a moment-- the men considered how much money they could get for all this.  But right away, they realized they couldn't sell the Arabia's cargo.  Immediately they began to conserve it, and the work goes on, twenty-two years later.  They raised the money to build a museum.  They put their discoveries on display, so people from all over America and around the world can see and appreciate the amazing treasure they found.

    That is what our Lord wants you and me to do with the treasure that is the kingdom of heaven.  He died and rose again to purchase your eternal membership in His kingdom, that in Him you will find everlasting joy that can never diminish or fade.  Let us not keep the treasure hidden.  Let us bring out the wonders of His grace from our storeroom and put them on display.  In the short time He has given us, let us reveal His glory daily, and shine like the most precious pearl He has purchased us to be.

    In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

God's Unworldly Peace

Texts: Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46

TODAY IS WORLD COMMUNION SUNDAY. On this day it’s nice to think of people all over the world, sitting down together in peace and justice at the Lord’s Table, sharing in the communion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

At the same time, we know that peace and justice are in short supply in this world. We’d better get busy and make them happen, right? After all, isn’t is all up to us? God is sitting back on His throne waiting and watching for us to get it right. And we will get it right, won’t we? We just have to lobby and legislate and conference and connect and do all those earthly things sincerely enough. If we can just come up with the right program, peace will come, justice will reign, and like the old song says, we’ll "teach the world to sing in perfect harmony." And God the Father will pat us on the back and tell us how wonderful we are to have accomplished all this; in fact, He’ll tell us He couldn’t have done it half so well Himself.

Time out! Did you believe one word of that? I hope not! I hope you were saying to yourself, "She’s got to be putting us on. Anybody who’s got any sense at all knows you can’t bring in universal harmony and justice and world peace by legislation and policies and thinking happy thoughts! Things are too complicated for that!"

If that’s what you were thinking, you were absolutely right. Things in this world are too complicated for that. We can’t usher in universal peace by imposing it from the outside by our human efforts. And we certainly can’t get everyone in the world to sit down in fellowship together by pretending our differences don’t matter, by overlooking all the very real disagreements and differences human beings have between each other. The peace of God does not come to the world by way of human effort, not even by the human effort of loving Christians like you and me. We do not have everything under control here. If there is going to be universal peace when some wonderful day all people will enjoy sweet communion with one another, it’s going to have to come from Someone else.

True peace does come from Someone else, and it comes in a way this world would never suspect, through a cross and a grave that was filled for three days and has been empty ever since.

It’s ironic that one of the lectionary readings today should be this one from 21st chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. Our denomination is urging us to take today to think about peacemaking, and the Gospel lesson is all about violence and conflict! It’s full of thefts, beatings, murder, and retribution, all over fruit from a vineyard. But through--not in spite of-- all this, this parable of our Lord gives us the key to the peace, justice, and prosperity that will one day bring all the world to fellowship at one table.

Jesus begins, "Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard." All His listeners would know that the vineyard stood for the nation of Israel. You can read in Isaiah especially how God’s chosen people were the vineyard He had planted, and how He expected the fruit of righteousness and obedience from them.

Jesus continues, "Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey." Just like the landowner in Jesus’ parable, God delegated responsibility and authority over His people to their judges and kings, their prophets and priests. It was up to these civil and religious leaders to set a good example of righteousness and make sure that the people did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. They were accountable to God to teach and lead Israel so that the nation would reflect the glory of God and cause His name to be exalted among the Gentiles. Jesus’ hearers knew that, too.

But did they? No, you read the Old Testament from Judges to Malachi and it’s one continuous history of conniving kings and pandering priests. Even the prophets, the men and women the Lord sent to call Israel back to His law, more often then not prophesied for money and standing, and perverted the Word of the Lord. And when, as Jesus says in His parable, God the vineyard owner sent His true servants the godly prophets to call for the fruit of righteousness, the tenants, that is, the religious and civil leaders, had them beaten, stoned, and killed.

What if Jesus had wound up His parable by saying, "But things are better now. The chief priests and Pharisees are zealous for the Law. They’re leading the people well, they’re perfect examples of peace and justice, and they’re giving God all the honor and glory He’s due"? No one would have complained about that, the chief priests and Pharisees least of all.

But that’s not what Jesus said. He goes on with His parable like this: "Last of all, he [that is, the vineyard owner] sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said." He describes how those tenants, who everyone knows are the religious and civil leaders of Israel, determine to kill the Owner’s son, how they think that if they do that, they won’t even have to answer to the Owner any more, that the vineyard somehow will become theirs. Maybe they’re thinking the rule of adverse possession will kick in, maybe they think they’re so powerful nobody could come and arrest them for this crime, maybe they’re just deluding themselves. However it was, Jesus depicts these tenants, these leaders as trying to make the vineyard totally theirs.

And that’s ironic, too. Because when the Pharisees first got started as a movement, they did a pretty good job of looking after God’s vineyard. After the Jews returned from exile in Babylon, they led the charge to keep the Jewish nation free from the idol worship and scriptural ignorance that got the people removed from their land in the first place. Eventually, though, they stopped being concerned for God and what He said was due to Him, and focussed more on how they thought things should be. Oh, yes, they’d still tell you they wanted to bring in the kingdom of God, but it was by their methods, their techniques, their rules. And ultimately, it was for their glory, not for the glory of God.

But, Jesus says, the Owner isn’t finished. He doesn’t stay away and let the wicked tenants have the vineyard now that his son was dead. "Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those wretches?"

His hearers said, "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time."

Exactly. That’s the way things would work in their earthly economy, and even more, that’s how it would work in the judgement of God. Jesus caps His story by quoting a couple verses from Psalm 118. He says, "Have you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?" Of course they’d all read that. They’d known that since synagogue school when they were little kids. These verses just rub in the point about something valuable that’s rejected by those who are supposed to be responsible for putting things together. The builders look like fools, but the Lord takes this rejected stone, and makes it the chief element in the whole building and makes everyone marvel at what He alone has done. The rejected son may have been thrown out and killed in the vineyard parable, but the rejected stone does not stay rejected: it brings shame to the builders and glory to God.

And here is our Lord’s conclusion to the matter: The kingdom of God will be taken away from the irresponsible, ungodly leaders and from the faithless people. It will be given, He says, to a people who will produce its fruit. And the rejected stone will bring judgement and destruction upon those who run afoul of it.

But that was hitting way too close to home for the chief priests and Pharisees in the crowd. Verse 45 tells us they knew good and well Jesus was talking about them and their misconduct when He told this parable. And they didn’t like it one bit. They didn’t like the way Jesus was obviously making Himself out to be the son of the vineyard owner, the Son of God. They didn’t like how He was claiming to be the capstone of the nation. Matthew tells us, "They looked for a way to arrest him."

Ironic, right? It’s like they were determined to make the parable come true, by putting the One who claimed to be the Son of God to death. They refused to take warning and change their attitudes and their ways, and so they fell on the Stone which is Christ, to be broken to pieces.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day did not profit from Jesus’ teaching. But we don’t have to be like that. We can hear, and heed, and become part of the people who will produce fruit for God in His kingdom. We can be the nation that can offer the world true peace in Jesus Christ and invite men and women everywhere to sit down in holy communion at His Table.

Do you want that to be true about you? Then hear what our Lord Jesus says. He says that God is the landowner, not us. His is the kingdom, and power, and the glory, not ours. We hear about the kingdom of God, but if we think that’s something we can bring in by our own efforts, we make the same mistake the chief priests and Pharisees did. For what is the kingdom of God? It is that state of affairs where God is totally in charge, beginning with your heart and mine. It’s a state of peace, justice, and righteousness that only God can give. On this earth it hasn’t come completely or fully yet, and Jesus says that God gives the kingdom of God on this earth to those who humbly acknowledge that it is a gift, and not something they earn or own by right or title. It’s lent as a trust to those who will produce its fruit, the kind of fruit we read about in Galatians chapter 5:22-23. And the greatest of these fruits is total dependence upon God and His ways.

We do not bring forth the fruit of God by using the methods of the world. We give God His due by giving up our human control and abandoning own human schemes--however religious or spiritual they might be-- and turning the ownership of our lives and efforts over to Him.

And isn’t that what St. Paul is saying in our Philippians passage? If any man could claim to be the perfect tenant of God’s vineyard strictly going on his religious pedigree and accomplishments, Saul of Tarsus was that man. But he used his religious power to persecute the church! And let his knowledge of the law convince him He knew better than God.

But our Lord Jesus Christ in His mercy put to death the wretch that was Saul of Tarsus and caused him to be born again by the power of the Holy Spirit as Paul the Apostle. It became Paul’s only goal to produce the fruit of the kingdom in himself and in others, not in his own strength, not through his own righteousness, but through Jesus Christ who had taken hold of him and claimed Paul for His own.

What is true peace, in this world and the world to come? As it says in verses 10 and 11 of Philippians 3, it is to "know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection of the dead."

That’s not the kind of peace this fallen world wants or desires. But it’s the only lasting peace God our Father has to give. In Christ’s sufferings we find comfort, in His death we find justice, and in His resurrection we find peace forever more.

On this World Communion Sunday, we can have a foretaste of the first fruits of that great banquet, when people will come from east and west and north and south and sit down at table in the kingdom of God. Each and every time we meet as a church anywhere in the world and set aside bread and wine from a common use to a holy use and mystery in Christ’s name, we join in God’s peace with our brothers and sisters of all times and all places, the peace won for us through Jesus’ violent death and earth-shattering resurrection.

To know Jesus Christ is to know peace, for He is the Prince of Peace. As good tenants of His vineyard and joyful citizens of His kingdom, let us come to His table and share in Him, the Son of God, the Living Stone, and our only spiritual bread.

Running for Daylight

Texts: John 9:1-7; Philippians 3:8-16

I DON’T KNOW TOO much about football.

I surprised myself once when an Englishman asked me to explain it to him, and I was able to give him the basics. But that’s all I could do. I don’t know beans about what a nickel defense is or who or what a "wide-out" is or where the Red Zone begins.

So when I’m watching football on TV, and all those guys in helmets and pads are mixing it up down there on the field, I couldn’t tell you if they’re following the patterns their coaches laid down for them, or if they’re making it up as they go along.

But occasionally something happens that’s so clear, even an ignoramus like me can understand. Like last year a little way into the second half of the Super Bowl in Detroit, when Willie Parker got the ball. The Steelers’ defenders opened up the hole and Parker broke free of the mass of players and headed straight for the Seahawks’ end zone. He knocked down one tackler, he pulled loose of another, it didn’t matter how many Seattle players were chasing him, he ran and ran and ran till he scored the touchdown. "Running for daylight," they call it. His eyes were open, the way was clear, and nothing was going to stop him short of that goal.

It’s so easy to use sports imagery as a metaphor for the Christian life, it’s almost embarrassing. The church I pastored in Nebraska hosted the local teen chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. There was one meeting, we sang the song "Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goal Posts of Life." Just for fun, you know. I mean, was the songwriter serious? Isn’t following Jesus too important to be compared to a game?

But you know what? The Apostle Paul wasn’t embarrassed to compare the Christian life to a game. He used sports imagery in his letters all the time! Meaning that the Holy Spirit, Who inspired Paul’s writings, wasn’t embarrassed about it, either!

When Paul uses sports imagery he’s generally talking about track and field, or sometimes boxing. I can imagine him sitting in the stands at the games, cheering the runners on, and wondering to himself what it’d be like to be one of those athletes; especially the one who stood on the victor’s podium crowned with laurel and fame. But I can also imagine the Holy Spirit saying to him, "Paul, you are an athlete running a race. You’re running the most important race of all: the race of the Christian life." And Paul would know that that’s true of all of us Jesus has called to be on His team. All of us Christians are to be like athletes who practice and train and press on and on towards the goal.

But we’d better know where that goal line is and how we’re going to get there. To listen to some people, you’d think the goal of the Christian life is to be nice and tolerant to everyone they meet. Or that the victorious Christian life is about having a good marriage and raising fine, upstanding children. Or it means following all the rules in the Bible and a lot of other ones your particular church has made up to add to them. And if you listen to these people, they’ll tell you that you get to that goal is by trying really hard to be really nice and following their Ten Steps to a Successful Marriage and being so good and holy God just has to reward you with the heavenly equivalent of a Super Bowl ring. But those people are wrong. The fact is, you do that and it’s like Willie Parker last year not running 75 yards to the Seahawks’ goal line, but 25 yards to his own. Oops!

That’s what St. Paul wants us to understand in his letter to the Philippians. Paul thought he was a winner when he was known as Saul of Tarsus. He thought he’d already crossed the goal line and the ring was his. But he’d been running entirely the wrong way. He says, "If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh [that is, in our own efforts], I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless." He thought he’d not only crossed the goal line, he thought he’d been made game MVP!

But then, Jesus got hold of him. And Paul discovered that not only was he not a winner, he’d been playing for the wrong team. He says, "But 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 Jesus Christ my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things."

If you think you’re a winner because you’re a nice person, or because you try real hard and keep the rules, or because you have the perfect family, you’re running the wrong direction. You’re not running for daylight, you’re running into darkness. Saul of Tarsus thought he had a righteousness of his own that came from the law. He was self-righteous. But Paul the Apostle knew that all righteousness-- that is, all goodness, all kindness, all truth, all of what it takes to please God-- the only real righteousness there really is comes from God and He gives it to us through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

As long as Paul thought he had the holiness game won, he was a loser. But as soon as he gave up all the so-called good stuff from his former life, Jesus could give him the really good stuff that only He can give.

We don’t have to knock ourselves out trying to keep all the rules! Jesus has kept them all for us! We don’t have to make people believe we’re living the perfect life! Jesus lived it for us! We don’t have to think of ourselves as nice people all the time! Jesus gives us something better than niceness, He gives us His perfect, burning goodness and love, the goodness and love that sent Him to the cross to die for our sins.

So what now? Can we Christians stop caring about how we live? That it doesn’t matter what we say and do in this world? That we no longer have to run for daylight?

That’s like saying to yourself, "Hey, God is merciful. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died for my sins. Good! It doesn’t matter if I commit a few more from time to time. Who needs to work at this Christianity business? My room in heaven is reserved. Why should I sweat things now?"

But Paul insists there is sweat and effort we have to put in here and now. He says, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings."

Over in Romans 6 he likens it to an employment situation. To keep our football metaphor going, it’s as if we’d been playing on the team of sin and death and the Devil, and we acted like it and we were getting the wages that sin always pays, which is death. But now Christ has come along in the power of His blood shed on the cross and forcibly taken us away from the Devil’s team. We’re playing for Jesus now, He’s paying us the astronomical salary of eternal life (which we could never, ever, ever earn), and He expects us to get in there and play the game the way He calls it. Not to pay Him back, but for our own good. That’s the only way we’re going to become strong and mature and reach the goal of becoming more and more like Jesus Christ.

Being a Christian isn’t a free pass to live however we want and Jesus foots the bill. That’s only another way of running the wrong way with the ball, as it were, another way of running into darkness.

But there’s yet another way we can lose sight of the goal. That’s when we say to ourselves, "Yes, God has called me heavenward. Jesus has saved me and brought me to the line of scrimmage. He’s my Example and my Inspiration. But now it’s all up to me and my own efforts to overcome the opposition and run for the goal of holiness and heaven." Like Peyton Manning might say, "Johnny Unitas was a great Colts quarterback. I can learn a lot from him. But winning this Super Bowl today is my job, not his."

Peyton Manning would be right if he said that about Johnny Unitas. For one thing, Johnny Unitas is dead. But the Holy Spirit says it’s definitely not that way with us and Jesus. As it says in verse 12, "I press on to take hold of that for which Jesus Christ took hold of me." If you want to push the football imagery a little farther, we can truly say that from God’s point of view, we’re not the ball carrier, we’re the ball!

God calls us to run this race of the Christian life, because Jesus His Son is running it with us and in us and for us. That’s what He sent the Holy Spirit to live in us for. Paul says in verse 10, "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection." We have a risen Saviour who loved us so much He died for us! He rose again in power! And we can and must draw upon His resurrection power if we’re going to make any headway at all.

That’s our goal--to know Christ and the power of His resurrection. How can we ever expect to reach that goal if we treat Jesus like a dead legend or like some old-timer who’s not in the game any more? The victory is His and His alone. If we’re not out there living life in His righteous strength and wisdom, we may as well admit defeat here and now.

This takes discipline and self-denial and being willing to take the hits. Paul says he wants to know the fellowship of sharing in Christ’s sufferings and become like Him in His death. Suffering? Death? Well, Paul, if you want to be a martyr, be our guest. We pray that God will never make us suffer for our faith!

But God can’t say Yes to that prayer. He loves us too much. The resurrection cannot come without the cross.

It may be that God may call you and me to follow in Christ’s footsteps and suffer physically at the hands of evil men, for righteousness’ sake. From time to time we’ve all had to suffer emotionally or socially for being faithful members of God’s team. But knowing the "fellowship of sharing in Christ’s sufferings," goes beyond that that. Christ’s sufferings included the total submission to God that enabled Him to go to the cross and bear our sins for us.

We may not have to bear torture and hardship for the sake of Christ. But Christ does call each and every one of us to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow Him. To say, "Your will be done, O Lord, and not my own." Self-denial is a necessary part of the Christian life. No resurrection without the cross; no glory without the shame.

And we have to deny ourselves perfectly, as Jesus did. Can we do that? Are we skilled at saying ‘no’ to our own wills and ‘yes’ to the will of God? No, every day we find ourselves intending to do what God wants but going our own way instead. We’re like football players who keep on playing the way we did in the schoolyard, instead of running the plays the way the big league coach tells us to.

But doing things Jesus’s way and in His power is the only way we’re going to win. Getting to the point where we do everything Jesus’ way and in Jesus’ power is what it means to win.

But even as we strive towards that goal, we fall short again and again. And guess what? Paul says it’s the same with him! "Not that I have already obtained all this," he says, "or have already been made perfect." He knows there’s a groove where the power of God is always flowing and it doesn’t matter whether one says "The Holy Spirit did it" or "I did it," because it’d be exactly the same thing. But he confesses that so far even he doesn’t half know what it’s like to be there.

Even so, there’s no way Paul’s going to sit down and say it doesn’t matter if he reaches the goal. Jesus is the Light of the world, and our whole purpose is to live in His light and be like Him as children of light. That’s what being a Christian is all about--for Paul, for me, for you, for all of us who are drafted to be on God’s team. So strain forward to grab hold of real life in Jesus Christ, because Jesus has already grabbed hold of you. Be like that running back who breaks free with the ball and heads for the goal line, for Jesus has you in the crook of His arm and He’s running there with you.

Run for daylight, because Christ has given you everything you need to reach the goal. He has given you His blood, which washes away your sins. He has given you His Holy Spirit, who lives in you and works through you, to do God’s will and bring you to maturity in Christ. And He gives you this meal we are about to eat. The bread and wine of the Lord’s Table is Christ present with you and in you. Here you can touch and taste the power of His death and resurrection, making you strong to press on to reach the goal of life eternal in Him.

Who knows what’ll happen in Miami this evening. Whatever happens on the field, remember that you, Christian, are a player in a contest far more important that any Super Bowl ever can be. You are an athlete on God’s own team and your player-coach is Jesus Christ. As long as you live, your aim and goal should be nothing less than to be like Him. Jesus is the resurrection power helping you run. He is the holy self-denial that breaks the tackles of complacency and sin. And He is the goal you’re running toward. Forget what’s behind, strain forward, and run for daylight. The prize is nothing less than perfect fellowship and resurrection life in Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. Keep your eyes on Him, because in Him, with Him, and through Him, the victory will be yours.